Trial of Magic

by K. M. Shea

  Berhta was also the giver of the bucket—which was the only reason why Angelique was carrying it around, even though an hour had passed since she last retched, and the last dreg of her price that still bothered her was nothing more than a slight queasiness.

  “You only experienced a little over an hour of Berhta’s tender care,” Evariste reminded her. “She’d likely insist you stay longer if you were to be sick again.”

  “A valid point.” Angelique swiveled back to the guards. “Very well, I shall remain here. But don’t try to play hero—use caution. And here, take some of these.” Angelique pinned her bucket to her side with one arm and dug into her satchel with the other. She didn’t have to root around long before she found and pulled out a few pre-lit starfires. “If the mirror left some constructs behind, these will help.”

  “Thank you…lady mage?” the note-taking captain tried.

  Angelique raised an eyebrow at him and smiled. “Thank you for investigating these locations.”

  “Of course. Princess Snow White told us to do whatever you ordered, mystical lady mage.”

  A grim smile briefly surfaced on Angelique’s lips. “Still, thank you all the same.”

  The guards bowed to her and glanced among themselves before adjusting their bows to be slightly lower, then turned on their heels and swept off to organize their men.

  Angelique relaxed as she watched them go, the pressing need to chase after the mirror dissolving almost entirely.

  I’d be shocked if they find anyone. Those mages clearly had a planned route. I’m sure the mirror will be out of Mullberg within days, and it’s likely already far from Juwel. But we should be thorough. There’s a chance they might have left something helpful behind, and I never got the chance to search these locations, we just observed the patrol schedule. But with this taken care of, I only have to worry about one thing: making sure the Chosen don’t come back for Evariste.

  Between her nearly subsided nausea and the assurance that they weren’t letting the Chosen run off on their merry way entirely unhindered, Angelique was finally starting to feel better.

  She shuffled around to face Evariste, whose eyes never stopped moving as he looked around the room, watching guards and soldiers come and go according to Snow White’s orders.

  Angelique was pretty certain the princess was hunkered down in the study with some of the Seven Warriors, Queen Faina, and the lords that had helped infiltrate the castle.

  Naturally, this means we will not be going to the study.

  Angelique ran a hand through her unevenly cut hair as she studied Evariste with a more critical eye.

  He looked fairly terrible, but not quite as bad as Angelique had expected given how long he’d been in the mirror.

  He’d filled in a few of the missing pieces for Angelique when she’d been meekly waiting for Berhta to let her leave—namely that he’d been stored in a mirror in some kind of cave system for the longest portion of his captivity, and he had been moved to the Snow Queen’s mirror last summer after the Chosen had shipped him north—creating the trail Angelique and Quinn had picked up on.

  But given that it was now spring, that meant Evariste had spent roughly two thirds of a year inside the twisted mirror—and Angelique couldn’t imagine that his previous captivity had been “easy.”

  He had dark circles under his eyes; his skin was pale compared to his usual healthy tan, but what worried Angelique the most was how tenuous his smile seemed. He didn’t seem physically wounded, but he’d been cut off from his companions, magic, and all friendly contact for years.

  I don’t know that Berhta’s “special care” could help him.

  It was understandable—expected, even—that he’d still carry that kind of pain even after being freed. But Angelique also wasn’t entirely certain how she could help him—or even if she should prioritize it above the need to make certain he was not captured again.

  I’m quite possibly the worst when it comes to the mechanics of relationships. It doesn’t bode well for Evariste that I’m the only one here.

  Evariste finally peeled his gaze off a brightly painted wall mural—which had so many gems encrusted into the surface, it would have made the Loire palace and its tacky obsession with gold positively envious. His eyes settled on Angelique, and his smile solidified a tiny bit—but it was enough to squeeze Angelique’s heart.

  “Is anything wrong?” Angelique asked.

  Evariste arched an eyebrow at her. “I’m not the one that was sickly green a short time ago.”

  Angelique awkwardly clasped her hands together. “Yes. Well. It seems we have a lot to talk about.”

  Evariste sighed, his expression looking a little haggard. “I imagine so. Have I really been gone six years?”

  “Yes,” Angelique said, the word heavy with feeling.

  There was a gap between them that she couldn’t quite put into words, and she knew it was the time span that was the cause.

  Not that during the years apart, Evariste had suddenly come to his senses about her core magic and suddenly no longer liked her. It was just that so much had happened.

  And though Angelique still felt strongly for Evariste—and would fight to her death to keep the Chosen from getting him again—it almost felt like there was too much that they needed to tell each other, that it made things…awkward.

  If that’s the case, then we should start talking. We need to!

  Angelique drew herself up and thumped her wooden bucket on the side of her thigh—a splinter poking her straight through her trousers. “Is there some place you’d like to go—or see?”

  Evariste tilted his head. “Outside,” he said.

  “Very well—then let’s find ‘outside.’” She awkwardly hovered at his elbow for a moment. Typically, Evariste had been the more physically demonstrative person in their friendship before, but now Angelique had to hold herself back from grabbing his arm just to assure herself he was really there.

  But do I really need to hold myself back? I don’t imagine he’d mind it if I grabbed his elbow like I used to.

  Evariste was staring at Angelique with a curiously mixed expression that was a cross between bemusement and pain.

  Angelique mashed her lips together hard enough to make her cheeks pucker, then she awkwardly held out her hand.

  To her relief, Evariste’s smile bloomed into something larger, and he took her hand in his, intertwining their fingers.

  Angelique breathed a sigh of relief—yes, he really was there—then casually swung her bucket by its rough rope handle with her free hand as she felt her magic drift off in interest. “Let’s try this direction,” Angelique said.

  “Are you familiar with the palace?”

  “Not really. Snow White dragged us back and forth through it today, but I have no hope of remembering anything about it,” Angelique said. “But there are more weapons this way, which likely means more guards, which also most likely means we’d be moving away from the center of the palace and to the outside.” She paused when they passed by a decorative arrangement of war axes and finely wrought daggers and briefly pulled her hand from Evariste’s so she could remove one of the daggers off the wall and toss it conveniently into her bucket.

  Snow White won’t mind.

  Once she finished, Evariste took her hand again. “You’ve grown quite skilled with your magic in my absence.”

  Angelique cringed. “I didn’t have much of a choice. So much has happened—there have been so many near losses…”

  Evariste squeezed her hand as they left the hall they’d been standing in and stepped into a corridor of some sort that was decorated in dark, emerald green tones. “I’m glad—not that you experienced such difficulties, but that you’ve gotten so skilled. Are you an enchantress, yet?”

  “No—the Council wouldn’t even consider it since you were missing.” Angelique swung her bucket so it smacked her in the thigh again. “I had a lot of trouble with them. But my troubles are pretty minute compared to what you we
nt through.”

  “There’s no judging pain, Angel,” Evariste said. He’d been scanning every decoration they passed, but at Angelique’s words, he narrowed his gaze in on her. “Because there is no comparing it. Pain is pain—no matter how it occurs.”

  Angelique’s smile turned dangerously misty, and she nudged her shoulder into Evariste’s. “Now I really can believe you are here.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. Because you’re sharing deep truths.” Angelique’s gaze strayed to an arrangement of jeweled flowers displayed on an end table.

  It was only the tickle of her magic and her experience with Elle that made her recognize the decorative roses—and their sharpened metal stems complete with sharpened thorns—were a possible weapon. She snagged one for her bucket.

  “It’s not so much that I am deep as much as Clovicus drove such principles through my skull. But in this case, it is a personal observation,” Evariste said.

  Angelique paused when they walked past a tiny, closet-like room that she recognized as a guard outpost, chortling to herself when she found a handful of broken arrows. She dropped these into her bucket to add to her growing arsenal—she would be prepared if the Chosen so much as breathed in Juwel this day!

  “What do you mean?” Angelique asked once she rejoined Evariste in the hallway and took his hand again—growing more comfortable with the gesture every time she did it.

  “You might think I’ve physically suffered the most…and perhaps it is true. Having your magic forcibly pulled from you is a very painful experience, one I hope you never have to experience,” Evariste said. “But I can see how pain has left its own mark on you.”

  The statement surprised her.

  How has pain left a mark on me? I’m far more exhausted than I ever was, yes, but while it’s been difficult without Evariste, I don’t know that I experienced much physical pain.

  To avoid answering, Angelique tugged him into a sitting room, which had glass doors that opened up into an outdoor balcony.

  It seemed the sitting room had seen some of the action in the battle against the constructs. Goose feathers spilled from ripped, velvet cushions; one of the thick drapes that covered the doors had been yanked off its curtain rod, and a glass figurine of some sort had fallen off a display table, shattering on the rug-covered floor.

  Angelique held her bucket out and released her magic. It pounced on the glass, finding all the shards with a sharpened edge and pulling them into the air where they twinkled and glittered. She turned her magic so it dropped the glass shards in the bucket and then released it.

  “I’m not sure what you mean by pain leaving a mark on me,” Angelique said. “I don’t know that I’ve aged at all since you…”

  “I didn’t mean a physical mark per se.” Evariste opened the door and stepped outside.

  The sun was sinking on the horizon. It wasn’t sunset yet, but the crimson gold haze backlit the mountains that were turning blue with the fading light.

  They were on the second floor of the palace—which afforded them an excellent view of the courtyard that burrowed between the palace and its short protective wall. Beyond the wall stretched the city of Juwel, which glittered in the afternoon light.

  “If not a physical mark, then what?” Angelique prompted.

  Evariste set his free hand down on the palace’s stone wall and ran his fingers across the worn rock.

  He’s starved for sensations, Angelique realized. Sights, the way things feel…

  “It’s the way you move,” he said almost absently. “You’re expecting a fight. And while I’m glad you’ve mastered your magic more than I ever hoped for, the fact that it was necessary brings me great regret. I wish I could have spared you the fight.”

  Angelique listened thoughtfully, shivering when the wind swept through the courtyard. Although it was no longer winter, it was chilly, and the wind had a frigid bite to it. She glanced at Evariste, but he didn’t seem to notice. He stood, taken with the beauty of the sky.

  “Even if you’d been with me, it would have been a fight. The Chosen…they’re like a disease, silently spreading everywhere before any of us knew what happened.” She set her bucket down so she could paw through a pocket sewn to the interior of her cloak and find the flame-shaped jewel spelled with a heat charm that Stil had given her when she stocked up at Chanceux with Quinn.

  She whispered to it—waking its magic—then tucked it between hers and Evariste’s clasped palms.

  “Perhaps, but I think the most telling mark of your pain is that there is not a single mage here with you.” Evariste looked away from the sunset and settled his mismatched eyes—the left being a beautiful shade of forest green while the right was a breathtaking blue—on her face. “And that you haven’t suggested we notify another mage that I have been freed.”

  Angelique opened her mouth and tried to find a reply—one that wouldn’t sound as bitter as she felt towards the rest of the mages from the Conclave—but couldn’t say anything at all.

  Evariste tugged her so they stood face-to-face, then took her free hand in his and squeezed. “Whatever they did to you, I’ll make sure it’s over. Whether it was the Council, your old instructors—we’ll handle it.”

  Angelique slightly shook her head. “How do you have the strength to do this?”

  Evariste blinked. “Do what?”

  “This!” Angelique tried to gesture with her hands, but Evariste still held both so it was more of a flopping motion. “Offer to help me when you’ve been in what I imagine is immeasurable pain—for months!”

  Evariste’s expression was unreadable. “Because you’re important to me.”

  For one panicked moment, Angelique thought of dream-but-actually-real-Evariste before she successfully shoved the memory away. No, it’s the same for me. I kept searching for Evariste no matter how exhausted I was because I care about him. And I never had the chance to tell him…

  The thought brought back the memory of the first few wretched months after he’d been taken, when she’d been riddled with guilt at the thought that she could have done something to stop the attackers. She’d also deeply regretted the fight they’d had about her magic shortly before he was taken.

  She fidgeted in place.

  It’s awkward to acknowledge it now. So much has happened…and I’m so happy to see him, but so much has changed. And I don’t know where we stand or what any of this means.

  “I’m sorry,” Angelique blurted out. She wasn’t sure if the apology rushed out of her because it had been a weight she’d been carrying for years or because she was trying to distract herself.

  Evariste’s eyes had drifted off to the sliver of sun still visible over the mountains, but they abruptly flicked back to her. “Sorry for what?”

  “For our fight. The one we had about my magic—whether or not it was dangerous—before the Chosen took you,” Angelique said.

  Evariste wrinkled his forehead and somehow managed to look handsome in his regret. “Oh, Angel. Have you been thinking of that for all these years?” He let go of her hands and instead placed his on her shoulders—which was fine, except the wind was still cold, and now he didn’t even have a piece of the heat charm warming him!

  “Maybe, yes,” Angelique scanned him, trying to figure out if she could put the ruby in his pocket, but there were no visible pockets in his cloak. “Because you were right about my magic. I was afraid of it when I needed to master it.”

  “Then you finally believe your magic isn’t dangerous?” Evariste asked.

  Angelique snorted. “Oh, it’s dangerous. It’s not something I will handle carelessly, but all the practice I’ve had means I can maintain control of it.” Angelique tilted her head as she thought. “But there are many kinds of core magic that have the potential to be dangerous—elemental core magic and weather magic are obvious examples. Just as a fire mage is careful with his or her magic, I must be careful with mine. But careful does not mean I have to lock it up and never use it.”

/>   Angelique paused, surprised to discover her words were true. I don’t love my core magic—I’ve suffered too much for that. But I am willing to use it now that I can see how it’s necessary to protect, as I protected Evariste, Snow White, and the warriors from the constructs. Quinn was right in that my magic is like a soldier’s path. Instead of mindlessly killing, it’s my duty to protect and defend.

  As if stirred by her thoughts, her magic unwound. It layered the area so thickly, the air almost seemed to shimmer in the swiftly fading evening light.

  She had half-expected Evariste to jump in and tell her that she needed to completely accept her magic—he’d done that before.

  He surprised her greatly, though, by simply nodding. “You’ve come a long way.”

  Something deep in her relaxed.

  I will always appreciate how Evariste believed in me and supported me, but it would be idealistic to a foolish extent if he continued to insist there was no possible danger in my magic at all.

  “Thank you.” She smiled at him, but it was strangely difficult to meet his gaze, so she looked away.

  He kept his hands where they were on her shoulders, and Angelique squeezed the heat charm between her fingers as the silence stretched on.

  He’s going to get cold, even if he’s not acting like it.

  Angelique placed her hand on his wrist, sandwiching the charm between them. The gesture felt awkward, as did touching his hand when she tried to adjust to that position.

  Evariste raised an eyebrow at her, and the desire to talk and fill the moment burned in her.

  “Truthfully, the greatest danger of my magic is that there is so much of it,” she sourly said. “Whenever I use it, it always seems like it can continue to grow even though my mind is already cluttered with the dozens of weapons, and if I tried to use more, I’d likely fumble. It’s a gluttonous magic, really.” Angelique playfully scowled.

  “You feel everything your magic touches?” Evariste asked curiously.

  “Yes.” Angelique removed her hand from the awkward position and frowned a little as she tried to figure out where else she could touch him that wouldn’t feel…odd. “It’s easy to lose my concentration if it becomes too overwhelming.”