The Language of Spells

by Garret Weyr

  “It’s too cold,” she said, and handed the glass back to Gregory.

  Everything about the way she moved reminded Maggie of a ballerina. Even the woman’s hands were graceful and elegant.

  “This is Theodora,” Thisbe said. “She’s not terribly fond of humans.”

  “Why are you here?” Theodora asked. “I thought Thisbe told you not to come back.”

  “I’m here for information,” Maggie said. “Either you will give it to me or you won’t. But as you have already kept us waiting for over an hour, I would appreciate getting an answer now.”

  “Maggie, don’t,” Grisha said, his voice low. “Please.”

  “Fierce little creature,” Theodora said, and then, to Thisbe, “What information?”

  “To know where the dragons are buried,” Maggie snapped, cutting off Thisbe.

  “There are no buried dragons,” Theodora said. “It’s all a rumor.”

  “Thisbe has already admitted that there are,” Maggie said.

  “Actually, what I said was that DR87 had broken a rule by speaking to you about them.”

  “Grisha broke a rule by telling me about buried dragons that don’t exist?”

  “Yes,” said Theodora and Thisbe at the same time.

  “If you are going to lie to me,” Maggie said, “then please go to the trouble of making it believable.”

  “Maggie, you cannot talk to them like that,” Grisha cried out, and at the same time, Gregory said, “I’m sure Miss Miklós didn’t mean to sound disrespectful.”

  “Gregory, you may take your leave,” Thisbe said, her dark eyes fixed on Maggie. “Theodora and I will deal with this . . . girl child.”

  Gregory hurried to the door, clearly delighted to be leaving.

  “She’s new to magic. She didn’t know,” Grisha said. “Forgive her.”

  “DR87, do hush,” Thisbe said, and Theodora giggled. “You too,” she snapped, and then placed her hand on Theodora’s head, saying, in what Maggie recognized as Latin, “Without memory may your soul sleep.”

  Immediately the young woman stretched and yawned, and as her long, thin body curled onto the stool, it changed seamlessly into that of a napping cat. A gray-and-white-striped cat with a short, bushy tail. No doubt she also had a black dot behind each ear.

  The change from austerely graceful woman to curled, sleeping cat was beautiful and terrifying all at once. Maggie stared, frozen in place. It was one thing for Grisha to talk about magic and science, the odd and the unusual. It was quite another to see it happening before her eyes. And it was slowly dawning on her that Thisbe was no ordinary person.

  “We don’t have a lot of time,” Thisbe said. “This doesn’t last for long.”

  “We’ll leave now,” Grisha said, standing up, but staying the size Thisbe had demanded of him. “We won’t come back. You don’t have to demonstrate anything further.”

  Maggie saw that his tail, usually so still and strong, was shaking.

  “Calm yourself, DR87,” Thisbe said. While she spoke, she wrote on a pad next to the water tray Gregory had abandoned and held it up to them.

  Leopold has spies everywhere, but especially in this building.

  “I’ll show you out,” she said.

  Maggie felt dizzy when she stood to follow Grisha and Thisbe. It was as if every thought she’d ever had was reorganizing itself. People and cats were one and the same. Latin was actually useful. A rumpled woman with glasses and messy hair had magic power. Her head ached. As they left through the side entrance, Maggie was relieved that the city looked unchanged.

  “I’m sorry for what I’m about to do,” Thisbe said. “But it’s important that Miss Miklós understands the consequences of not obeying me.”

  “Oh, no,” Grisha said. “Please don’t—”

  He never finished, for as soon as Thisbe whispered, “Vacate et collapse,” Grisha froze and then shrank down so dramatically that he fell to the ground. He lay on the sidewalk, the size of a marble, vaguely green, and horribly still.

  “No,” Maggie screamed. “No!” Her breath was full of ragged gulping, but she was entirely too terrified to cry.

  “Do be quiet,” Thisbe said. “The guards have no idea about this entrance. I don’t want them to hear you and come rushing round.” She picked up Grisha and handed him to Maggie.

  “You haven’t killed him,” Maggie said, her breath still ragged but quieting down. She could feel the small but steady breath moving through the tiny-sized Grisha in her hands. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me. If you put Theodora or me in danger, I will destroy everything you care about,” Thisbe said. “Do you understand?”

  Maggie nodded. She didn’t just understand it; she knew the woman wearing smudged glasses and a frumpy tweed skirt was capable of making good on any threat.

  “I, I, I—”

  “Be quiet,” Thisbe said, which was unnecessary, as Maggie had stuttered into silence. She wanted to say I am a harmless human and you are one of Leopold’s cats. But she was incapable of speech.

  “Don’t go to the library again,” Thisbe said. “Looking for information about the buried dragons has alerted Leopold. I will send him a report saying you have stopped searching.”

  “We won’t ever look for the buried dragons,” Maggie said, wishing her voice sounded less weak and wobbly. “I promise.”

  Thisbe hadn’t killed Grisha, but she had demonstrated that she could and would if she had to.

  “You can’t give up,” Thisbe said. She looked indignant and disapproving. “You and Grisha are the only hope those poor beasts have.”

  “I thought you just told me to stop,” Maggie said, still terrified and exhausted, but now also confused and with eyelids that were dangerously hot and scratchy with tears.

  “I’m trying to help you look without you risking Leopold finding out what you’re doing,” Thisbe said. “Do you understand?”

  “Wait—you want to help us?” Maggie was trying to remain calm, but kept looking down at Grisha to make sure he was alive.

  “I forget that humans are such annoyingly emotional, fragile things,” Thisbe said. “Pay attention.”

  While she had none of Theodora’s exaggerated grace, Thisbe had a ferocious intensity that was scary but fascinating.

  “You must do exactly as I tell you,” she continued. “First, find a potion to reverse the spell Leopold used on the dragons. Only then can you worry about where they are.”

  “Where do I find a potion?”

  As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Maggie regretted them. Thisbe’s dark eyes looked as if a black flame was sparking inside them.

  “Clearly, if I could tell you that, I wouldn’t tell you to find one, would I?”

  “Right, sorry,” Maggie said. She felt dizzy. If once she’d thought she was afraid of spiders or of the dark, she now understood that fear was what you felt when someone you loved was in danger.

  “When you have the potion, you will ask Kator to help you find Tyr,” Thisbe said. “She can tell you where the dragons are.”

  “Who’s Tyr?” Maggie asked. “I don’t understand.”

  “You don’t have to understand that yet,” Thisbe said. “Just repeat back what I said.”

  Maggie stared at her dumbly before stuttering out, “Wh-which part?”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Thisbe said, taking hold of Maggie’s chin between her thumb and forefinger. She looked right past Maggie’s brown eyes into the center of her mind. Maggie could feel her in there. It was, Maggie thought, like having the worst sort of headache, accompanied by painfully itchy skin.

  “What a mess you are in here,” Thisbe said. “I should have expected as much. Humans get so upset when they first see the world of magic.”

  Maggie wanted to explain that seeing a woman turn into a cat and then a friend being reduced to the size of a marble would upset anyone. But all she could do was nod. Yes, I am a mess.

  “Now pull it together.”

&n
bsp; Maggie nodded again.

  “First, find a potion to reverse what Leopold used to make the dragons sleep. Then ask Kator to help find Tyr. Repeat that.”

  Maggie did.

  Thisbe let go of her chin and the thumping in Maggie’s head stopped.

  “I once tried what you’re attempting,” Thisbe said, a small hint of softness coming into her face. “It’s more dangerous than you know.” She pushed the side door open and started to go back in the building.

  “Wait! Please!” Maggie cried. “Please put Grisha back to normal.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Thisbe repeated and, waving a hand, said, “Et reverse repair.”

  Maggie looked intently at Grisha, who remained small but was clearly growing. When his size became bigger than her hand, she put him on the ground, intent on watching as he grew.

  But Thisbe placed a finger back under Maggie’s chin and looked her in the eyes. “I had a friend once and Leopold took her,” Thisbe said. “Guard your friend.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  LEOPOLD’S CATS

  EVEN WITHOUT MAGGIE SAYING ANYTHING, GRISHA guessed what had happened. His joints and bones ached. Scaling up and down is a natural part of a dragon’s life, but the extremes Grisha had undergone in such a short time caused pain and discomfort. While he’d been a size no dragon willingly became, he’d had all the usual fears that any victim of enchantment does, but he’d been comforted by knowing that Maggie was safe. Her voice and Thisbe’s had been roars of thunder to his tiny ears. It had been impossible to make out any words, and so he waited patiently, leaning against the wall, while Maggie told him what Thisbe had said.

  “She seemed scary, but also scared,” Maggie said. “I just couldn’t tell if she was trying to help or sending us on a pointless chase.”

  “Maybe both,” Grisha said.

  “Who’s Tyr?” Maggie asked, and Grisha was glad that her voice had stopped shaking.

  “She was one of the four women Leopold enchanted into cat form,” Grisha said. “But I thought she’d died. There used to be four of them. One died, and one’s missing.”

  Once he’d known all of their names: Thisbe, Tyr, Theodora . . . and? Well, whatever her name, she and Tyr were the two who were no longer around.

  “Where would we get a potion?” Maggie asked. “Thisbe said not to go to the library or Leopold would know we were searching, so looking it up in a book is out.”

  “We wouldn’t find it in a book,” Grisha said, remembering once more how little his human friend knew about magic. “One of the reasons that the world of magic has largely disappeared is that no one wrote anything down. Most of the forest creatures can’t read, and humans taught each other secretly without leaving a record.”

  “But Thisbe told us not to give up,” Maggie said, feeling defeated. “What do we do?”

  “First,” Grisha said, “we walk home very slowly.”

  Maggie put her hand on the orange scale and they made their way back to the hotel, both longing for a hot meal and a long nap. Fortunately, those were two things the Sacher could easily provide.

  In the early morning before dawn, Grisha had the unwelcome surprise of waking up to find a cat staring at him. It was a mostly black cat whose white throat and white paws gleamed brightly against the dark.

  “I’m not so fond of cats,” Grisha said. “Would you mind changing shape?”

  “I didn’t bring clothes,” Thisbe said. “Next time.”

  “That’s okay,” Grisha said, fervently hoping that there wouldn’t be a next time.

  “I’m afraid I alarmed that girl child of yours,” Thisbe said. “I haven’t been a human in so long that I have almost no memory of how confusing magic can seem.”

  “You shrank me down to pea size,” Grisha said. “Of course she was alarmed.”

  “I’ve waited a long time for a DR to try to free my unfortunate friends,” Thisbe said, her short, bushy tail swishing back and forth. “I never dreamed it would be you, DR87.”

  “You have the power needed to free them,” Grisha said. “Why don’t you do it?”

  “We tried it once,” Thisbe said.

  “What happened?” Grisha asked. He very much doubted that Leopold’s cats had tried to help the buried dragons.

  “It’s a long story.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Grisha said, although part of him wished he could. He didn’t think Thisbe had come to harm him, and, after all, she’d been worried about spies at the D.E.E. However, it was impossible to shake off his fear of Leopold’s cats. They didn’t just report back to their boss in Italy: They had their own gruesome reputation. Even without remembering the past, the lingering ache in Grisha’s bones reminded him of what Thisbe could do.

  The cat arched her neck and back before settling onto the floor, her white-tipped front paws neatly tucked in front of her. Grisha, who was sitting in the exact same way, curled his tail around himself for warmth and comfort.

  “When we first came to Vienna, Leopold had already been at work sorting out you lot,” Thisbe said. “We thought he would have us do the things he’d become too weak to do: errands, odd bits of magic, that sort of thing.”

  “Do you know what had made him so weak?” Grisha asked.

  There had been a rumor that the spell had caused a great number of the sleeping dragons to fall ill. If the rumor were true, it would mean their friends were in pain.

  It seemed impossible that Leopold would have done such a thing on purpose: Illness would cause the noise of sick dragons, but also the terrible stench if his spell killed them. How could a man whose fame had been unparalleled botch a spell so badly? No one knew of a rival sorcerer who might have undone enough of Leopold’s spells to make his powers so erratic.

  “During the last war, a bomb destroyed a warehouse full of objects,” Thisbe said. “Precious objects Leopold had enchanted. Naturally, once his creations vanished from existence, Leopold became significantly weaker in both body and soul.”

  So that was it. No rival sorcerer; just a weapon from the world of men.

  “And so he summoned the four of you,” Grisha said, surprised to find himself feeling a bit sorry for Leopold. Imagine watching much of your life’s work burst into flames.

  “Yes, and we came to Vienna happily, because his villa near Rome is very damp,” Thisbe said. “We didn’t know our job would be to keep dragons prisoners, both above and below ground.” She reached a paw over Grisha’s tail and tapped gently on his front paws. “I know you are better off than those who are buried, but your life is horribly regulated. If it were up to me, you all could wander freely. But it is not so.”

  For the first time Grisha realized that while the dragons needed Thisbe’s permission in order to do anything, Thisbe needed Leopold’s.

  “Tyr said we were obliged to remember what life was like before Leopold enchanted us into magic. Most of us had been orphans, and all of us were very poor.”

  “I didn’t know that,” he said. “Rumor was that you’d all been evil witches.”

  “Rumors are usually wrong,” Thisbe said drily. “Tyr and I were kitchen maids trying to teach ourselves to read when Leopold offered us power beyond our imaginations.”

  “He gave you a choice?” Grisha was surprised. He knew that most humans were enchanted without agreeing to it. If you weren’t born into the world of magic, it could be a terrifying place.

  “We were poor and desperate for a better life. Tyr was the one who made sure never to forget our life before magic,” Thisbe said. “So after the war, after he summoned us for help, after Leopold had cast his spell, she insisted that we risk everything to free others as we had once been freed.”

  “By using magic,” Grisha said. “Didn’t you guess Leopold would sense it and stop you?”

  Because the cats were Leopold’s creations, their magic was connected to his, so when they used it, he would know.

  “Leopold was so much weaker than ever before that we believed we could preven
t him from finding out.”

  “He’s the one who enchanted you,” Grisha said. “His magic is forever connected to yours.”

  “Tyr thought we had a clever enough plan to keep him from knowing,” Thisbe said. She fell silent for so long that Grisha wasn’t sure if she would continue.

  “Tyr and I were each going to give up our magic in exchange for a two-part spell that would wake the dragons and make the sick ones healthy,” Thisbe said. She spoke slowly, as if the words cost her a great effort. “Tatiana was going to give hers up for a spell to prevent Leopold from finding us out. Magic for magic, all around.”

  Tatiana! That was the fourth cat. Grisha knew he’d known her name.

  “Tyr said Theodora should hold on to her magic so that when we went out into the world, it could protect us. It had been a very long time since we’d lived without magic’s protection, and we all remembered how awful that was.”

  Grisha knew that magic didn’t make life safe, but if you had lived with it for a long time, magic was familiar and comforting.

  “Our plan would have worked beautifully but for one mistake,” Thisbe said. “Tatiana went into Leopold’s room, and Tyr went to where the dragons were being held.”

  That’s not a mistake, Grisha thought. Spells worked better when cast close to their target. It’s why Leopold had come into the forest to find a creature.

  “I stayed behind with Theodora,” Thisbe said. “The plan was that we would wait for Tatiana to return, and then all go join Tyr and the dragons, so I could do my part of the spell to wake the dragons. Then Theodora would take us all to Rome, where we’d blend in and learn to be normal cats.”

  Grisha was hard-pressed to see how there was a mistake. It seemed like a good plan.

  “We hadn’t coordinated our timing,” Thisbe said, “and by chance, Tyr and Tatiana gave up their magic at the same time.”

  “Oh,” Grisha said softly. The simultaneous double action would have alerted Leopold to their magic before Tatiana’s spell had had a chance to take hold.

  “He was so angry that he didn’t think, and he broke Tatiana’s neck,” Thisbe said, her voice both angry and sad. “She had been keeping watch in his room.”