by Caitlin Seal
Lucia wasn’t at the shop when Naya returned, and the note she’d left on the door indicated she wouldn’t be back until evening. Naya frowned as she read it. Lucia had barely spoken to her since the night Naya followed her to the café. She had to admit that nothing Lucia had done or said suggested she was trying to sabotage Naya’s mission. That still left her with the question of what she had overheard. Celia hadn’t seemed worried, but Naya could think of no good reason why Lucia would be asking about missing Talmirans.
Naya folded the note and tucked it into her pocket. Wherever Lucia had gone, there wasn’t much she could do about it now. She’d have to trust that Celia and Valn were right about the necromancer.
Naya considered her options for the afternoon. She could go back to her room and try again to change her features. But if she spent another hour alone in that cramped space, she was likely to explode from frustration. She hadn’t made much progress working on her own, and she doubted Celia would accept many more delays.
Perhaps it was time to get help from another source. Lucia had made it clear she either couldn’t or wouldn’t offer more help than what was in her books. But she wasn’t the only person who knew about wraiths. Corten would probably know how to help her. Despite Lucia’s warnings, the risk of seeing him again would be worth it if he could teach her to change her features.
Naya nodded to herself. Acting like a servant didn’t make her one, and Lucia didn’t get to decide who she spoke to. There were probably all sorts of useful things Corten could teach her. Naya’s spirits rose as she hurried inside to drop off her basket and shawl. Corten had been reluctant to help before, but he’d seemed angrier with Lucia than with her. She’d find a way to convince him to teach her. And when Celia next tested her, Naya would impress the older spy with her skill.
She got lost only once trying to retrace her steps to Corten’s shop. When she finally found it, she was surprised to see Corten sitting outside on the bench under the big oak tree in the plaza. He waved to her, but his smile was cautious. “Blue, what brings you here?”
“Miss Lucia is busy. I was wondering, if you have time, would you be willing to teach me more about aether?”
Corten rubbed the back of his neck. “Does she know you’re here?”
“No,” Naya said. Then with more force she added, “Does it matter?”
Corten smiled. “I guess not.”
“Good. Miss Lucia’s tried to help, but she can’t teach me everything I need to know.”
Corten’s expression turned thoughtful. “What is it you want to know?”
Naya met his eyes. How much could she safely say? Was it even normal for wraiths to go around changing their features? “I can’t believe all the old stories about the wraiths are entirely untrue. I need to know what I really am, but the books in the shop are too complicated, and Miss Lucia always gets frustrated when I don’t understand things right away.”
Corten smiled apologetically. “She always was better at performing resurrections than teaching.” His smile fell. “I can guess what sorts of stories you’ve heard about us. We aren’t the monsters your keepers want you to fear.”
“Then what are we?” Naya asked, surprised to feel her throat tightening around the words.
“We’re people.”
Naya shook her head. “People eat. People sleep.” People couldn’t see the life drifting off their companions, or feel their emotions churning in the air.
Corten looked away. “Is that all you were before you died? A body that ate and slept?”
“Of course not!” Naya snapped, but she felt her anger sputter under the weight of the question. What was she really? Who was she? She’d been trying not to ask herself that ever since she woke in Lucia’s shop. She looked away, wrapping her arms across her chest.
“We’re more than our bodies,” Corten said. “Necromancy proves that. It proves there’s more to existence than just this one life.”
“Does it?” Naya asked softly. She could almost feel the cold darkness of death, icy tides trying to drag her away. “What if it just shows us that darkness is all that’s waiting?” Saying it out loud made the fear feel more real.
“You’ll have to ask the keepers about that,” Corten said. Naya looked up and saw him watching her with his hands shoved in his pockets.
“I’m asking you.”
Corten’s eyes met hers, then darted quickly away. “I don’t know. All I know is that we’re alive here and now, and we get to decide what we do with that.” After a pause he added, “If you really want to know more, I’ll try to help, but first I have to finish some things in the shop.”
Naya hesitated. She didn’t like the questions Corten asked. They left her feeling like the ground was crumbling beneath her piece by piece. But there were things she had to learn, and precious few people she knew could teach her. Besides, she’d seen a challenge in his eyes before he looked away. If she walked away now, he would think her a coward unwilling to face the truth. She tilted her chin up and forced a smile. “Just tell me what I need to do.”
Corten looked at her again, like he was searching for something in her expression. Whatever it was, he seemed satisfied, because he motioned for her to follow. “Come on. I’ve got a batch of glasses to shape. Matius is at lunch. Once he gets back I’ll ask if he can spare me for a bit.” They stopped in front of a heavy door in the back of the room with the glass statues. “Your bones are in your hand, right?”
“Yes. Why?” Something about the shop felt wrong. The aether was too thin and she could sense something sucking away her energy. Some sort of rune device, and a large one judging by the strength of the pull.
Corten pulled his vest off the hook by the door and stripped off his shirt. Heat rose in Naya’s cheeks and she tried not to notice the way his muscles flexed under smooth brown skin. Like most people in Ceramor, Corten seemed to have little concept of decency. Even on her father’s ship, the sailors had kept their shirts on. And no Talmiran man would strip so casually in front of a woman who wasn’t his wife. Naya fixed her eyes on one of the strange statues until she heard Corten clear his throat. She turned and saw he had finished cinching the vest. When he met her eyes, his lips twitched with a barely suppressed smile. Naya glared at him, the heat in her cheeks doubling.
“Try this on.” Corten held out a thick leather glove. Like his vest, the glove was covered in heavy plates of some dark metal scribed with runes. “It’ll be harder to draw aether while you wear it, so if you’re low, you should breathe some in now.”
Naya eyed the glove, but she couldn’t see any aether coming from the runes. “Why do I have to wear it?”
“It’ll keep the furnace from draining you. Otherwise you’ll have to wait out here.” He raised one eyebrow as he reached for the doorknob.
Naya shivered, then shoved her fingers into the glove. Almost instantly, the tugging sensation lessened to a tickle at the back of her mind. Naya’s eyebrows rose and she flexed her fingers.
“Sorry it’s a little big. All I had to work with were some old gloves of mine,” Corten said.
Naya looked up. “You made this for me?”
Corten turned away, double-checking the ties on his vest. “I keep extra rune plates around as backups for when mine wear out and crack, so it wasn’t any trouble to attach some of the smaller ones.”
“How did you know you would see me again?”
Corten rubbed the back of his neck. “It probably sounds stupid, but I had a feeling you might come back. After what happened when you drew aether, I figured you would have questions.” He met her eyes again, as though searching for something. “Anyway, it’s not exactly comfortable in here for a wraith without some protection, so I decided there wasn’t any harm in having something ready.”
“Thank you,” Naya said, trying to dismiss the strange tightness in her chest.
Corten nodded, then led
her through a short hallway and into a room illuminated by the steady orange glow of three big furnaces against the back wall. Hollow clay and metal pipes nearly twice the length of Naya’s arm leaned against the left wall, next to a metal table strewn with various tools. Naya could feel heat billowing off the furnaces. When she concentrated she could see aether flowing toward them to power the massive rune plates set into the sides of the furnace.
“So you make glass?” Naya asked.
“I make things out of glass.” Corten walked to the far-right furnace, the largest of the three. He examined the rune dials, then opened the hatch to peer at something inside.
“Miss Lucia said you used to be her apprentice. How…” Naya trailed off as Corten’s shoulders stiffened. He snapped the door shut and walked toward the leftmost furnace.
“How does a necromancer’s apprentice become a second-rate glassblower?” Corten asked.
“I didn’t say that.”
He smiled, but not wide enough to hide the shadow in his eyes. “The dead can’t sing souls back. After my accident I wasn’t going to be any use to Lucia. I had to find something else to do with my time, so I picked this. Wraiths are especially good at this sort of work. We don’t have the same limits as others. Here, watch.” He reached into the furnace and pulled out a glob of molten glass, as calmly as someone else might scoop a handful of water.
“Are you insane?” Naya stepped forward, unsure what she hoped to do.
Corten grinned, then dropped the glass back in the furnace and showed her his undamaged hand. “Maybe, but not for that. I can feel the heat but it doesn’t burn me. No flesh, remember?”
Naya shook her head. “It isn’t natural.”
Corten’s grin faded and he turned back toward the furnace. “Better than dying before your time.” He picked up one of the pipes and spun it in his hand.
Naya hadn’t missed the bitterness in his tone. “For someone who claims wraiths are just people, you don’t exactly sound happy when you talk about what you are. And I’ve seen the way you act around Miss Lucia. If being a wraith is so wonderful, then why do you hate the person who brought you back?”
Corten’s hands froze on the pipe. He didn’t turn around, and at first Naya thought he would ignore her question. When he spoke, his words were soft enough that she had to struggle to make them out. “I don’t hate her.”
Naya waited and eventually Corten turned to face her, his expression carefully neutral. “You Talmirans assume that just because we practice necromancy we see the undead as somehow superior to the living.”
“Well, the Mad King—”
“Has been gone for more than thirty years. Allence is king now. He won’t make his father’s mistakes.”
Naya looked away. King Allence was a sniveling, weak-willed man. Everyone knew the real power of the throne lay with his advisers. If they decided to fight the treaty, she doubted the king would stop them. “You still didn’t answer my question.”
Corten sighed. “Yes, I believe that necromancy is something truly good. I believe that we do the Creator’s work when we help undo some of this world’s chaos. But none of that changes the fact that I lost everything I was the day I died. I appreciate what Lucia did resurrecting me, but seeing her brings back the memory of that loss. You’ll forgive me if that’s a reminder I’d rather avoid.”
Naya opened her mouth, then closed it again. Shame warred with anger inside her, magnified by the fact that she couldn’t tell which one she had the right to feel. If Corten truly believed he’d lost everything, then how could he not see that necromancy was wrong? When she met his gaze, she saw hurt in his eyes, but no shame. He’d meant what he said.
Naya looked away. “If seeing her makes you feel that way, then I can’t imagine talking to me is much better. Does that mean you want me to leave?”
“No. But if we’re going to do this, you need to decide what you actually want. I can’t teach you anything if you deny what you are.”
What she wanted was to be alive again and sailing with her father to someplace far, far away from Ceramor. But she knew that wasn’t going to happen. Naya met Corten’s eyes. “I want to learn.”
Naya waited for Corten to finish his work. She watched as he pulled a fresh blob of glass from the furnace. With surprising grace he spooled it onto the end of a metal pipe and blew until it ballooned out to form a globe. He twirled another piece of glass and attached it to the bottom, forming a stem and base, before cutting off the top of the bubble and gently widening it to form the bowl of the goblet. He examined the goblet, then placed it next to several others already cooling on a rack in the far furnace. There was something calming about the dance of hand and molten glass. Naya’s thoughts quieted as she watched the newly formed goblets fade from fiery orange to pale yellow. When Corten finished, she was surprised to find herself reluctant to leave.
“So, you wanted to know more about wraiths?” Corten asked after they had returned to the front of the shop and shrugged off their protective gear.
Naya nodded. “If I’m going to work for a necromancer, then I want to understand what she did to me.”
Before either of them could say more, the shop’s front door opened and Matius strode in. “Sorry I’m late. Sannesa made roasted prawns for lunch, and the children—” He paused when he saw Naya and offered her a warm smile. “Well hello. I was wondering when we’d see you again.”
Naya returned his smile, reaching into the aether to figure out whether or not the expression was genuine. Nothing. Another wraith, then.
“Blue’s asked me to teach her more about aether,” Corten said.
“Has she now.” Matius’s smile widened as he looked between them.
“I know we’ve got that order of plates to wrap for Mistress Beronia but—”
Matius waved the comment away. “Bah, no. I can handle the plates. You’ve earned yourself a break. Go have fun.”
Corten looked like he wanted to argue. Instead he glanced at Naya and nodded. “Right. Well, I’ll try to be back in an hour or so.”
“Take a half day if you like. The shop won’t burn down without you,” Matius said before heading up the stairs to the shop’s second level.
Corten snorted, his expression a mix of wry amusement and frustration.
Naya raised her eyebrows. “Is something funny?”
Corten shook his head. “It’s nothing. He just thinks I work too much. He’s always trying to get me to go out and ‘have fun,’ as if…” He glanced at Naya, then let the words trail off.
“As if what?” Naya asked.
Corten remained silent for a moment. “As if that mattered.” He shook his head. “Sorry, you didn’t come here to listen to me complain.”
“It’s okay,” Naya said. “You must really like the work. I’d think he’d be proud you’re so dedicated.”
Corten blew out a breath. “He doesn’t see it that way. He says the way I shape glass is too mechanical and that unless I get out and find something to be passionate about, I’ll never get any better. Matius pities me because he thinks I don’t have any real friends. Which is stupid. Working glass might not have been my first choice, but at least it’s something I can still do. And no matter what Matius says, I’m never going to get any better if I waste my time sitting around in some café.” Corten rubbed the back of his neck. “Not that you’re wasting my time now or anything. I mean…Creator, I need to stop talking. Why don’t we go get some fresh air?”
Naya followed him to the door, sifting through what he’d said. Back at the Merchants Academy, she’d had some of the best grades in her year. It wasn’t that she loved calculating sums or memorizing maps and languages, but studying had given her something to focus on. If she poured all her attention into exceeding her teachers’ expectations, then she wouldn’t have to think about the way her classmates avoided her like she had something catching. Naya co
uldn’t imagine why Corten would have any trouble making friends, but she thought she’d seen an echo of that old ache in his eyes.
“So how have you been?” Corten asked as they passed the bench where he’d first taught her to draw aether.
Naya stole a glance sideways. Corten’s tone was light, almost unnaturally so, as though their previous conversation had been about nothing more consequential than the weather. “I’ve been fine.” Naya tried to think of something the galley girl Blue might say. “The aether isn’t so bad now that I’m used to it, and the work Miss Lucia gives me isn’t hard compared with working on a ship.” Maybe she could come up with a casual way to ask about changing her features.
“What’s that like?” Corten asked.
“Sorry?”
“Working on a ship. What’s it like? I’ve never been out to sea.”
Freedom. Adventure. Traveling with my father. Those were the things Naya had always loved. But what about Blue? Naya tried to imagine the girl she was supposed to be. “The work wasn’t anything special,” she said slowly. “I was in the galley mostly, scrubbing and fetching things for the cook. But I liked being at sea. Sometimes I’d go up after dinner and the sunset would color the waves orange and for a few minutes it would be like the whole world was glowing.”
“Sounds like you miss it,” Corten said, his tone soft.
Naya nodded. Her throat felt suddenly tight. She might never again sail with her father, or see the white cliffs of her home. Corten wasn’t the only one who’d rather not be reminded of what he’d lost when he died.
They continued in silence along a wide road that ran across the city’s hills. Naya began to see why she’d gotten lost on her first day. The city spread out and up from the ocean to cover five different hills. Lucia and Corten both lived on Cansa Hill. Behind them was Beirdo, the southernmost hill. Up ahead she could catch glimpses of Sanmore, Lennia, and Belanore. A high wall surrounded the city, with houses and farms scattered out beyond its borders.
