by E. D. Walker
Yonca nodded thanks and disappeared the coins into some hidden pocket of her dress as she walked away.
When Violette turned back, Ned was thumbing through the stack of books she’d brought. Her chest fluttered with worry. “I—I wasn’t sure what you might like, so I grabbed a variety.”
Ned glanced up at her from under his lashes. His cheeks were beet red.
Shame flooded through her that she’d embarrassed him. Of course he couldn’t pick a book out of the stack. Not yet. She’d assumed he had some ability to read already, but apparently not.
Ned handed her the stack, almost shoved them at her really. “I’m sure whatever you think best, my lady.”
Violette caught the books, lifting a hand to press them against her chest to keep from dropping them. “Oh. I…all right.” She shifted through the stack herself. There was a rather boring—to her—write-up of several forms for sword fighting and combat. But just as she was about to pull that out of the stack, she changed her mind and went for a book of folk stories instead.
Violette thumbed through the pages gently, aware that this was a borrowed book, until she found one that looked familiar. It was a book of Tiochene folklore, and she thought she recognized some versions of the stories her mother used to tell her at bedtime. About the thief girl and her magic ring. The three princesses questing for the golden apple of Life. The beggar who switched places with a king and saved the kingdom. “Here.” She’d found her favorite story, one she thought Ned might enjoy as well. Setting the book on the table, she motioned for Ned to come closer.
He scowled at her. “What?”
“I need you to sit closer so you can see the words as I read. That’s how I learned.”
“Oh. Um. All right.” Ned stood and lifted his chair, placing it next to hers with what seemed to her to be undo care.
He must have used scented soap on his hair or something, because the crisp, bright smell of vanilla kept teasing across her nostrils, distracting her. Striving for brisk efficiency, Violette laid the book flat and pointed at the illustration of a woman in ancient armor with a leather breastplate and skirt. “Now, this is the story of the great Lady Hua who saved her country from fierce invaders.” Violette wet her lips and began to read. It was a lively adaptation of the tale, with a few additions she didn’t remember from her mother’s version in the form of a helpful horse and a feisty grandmother. Ned anxiously watched her, his eyes restless as she traced the words on the page. She noticed him frowning as he tried to follow along, and she consciously slowed herself down.
“‘Lady Hua’s king sent word to all the villages that he was conscripting one man from each family into the army to defend their realm against the raiders. Lady Hua listened to the proclamation with dread in her heart. Her father was old and missing one hand from the last wars their king had fought. But he had no one to send in his place, as her little brother was only six months old. If she let her papa join the army he would surely die. Lady Hua knew what she had to do.’”
Ned eased back from the table, shaking his head.
She smiled at him and turned the page. “‘Lady Hua knew where her father kept his weapons and armor. She braided her hair back as the warriors do and shed her women’s garb. She took her father’s horse and—’”
“She’s going to pretend to be a man?” He slapped his hand over the book pages to keep her from reading more.
Surprised, she sat back. “Well, yes. She joins the army in her father’s place and wins great renown as a warrior. Her king even rewards her—”
He moved his hand back, closing the book in one smooth move, with a clap of the covers that made her jump. “We should practice,” he said.
“Practice…” She cleared her throat. “Right. Yes.” The magic. She’d been so nervous preparing for Ned’s reading lesson she’d all but forgotten her own.
“Have you been practicing, my lady?”
“A little.” She shifted the book to the other end of the table, away from the tea. Hand shaking with nerves, she gently touched Ned’s teacup. Like a tamed tiger, her magic surged to her will and bent into the shape she compelled it.
Ned’s eyebrows rose into his hairline, and he shot her an incredulous look as he reached for the cup. When he took a sip, he made a sound of surprise. “Perfect temperature. And you didn’t even need the spellword.”
She smoothed her palms over her knees, brushing out invisible wrinkles from her gown. “I…I usually don’t need the spellword. I just think what I want the magic to do.”
He gave a rueful laugh.
Nettled, she stiffened in her chair. “What?”
“You.” And when he looked at her, his eyes gleamed with admiration. “What a marvel you are. Even Master Llewellyn still needs spellwords most of the time.”
“Really?”
“Yes, my lady.” He grinned. “Here, I’ve got a good idea for the lesson today. Saltatio.” And he went on to explain the mechanics of the spell. “It’s to make objects ‘dance’ on their own. Like the tea. Try to get the pot to pour a cup without you touching anything.”
“Ned.”
He grinned at her, amused by the disbelief in her voice, no doubt. “You can do it. Try.”
She shook her head, but she felt an itch in her fingers, a twitch like the magic was eavesdropping and wanted to try saltatio. Or maybe it was her own anticipation tingling inside her. She pushed that thought away and curled her hands into fists. Narrowing her eyes in concentration, she summoned the magic inside her. “Saltatio.”
She and Ned both jumped as the teapot rattled loudly against the table. Careless, careless… “Ned, keep a lookout. If I actually manage to get this right, I don’t want any of the servants to see.”
“Right.” He slid out of his chair with easy grace and positioned his body to block the tea set. He lifted the book they’d been reading and turned the pages, lingering over the illustrations from the tale of Lady Hua. His mouth pinched tight so his lips went white-edged.
What troubles him so about that story? But Violette put aside that thought. They only had so much time in a day to practice. She didn’t have time just then to worry about Ned’s strange moods.
“Sometimes it helps to use your hands to direct the objects where you want to go.” Ned kept his voice mild, not even looking up from the book.
She flexed her fingers then held them carefully in front of her. The magic was like an itch under her skin, an itch that she couldn’t scratch except if she could just— “Saltatio.” She lifted one palm, imagining she cradled the teapot’s weight there.
Slowly, wobbling a little, the teapot rose in the air. Exhilaration bolted through her nerves, and the teapot shot down as she lost control. Gasping, she flung her hands out and caught the teapot—with her magic. The pot bobbed, suspended in the air only with her power. Sweat beaded her brow, and she felt short of breath. Still holding one hand up to support the teapot, she crooked the other into an inverted L-shape then tilted it ever so slightly.
The pot tilted down, tea pouring out of the spout. And missing the waiting teacup entirely. Violette chewed on her lower lip as the tea splattered against the table. “Oh dear.”
“My lady.” He reached out and snatched the teapot out of the air.
Dazed and more than a little giddy with her success, Violette beamed at him. But when she opened her mouth to say something, he widened his eyes in warning. She clamped her lips shut and glanced casually over his shoulder to see Yonca striding purposefully toward them.
Yonca winked and smiled as she passed on the way to the kitchen with her now-full market basket.
Violette swallowed, her mouth dry, and glanced in sudden consuming paranoia all around them.
“It’s all right, my lady.” Ned brushed her shoulder with his fingers.
Violette sucked a deep breath in through her teeth then let it out slowly. “Right. Yes. Of course.” Yonca had probably been winking at her over Ned, continuing her good-natured teasing about Violette’s
“lover.” Yonca couldn’t have seen Violette practicing. If she had, she would have raised a cry in the household. Wouldn’t she?
Violette slapped both palms over her face and groaned. Just when she was starting to enjoy her magic, something like this happened. The magic was a dangerous curse. Not a gift. Not a joyful pastime. I can’t forget that. And I can’t let myself be seduced by this power.
“If it’s any consolation,” Ned murmured, “you performed beautifully, my lady.”
She let her hands fall and looked across at him, fighting her traitor of a heart as it skipped with happiness. “I did? That’s how the spell is supposed to work?”
He cleared his throat. “Um, I think so.”
“‘Think so?’”
He made a great show of setting down the book on the dry part of the tea table and adjusting the cover just so. “I’ve never, ah, successfully performed it myself.”
“Ned.”
Her scandalized gasp made him finally look up at her, but instead of seeming properly scolded, the irritating boy just smirked at her. “I knew you could do it.”
“What if I’d lost control again?” She could only shake her head and press a trembling palm to her forehead. “This is a bad idea. We should stop.”
He crossed to her side at once, dropping to one knee so he could grasp her hands. “No, my lady, no. It’s only been a few days. And you’ve already got so much more control than when we started.” He squeezed her hands. “Besides, I’d hate to stop my reading lessons before they’ve really begun.”
Violette gently tugged her hands free of his. Having her hands cradled in his felt entirely too good. “You didn’t seem to enjoy your lesson much today.”
Red stained his cheeks, and he pushed to stand, turning away from her. “It was your choice of tale, my lady. Please don’t be offended, but I don’t think much of stories like that.”
She puffed out a disappointed breath. “Stories where women go to war?”
He shrugged and refused to look at her. “I’m sorry, Lady Violette. Could we try a different story next time?”
She worked her fingernail into one of the grooves on the wooden arm of her chair. Her chest felt tight contemplating all that could go wrong with the magic. And with Ned. All this time with him talking, working, laughing. The way he looked at her…believed in her… She didn’t want to like him, didn’t want to feel warm and flushed whenever his gaze met hers. If they continued meeting like this…well, it seemed like courting temptation somehow. Welcoming disaster one way or another.
“Please, Lady Violette?” The aching thread that made his voice almost break defeated the last of her resistance.
Damn her foolish heart, but she didn’t want their lessons to end either. Not yet. “All right, Ned. We’ll try again.”
Chapter Nine
The next week passed swiftly for Violette. The princess made preparations for the ball, having new gowns commissioned for herself and her two ladies. Violette suspected this was more to help out the poor, struggling silk merchant than out of any real desire for a new dress. That seemed very like her princess: a subtle kindness hidden in the midst of decadence.
Lord Guillaume was at the princess’s villa almost every day, chatting with all of them and begging the princess to go riding with him—making it impossible for her to get away to see King Thomas. Violette and Ned were still exchanging the letters, but now they didn’t need to go to the market to do it. They’d also been stymied in their attempts to practice magic. There were too many people around the villa now, bustling through the courtyard on errands for the princess.
Lord Guillaume and Ned nearly collided one day in the entryway—Lord Guillaume on his way in and Ned on his way out. Ned flushed and muttered apologies before hurrying out the front door. Violette could practically feel the princess vibrating with alarm as Lord Guillaume watched Ned’s departing back.
“That lad is often about the place,” Lord Guillaume commented.
“Lady Violette has kindly volunteered to teach him to read.” The princess smiled as she took her cousin by the elbow and led him into her receiving room.
Noémi and Violette exchanged a wide-eyed look before Noémi followed after the princess to sit in on her tête-à-tête with Lord Guillaume. Violette trailed off alone to their chambers to work on the dresses for the ball. There had been several strange disappearances in the city lately, and their usual seamstress had been one of them. It was no great inconvenience, since the three ladies of the princess’s household were all passable seamstresses themselves, but it was rather a lot of work. And the suddenly empty seamstress shop had been most unnerving.
Lord Guillaume claimed not to know what was happening to the missing people, but rumors in the city persisted that civilians were being taken from their homes, kidnapped off the street. The missing people were alleged to be magic users of every level, every kind, city locals and refugees, those of Northern descent as well as Tiochene.
All the more reason for Violette to hold tight to the secret of her own magic. She was tempted to stop her lessons altogether, except she’d been feeling off lately. It was almost like having eaten too much at a banquet. She felt stuffed, overfull, as if the magic were building inside her and needed a release.
She shook the thought away as she pulled a length of silk fabric into her lap and began the stitches that would create the hem. Her magic would just have to wait until it was safe.
Still, she wondered if it would always be like this for her now. If she would let the magic build and build and build until she couldn’t take the pressure anymore. Her whole goal in learning magic had been to keep from using it, but what if that just wasn’t possible?
In her distraction, she pricked her finger and gave an irritated huff. So much work. Noémi and the princess were helping when they could, but there was still so much left to do before the ball.
Violette sucked on her stinging finger and looked at the yards and yards of silk still to be sewn. I wonder…
Standing, she lifted the dress she’d been working on and tucked her needle into her unfinished hem. Ned had taught her that “dancing spell” to make the teapot pour itself. Would the same spell work to make her needle sew?
As if the magic could hear her thoughts, her power seemed to give a warm surge inside her, like soothing bath water lapping against her chest. She laughed. “Why not?” The door was shut. The princess and Noémi would be in with Lord Guillaume awhile yet. She needed to rid herself of this excess magic before the weight of it pinned her to the floor. Why not indeed.
She held her hands aloft and called a clear image into her mind of what she wanted the needle to do, how it should move. Then, and only then, when she had her intention clearly set, did she say the spellword. “Saltatio.”
Like an eager page boy leaping to service, her needle wiggled itself free of the silk and began diving and weaving through the fabric. The sewing needle flashed and moved so quickly the hem was complete almost before she realized it.
The needle had tied off a knot at the end of the hem. With a twist of her finger, the sewing scissors soared out of the mending box and snipped the thread off above the knot. Violette hummed happily to herself and grabbed up the pieces they’d cut for her gown’s sleeves. She set the needle to work on those next. The scissors still hovered in the air at her chest height, bobbing almost expectantly.
An ambitious idea bloomed in her mind. “Dare I?” Hands twitching with nerves, she sifted through the mending box until she found another needle and thread. She dug out the pieces of fabric they’d cut for the princess’s skirt. Keeping one eye on the first needle as it sewed her sleeves, she set her will and spun the second needle off to sewing the princess’s hem.
Violette stepped back, an irrepressible grin on her face as she watched the two needles busy about their work.
We haven’t even cut the pieces yet for Noémi’s gown…She bent to lift the silk bolt of fabric, but something tugged at her sleeve. She glanced down
to see one of the needles whipping around and around, trying to sew a seam down the length of her sleeve. The sleeve she was wearing.
Violette grabbed for the needle, but it darted too fast for her, and she ended up pricking her finger in the attempt.
Holding her arm away from herself as the needle continued its dance, she looked over to see what the other needle was up to. It had finished the hem of the princess’s skirt and was now proceeding to sew Violette’s own skirt to the foot of the bed.
She tried to quiet the magic, slow it down. But it seemed that even thinking about her magic summoned a flood. Instead of slowing down, the needles sped their work, and the scissors leapt into the air, snip snipping as they hovered in front of her face. She recoiled and found herself flat on the bed as the needles went to work sewing her dress to the blankets—with her still in it.
A sob of fear and frustration caught in her throat. What could she do? Dare she call for help? Maybe the magic would tire itself out, maybe she could wait this out and extract herself somehow.
But, as if they could hear her thoughts, the mischievous sewing implements set to work with renewed force. Fabric flew free of the mending basket, landing on top of Violette with heavy thumps. More needles appeared, dancing in the air as they sewed the rest of her dress to the bed and then began sewing bits of scrap fabric on top of that. The needles were careful. Nothing had pricked her since her first ill-advised grab, but still sweat beaded her brow.
When a flap of cloth landed over her face and she felt a needle dancing by her ear, Violette finally screamed. As loud as she could. She thrashed and managed to pull the blankets off the bed as she rolled to the floor. Pinpricks of hurt bloomed on her arms, her leg, a nip at her ear. And as soon as she sat still for a moment, the needles went back to their work, dancing, dancing, stitching, and sewing.
Help, help, help. She didn’t know if she was screaming out loud or not, but a ball of panic had exploded in her chest. She balled fabric around her fists and swatted at the needles as they tried to descend on her. She crawled and flailed, fighting for the door—
