"Well, you shouldn't be surprised. I myself cannot take my eyes off you," said William, breathing on my neck.
I feigned clearing my throat and caught Simon looking at me longingly from across the garden. As our eyes met, he turned and made a stiff legged march back into the party.
Then I realized I hadn't responded to William. "That's very nice of you."
I could tell William wanted further acknowledgement, but I really wanted to chase after Enoch Tasker. The man had known me somehow. Such harsh feelings did not come without evidence. Though I didn't know how, I felt there was some connection to Alden Bridgewater. He'd given me a similarly scathing glance in the tunnels beneath the streets.
William cleared his throat expectantly.
I sighed. I needed to divert him from his thoughts. Even with my libido inflamed by my sorcerous efforts, William Bingham barely registered above a donkey gnat on the interest scale.
"Let us mingle," I said. "We look like a couple of boring old ninnies."
I took his hand and led him through the party. His palm was sweaty. I didn't need the ego disc to know what he was thinking. Once again, I was on the receiving end of many bitter glances. They could have him for all I cared, but for now, he proved a useful source of information. But I needed him to be talking, not leering at me from two inches away.
We found Ben, performing as Temple, surrounded by interested listeners. Ben had a magnetic personality; he'd packed the parlor, leaving the front room nearly empty.
Once we stood amid his thralls, I released William's hand. He was already taken in by Ben's story. With him distracted, I slipped away, looking for Simon.
I didn't find him in the dining area, where plates of chopped fruit waited to be eaten. Grabbing a handful of apple slices, I wandered.
With a mouth full of apple, I realized I was being hailed.
"Madam. Madam," said a congressman, standing with three other men. He was wide faced like a frog, with a white beard and a bare lip.
"Yes," I asked.
"Can you resolve a wager for us?" he asked.
"Possibly," I said.
I received a few raised eyebrows as they noticed my accent.
"Have you ever seen the occult?" asked the congressman.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
He cleared his throat and glanced at his fellows. "Marcus here was saying that the world has become beset with magical happenings. He said that he's seen an apparition floating down Market Street at midnight and knows many others that have had strange sightings. I disagreed, as there's always a rational explanation. We are men of the scientific, after all. So he bet that the next person to enter the room would have seen something interesting, if you know what I mean."
"An apparition at midnight?" I asked.
The other man, dark haired with a mole on his chin, nodded enthusiastically. "The creature moved like a piece of dark cloth thrown by the wind. I thought I was going to die of fright."
"Interesting," I said, keeping a straight face.
"Have you? Have you seen anything yourself?" he asked eagerly.
At that moment, I spied Simon walking past the open door.
"Uh, no, apologies gentlemen, but I have not. My life is rather mundane," I said as I started to follow Simon.
The mole-faced congressman grabbed my arm rather tightly. "Are you sure? Maybe you didn't realize it was magic? Anything strange at all?"
I was able to squirm out of his grip, but the delay left me without an idea of which direction Simon had gone. I thought I saw a buckskin coat through the window out front, so I went that way.
Outside the Washington Estate, I saw no sign of Simon Snyder. After standing there listening to the chattering inside—I could hear Ben's loud voice followed by rounds of laughter—I decided I had no interest in going back in.
I didn't want to run into William Bingham again, and I knew the mood about magic in the city, even without the bet from the congressmen. Rather than stay and be pawed at by those Federalists, I decided that rest would better suit me since I had another training session with Zentrii on the morrow.
Chapter Seventeen
After the third hour of relentless exercise of my unwanted magical gifts, I began to wonder if the storm-kin was torturing me out of revenge for some petty slight. For what crime I could not determine, but it seemed it must be that way.
For each time I paused, sweat soaked to my underclothes and spots forming in my vision, Zentrii flayed me with her wind-whipped voice.
"Again, Katerina, again!"
I withheld my murderous glare, the bright sky too much for tired eyes. Only the occasional torn cloud gave me respite from the weather.
My trembling fingers, coated in a black ash, could barely hold the burnt sticks to form the tower upon which I would set that damned piece of grass. Fingers refused my commands, and the stick fell to the ground.
"Again, Katerina, again!"
Zentrii whooshed past my head, reforming behind me. Her repositioning allowed me the opportunity to scowl. Previous dissents had earned an attack from the she-demon herself, and I was too exhausted to fight back.
"You'll never be a worthy sorceress if you cannot push through the pain. It is an illusion, like life, pay it no mind," said Zentrii in a hissing voice. "If you cannot try, then I will not be your teacher."
It was a threat she'd made time and time again when my efforts lagged. Slumped on my knees, I took stock. The hearty cream woolen shirt I wore was smeared black. I looked more like a miner after a long day than a sorceress practicing her craft.
The question of why I would let such a creature command me reformed in my head to be immediately and absolutely silenced. Only last night, I'd awoken in the hallway standing outside of Brassy's door. The wooden door was scarred with sorcerous blasts. Thankfully I was not powerful in my dream state.
Brassy's worried glances in the morning were not the worst of it. When I'd returned to my room, I found that parts of my leg had gone translucent, as if I were turning incorporeal. The condition was gone by morning, but the implications worried me. If I couldn't learn to control my magic, it would overwhelm me as Zentrii had warned.
"Again, Katerina, again!"
I sensed another attack imminent, so I focused on reforming the tower. My fingers wouldn't cooperate, so I had to use them like simple hooks to get the sticks into place.
When I finished, my arms were trembling like leaves in a strong wind. Each time I used my magic, it was as if I'd clenched my muscles and held them for ten minutes.
"You won't die yet," said Zentrii. "Now, stand and return to your position."
I backed away slowly, even though I knew the additional seconds of rest would do nothing for my exhaustion.
"This taking orders from me bothers you," said Zentrii.
"No," I said. "I'm tired. Only that."
Zentrii hissed air out between her teeth. "If you believe that then you are lying to yourself. I see it in the way you hold yourself. You're like a general on parade before her troops."
"Does this help me learn my craft or is this more pointless abuse?" I asked in a level tone.
"Ha! See!" She jabbed a finger in my direction, her slender tongue tapping on her thin lips. "You think you're better than me. This is why you keep failing. You're not listening."
Without prompting, I repeated the lessons she'd been drilling into my head.
"Life is pain. Pain is an illusion. Forget the pain and concentrate on the power," I said. "Did I get them all?"
"So smart, she thinks she is," said Zentrii, stalking around the hilltop, knocking fronds away with her hands. "So smart, but she cannot knock a simple blade of grass from a tower of sticks. You aren't strong enough yet, so I must train you. Build up your calluses until you cannot feel the pain."
I bit my lower lip. Not only could I feel the pain, but it was getting worse. I wasn't building up calluses, but turning my insides raw until even the tiniest of magics was agonizing pain.
; "Again, Katerina, again," said Zentrii. "Without thinking, flick that piece of grass away."
I did as commanded and summoned it right away. The power burst from my hands uncontrolled, a swirling black ribbon smashing into the tower. The burnt sticks exploded into pieces as I tried to grab the reins with my mind. Each attempt was searing pain, like grabbing a knife that had been left in the fire.
Zentrii hit me with a wind thrust, the impact knocking the air from my lungs and silencing the sorcery. I crouched on the ground and wiped the sweat from my eyes, using the last remaining piece of my shirt that wasn't blackened.
"If you would listen to me, then you could control it. You have power, but no finesse," said Zentrii. "If you would learn, you could make yourself levitate, or knock a bullet from the air, or shape stone."
Under my breath, I mumbled, "I couldn't knock a gnat from the air."
"What did you say?" asked Zentrii, suddenly inches away.
I looked up into her scaled face. The scales shifted as she scowled, examining me for signs of defiance.
"Weak as you are, I could snatch you into the air and throw you into that forest. They would find nothing but bones," said Zentrii.
I believed her. There was nothing but menace in her words. I knew she wanted the knowledge I had of prophecy relating to her; otherwise I might have wondered why she even bothered training me.
"Why does it take so long?" I asked.
"What?"
"When you're older. Because I'm older. Why does it take longer to control it?"
Zentrii tapped her tongue against the roof of her mouth. "At least you know that you cannot control it."
I was too worn out to argue. "But why?"
"The young have fewer illusions about life and that they can control it. You are at the mercy of your experience. Your life provides the background that says, this should be this way, or that should be that way. All of that is dust dancing on a mote in a god's eye. Meaningless," she said.
A salty bead of sweat dripped into my mouth. I thirsted. Salt crusted at the nape of my neck.
"I will try again," I said, climbing wearily to my feet to find a new tower of sticks.
The storm-kin regarded me coolly, arms crossed as I trudged over the broken ground. I'd already scoured the area, so I moved towards the dead, burnt stumps that rose high above my head. When the blast had come, these trees had had the tops ripped from them and thrown across the hilltop. There would be tree limbs there, preserved by the patina of old sorcery.
"No," she said.
With hooked fingers, I lifted a length of branch and began to move back to the training spot.
"No," she said again, this time more forcefully. "We are done."
I paused, unsure if she meant done for today, or done permanently. I looked to her for clarification.
"You are like a field of grass flattened by a storm. Rest, you need it before you can begin again," said Zentrii.
"No," I said, the words barely coming out above a whisper.
"I am the teacher. Who are you to say you can continue?" she asked.
"I must learn to control it," I said, the fears of what would happen if I could not welling up inside of me in a flood of emotion. I was not prone to tears, but my efforts had left me drained of defenses.
As the first blob of water ran down my cheek, slicing through the soot, Zentrii brightened as if she'd spied a diamond amid the rubbage.
She wiped her finger through my tear and licked it. Her eyes rounded, the tortoise shell scales shifting with delight.
"You are giving up control!"
Zentrii showed me her teeth. The expression was feral, yet contained a hint of mirth.
"I am too tired to care," I said.
"Yes," said Zentrii, "that's it. The illusion is falling away."
She took the stick from my hand and threw it into the air. I knew what she wanted. When the magic came, it was different than before, for a moment. At the beginning, it was silky, the pain absent.
Then, the pain returned, bending me at the waist. I wasn't even sure if I'd released my sorcery. It was like I'd been hit in the midsection by a steam carriage.
When I could stand again, Zentrii was frowning.
"Maybe I was wrong," she said. "Maybe you cannot control it. Maybe you're just going to die, which means I am wasting my time."
The denial failed to come to my lips. In my bones, I agreed with her.
"What might happen if I can't control it? Will I just perish in a burst of sorcery?" I asked.
"If you're lucky. For each it's different. Some are transformed by the power into something far more frightening, some turn to grotesque creatures that are immediately hunted down and killed. Others are left in a catatonic state, locked in a world of pain while they cannot affect the world around them," said Zentrii.
"I see."
Zentrii clapped her hands. "Enough. You are finished. The teacher says so. Now I take you back home. Come, Katerina. Rest easy, you are finished."
I stepped into her embrace, ready for the swirling winds to claim us. Yes, finished. Though I will not rest easy.
Chapter Eighteen
The stone arch covered in raised symbols beneath the Franklin Estate provided an imposing view to those who hadn't seen it before. Brassy ran her fingertips across the surface, flinching slightly when the archway shocked her.
"It did that to me upon first entering," I said. "Pay no mind to it."
A tiny, firm hand tugged on my pant leg. Aught, on her hind legs, encouraging forward progress.
"Hurry, Kat and Brassy," said Aught. "Ben, want to see."
"Yes, Aught, you'll see Ben below," I said. "Come, Brassy, let me show you the Thornveld."
She bit her lower lip, looking uneasy. "Are you certain that I'm allowed to visit this place? I have a feeling in my gut that tells me to run the other way."
"That's just the magic of the place, it keeps the curious away. Don't worry, you're in my protection. We need your help," I said.
Brassy hesitated at the threshold, so I took her hand in mine and pulled her forward. She took little shuffling steps, her lips straining with the effort of holding words back.
Aught ran ahead, scampering like a puppy on her first day outside. Her scales shifted and bounced. It sounded like a merchant jingling a bag of coins.
At the end of the tunnel, Brassy gasped. The sight of the underground village left the girl in a state of open-mouthed wonder. I wasn't going to tell her that this place was in another universe.
"Jumpin' Jupiter," muttered Brassy.
I squeezed her shoulder. Her normally fierce blue eyes were tinged with gray.
Ben had been expecting me, so the gondola waited for us. We moved inside. Aught climbed on the bench and placed her face against the window. She was bouncing and ticking.
The lever engaged the engine, and the gondola began its chugging motion down the wire, into the center of the antediluvian village. Brassy stayed clutched on my arm. She looked like she was in pain.
When the gondola lurched into the landing cradle with a loud clang, Brassy jumped.
"I don't think I'm supposed to be here," she said.
I pulled her close and kissed her on the forehead. She smelled like lavender. "You'll be fine. You're with me. Nothing bad will happen."
When the door opened, Aught went bounding out of the gondola, leapt off the platform, and went scampering after Franklin. We made it to the bottom of the wooden stairs before we saw the first galmi.
"What's that stone man?" asked Brassy, her voice ending in a high-pitched squeal.
On previous visits, the galmi had moved glacially, though efficiently. They’d had the pace of an old man, but the grace of a soldier. This one moved like an avalanche coming down the mountain. Around the corner, six more galmi moved towards us, heavy feet clacking against the stone.
Brassy screamed. I placed her behind my back, putting myself in front of the galmi. The stone workers rushed towards us, slowing only at the las
t moment.
I spun and turned, trying to put myself in front of them all, but it was impossible with so many. Before long, we were ringed by at least twenty of the galmi. They pressed in around us, clicking and bumping. I sensed at any moment they might surge forward and take Brassy from me. Only my presence was keeping them from acting.
Unremarkable black eyes relayed a sense of unmerciful menace. A primal force, like the raw power of a cyclone or the bottom of the deep ocean. The hair on my head prickled with the gathering of fell energies.
Around the corner, Ben Franklin came running. He was wearing his smithing leathers, black boots, and a dusty brown shirt. Aught was springing behind him.
"Stop! Stop!" he yelled. "Back away, she's not an intruder!"
Upon hearing the command, the galmi relaxed. It was like the out-breath of calm, the noose loosening away from the hanged neck.
One by one, they peeled away, returning to the tasks they'd been at before Brassy had arrived. Before the last one had departed from the circle around us, I noticed Star-Whorl, the galmi I'd met upon my first visit, watching from an alleyway.
"Kat, what were you thinking? They might have killed this poor girl," said Ben, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief.
"Apologies," I said. "I didn't know the galmi were set to be guardians as well as workers. I thought my presence would be enough."
Brassy was still clutching my back, afraid to move away in case the galmi might return.
Ben's hard features softened. "Brassy, my dear, you have nothing to fear now. I've sent them away."
He held out his hand. Brassy stepped away and took it. "My deepest apologies for the fright that they've caused you. They were merely doing the task I had appointed them."
Ben kissed the back of Brassy's hand. The gesture seemed to soften the girl, who'd been stiff with fright.
Then his gaze fell upon her glass arm with the mechanics clicking and spinning beneath the translucent exterior. His eyes widened.
"I'd nearly forgotten about your arm," said Ben. "What a wonderful limb you have. Might I ask who made it?"
The Franklin Deception (The Dashkova Memoirs Book 4) Page 12
