The Calyx Charm

by May Peterson

  His tan face and devilish grin, greeting me each morning, my new world shaped around him like stems around the path of a sun.

  “This dream helped me get through things. Before I left home. When Father did his worst. When I came here and only had the dark and a locked door for company. I would go into that dream of you and me, a someday I could always make as safe and kind as I wanted.”

  His eyes flicked over me rapidly. “I know what you meant earlier. Because I wish I had known this too. A bit of precognition seems like it’d have made quite the difference, just now.”

  Oh, a difference indeed. Different lives, different me, a potential world that would never breathe again. “When you died...the dream died too. I couldn’t go into it anymore. There was no more someday that waited for me, that promised me happiness and a home with you. I only had the grief.”

  He took my hand again, panic webbing his features. “I’m sorry, Violetta. That I left you alone. That I didn’t come back.”

  A wine-tinged laugh wound up my throat. “But you did come back. You’re here now. You did as you promised. It’s just too late.”

  His frown was stark as a wound. “Why?”

  “Because when I found out you were alive again, the dream came back too. It came back with all this joy and hope, and I was so happy. I spent all of today so...so happy.” I sounded broken and overjoyed and miserable all at once. “I don’t know if I can endure having to let go of that dream again. Even if it’s to risk making it real. The dream I had about you is something I know. It’s safe. But the you that actually wants me?” I held eye contact, pleaded with him silently to comprehend my terror. “I’m afraid of that. I am afraid of sacrificing my dream to the future. I would rather have the dream that I know is a dream, because if it ever becomes something more, losing it will kill me.”

  Tears sparkled at the corners of his eyes, made diamond tracks down his cheeks, but he did not sob, or move, or interrupt. Maybe I would never, as long as I lived, find someone who truly grasped the tyranny the future had over me. But it meant everything to me just then that he didn’t argue.

  He sniffed and wiped an eye. “I think I finally get it. I didn’t see why this is all too much to ask. You’ve been through more than anyone should.”

  “You also deserve someone who takes you as you are. Not as their dream of you.” My heart felt like crazed glass. “I don’t know if I can ever be that person now. And I’ll understand if you’d rather not be friends anymore.” May as well rip the whole fucking thing off.

  “Actually, could we still be pals, if it’s not too painful?” His tone was almost childlike in tenderness. “I’m too late. We missed something, or I missed it, and it can’t come back again. But I would love to be in your life, somehow. If you’ll take me.”

  I paused, and knew I would not refuse. It was nevertheless hard to nod. “All right. Besides.” I let go of his hand, felt the abrupt absence of sensation. “I have to give you the locket back, once I’ve fixed it.”

  He chuckled, wiping his face again. “Violetta. You don’t have to actually do that.”

  “Yes, I do.” My voice dropped, the feel of a dragon’s tail snaking across my back. Yes, I absolutely did. “I want my friends to have these. Soldiers used to carry locks of my hair into battle, so I can make enough for you all. You were supposed to have this to invoke if you needed, before you left.”

  “Oh.” His expression fell. “It seems...quite a lot of things did not happen in time.”

  I wouldn’t cry again in front of him. I would not. “I may not be able to help you if you invoke me, but I want you to have it all the same.”

  He agreed, and we hugged. And then he was gone. Not the way he’d come, but with a hand wave and a smear of night sky, like a grin opening in the dark. It ate him, and he was gone.

  The emptiness of my room was the only conversation partner I had left.

  * * *

  My intuition dragged me awake.

  I could avoid prophesying directly, but the future never left me the fuck alone. Sometimes the sensations in me were like background, easy enough to ignore. Other times, it was like music blaring in my ear.

  This felt like someone was invoking me. It had become an everyday sensation during the war. Someone with an amulet would stroke the lock of hair, and as if the lock and I were still connected, my consciousness would be pulled to it. This was different, more specific. Not an invocation, more like a warning.

  Someone was looking for me.

  I rose, gave myself a half hour to just stare at the floor and cry for a little. It helped. My chest felt less barbed on the inside, my head less fuzzy. Dawn had already scaled the wall of my flat, inviting itself through the windows as it became late morning.

  I had a little money now. Maybe some breakfast was in order. I tied up my hair, did up my face, and dressed. Pink silk with purple flowers, indigo sash, and a headband I’d crusted a few amethysts to as a makeshift periapt.

  I had one little umbrella that suited my needs just fine. On the way into town, I stopped and bought a second umbrella. The sky was clear but caterwauling with wind. It wouldn’t be clear for long. I also put a handful of pebbles in my pocket.

  I walked to a square in a nicer part of town. This square had two cafés facing off over the cobblestones, and a moment of prescience revealed which was more expensive. A mean-spirited part of me made the decision. I was not paying for this. So I walked into the expensive café and asked for a street-side table.

  Then I waited. It was thrilling to let myself be this angry. I had made my wishes absolutely clear, but to a woman who—like so many in my life—nevertheless cared nothing for them.

  This had better be important. I was in a bridge-burning mood.

  After helping myself to a pot of their finest imported tea and ordering another—with a breakfast spread—my questant appeared. Alone. That was good. She wasn’t looking at me, didn’t even seem to notice me.

  I lobbed one of my pebbles at her.

  It hit Serafina right in the arm, and she whirled, looking as flabbergasted as I’d ever seen her.

  “Did you just throw a fucking stone at me?”

  I took a sip of tea. “Yes. Come sit down.”

  She appeared to be mustering a cloud of invective—so I threw another stone. It pinged against the front of her scarf. She practically hissed. “Stop that, you wily little bitch!”

  This was absurdly satisfying. “You went to my flat and found me not at home. I could feel you looking for me all morning. I told you if you came to me again it had better be to kill me.”

  A waiter passing by stopped, quirked a brow.

  This was Vermagna, he’d take it in stride by the end of the day. “If you’re not willing to try, come sit the fuck down and have a cup of tea with me. On you. Or else go home.”

  Gray was taking over half the sky. I turned, smiled to the waiter, and asked for a second cup. Serafina gave the impression she was silently counting to ten. Then, she strode in and sat down.

  She slipped off gloves and settled her bag in a free seat. “I can’t tell if I hate or love this new penchant for drama.” She accepted the fetched cup with grace and ordered a steak tartar.

  “I take this as a sign that there’s a more peaceful reason for this visit?” A public meeting place was not what she would have chosen, so it was a good defense. But I didn’t have the stomach for ten rounds with blasted Serafina. Not the day after my fondest dream had come true, and I’d told it to clear off.

  “You’re in a fucking mood.” She breathed, as if steadying herself. “But I know. I apologize for intruding again.”

  I blinked. “You what?”

  Gritted teeth flashed in the noonday sun. “I. Apologize.”

  Somehow this amplified my anxiety more than any threat could have. “I don’t have time for games.” I rose.

 
“No, please!” She grabbed my arm. “This isn’t a game. Truly. It’s not all I came to apologize for.”

  She seemed...scared. That I would leave, and of something worse. I didn’t try to disguise my tremors as I sat back down.

  She smoothed her napkin. “I know it’s not good enough. But I am sorry for using my occhiorosso on you. I am. You don’t have to believe that, and I wouldn’t in your place, but I am. You didn’t deserve it.”

  The unspoken addition sat there, unfurling on the table between us: not after what your father did to you.

  Understanding this about Serafina wasn’t difficult after all these years. She didn’t want to use her sorcery on rape victims. Who knew how the irony of that was lost on her, considering what a violation sorcery was. But she had never apologized to me before.

  It was a new feeling. Everyone seemed to believe me omniscient, or close enough. Like the future was a score I was reading off, instead of merely something I could sense, like skin sensed touch. Didn’t mean one understood everything one touched. They never seemed to consider I could be shocked or surprised. I was now. Serafina’s embarrassed apology shouldn’t make me feel better.

  But it did. Someone who’d hurt me, on purpose, was acknowledging that they’d done it, and that it had been a fucking inhuman thing to do. Of course it made me feel better.

  “All right.” My tone was softer. “But I can’t believe that you came to me only to make amends.” I put my cup down. “You want me to tell your future.”

  Her frown was perhaps the most sympathetic expression I’d ever seen from her. “No. I came to ask you to tell Tibario’s.”

  I imitated stone.

  “I don’t know what you’ve foreseen already.” She had the shame or consideration to look down into her cup, give my crumbling stoicism space. “I’ve realized that even as a sorcerer, I don’t know how to gauge what knowledge must be like for you. So I’ll assume nothing. Tibario is quite alive, Violetta. A spirit resurrected him as a cat-soul. Isn’t that the most appropriate fact you’ve ever learned? He was halfway to a cat as it was. Could swear he used to catch fish in his mouth for fun.”

  Her grizzled affection stank, whirled around me too heavily to be faked. I gritted my jaw. “And you didn’t tell me.”

  “You mean you weren’t the first to know? Don’t take this the wrong way, my girl, but I assumed you’d feel him climb out of his grave in a dead sleep. Almost wondered why you didn’t tell me it was going to happen. Besides. You no doubt know by now what he and I orchestrated together. Something that very much needed to succeed, and did not.”

  If she wasn’t going to read my mind, I wasn’t giving a shred away. “Catch me up.”

  She flourished, flexed her brows, but spoke low into her teacup. “The assassination of Lord Prince Benedetti, of course.”

  No sign that Tibario had told her of my presence that night. That could only mean that she hadn’t read his mind since that night, either. Strange. My impression had always been that she invaded her son’s mind as casually as one might check the time. I was no more ready for a repentant Serafina than I was for a Tibario who yearned for me.

  “Something is wrong.” She wore no hauteur, no bristling ardor. She was well and truly terrified of something. Which was horrific in its own right. “A power protected him. A power that seemed in all ways to be yours.”

  “I didn’t protect Father, if you are about to accuse me of that.” I had to speak slowly to avoid stuttering.

  “I struggle to see why you would. So what caused this? Or, hell, if even you don’t know, maybe tell me this: what’s going to happen to Tibario. I already lost him once. Mio is gone for good. Tell me there’s not just some empty space in the future where Tibario should be.”

  Mio was gone? The vision came to me suddenly of Serafina, staring out her window, my prophecy sprawling at her feet. Her family all gone, even loyal Tibario. That was what she was afraid of. Of the true and permanent loss of him. And that moved me. It moved me like nothing else could have moved me.

  “You don’t know what you’re asking.” I didn’t sound strong, like a formidable fellow witch. I sounded wasted and small.

  “No, but I have an idea.” She hadn’t raised her voice from a whisper. “You think you’re the only witch who’s cut by the other edge of her craft? There’s some complication you have to consider when you see the future. Otherwise you wouldn’t have held back foreseeing as much as possible about Tibario’s death. I know what it means to have to wield power carefully, or cut yourself too deeply in the process.”

  I frowned up at her. A witch who controlled minds via dark secrets—what counted as a dark secret for her?

  She paused as her meal was brought, tea refilled. “I can offer this. The harsher the weight of the magic, the heavier it hits when it works. Honestly, you surprised me the night of his death. You told me I had to accept that you might not do it. So let’s try that again. Decide if the cut you’ll have to make is worth what you’re cutting for. And if you decide it’s not, I’ll walk away.”

  Her eyes pinned me, but no sorcerous light flamed in them. Only an uncharacteristic and chilling sincerity. Serafina did not ask favors.

  At my hesitation, she leaned back, gnawing a finger, as if to remove pressure. “I’m not afraid for myself. But I am afraid. Mio is gone. Gino can’t even come home. The revolution was meant to bring us freedom, and the country is poorer than ever, a sun-baked shell of what it once could have been. It is very likely that the struggle with Casilio over the future of Portia is what will kill me, but I have made peace with that. I wanted Tibario to get out alive. All it took was an angry ghost and my error of judgment and he was gone. By some miracle that still defies belief, he received a second chance. He’s as potent and superhuman as any Colombo, but moon-souls can still die.”

  She tilted in, the hardness of her gaze halfway between resolve and pleading. “The men of this country do not have an answer, but maybe the women do. I think that has to start with you. You are the only one who told me what to expect and was right. I won’t pretend for an instant that I have seen the error of my ways and am a good witch now, cross my heart and hope to burn. I’m not sorry for most of the people I’ve hurt. But I know when I’m up against a limit. So I am asking you. Tell me where we go from here.”

  I believed her. For good or ill, I believed she had never in her life been this afraid.

  The calyx charm still existed, but it wasn’t mine anymore. That was perhaps reason enough to be afraid.

  I sighed. “Give me your hand.”

  She blinked. “What?”

  “Show me your palm. People don’t see me as the Honored Child anymore. All this helps.” I gestured at my appearance. “A mollygirl having a fit while reading your palm is going to look more normal if whatever I see is as bad as I think it is.”

  Serafina obeyed, slowly, as if afraid to touch me. “So you won’t use cards, tea leaves, any of that?”

  “No. No more filtering what the future has to show me. Now be still, please.” My heart was like a prisoner railing against the inside of a cage. Gently, I held her hand, stared into her palm.

  And let my consciousness fall through time. I felt where the future was boiling in my bones, and let it bubble up into visions in my head.

  Prophecy hit me with the force of a freight train.

  It was at first only loud, unfocused emotion. Hunger, hope, anger, fear beyond description. Fear like a physical thing, under the ground and in the air.

  Then the fear opened its scaled eyes, and ruin consumed the city.

  It was only a vision. A distant, rational part of me knew that. But I was under siege from sensations, and could not distinguish between then and now. Vermagna sprawled around me, buildings toppled, earth blasted, the city becoming ash and dust. For an instant, I sat at that café table, alone, surrounded by devastation instead of a busy street
. Even the skyline was gone. Vermagna was a bleak scar of a forgotten people.

  Then the vision expanded, became a disjointed series of moments. People screaming, burning up, running in all directions and being incinerated by waves of fiery light.

  It was like holding my prophecies back for so long had dammed them, brought them to bursting pressure. Fear ravaged me. I almost pulled back, ran from the prophecy, but I hadn’t made any sense of it yet. I had to thin the flow of sensations, trace the meaning in it.

  A sense of time fell on me, like context suddenly grasped in a dream. A luminous force burst from within Vermagna, pulsing outward and scouring it clean. Something was here already, waiting for the moment of fruition, and when it fully awakened it would leave nothing behind.

  Images and feelings fell like blows, telling me their tales with fever-sleep urgency. Weifan and Rosalina defending the Rose from invaders; Tibario’s arms warm around me, then Tibario in chains, thrashing. Serafina, haloed with scarlet flames, her body burning up. Tibario was poised at her feet, his eyes red and vacant as her sorcery filled his mind. My mother, watching me sadly as she was consumed by light.

  Then, Tibario falling dead, adrift in an aimless darkness. Even moon-souls could die, and he died again in the cold of the abyss, eyes stained red with Serafina’s power.

  Father stood tall and strong through it all, the center of the cataclysm, armored with the calyx charm against all harm. The city was already crumbling, debris falling on him, crushing his men. He withstood it all.

  Then the light swallowed him too. It had grown vast enough to pierce the calyx charm, at last, after devouring every other fragile thing on the face of the earth.

  Intuition shrieked at me the name of this light. A living power, descending like a god. But it wasn’t a god. It was a dragon-soul. The flower of magic expanding beyond the limits of a witch’s body. It clawed the heavens, wild and divine and eradicating.