The Smoke-Scented Girl

by Melissa McShane

  He blinked and focused on her. She’d chosen a full-skirted gown in deep blue, fitted closely in the waist and bust to flatter her excellent figure. The color brought out the gold in her hair and made her too-creamy complexion seem less unnatural. She smoothed the bodice and shook out the skirts, and said, “I think this is much nicer, don’t you?”

  He nodded. He was having trouble speaking. He caught the shop assistant watching him suspiciously, realized he was not looking at Kerensa in the way a brother would, and said, “It looks very nice. Miss, would you mind wrapping the old gown for us to take away? We really should return it to the kind woman who loaned it to my sister. Not her fault they’re very different shapes, yes?”

  He paid for the dress and a charcoal gray bonnet, and with parcel in hand he escorted Kerensa back to the inn and their suite. “Would you mind waiting in your room for a moment?” he asked. “I have to update Miss Elltis on my progress.” His instinct was to prevent Miss Elltis from seeing Kerensa, who would look with suspicion on Evon’s motives if she knew the spell was attached to the body of an attractive young woman. Evon didn’t know why she held such a dislike for attractive young women; he only knew that Miss Elltis employed no one of that description and had rejected at least one applicant on those grounds alone.

  Kerensa took the parcel from him. “I’ll see if I can’t get this mud off,” she said, “and it can be my alternative to running around naked.” Her hazel eyes twinkled at him, and once again he found himself without a ready response. He stared after her for a long moment after she’d closed the bathroom door behind her, then cleared his throat and drew up a chair in front of the small mirror over the shining parquet surface of the dressing table. He huffed on the mirror and quickly drew a pair of runes in the resulting fog. “Tifana Elltis eloqua,” he said, and the surface of the mirror fogged over completely. Eloqua tasted pleasantly of mint, strong enough that he imagined he could smell the illusory taste. He sat back in his chair and waited. He was fairly certain that Miss Elltis always delayed responding to his communication spell to remind him that she was in charge, at least nominally. He leaned back further and tilted the chair so it balanced on two legs. In school, he’d been able to keep that position up indefinitely. He took out his pocket watch.

  Seventeen minutes later, the fog cleared and Miss Elltis’s face loomed out at him from the mirror. Her smooth, round cheeks were rosy, as if she’d been running, and the creases at the corners of her eyes and mouth were deeper than usual. Something had occurred to upset her. “Mr. Lorantis,” she said. Her voice, by contrast to her face, was expressionless.

  Evon set his chair down on all four legs and said, “Good morning, Miss Elltis.”

  “I hope you have news for me.”

  “I do. I’ve located the carrier of the spell.”

  “The ‘carrier’ of the spell? Are you being deliberately opaque, Mr. Lorantis?”

  “No, I’m being deliberately precise, Miss Elltis.” Evon summarized the last twenty-four hours’ events, emphasizing what he’d learned about the spell and omitting the part where he’d spent her money on Kerensa’s clothing. When he was finished, Miss Elltis’s eyebrow was twitching, a tic Evon recognized as a sign that she was thinking furiously. He resisted the urge to fill her silence with more words.

  “If I understand you,” she said finally, “this girl has no control over the spell.”

  “Correct.”

  “Which indicates that she is of no use to us in using the spell to our advantage.”

  “Not in the sense that she’s a magician who can teach me the spell, true, but I can’t separate it from her, so in a different sense, she’s crucial to my understanding of it.”

  Miss Elltis pursed her lips again. “You’ve made this report to Home Defense as well.”

  “Mr. Faranter has, yes.”

  The eyebrow twitched. “I’m inclined to tell you to leave it to them and return home.”

  Evon’s jaw dropped. “Miss Elltis, we are so very close to understanding this spell—”

  “Mr. Lorantis, by your own account you haven’t even begun to investigate this spell.”

  “Which is why it would be foolish to give up before we’ve started.”

  “Are you calling me a fool, Mr. Lorantis?”

  “Of course not, Miss Elltis, I’m saying that Elltis and Company hasn’t prospered all these years by stepping aside from a challenge before fully engaging with it. I’m prepared to do whatever it takes to discover the workings of this spell. I think you know what I’m capable of. I merely want your support.”

  Twitch, twitch. “I don’t like the idea of this cooperative’s resources being squandered, Mr. Lorantis. You had better be able to produce results.”

  “I assure you, Miss Elltis, I am quite careful of our resources. I anticipate success very soon.”

  “For your sake, Mr. Lorantis, I sincerely hope you are correct.” She cut the connection without another word.

  Evon gently knocked his forehead against the dressing table. Someday, he’d be in a position to give Miss Elltis orders, and what a sweet day that would be. What could have upset her so? Well, it wasn’t his concern, and frankly, he wasn’t all that sorry to see Miss Elltis discomfited.

  “I’ve caused you trouble,” Kerensa said from behind him. He turned to see her standing in the bathroom doorway, her hand on the knob.

  “No, Miss Elltis delights in finding ways to cause me trouble,” he said, “and she is using that spell as a pretext. Were you listening?”

  “Not on purpose. No, that’s a lie. I wanted to hear what your dragon maiden aunt sounded like. She is nasty, isn’t she?”

  Evon thought he should probably take her to task for eavesdropping, but found he didn’t really mind. It wasn’t as if he’d said anything he wouldn’t have told Kerensa later. “She can be, yes. She was in a foul mood just now. Normally she’s more polite.”

  “I think it’s too bad you have to put up with her. Why don’t you form your own, what did you call it, cooperative?”

  “It’s hard to make a name for yourself, and I’d have to give up too much of my research to run such a thing. My hope is to gain equity in Elltis and Company and thereby gain more control. Miss Elltis has to retire someday, after all.”

  “I didn’t think dragon maiden aunts ever retired. Sit in a corner and make rude noises at people, possibly.”

  Evon raised his eyebrows at her. “You’re...pardon my saying, but you’re in a remarkably cheerful mood.”

  She twirled in place, making the skirt flare out. “I didn’t realize what a difference clothing that fits makes. I haven’t had a comfortable dress for...is it seven months, or eight? I feel light all over.”

  “If I were really your brother, I would point out that I was right and you should listen to my wisdom in future.”

  “If I were really your sister, I would roll my eyes in your direction.”

  “Do you suppose we could begin investigating that spell? I know I sounded dismissive, but I don’t want to disregard Miss Elltis’s instructions entirely.”

  The smile left her face. “I forgot,” she said. “For a moment I forgot about it entirely.”

  She looked so lost that Evon’s heart went out to her. “Let’s see if we can let you forget about it permanently,” he said, and offered her the chair he’d been sitting in.

  When Piercy returned half an hour later, Kerensa was once again wreathed in blue spell-ribbons, still dark and dormant and frozen in the grip of desini cucurri. Evon was so caught up in his work that Piercy’s entrance startled him, and he dropped his pencil.

  “I beg your pardon,” Piercy said, retrieving it and handing it over. “Miss—should I call you Miss Haylter when we’re alone?”

  “I’d like for you to call me Kerensa, Mr. Faranter, since Evon is doing the same. It makes me feel less awkward, like I’m really among friends.”

  Piercy looked a little startled, but said, “Then if we are friends you should call me Piercy. A
nd now that we are entirely friendly, dear fellow, I think I should tell you about my day, if you’re in a position to be interrupted.”

  “I lost my place when I dropped my pencil, so you might as well.” The spell-ribbons jerked and resumed their motion. “It seems the spell is ready for a rest too.”

  Piercy sat on his bed and laced his fingers together in front of him. “My superiors are sending someone to take charge of Miss—Kerensa, that is.”

  Evon stared. “Piercy. You promised—”

  “I said I’d be at my most persuasive. It seems my most persuasive wasn’t good enough to overcome the fact that the spell is under no one’s control. You must realize how they’d feel about that.”

  “What do you mean, take charge of me?” Kerensa asked. She’d clasped her hands in her lap and her knuckles were showing white.

  Piercy sighed. “They weren’t forthcoming with the details. I’m afraid they don’t understand the danger of your being forced to miss your rendezvous, so to speak. Evon, you’ll have to convince them. They know I know almost nothing about magic; they think this is a simple matter of national security.”

  “Should we run?” Evon asked.

  Piercy blanched. “Dear fellow, aside from that being ultimately pointless because the government has virtually unlimited resources to bring to bear on finding us, it would be treason. I had the feeling, in talking to them, that the war is not going well at all and certain factions within the government have built up this spell as our salvation. How they intend to use it is anyone’s guess, but as I said, they don’t seem to understand how the spell works at all. I’ve been instructed to stay here and wait for whomever they send to...I hope not relieve me, but it might come to that.”

  “Piercy, this is disastrous.”

  “I know, dear fellow, but you have four days to unravel that spell before they arrive.”

  “And suppose Kerensa is forced to move on before then?”

  “Then I will have to remain behind.” Piercy looked grim. “I cannot seem to be disregarding orders, even for such a justification as that. I just hope it doesn’t come to that, because I doubt they’ll accept any excuse for Kerensa not being here when they arrive.”

  “I can’t wait on them,” Kerensa said.

  “No one’s telling you to,” Evon said. “If the urge does come upon you, we’ll move ahead and I’ll keep Piercy apprised of our progress and location. But it’s not going to happen.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I don’t. I’m being unreasonably optimistic because I’m filled with dread. If your next words are to tell me that Odelia will be here in the next fifteen minutes, I may begin screaming.”

  “No, I’ve seen no sign of Odelia or her companions,” Piercy said. “No suspicious lurkers, no one asking after us. But it might not be a bad idea to blanket this inn in whatever protective magic you have at your command.”

  “It’s a large inn, Piercy, I’m not sure how far my reserves will extend. But I’ll try.”

  Piercy jabbed a finger at one of the spell-ribbons. “They quite match your dress, Kerensa, which is lovely. You must have excellent taste, because Lore is practically color-blind.”

  “I am not. Just because I don’t think an afternoon spent choosing a neckcloth to match a new waistcoat is enjoyable.”

  “I didn’t think of the color when I chose it,” Kerensa said, eyeing a spell-ribbon that hung in front of her left eye. “I wonder if they influenced me at all?”

  “More likely it was that shop assistant,” Evon said absently, going back to his notes. “I’ve been building a lexicon of the new runes. It’s really astonishing. Whoever built the spell didn’t use runes the way we do at all. He, or she, treated the runes as pictograms, representing words instead of symbols. It’s a narrow distinction, but an important one. I think these—” he traced the line of a ribbon with the tip of his pencil—“are sentences. If I can work out what the other words are, I can read the spell as easily as if it were a book.”

  “That’s unusual, is it?” Kerensa said. “And please don’t poke me in the eye.”

  “Sorry. Yes, extremely unusual. Everything would take forever if we cast spells this way. Desini cucurri is so much faster than saying ‘Blue porcelain vase next to the brown table, stop falling now,’ for example. But our spells are also far less complex than this one. The whole concept is groundbreaking. It opens up a whole new paradigm for spell-casting. This alone could keep me busy for the next ten years.”

  “Your enthusiasm is, as always, terrifying to behold,” Piercy said, “and it’s dinnertime. Kerensa, if your stomach could produce a ladylike growl at this point, it would do wonders toward helping me convince Lore that he needs to eat just like the rest of us.”

  “I can’t growl on command,” Kerensa said, “but I can say ‘dear brother, I’m starving, could we please eat now?’”

  Evon scowled. “I’ve made the biggest breakthrough in magical theory this century, and you two mock me. You’ll be sorry when you read my memoirs.”

  “I would tremble at that threat, dear fellow, but I know you’ll be too distracted to remember to write them.”

  Chapter Nine

  Evon scribbled through a word, pressing hard enough that the tip of his pencil snapped and flew off to plink against the window. He swore. Behind him, Kerensa said, “I had no idea gentlemen used that kind of language. Should I pretend I didn’t understand?”

  “Gentlemen can be just as vulgar as anyone else, given the right provocation, and right now I am extremely provoked. I don’t have enough information to interpret this rune, and without it I can’t interpret this entire branch. I haven’t made any progress in the last half hour. I think we should take a rest.”

  Kerensa put her book down. “I’d like to stretch,” she admitted. “And this book is interesting, but I wish it had more original material.”

  Evon dismissed epiria and sat down on his bed, flexing his stiff fingers. He’d been working for three and a half hours and had discovered the meaning of fifteen runes, not his most productive session, but at least he was making progress, or had been. He had the nagging feeling that he was going about this the longest possible way, that if he could just find the right perspective it would all fall into place. But he couldn’t find that perspective, so he kept slogging away while Kerensa read or stared into the distance or, on one occasion, took a nap. Four days, and Piercy expected his superiors to appear at any moment. Evon had copied out five hundred unique runes and he understood barely a hundred of them. Fragments of runic sentences swam before his eyes when he lay down to sleep: and make it the, or can find, or other useless phrases. Nothing that would unlock the secrets of the spell; nothing that might free Kerensa from its grasp.

  “I’ll have Piercy get you another,” he said. “This must be so boring for you.”

  “You keep saying that,” Kerensa said, looking out the window. “My life’s been exciting enough, these last months. Boring is nice. Boring with a book to read is nicer.”

  Evon flopped back to lie on the bed and put his hands behind his head. “So it’s at least a good book.”

  “The author believes that Alvor will return soon to free us from tyranny, though she doesn’t say whose tyranny we need to be freed from. Aside from that, she tells some good stories.”

  “So you’re not, in Piercy’s phrase, an Alvorian conspiracist.”

  “That’s a good phrase. No, I think Alvor and his friends were real people, but not immortal or anything like that. I’m interested in working out what’s true and what isn’t in all these legends. Like this one, about how Dania gained her powers. It says she challenged a magician called the Wooden Man for his secrets, though I’m not sure why she would need to.”

  “A thousand years ago magicians were secretive about their spells. They would surround the command words with gibberish to prevent rivals from learning their spells, or cast them from a distance so the words couldn’t be overheard. Magicians would sometimes challeng
e each other to contests in which they each might put up a spell as a stake.”

  “Oh. Well, in this story, Dania had no magical powers and she challenged the Wooden Man for all of his spells. He was supposed to be actually made of wood and so never got tired or needed to eat or piss or anything like that. But I think it’s more reasonable to assume that a magician of that power probably had spells that would give him those abilities. Am I right?”

  Evon considered. “I don’t know of any spells that exist now that would, for example, remove the need to sleep. But I could probably create one.”

  “Yes. So what I think is that Dania challenged a powerful magician who was capable of altering his body—”

  “Wait just a second.” Evon bounced up and went to the dressing table, covered with sheets of his notes. “I know I—that’s it. This rune means ‘alter.’ The spell altered your body so you couldn’t be damaged by normal fire. It must be why you look so....” He waved his hand, holding the sheet of paper, in a circle in her direction.

  “Why I look so what?”

  “Um. So...smooth?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He had the feeling he’d walked into a trap. “You must know,” he said, “the way your skin looks like it doesn’t have pores...?”

  She stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. Evon reached out and took her hand, used his other hand to push her sleeve up to her elbow, then rolled back his own. “Obviously your skin would be smoother than mine in any case, but—”

  She snatched her hand out of his and held her forearm up to her eyes. Then she dashed to the mirror above the dressing table and leaned in close, scattering some of Evon’s notes. “I look awful,” she moaned. “I look like I’m wearing a flesh mask. I can’t believe I’ve been walking around, thinking at least I look like a normal person, when all this time—”

  “It really isn’t that bad,” Evon said. “No one’s commented on it before, have they? Not even when you were able to settle down for a while? You’re really very pretty, you know.”