by C. L. Polk
“We have never seen magic wielded in such a fashion,” Ysonde said. “You must have numbered over a hundred, working in concert. How do you harness that many wills to one purpose?”
“Storm-Singers begin training as children,” I said. “My father taught me to command the sky, and taught my brother to serve as my reservoir so that I could fight against the storms more effectively.”
Aife’s brows knitted together, but her fingers never ceased their plucking and fretting. “Necessity drove you to enslave your own, you mean.”
I winced. “Yes. It takes immense power to tear apart a cyclonic storm,” I said. “It’s not just winter. Spring rains are easy to calm, but summer brings the cyclonic storms in-country, threatening our crops and towns. Autumn usually drags torrential rain and wind along the coast. We are on guard every day of the year. And storm years more than most.”
“This is a storm year, then.”
“Yes.” I folded my hands in my lap. “And it’s the worst one any of us have ever seen. Worse than the last.”
“When was that?”
“Three years ago. It used to be every seven, in my grandfather’s day, then five. Now three. And in the future?” I spread my hands and shrugged. “That’s why I need to find out how to free the witches, how to end their persecution. If the storms are growing more powerful, there are not enough of us in the Hundred Families to stand against them.”
“So you are ready to comply with my requirements?” Aife asked.
“It’s not going to be that easy. We have done terrible things to the witches. We did everything in our power to keep it a secret. I don’t know how to reveal the truth and save the Storm-Singers at the same time.”
“And you will need both,” Aife said. “You will need every last witch who can weave a wind if you’re going to save your nation. Find a way, Grace.”
Ysonde pulled a sloping lap desk onto his knees and carefully untwisted the cap of a black-and-silver filigree pen. I recognized it as a popular model from Wilson and Smith and not a marvel of Amaranthine design. He caught my eye and smiled, his cheeks plumping. “This is a far cry from dipping a quill. I quite admire this contraption.”
He liked pens? I’d bring him twenty, and a quart of ink besides. “What are you writing?”
“Notes on our meeting. I’ve noticed that both you and the Prince are freer with your real inclinations when your monarch is not in the room.”
I flushed. “We’re doing what we can to ease Aeland’s trouble.”
“You and the Prince are a good team.” Ysonde set his pen to paper and drew small ideographs, completely unreadable by me. They were beautiful curving shapes compared to the angularity of Aelander script. “I’d rather deal with the two of you than Constantina.”
I swallowed. He couldn’t be implying what hung in the air. He was simply stating his preference; that was all. I pushed myself from the armchair and bowed. “Thank you for seeing me. Did you have any more questions?”
“What do you know of the Stormbowl?” Aife asked.
“Samindan sailors call the Cauldron that,” I said. “It’s uncharted waters, hundreds of miles west of the Aelish coast. It’s very warm water in an otherwise cold ocean, and it creates pressure systems that become storms. The trade winds push it eastward, and they funnel toward us. No one has returned from daring to explore the Cauldron.”
“Who would dare to explore it?” Aife asked.
“Aelander ouranologists are deathly curious about the phenomenon. Samindan sailors steer well away from it.”
Aife looked up at the gamboling troop of butterflies rollicking around the faceted glass dome. “That is wise,” she said. “It’s a dangerous place.”
“How do you know?” I asked. “Is it dangerous in the Solace, too?”
Aife missed a note. Ysonde looked up from a smudge on the page. They glanced at each other, then realized I had seen their startlement and turned to me, speaking not a word.
I bowed my head and bobbed my knees in embarrassed courtesy. “I have an obligation elsewhere. My apologies.”
“May it be a pleasure,” Aife said, and I kept my mouth shut while I smiled.
The music ceased the second the door closed behind me, but I couldn’t stay and attempt to listen. I hurried out of the ambassador’s wing and found a page.
“I need to go to the palace mortuary,” I told her, and the girl, probably a child of one of the palace’s hundreds of servants, led the way.
* * *
The page wouldn’t venture down the short hallway leading to the mortuary, but she had guided me to the right place without error. I regarded the wide double doors shut firmly before me, a message painted on each: “Mortuary—no admittance without authorization.”
Tacked below this message was a note:
“Examination in progress. Thank you for your discretion.”
I hesitated, my hand poised just above the door lever. Miles was in there, with a body, cut open with all its insides showing—a vision of the flashing blade of the huntmaster parting the belly of a slaughtered stag on my first hunt, the ropy entrails sliding out—
I snatched my hand away, then sneered at my weakness. Don’t be a child. I scoffed at myself and pushed the handle down, swinging the door open.
A sickly, pungent bouquet of smells crawled up my nose—the odor of the butcher shop amid the high, gassy scent of alcohol and solvent through the medicinal smell of carbolic soap. The room was pale green tile sprinkled with black, and a noisy wall clock tocked every inevitable second. A long white porcelain table held spring scales with tall steel bowls perched on the trays, and I swept my gaze to the pebbled glass windows before the red things inside the bowls became recognizable.
“Come in; shut the door,” Miles said. “Are you sure there’s nothing wrong with it?”
“Positive.”
Miles’s mystery assistant was his friend Robin. Her hair was tied back and protected by a boiled linen head wrap. She was covered in a gray cotton smock with a black rubber apron, her hands encased in ochre-colored rubber gloves, and in those hands, she cradled a glistening human heart.
I choked down a cry of horror.
Miles twisted in his chair, concern arched across his eyebrows.
“We’re nearly finished,” Miles said. “Maybe you should wait outside.”
“I’m fine,” I said.
“You’re green.” He wheeled his chair toward me, offering a small brown glass jar. “You can put some of this on your upper lip if the smell is too much.”
He unscrewed the cap, and a whiff of menthol seeped out. I shook my head. “It’s the gaslight. I’m fine.”
I turned my gaze to Sevitii’s body on the table, and gasped.
“Blast it, Grace. Don’t look.”
But I had already seen her. I saw the red flesh and white bone and the deep hole in her body where her heart should have been. I saw her face, bloodless and waxy and—
Miles pulled the hand brake and stood up, turning me around. “Steady,” he said. “It’s natural, what you’re feeling right now. Adrenaline production has you shaking, ready to fight or run away. You have to learn to calm instinct when you learn how to do what we do.”
I closed my eyes and tried to keep the sour taste flooding my mouth from becoming a complete loss of dignity. Footsteps sounded behind me, followed by the click of a cabinet door opening. The soft flutter of fabric unfurling came after, and then Robin said, “She’s covered.”
“I fainted during my first practical anatomy class.” Miles patted my back. “I went down like a felled tree.”
“You’re just telling me that to make me feel better.”
“I really did faint. You can turn around now.”
Sevitii was draped in a white sheet, completely covered. I took a shaky step forward. “What have you found?”
“The only clue is the eyes,” Miles said. “Her heart is perfectly healthy. Her brain is unblemished. Liver, lungs, all her internal organs show no
sign of degeneration. We’ve pored over slides and tests, and they all say the same thing.”
Robin shook her head. “She suffocated. But we can’t tell you how it happened.”
“There are no bruises around her mouth and nose. Her airway is completely clear,” Miles said. “There is no evidence that someone forcibly smothered her, and there was no sign of a struggle at the scene.”
“But what does that mean?”
Miles and Robin exchanged glances. Miles clamped his lips shut.
“I know you’d be guessing,” I said. “But please, tell me.”
“I can’t say,” Miles said.
“Give me something. You can’t find a natural cause of death. That means her death was unnatural. Oh.” I covered my mouth. “Miles, could magic do this?”
“Yes,” Miles said. “If I touched someone, skin to skin, I could use my power to kill them.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Of course he didn’t.” Robin threw her discarded gloves into a bin.
“And you know this,” I said. “Miss Thorpe. I don’t wish to alarm you, but I believe I should tell you that I know you’re a witch.”
“I’m aware of that.” Robin moved to a deep porcelain-covered sink and turned the taps, scrubbing her hands with a scarlet bar of carbolic soap. She washed her hands as methodically as Miles did, turning to lean against the lip of the sink as she used a brush on her soapy nails. “Miles says you can be trusted.”
“I can,” I said.
Robin smiled, closed-mouthed and ironic. “As you say.”
She wasn’t one to give leeway. I fought the heat blooming in my cheeks with a clear, even voice. “I need to know something. Something of vital importance. There are witches in Riverside. They have the gift of being able to control the weather.”
Robin switched the brush to her other hand, swiping it over her nails. She kept silent. Miles shifted in his chair.
I plunged onward. “Aeland needs them,” I said. “That storm was just the first of many. We need all the power we can get.”
“And will these witches be your equal? Will they be invited to live behind the gates of the Western Point? Will they gain rich Cabinet positions, just like you?”
She knew. She knew all about the Royal Knights already, as if it wasn’t really a secret. I stood speechless, unable to come up with a response.
Robin rinsed the nail brush under the flow, and running water washed soap suds away. “And will you ask them to stand by while examiners steal their relatives and friends while you spare them?”
I was back on the rolling deck of a ship, fighting to stand against her words, but they staggered me. “Aeland needs them. This is a crisis.”
“Centuries of persecution has been a crisis. Decades of incarceration has been a crisis. Now a storm you couldn’t handle pounded at the door, and you’re talking about a crisis.”
“You can’t deny the problem we face!”
“You seem to be denying our problem just fine,” Robin said. “If you want those witches to help you, how are you going to guarantee they won’t wind up imprisoned? Why would they trust that you wouldn’t bind their power, the way you do to your own families when they don’t share your talent?”
“Binding is wrong. I want it to end,” I said.
“The Witchcraft Protection Act is wrong,” Robin said. “Do you want that to end?”
I looked at the green-and-black tiled floor. “I see what you’re saying. I understand you. But I can’t do it.”
“Understand this,” Robin said. “I’m talking to you because I trust Miles. And Miles trusts you. But I’m not going to lead you to a single witch, no matter how badly you need them. Not when all you can give me are promises not to tell.”
“I can’t give you any more than that.”
“You could if you wanted to, Chancellor Hensley. You could give us a lot more than that.”
“You already have something in mind,” I said.
“People are questioning the law. The Elected’s subcommittee scrutinizing the procedure behind the act have serious questions about the evidence.”
“As the Chancellor, I don’t strictly speak for myself. I’m the presence of the Crown—”
“I didn’t say it would be easy.” Robin stood by the draped body of Sevitii an Vaavut, her voice as even. “But it’s in your power to do something.”
Technically, that was true, and that’s all that mattered to an idealist. I even had two routes I could take—the first was a prorogue of the law, suspending it until it had been examined by an advisory committee, and then seven more steps of argument, debate, and bargaining to revise, reenforce, or abolish. That would take the Lower House and the Cabinet … and I didn’t have a Cabinet to appease, at the moment.
The second was to beg a decree. The Rose Crown was content to allow Parliament to guide the path of laws, with the Chancellor stating the throne’s preferences one way or another. But the rule of the monarch was absolute. If I secured a decree from the Queen—
That would never happen. Queen Constantina would never agree.
But would King Severin?
I would do anything for Aeland, wouldn’t I? I had already agreed to aid Severin, hadn’t I? But my stomach wrenched itself into knots at the thought. Treason. I countenanced treason. I was no traitor. I had given my vow as a Royal Knight to—
—to serve Aeland always, to guard its people from danger, hunger, and darkness—
Solace, no. I couldn’t step that far. Not unless I was desperate.
“I can attempt to persuade the Crown.”
Miles let out a sigh. Robin regarded me a moment longer, and then nodded.
“That’s a step forward. It’s one of many. There’s a lot of work to do if we’re going to set Aeland on a moral path.”
“Aeland is—”
I stopped. Robin waited, her expression patient, as my shoulders sagged and I looked at the floor. “Aeland is not on a moral path. Maybe it had been in the past. But today? You’re right. We need to change direction. We need to dig deep and determine what kind of country we want to be.”
Robin and Miles exchanged glances. “It helps to know your destination,” Robin said. “The people have one in mind.”
I looked up. “What?”
“Why do you suppose we chose yellow?” Robin asked.
I let my head fall back. “You can’t just snap your fingers and make a kingdom into an Uzadalian democracy. That’s admirable. It is. But I can’t do it. That’s too much.”
“I’m not asking you to change it tomorrow,” Robin said. “I’m telling you what the people want. What can you do to help them get it?”
“Honestly, I can’t answer that right at this moment. I need to do an analysis. I need a hundred reports; I need a committee—wait.” I looked at Robin, at Miles. “Member Clarke’s subcommittee. The one looking into the Witchcraft Protection Act. That’s you.”
Robin nodded. “That’s us.”
“This is what I can do, then. I can open my door to Jacob Clarke. I’ll ask for his committee’s findings. If he wants me to consult with him, I will … and if there’s trouble coming his way, I can warn them. I can’t join Clarke’s coalition, but I can support it.”
Miles smiled at me, and I smiled back. “I can help you. It’s hard to change course. But I’ll do what I can.”
Robin considered it. “It’s a start. I know you can’t just snap your fingers and make it happen,” she said. “So let me show a little faith.”
She lifted the corner of Sevitii’s shroud, folding it back to reveal the pale knob of her shoulder. “I think I can call Sevitii’s soul back, and then we can ask her.”
TWELVE
To Summon the Dead
The wall clock ticked out the seconds it took for me to close my mouth and gather a response. “I think this might seem impertinent, Miss Thorpe, but if you could question Sevitii an Vaavut, why did you—”
I gestured at her still form, covered by
the sheet.
Robin cocked her head. “I thought you wanted evidence that was actually admissible. The last time I checked, the testimony of the dead wasn’t on the list.”
“We had to determine how she died,” Miles said. “If I had found a birth defect in her heart or a blood clot in her brain or lungs, then we wouldn’t have a murder investigation, just deuced awful luck.”
“The examination was necessary,” Robin said. “Honestly I’d planned to keep quiet about what I can do.”
“What can you do?”
“I’m a Deathsinger,” Robin said. “I didn’t know until the ghosts showed up. I spent my whole life crowned by magic. I had to learn to hide my aversion to copper. But I had no talent. Or so I thought.”
I nodded. “That must have been an upsetting discovery.”
“Perhaps we should delve into that part of it a little later,” Robin said.
Avia had told me the other day how Deathsingers were the first witches to be arrested under the Witchcraft Protection Act. Talents were hereditary. Robin had probably lost someone in her clan to the asylums. “Of course. My apologies for bringing it up.”
“Thank you.” Robin laid her bare hand on Sevitii’s exposed shoulder and closed her eyes. “I can hear them. Talk to them. I suppose I could command the spirits, but I won’t work that way.”
Nothing but the wall clock made a sound. It ticked on as Miles and I shifted our weight, glancing at each other while we waited for something to happen.
Robin opened her eyes. “This makes no sense. One moment.”
Robin pulled two lockets out from under her smock. She opened one and pressed her finger to the coil of braided hair nestled inside, and an elderly Samindan woman in a dated, wasp-waisted gown materialized before Robin, transparent as any spirit.
“This is my great-aunt Joy,” Robin said.
I had seen her before. She had been standing sentinel in Miles’s suite in the palace the first time I had met Robin. I turned to her great-aunt and bowed my head.
“How do you do.”
She returned the greeting with a grave expression.
