It was absurd to assume Aurelai had never tried, and Vimika wasn't about to insult someone she was even more at the mercy of than she'd already been.
"Thankfully, no." Aurelai said. "But the illusions were made for me. Maybe that included sparing me such difficulty. I'm sorry. Again. Is it serious?"
Shaking her head, Vimika watched her hair sway freely for the first time in years. "I don't know."
"Then may I?" Aurelai asked, indicating the side of Vimika's head.
"Please."
Nodding, Aurelai pressed three chilly fingertips to Vimika's temple as the slits in her eyes widened, expanding over them completely, sclera and all, as she accessed her Sight.
Vimika braced for the incoming sensation of Aurelai's magic connecting to her own, but when it came, it was muffled and distant, like it was on the other side of several feet of wool.
It should have been much stronger, and Vimika's body cried out at the lack of reaction from physical contact with another wizard. From the simple reassurance of 'I'm a wizard, too' between the newly-acquainted to the most intense, soul-cleansing intimacy between lovers, the strength of the interaction of two wizards' magic varied depending on the emotions involved. But even having known Aurelai for all of five minutes, there should have been more than just a dull awareness, and Vimika had to fight back tears at having been robbed of even so small a gift.
From the moment they were conceived, wizards were awash in the magic of their mothers, and the comfort of that feeling never went away. Even blind, Vimika could tell her parents from her siblings, and them from her nieces and nephews just by the feel and 'taste' of their magic. The friends she'd left in Maris, even many of her classmates at the Academy, wizards knew each other better by touch than humans ever could by sight.
Her thoughts went back to when Seris had touched her, the emptiness of it. No matter what happened here or why, when Aurelai put her fingers to Vimika's skin, she should have at least been allowed the reward that was the magic of another wizard's touch. But what she'd gotten was akin to being allowed to smell that a bottle of wine had been opened somewhere in the building when what she wanted was to pour the whole thing straight down her throat.
That Aurelai didn't react with anything but calm spoke volumes about the truth of her isolation. The only way to not miss it was to never have known it.
"Your magic is present, but dormant. Or extremely sluggish, I've never done this before, but," Aurelai added quickly, "it's still within your channels. They're just... frozen."
"So, magic shock," Vimika said, her eyes staring ahead as she mourned the loss of something she hadn't even been expecting at the beginning of the day.
But the only cure for her condition was rest. The magic channels within a wizard needing to unstick themselves in their own time was something they drilled into every student at the Academy over and over again. Magical senses could be overwhelmed, just like any other, and just like snow-blindness or a ringing in the ear brought on by a loud noise, there was nothing to be done but to wait for it to clear up on its own. Attempting to tinker with one's internal magical workings was a good way to make them external, conveniently mapped out across the nearest wall. And the ceiling.
When Aurelai removed her fingers, Vimika choked down a whimper. Even that barest trickle...
"Was the forest so intense?" Aurelai asked.
"You have no id-" Vimika felt the wizard looking at her. "Yes, it was."
She shook her head with a sobriety that made her wish she was drunk. "I'm sorry. I've never been in magic shock before, and I wasn't that well off before it happened. I feel like someone stuffed my head in a pillow and hit me with a sack of potatoes."
"That's really specific. Sorry! That was a mind thought, not a mouth thought. Oh, I should have practiced more. They don't tell me when I get it wrong," Aurelai said.
"You're not wrong, just really honest. The world could use more of that, to be… honest."
Some light returned to Aurelai's smoke-black eyes as they flicked over Vimika again. "I have more: you look terrible. Could I still offer you a place to rest? Are you hungry?"
Vimika looked from the doorway and back to Aurelai. Wherever here was, she wasn't going anywhere else soon, and certainly not alone. "Yes to both of those things, please."
"Splendid. I expect you'll want to meet my other guest."
CHAPTER FIVE
VIMIKA'S HANDS FOUND her temples and began to rub at them as Aurelai stared down at her with a look that was part puzzlement and part curiosity, like she was trying to work something out but didn't know what to do with her face in the meantime.
She was remarkably bird-like in her mannerisms, her head cocking in little jerks, even as her blinks remained slow and deliberate. At her sides, her fingers moved one at a time, a rippling wave of motion that was not at all what Vimika's headache needed to see at the moment.
"What guest?" she asked.
"Oh, thank the Mother you said something! Ah! That is... the ostensible reason you actually came here. Our fennec friend arrived days ago, and has been eating his way through my garden since. He's currently sunning himself in the back, if you'd like to see him. Or, he was when you arrived, but then you were unconscious, and I had to carry you all the way here to get you out of the sun, but you wouldn't have any memory of that. Oh. Well. He's... a bit mercurial, that one, isn't he? When he's not being unsociably lazy, at any rate."
Vimika didn't bother to hide a longing glance at the door. "Are there others?"
"Other fennecs? No. All in due time, though. There is much you would like to know about this place, I imagine," Aurelai said, and swept towards the door.
"Aurelai?"
A cyclone of black and red unfurled as she turned at the sound of her name to see the one who'd spoken it still on the floor in an unfortunate heap.
"Could you help me up?"
"Oh! Sorry." Aurelai reached down to haul Vimika to her feet.
"You're a lot stronger than you look," Vimika said, flexing her fingers experimentally. "And have really cold hands. Are you all right?"
Aurelai looked down at their clasped hands with that same bird-like curiosity, only now with an extra dash of satisfaction and more than a little pleasure. Her eyes were remarkably expressive and very difficult to tear away from. Every single thought was written plain on her face, and Vimika found herself caught up in enjoying what she was reading.
"I am now," Aurelai said absently.
Her ears even twitched!
Though Vimika wanted to let the moment continue in the vain hope a proper magical connection would spontaneously happen, the truth was her hands were still filthy, and having dirty hands in a laboratory made her training and instincts join forces to separate them.
"I'm going to need that back," Vimika said not unkindly.
"Oh. Yes, of course. Pardon," Aurelai said, looking down at the streaks of dirt across her palm and marveling.
"Sorry about the mess," Vimika said, wiping her hands down the sides of her legs.
"What? Oh, no, no," Aurelai said without looking up. "It's just... this is the first thing I've ever touched from outside. I thought it would be more different. But it's just... dirt."
Tracing pale white patterns into gritty brown, Aurelai peered down in wonder, rubbing the dirt between her fingers and bringing it halfway to her lips before a look broke out over her features that was so sheepish she could have spun blankets out of it.
Such earnestness was making it harder and harder to believe her plight was anything but genuine. Who would even think to marvel over dirt as a means to fake it?
"If you've been trapped here alone, does that make me the first person you've met from outside?" Vimika asked.
Aurelai nodded, unable or unwilling to stop herself from staring.
Vimika was no stranger to being stared at, and the word 'escape' flashed across her mind in giant letters made of experience, but something deeper than that was quite a bit more self-conscious than it was f
rightened.
"Ah. Well, I could have made a better first impression on behalf of... the world," she said.
"I so looked forward to any impression that I am happy to accept it without reservation, dirt included. It confirms that you're real, at least."
Vimika's eyebrows sought her hair. "You doubted I was real?"
"Only for a moment, but Father's illusions have a familiar feel, which you lack. As long as I stay within the clearing, they leave me alone. However, I don't think even Father was powerful enough to convince me taking your hand was anything but genuine. I've never felt anything like it."
"Yes, well," Vimika said, trying to tuck her hands together into sleeves that weren't there. "Oliver is here then? Safe and sound?"
"Such a ridiculous name for such an astonishing creature. He's older than I am, and bears Father's marque. I didn't know that until he arrived, however. So, as much as I malign this place, he belongs here. Let me see if he will deign to appear. Just a moment," Aurelai said before her eyes went completely black.
Vimika hadn't watched someone do an incantation from this close since school, and it was easy to see why humans were unnerved by it. Aurelai's lips were moving, but only half-whispered non-words were coming out. Spells were more thought than spoken, the vocalization only serving to focus the thoughts and prevent them from straying halfway through. Vimika recognized the patterns as a Beckoning, which was confirmed moments later when the entire reason for the day's insanity came trotting through the door.
For being a gilded fennec, Oliver was mostly white. It was the smattering of golden hairs throughout their dense coats that gave them their name, making them sparkle in the right light. His pointed ears were enormous, more triangular than blade-like, and his rich brown eyes burned with intelligence.
It was hard to fault the old woman for wanting him back so badly, and without access to Sight, impossible for Vimika to believe he was anything other than what he appeared to be. Vimika knew what he was and still couldn't accept it. She should hate him. She should want to melt him down and erase every memory of his existence. But the little creature looking up at her was a living, breathing animal, not a monstrosity. He wasn't a nightmare from the realms between hells, he was... normal.
All of the death, the pain and suffering, persecutions, restrictions, the entire history of wizardkind for the last few centuries was all because of this? Vimika's inability to See him as he really was made the diagnosis of magic shock that much harder to bear. To have such a long-lost masterwork of magic standing only a few feet away but being utterly unable to confirm it was maddening. No wonder they were so hard to track down! Unless you were a wizard, you would have no idea what he was.
He was literally incredible.
"Come say hello, Oliver," Aurelai said.
Oliver did not come say hello.
"He's beautiful," Vimika said absently. The idea of such a perfect little thing bearing a maker's marque was repugnant to the point it made her want to retch. Having your lifeforce stolen was bad enough without needing to be autographed afterwards, but Oliver gave no indication that anything whatsoever was untoward. If anything, he seemed to be enjoying his involuntary immortality just fine. "But... if you didn't know who made him, why did you bring him here?"
"Lady Tarsebaum often told her cats that she would do anything if he ever escaped, but that didn't extend to risking her house mage's life or reputation, apparently. Your skill for finding lost animals was known to her, however, so I Beckoned him here in the hope you would follow," Aurelai said as if it were all perfectly sensible.
"You Beckoned a mechamagical animal? And it worked?" Vimika asked, her face unable to hold the amount of surprise being fed into it, and her ears flattened by themselves for the first time since she was a child.
"I wasn't about to Borrow him for my own selfish purposes, was I? He had to come willingly. Turns out I couldn't, anyway, but luckily, he seems content with his choice for now."
Vimika' hands found her temples again.
"Are you all right? I understand magic shock is often accompanied by headaches, but I haven't much in the way of medicines. There might be something in here of use," Aurelai said, and made for the nearest cabinet, stopping short when the sound of Vimika bouncing her head off the wall in weary frustration thumped across the room.
"Do you have any idea how dangerous that was? Our people were almost wiped because of your father's mechamagery obsession, how could you risk that again for your own sake? You can't just turn one loose in the world and hope no one notices! What if one of the other three house wizards in Durn had seen him first? Or followed him?"
"They said they wouldn't." Aurelai's face was open and completely reasonable for how insane such a thing was to say.
"And how do you know that?"
Aurelai brow furrowed without actually appearing to move, in a sort of instantaneous consternation. "They said so. They're all harboring mechamagical creations. Didn't you know that?"
Vimika wasn't left speechless very often, her library of swears was too deep for that. But in most other cases, there was a good, universal word that could be applied regardless of company that got the point across just as well.
"What!?"
"It's... what's the word? Blackmail. No. Leverage? Insurance. Help me, please. Father left me a dictionary, but not much context."
For the third time since arriving, Vimika lost her balance and slumped sideways, catching herself on the slab. "I can't believe what I'm hearing," she said to it in hopes its sharp stone corners would straighten a world gone alarmingly curved all of a sudden.
Finding no such rescue, she dipped into her swear box. "That's why they're all such pricks. If anyone ever found out..."
"They would be killed, perhaps along with their masters. I am aware of why Father sealed me away, Vimika. It's why I didn't try one of them first."
"So you involved me, did you? Now I know what Oliver actually is. I would have when I found him. Seen the marque. Malivia knew. And knew I would find out..." Vimika smashed her fist into the slab, but as it was made out of solid granite, it didn't notice. "Dammit!"
Aurelai blinked.
"She'll probably demand I return the advance, too. Wonderful. Just... wonderful. Not only will I not be paid, I'm going to be at her beck and call for the rest of my life. And I found the daughter of the worst person in history, with a side of magic shock for my trouble. Thank you for your hospitality, Aurelai, but I really must be getting on with digging the rest of my grave, if you don't mind."
Pushing herself off the slab, Vimika made for the door.
"You can't... you can't go! You said you would help me!"
Vimika spun on her heel without slowing down, marching straight at Aurelai at the same pace she'd marched away. "You tricked me! I bought the story about your father, but you know what? I don't care what the truth is anymore. You've just ruined my life, it won't make a shred of difference anymore."
"Vimika, please!"
"No. Wizards suffered enough because of your father's obsessions, and I won't let it happen again for the sake of his daughter. He was a greedy, selfish monster, and that apple didn't appear to fall very far at all before it started to rot. I won't put my family's lives at risk because you're lonely. Quite frankly, if you actually are a Kalinostrafal you deserve to stay in here."
With that, Vimika advanced on the doorway once more, every footstep a booming report that echoed through the room and into the hollow cavity where she'd kept her hopes locked away.
She'd been so stupid! How dense and starved for anything resembling excitement in her life had she been to walk into that forest? She should have listened to her gut, been content with her lot and sucked down more wine like a good little wizard. She'd poked her head out of the hole she'd dug for herself once and now there was light getting in to show her how deep it actually went.
"No!" Aurelai shouted as the air screamed with magic, filling the doorway with arcane power. Spiderwebs of pale blue li
ght laced across it from one side to the other, sewing the air itself solid. "You can't leave!"
Silhouetted before a wall of light, Vimika felt just as featureless and lacking in color. "Using magic against those helpless to defend themselves against it is in your blood. Do what you will."
"I'm not him! I'm not!" Aurelai cried.
"The wall's still here."
Her face twisted in anguish, Aurelai yanked on the spell, unraveling it all at once. Daylight streamed through, only to be blocked out by Vimika walking through it, leaving Aurelai all alone.
~
Vimika stalked out to find herself at the end of a short hallway. On either side was a single door, but whatever lay behind them would stay there as she tramped across the polished wood. At the far end was a single large room that served as a den, dining room and kitchen, and she had to fight the urge to kick the dining room table on the way out. With how the day had gone thus far, she would probably just shatter a toe in the process, so she let the furniture be.
Outside was unseasonably warm, but she no longer cared if it was real or not. It felt real, and that's all she could count on anymore. She also felt betrayed. She felt furious. She felt like drinking herself to death before she could make things worse for herself.
But between Vimika and the sweet release to be found at the bottom of a cask of Soft Sea Gold was a forest full of nightmares, and her pace across a lawn of meticulously-maintained grass slowed. Ahead and all around was a solid ring of trees, with nothing to indicate which direction was which except the position of the sun, if she could even trust that anymore. Looking for which side of the trees the moss was growing on would require her to be near them, and she swallowed hard against that idea, pausing several yards short of the shadows they cast.
How could this have happened? All she'd had to do was tell Malivia no. Or turn around. The forest had warned her, but her own idiocy had made her run the wrong way. She could blame her cursed wizard curiosity, or find some fault in her education or upbringing, but it was all her own fault. The first inkling she'd had something was amiss, she should have washed her hands of the whole thing, not rolled around in it. Now she was covered head to toe, and it was beyond cleaning off.
Midnight Magic Page 7
