A Sword in the Sun

by Shannon Page

“Did he now?” I stepped up to him; he took an involuntary step back. Afraid of me? Really? “Is he going to let us come in?”

  “Ah, um, no, still just you. But we can all step into the garden if you like.”

  “Sure, fine.” I mean, what were my options? “Lead on.”

  Dr. Spinnaker closed the door behind him and set a lock-charm before turning back to me. “This way.”

  I followed him down the stairs and around to the side of the building. A half-moon had risen, at last, sending its pale light into a small courtyard.

  “In here,” he said, leading us to a grouping of chairs. He stood until I was seated, then took a chair opposite me. “I am sorry for your, ah, reception here,” he said. “If you let me know what your questions are, I will do my best to answer them.”

  His accent was a mix of Old Country and modern British English; my ear tried to parse it, until I reminded myself that it didn’t matter. “Thank you, Dr. Spinnaker,” I said.

  He gave an embarrassed smile. “You can call me Helios if you like.”

  I nodded. “Then you should call me Callie.”

  “I will. So, Callie, what are your questions?”

  I thought a moment. There were questions, and then there were things I might reasonably expect to get answers to. “I guess my first one is, um, when did Dr. Andromedus tell you-all that I was headed here?”

  His smile eased, as he relaxed a tiny bit. “Perhaps a week ago? It was an ætheric message, of course, and you know how spotty those can be.”

  “I do.” It was why Jeremy and I basically didn’t communicate the whole time he was over here. Well, part of the reason, anyway. “So the timing isn’t definite, but a week. Hmm.” Gregorio had clearly known where I was headed, probably even as I sent those clever messages to everyone, about going on retreat.

  Bastard.

  “That’s right. Though Dr. Mar didn’t let me know until you’d arrived on the continent.”

  “I see.” Dr. Spinnaker—Helios—sounded a little put out about this. Hurt, wounded? “Did you, ah, should you have been told sooner?”

  He shrugged, not altogether convincingly. “I have worked with Dr. Andromedus many times in the past. He had even spoken of bringing me to San Francisco to work in his laboratory there. I suppose I might have expected that he would send word through me.” He glanced away for a moment. “But of course, I’m just a junior scientist, nobody important at all. It was entirely appropriate that he should communicate with Dr. Mar.”

  Ah. “Is Dr. Mar the director here, or president, or…?”

  “He is the owner of the company. Well, it’s a family-owned business, has been for generations. He’s the current senior member of the Mar family. I guess president would be the best equivalent; his actual title is just Senior.”

  “What does the company do, exactly?” I tried. “I know you make machinery. I saw a few in Berkeley, and I am curious about them.” I saw no reason to hide this anymore. And maybe it would ease the flow of information if I didn’t look like I was keeping secrets.

  “We do make machinery, that’s all that we do. For research.” I just looked at him. Vague much? You sound like me at the border control office. He went on, “Well, lots of different kinds of things. The nexus between science and magic, and how the two forces work together.”

  “The two forces? Are you saying science is a force?”

  He shook his head. “No, not like that. I mean—oh, it’s hard to explain. Tell me what machines you saw and I’ll see if I can be more specific.”

  I cast my mind back, making sure I got the unfamiliar words right. “The one I’m most curious about said Enchin Aberra on it, just under the company name.”

  “Ah.” He frowned, nodding, and looking at his feet. “That’s a complicated one. It does a number of different things.” Before I could give him the look again, he went on. “You say you saw it in Berkeley. In Dr. Andromedus’s lab?”

  Kind of. “Yes.”

  “And you came all the way to the Old Country to ask about it, rather than asking Dr. Andromedus himself? Or even sending word to us?”

  I stared back at this warlock. On my chest, Rose started patting at my breasts, with both hands. Strong she said again.

  Thrilled as I was that she was talking to me now, this wasn’t exactly helping. I patted her head and said to Helios, “Yes, I did. There were some very personal reasons why I didn’t want to ask him about it. Why I wanted to come here myself.” I swallowed, deciding to take it further. What the hell. “In fact, I very specifically didn’t tell Dr. Andromedus I was even making this trip, yet somehow he knew. He’s doing some things back home that I don’t think are good news—for any of us. I’m trying to get to the bottom of it. Understanding what he’s doing, very specifically, should help me figure this out.” I held his eye. “If you can help me, that’s great, I would appreciate it. I suspect all of witchkind would appreciate it. But if Dr. Andromedus is, I don’t know, invested in this company in some way—if he has the power to turn me away or keep information from me, just let me know. I’ll figure out some other way to get what I need.”

  There. Maybe I’d signed my own death warrant. Who knew? Maybe I could take my little household and move to Svalbard or something. Surely Gregorio wouldn’t pursue me there.

  Helios Spinnaker gave a small sigh, shifted the cross of his legs, gave a larger sigh, and finally got to his feet and paced across the small courtyard. Looking back at me, he said, “I’m sorry, Calendula Isadora, but that’s the best I can do.”

  Almost concurrently, he sent me an ætheric message: Meet me at noon in the Spanish Market.

  I blinked, also rising to my feet. “Um, well, thank you anyway. I guess I’ll…head back to Balszt now.”

  “I regret that we could not be of more help. Please enjoy your stay in the Old Country.” He held out his hand and I shook it. Then he turned and slipped into a side door, leaving us alone in the moonlit courtyard.

  “I told you not to check out,” the desk clerk at The Majestic said cheerfully, when I turned up an hour later. “See? Magrit knows best.”

  “Thanks, Magrit,” I said, happy to be back.

  She handed the golden key across the counter. “The room has been freshened up, and it’s all ready for you and yours.” She made goofy faces at Rose, who maybe smiled at her in return. Or maybe it was gas. Who can tell with babies?

  “Where is the Spanish Market?” I asked her. “Is that here in the city?”

  “Oh, indeed it is! Fun little district, I can’t believe I didn’t think to mention it earlier. Of course, it doesn’t get the attention that the more major sites do. It’s over on the other side of the river…here, I can show you on the map…”

  Back in our room, I sat on the bed, opened my blouse to nurse Rosemary, and thought about what I had learned. Or, rather, what I hadn’t learned.

  Had I wasted everyone’s time, and a colossal amount of energy, coming here?

  No, that couldn’t be true. I couldn’t let myself believe that. What was Helios going to tell me tomorrow at noon? This reminded me all too poignantly of Sebastian getting a sudden hankering for coffee, then dragging me out to whisper his concerns about Gregorio in a crowded café.

  Warlocks and their secrets. Honestly.

  But I needed to know those secrets. To expose them. Those secrets were not just ruining my life; they were threatening us all.

  Was I ever going to feel safe again?

  — CHAPTER EIGHTEEN —

  I hadn’t thought I was tired enough to sleep, but the late-morning sunlight streaming through my window put the lie to that. “Oof,” I said, rolling over in the oddly shaped bed, careful not to crush my baby. “And ugh,” I added, catching a whiff of said baby. “Time for a change for you, missy—actually, probably a bath for all of us wouldn’t go amiss.”

  “Surely not for me, too, Mistress Callie?” Petrana asked, from her corner.

  I turned to look at her. “You aren’t seriously trying to be
witty, are you?”

  I swear, my golem shrugged. “Do you want me to?”

  “I want you to do whatever I ask you to—and beyond that, whatever you want to do.” I thought back to an early conversation we’d had, not long after I’d made her. “Assuming you’ve developed enough to have wants, that is.”

  “You appear to enjoy conversations with people,” she said. “In the absence of other people to have conversations with, you could have them with me.”

  I wasn’t sure what to make of any of this. It wasn’t like there was a handbook about golems, not about living with them, domestically. Or about having conversations with them. Witty or otherwise.

  “Well, the thing I want to do now is bathe myself and this stinky child. You can help me with that.”

  “With pleasure, Mistress Callie.”

  We crowded my room’s tiny bathroom horribly, even at Petrana’s reduced size. But it was helpful to have four hands to control the slippery, squirmy infant, rather than just two. Rosemary clearly thought it was a great game. She giggled and shrieked as we tried to clean her up. It was a good thing I needed a bath as well, because I was soaked by the time we got her sorted.

  Elnor watched the whole effort from a safe distance, in the bathroom doorway. Then she pointedly licked a paw and brushed it across her whiskers.

  “Yes, yes, I know,” I told her. “You are the far superior being in every way. No need to rub it in.”

  All told, it was a minor miracle that I got us all cleaned, dried, put into decent clothing, and to the Spanish Market by a few minutes before noon.

  Helios hadn’t been any more specific than just this market, so I was glad to see that it wasn’t very large: not much more than a smallish city block. I wandered through the stalls, pretending to be a fascinated tourist—which wasn’t hard to do, because I was a fascinated tourist, even as I looked around for the young warlock.

  Given the name, I’d expected the wares to be, well, Spanish—colorful shawls, tile and pottery, Mediterranean spices, the like. But, no. This market was crammed with such a random assortment of offerings, I was hard pressed to find any underlying theme. A stall filled with used children’s clothing sat beside one selling donuts; apothecary herbs were hawked next to an old witch offering tarot readings.

  I hesitated in front of this last. Logan had run just such a stand, in San Francisco…I had paused just for a moment, but the old auntie noticed, and caught my eye with her steely old one. “Oh, young witch from the land of the new, with your babe in arms,” she said, in a strong, lilting accent. “Tell your fortune, missy?”

  “No, thank you,” I said with a polite smile, starting to walk off.

  The old witch lifted the first card off her face-down deck and thrust it at me. “See her and tell me that you don’t want to know more.”

  It was the eight of Swords: a bound and blindfolded woman, surrounded by a fence of swords stuck into the ground. “I don’t, thank you,” I said, trying not to stammer. At my feet, Elnor gave a low hiss; I felt Petrana standing stock-still by my side, as though coiled, ready to spring to my defense.

  This was a card about being trapped, but within your own illusions. In negative thoughts, the self-doubts that weigh us down in the dark hours of the night. Like so many of the individuals featured in the tarot deck, this woman only needed to step out of her own self-made situation, and she would see improvement. (Of course, someone would still have to untie her. But still.)

  Or was that just the sort of thing tarot readers wanted you to think? After all, folks seeking wild-magic advice were looking to be told what to do. And if I was being cynical, I’d point out that it would never serve a tarot practitioner to deliver a message of hopelessness to her customers. “Step out from behind the swords, you will find that you are free.” I could almost hear Logan or my mom saying such a thing.

  I shook my head and tried again to step away, but the old auntie kept holding me with her gaze. She had never glanced at the face of the card herself, though it was magic of the simplest kind to perceive what was painted on it; probably Rosemary could already do that. Even so, it gave me a bit of the creeps. Had that card been on the top of the deck before I wandered by?

  I glanced around again, still not seeing Dr. Spinnaker in the crowd.

  The old witch dropped the card on the table and drew up a second one, again holding it to face me. “Oho,” she chuckled.

  This time it was The Sun.

  “Very funny,” I said. “Yes, I am looking for a sun, of sorts.” And where was Helios, anyway? “Cute baby,” I added. The Sun card has to be one of the most cheerful in the deck. An adorable baby rides a gentle white horse past a wall covered in cheerful sunflowers, all under the light—and gaze—of a brilliant, wise sun. Abundance, success, joy and happiness; it was all here.

  “Methinks your infant is better adjusted than her mother,” the old witch chortled. “So say the cards, anyway.”

  I’d had quite enough of this. “Thank you,” I said, more forcefully this time. “But I must go.” I dropped a coin on her lace tablecloth and marched on, my golem and cat trailing behind me.

  I walked through the market four times, up and down every aisle—even past the old tarot witch, who I steadfastly ignored—and still didn’t see Helios Spinnaker. I was about to give up and go find a cup of tea somewhere when I felt a tug on my sleeve.

  I turned to see a nondescript middle-aged witch I’d probably passed a few times, and barely noticed. “Psst,” she whispered. “Walk with me.”

  Since I was already walking, I just kept on. Petrana stepped closer to me on my other side, but I didn’t feel any threat from this witch. “All right,” I said.

  “It’s me,” she whispered, and only then did I look with my witch-sight.

  It was Helios, in not only a literal, physical disguise, but also heavily spelled with illusion. My eye had slid right over her—him—without registering. Of course, so many folk here used appearance illusions, I’d almost stopped noticing.

  It was kind of brilliant, in its way.

  “Ah,” I said. “Fascinating. I had no idea it was you.”

  “Good. I didn’t want to make a big production of attracting your attention, especially after you stopped at Wenza’s booth,” Helios said. He kept his voice low, almost a hoarse whisper, likely both to cover its masculine tone and to keep us from being overheard.

  “The tarot witch?” I asked.

  “None other. Watch out for her. She’s already been banished from most of the city’s major markets.”

  “Really? Why?”

  He shrugged, clearly uncomfortable. “Tarot isn’t…”

  “I know, I know,” I put in. “It’s not real magic. It’s not even ancient, and it’s a human thing.”

  “All that is true. But Wenza, she does something more with it.” Helios shivered a little, or maybe that was just his baggy dress moving around on his slender body. “It doesn’t matter. You didn’t let her do a reading, so that’s all to the good.”

  I didn’t tell him she’d pulled two cards for me. I hadn’t asked for them, hadn’t wanted them; that was all on her.

  “Anyway,” he went on, “I have more answers to your questions. And you did not hear them from me.”

  “Yeah, I’m getting that,” I said.

  We turned another corner of the market, strolling together down a crowded aisle, pretending to consider the wares. “It wasn’t always this way,” he started, almost too quiet for me to hear. I leaned in closer, as if we were sharing delicious gossip. Petrana fell back a step, but kept up. “Grand Laurel Merenoc is an old, old company, and they’ve always been dedicated to solving the problems that witchkind faces.”

  “Like what?” I asked. “What problems, specifically?”

  “Any problems. And that’s where it went sour, I think. Mostly biological research, of course; tinkering with the witchkind genome is what made us a separate species from humans in the first place.”

  I nodded, trying not
to show impatience. “Yes.”

  “Anything to do with strengthening our power, lengthening our lives, increasing our resistance to disease—all that kind of thing, that’s what the company works on. We make biological devices that automate breakthrough discoveries. And, I can’t stress this highly enough, our mission has always been to serve and support all of witchkind.”

  He was leading me there, so I saw no reason to be coy about it. “So, when someone like Dr. Gregorio Andromedus, the leader of the San Francisco Elders and an ancient, eminent biological researcher in his own right, who has always worked hard to benefit all of witchkind…”

  Helios waved his hand in a Yeah, yeah, get on with it motion.

  I smiled, though none of this was happy-making. “Someone like him could make a whole lot of breakthrough discoveries for you guys to build automation machines for—even if you didn’t entirely understand what they were doing. He’d, what, send the specs, and you would construct what he asked for?”

  “Pretty much. Of course, Dr. Mar and the other senior researchers would always be interested in what Dr. Andromedus was doing. They’d oversee the builds closely, at least as much because they wanted to figure out what clever new innovations he had come up with, as to, well, monitor whatever his intentions might be.”

  Well, that was a delicate way of putting it. Again, leave it to the American to be blunt. “So when he asked you guys to build a machine or two to harvest the essence from witches and maybe a few warlocks, and remove their spirits from their bodies, everyone just thought, Oh, what a clever warlock, what will he think of next?”

  I could almost hear Helios swallowing. “Well. Of course, um. It was never exactly that, er, apparent.”

  “What did you think those machines were supposed to be doing?”

  “I’m risking a lot to even come here, not to mention telling you any of this,” he said, testily. He took a few quicker steps, moving ahead of me. I let him, and put a hand on Petrana’s arm as she moved forward, as if to detain him.

  “I understand,” I said quietly. “I appreciate your doing this, and I’m not blaming you.”