A Lonely Magic (29 page)

Fen’s throat felt like it was closing off. Her mother’s death—well, she’d never seen a horror movie that could compare. Not really. There’d been no bloody gore but a quick beheading would have been heaven compared to the pain her mother had experienced.

“She wouldn’t go to a doctor,” she blurted out. “She’d say she’d gone, when I was at school, but she never had medicine or anything. She just got sicker and sicker. And then finally I called an ambulance, but it was too late. She died at the hospital. They said—”

She couldn’t get the words out. She was fighting too hard not to cry. Finally, she forced the words through her thick throat. “They said she was an alcoholic and an addict. But she wasn’t. She never did. She was a good mom.”

Gaelith sat next to Fen on the bed, wrapping her arms around her and pulling her close. In the warmth of Gaelith’s embrace, feeling the hands on her back, the softness next to her, Fen sobbed until her eyes ran dry and her breath evened out.

She felt exhausted.

Emptied.

Gaelith’s hand stroked down her back, but she didn’t say a word.

“I’m sorry,” Fen muttered, as she straightened, leaning away from the older woman and wiping at her face with the back of her hand.

“You have nothing to be sorry for.” Gaelith let her go, but not fully, sliding her hands down to take Fen’s, ignoring the snot, and looking her steadily in the eyes. “Your mother was a good mother. She risked much to save you, all honor to her.”

“Why do you know that? How do you know how she died?” Fen asked but before Gaelith could answer her, a knock on the door interrupted them.

Gaelith let go of Fen’s hands, but didn’t stand immediately. “Oh, dear. I fear I have used my allotment of time less wisely than I should have.”

Placing Blame

“What does that mean?” Fen asked.

“I’m afraid that I have other obligations at the moment.” Gaelith tried to smile, but it didn’t look real. “The Great Council summons me to appear before them this very day.”

“What? Why?” For the first time, Fen wondered what time it was. Or what day it was. How long had she been unconscious?

The knock sounded again, this time a little harder, a little more peremptory.

“Excuse me for a moment.” Gaelith stood. “I shall beg the indulgence of more time. The Council is most concerned about your health and they will grant me another ten minutes.” Her tone was firm, as if she would not be denied. She crossed to the door, passing through it as the wall turned into grey fog.

As the wall solidified again, Fen asked, “Elfie? How long was I out? What did I miss?”

“You were put into a healing sleep and stayed that way for sixteen hours while your body repaired,” Elfie’s voice whispered in her head. “I regret, however, that I cannot provide further information. Library Level One has not been updated so all I know is what has happened in this room, which has been very little. It has, however, been most fascinating to watch the medical nanomites work. I have learned a great deal.”

Fen’s lips twitched. Elfie sounded self-satisfied, even smug. “If Luke gets hurt again, will you be able to save him?”

“Perhaps,” Elfie said. “It would depend on the injury.”

Fen bit her lip. “Would you have been able to help my mother?”

Elfie paused. “Yes,” she finally answered. “You would not need me, however. Nor would you need magic.”

“Tell me,” Fen whispered. “How was she poisoned?”

“Copper is an essential trace mineral,” Elfie said. “However, in excess amounts, it is toxic. Her system accumulated too much copper.”

“Why?” Fen asked, lifting her hand to her copper necklace. Wasn’t copper awfully solid to be poisoning people?

“Sia Maran blood contains hemocyanin, a copper-based protein more efficient than hemoglobin for oxygen transport in the cold depths of the ocean. Immersion in sea water encourages the production of enzymes that bond to any excess copper and force it to be excreted.”

Science, ugh.

History and English classes, Fen got those. But science and math were the bane of her existence.

“I don’t understand,” Fen said. “Can you simplify?”

Elfie’s pause was barely noticeable as she responded, “Because of the copper in their blood, the Sia Mara are able to stay underwater for extended periods at temperatures that would kill humans. But unless they spend time in the ocean, the copper accumulates to dangerous levels.”

“Is that why…” Fen looked down at her chest, remembering how Luke had bled green the first time she met him. She’d thought that meant Sia Maran blood was green. But he’d bled red here and so had Remy.

“Did Luke’s blood look green because it has copper in it?” she asked as the door turned foggy and Gaelith re-entered the room.

“Context unknown,” Elfie responded.

“When I first met him. When he was shot, he bled green. Or I was hallucinating.”

“He swam in Lake Michigan,” Gaelith answered, dropping back down into the armchair. “He knew better. The lake is freshwater, not salt. But no, Luken missed the water, yet it was mid-winter and cold. His system stirred to action, making his blood heavy with copper, and therefore green. Stupid boy. He has been scolded.” She sighed. “It will do no good. With Luken, it never does.”

“So my mom died because she didn’t go swimming?” Fen couldn’t believe it. She wouldn’t believe it. All that pain, all that suffering—gone if she had just fucking found herself a beach?

“Excess copper could cause liver failure and psychosis, yes,” Elfie responded before Gaelith had a chance to.

“How come I’m not dead then? I never went swimming. I’d never even seen the ocean,” Fen objected.

Gaelith frowned, her brows drawing down, as Elfie said, “Mathematical calculations of copper prevalence in seawater as compared to land-based locations, including absorption and excretion rates based on genetic variance, age and—”

“Cut it out,” Fen snapped. “I don’t want the math, I want the answer.”

Gaelith leaned forward and opened her mouth, starting to speak, but Elfie responded with, “Her body accumulated more copper than it could handle. Yours hasn’t.”

If Elfie had been physically present, Fen would have hit her. Her glare felt like it might break her face. “Wouldn’t it have been easier to just say so?”

“No. My initial response was composed of data from Library Level One. To interpret the data requires higher-order processing. It is not easier.” Elfie didn’t exactly sound huffy, but her tone strongly suggested annoyance.

Fen’s glare slid away. She felt her lips twitch and then stretch into a grin. Maybe it was because she felt so emotionally drained, but Elfie’s annoyance seemed like the funniest thing she’d heard in days. “Point taken,” she said with a laugh.

“What point is that?” Gaelith asked, her voice careful.

Fen relayed Elfie’s statement about higher-order processing to her.

Gaelith’s upper teeth closed down over her lower lip in a bite that looked hard enough to hurt, before she let go and exhaled. “Remedial art,” she said faintly. “I must… but we…” She pressed her lips together, as if stifling a laugh.

“What is it?” Fen asked

“My darling Fen,” Gaelith said, pressing her hands together. “I must beg your indulgence and ask that you not speak of your Elfie to anyone. The combination of my artistry—which, though I should not speak of it myself, is acclaimed as significant throughout the world of the Sia Mara—and my laxness, which shall be equally spoken of, I have no doubt—added to your imagination and ability to communicate with the magic has wrought wonders. You would do me a great kindness—indeed, it could be a service to us both—to not share the knowledge of that beyond this room.”

God damn it, why didn’t anyone in the place speak English? “I shouldn’t mention Elfie?”

“Exactly.”

“But Luke knows about her.” Fen shrugged. “We’ve been asking her questions for days. And Kaio saw my tattoo.”

“I shall revise beyond this room, then, to beyond the House of Del Mar.” Something about the slightly higher-than-usual pitch of Gaelith’s voice made Fen feel stubborn.

“I don’t get it.”

“Fen. Darling Fen.” Gaelith took a deep breath. “At the moment, we have somewhat larger problems, but please trust me when I say that sharing knowledge of a data access pattern—a Library Level One data access pattern—engaged in higher-order processing would not be to our benefit.”

Fen’s lips parted before she closed them again. Gaelith’s voice had definitely reached a higher pitch.

“Larger problems?” Fen inquired in a voice as polite as she could muster. What did that mean?

“Indeed.” Gaelith closed her eyes for a long second and then, as if resigning herself to the inevitable, said, “The patterns I gave you serve you well. Your data access pattern—”

“Elfie,” Fen interrupted her.

“Elfie,” Gaelith said, accepting the interruption without comment, “goes well beyond the usefulness of most data access patterns. Your ivy, as I understand, allowed you to become invisible to an entire crowd of people, which is illusion of the very highest order. And your phoenix…” She paused.

Fen remembered. “Hurt me, but hurt Baldric, too?” she guessed.

“Yes. Baldric of House Nik Phore, Val Kyr, is no more. His remains have been returned to the sea.”

Fen stared at her. “He’s dead, you mean?”

Gaelith dipped her head in a brief nod.

Fen leaned back on the pillows. Huh. She ought to feel bad. Did she? “How did that happen? I told my pattern to defend us.”

“Every crystal receiver in Syl Var heard,” Gaelith acknowledged. “His death is not your fault. No one can blame you. Indeed, no one does.”

“I thought I was talking to my ivy. I did say go, though,” Fen added. “I was talking to Kaio, but my phoenix must have heard me, too.”

“Perhaps.” Gaelith seemed to be waiting for some kind of stronger reaction from her.

“What was my phoenix supposed to do?” Fen asked, keeping her voice calm. Why did she have a deadly weapon riding around on her back?

Gaelith spread her hands. “I suppose I envisioned renewal, regeneration, some healing potential—the use of magic that most often occurs to me, compatible with my understanding of the symbol. But I set no limits.”

A corner of Fen’s mouth turned up. Sure, renewal was nice—but defending yourself with fire, that was okay, too. She didn’t feel bad, she decided. Maybe she should, but he’d been threatening a little old lady—if bad shit happened to him, well, yo, actions, consequences. No good deed goes unrewarded and all that shit.

“A pattern is a tool,” Gaelith continued. “A set of guided instructions. I failed to effectively structure your art. The fault is mine.”

“What happened to the others?” Fen asked abruptly.

Gaelith shook her head as if to say she didn’t know who Fen meant.

“The other Val Kyr,” Fen said. “Malik and whoever else was here.”

Gaelith smiled faintly. “Baldric’s second-in-command, Malik, has taken his seat on the Great Council.”

“What?” Fen stared in disbelief.

Gaelith spread her hands. “The Council must proceed. And the Val Kyr must be represented. I dare say that none would choose it, but so it happens. But now, having shared this grievous news, I am afraid I must leave you.”

“Wait, why?”

“The Great Council awaits.”

“Why?” Fen demanded again.

Gaelith paused, as if searching for the words, and finally said, keeping her voice light, “The death of a council member requires adjudication by the Council.”

Fen scowled. “Does that mean you’re in trouble? That asshole killed Remy. He would have murdered Luke. He attacked your queen, for God’s sake.”

Gaelith smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “None of which negates the fact that his House deserves justice for his untimely death.”

“That’s bullshit,” Fen said. She threw back the covers. “I’m coming with you.” Hopping out of the bed, she looked around for a closet or a dresser, anywhere they might have stored clothes. “What is this place? And where’s my stuff?”

“This is a—but Fen, darling girl, you don’t need to do that.” Gaelith said, standing. “You are not responsible. You’re a child.”

“Honestly, I’m not.” Fen sighed. “Why aren’t there any clothes here? What is this place?”

“It’s a nursery,” Gaelith replied.

“Like for babies? Or plants?”

Gaelith paused, looking doubtful. “No, a room for nursing. Do you use another word?” Her eyes seemed to go unfocused for a moment, and she offered, “Hospital? But no, we have nothing like that. It’s a room where healers attend those who need healing.”

“Cool,” Fen responded. “I don’t need any more healing. I’m good to go. So…”

She glanced down at the comfortable pajamas someone must have put her in and then remembered. With a smile that felt more like a smirk, she whispered to the cloth, “Suitable for the Great Council, please.”

With fluid ease, the fabric covering her transformed. It felt as if the magic around her were dancing with delight, completely self-satisfied to go over the top on gorgeous formal wear with robes of purple satin embroidered with gold, tight sleeves, a wide-cinched waist, a skirt that reached her knees and leggings of a deep blue shading into purple.