Magic Steps

She sighed, and drew a thread from her purse. She tied it, imagining leg muscle around it, then undid her knot. Pasco gasped. “It just stopped!” he exclaimed.

“I didn’t think that cramp would ever—“ He looked at Sandry, and saw the thread in her fingers. “Lady?” he asked.

“Would you at least try to concentrate?” she begged him. “I was ten when I learned. Ten. You’re twelve.”

“Sorry, Lady Sandry,” he mumbled. “I’ll try. Really, I will.”

They struggled through another half hour. Sandry was not sure which of them was more grateful when the Guildhall clock chimed ten.

“Well?” demanded Yazmín from the doorway once Sandry had gathered up her warding. “How do you feel today, Pasco?”

“Terrible,” he said, approaching her warily. She beamed. “Just what I’d hoped!

Come on, and we’ll do some stretches.”

“Oh, good,” Pasco mumbled as he followed her out side. “I like stretches.”

Other students awaited them when they reached a second-floor classroom, all Pasco’s age or a little older. Yazmín led the group through the same exercises she had taught Pasco the day before.

“At least he gets to see her torturing others the same way,” Oama told Sandry quietly before she took up a watch-post outside the classroom.

Sandry giggled. Once she was settled on a bench, however, she concentrated on her notes. Awake before dawn, she had been staring at the harbor waters when she remembered the fishing fleet, about to sail after the day’s catch. That had reminded her of Pasco’s dance with the net, and that thought in turn had sent all kinds of ideas tumbling through her head. It had been all she could do to write them down then; now she studied them. Could a dance to call fish to nets be changed to call humans to harriers? She would love to ask the Winding Circle mages about that.

Yazmin’s voice broke into her thoughts. “My lady? Don’t you have to do that thing with the thread?”

Sandry warded the room to keep Pasco’s magic contained. Then she returned to her study of her notes, maybe she ought to take a closer look at that special net they had used for Pasco’s dance while she was at it.

Once again, Duke Vedris arrived at the school just as as city’s clocks struck twelve. He invited Sandry—and Yazmin—to take midday with him. Following them out of the school, Sandry thought, If he keeps doing this, I asolutely must find an excuse to leave them alone.

CHAPTER 10

The next day as Sandry, the duke, and Yazinin were finishing their meal at the Bountiful Inn, the door to their private room opened.

“Your grace, I tried to stop him!” protested the girl who had waited on them, trying to halt the intruder.

It was Wulfric Snaptrap. “And I told you I don’t care if he’s with an assembly of gods, I need to talk to him!” Bowing apologetically to the duke, he said, “Actually, to the lady.” He nodded, to Sandry.

She instantly rose. I’m just finished, Master Snaptrap,” she said, “Uncle, Yazmín, you will excuse me?”

Not waiting for an answer, she grabbed Wulfric and propeled him from the room in front of her. “I hope you didn’t have: anything drastic: to say to Uncle as well, or if you do, you can say it in a note,”’ she told, Wulfric quietly. “I was looking for a polite way to leave. Of course, I really am at your service.”

He looked down at her, eyebrows raised. “All I have to report to his grace is failure, and he never likes to hear about that. Do you think he’s interested in Mistress Yazmín?”

“I devoutly hope so,” replied Sandry. She steered him into the common room and sat at a table, pulling him down beside her. “Otherwise they’ll think I’ve run mad. How goes the tracking?”

Wulfric propped his elbows on his knees and sighed. “It doesn’t,” he told Sandry, glum. “That blood’s so tainted with unmagic that it’s barely human anymore. We labored two straight days without a thing to show for it.”

“Cat dirt,” whispered Sandry, thumping her knees with her fists. “Cat dirt, cat dirt!”

“I used stronger words,” Wulfric told her. “If only I could do something with all that unmagic we collected! There’s what we took from Qasam Rokat’s, and what my assistants brought from Fariji Rokat’s, all nicely bottled, and there’s not a thing I can do with it. Winding Circle still hasn’t told me how to dispose of it safely, either.” He ran his fingers through his gray curls. “My assistants are getting some rest. I thought if you were still willing, we might at least clean up Rokat House. So I’ll feel I did something this week besides twiddle my thumbs.”

“l know what you mean,” Sandry assured him. “I would love to help.” The night before, she’d had another dream of drowning in shadows. Maybe cleansing Rokat House would make her stop feeling powerless. “Have you enough supplies?”

“I brought plenty,” Wulfric assured her. “Even if we run into a pond of the stuff.” Sandry shuddered as he led her out of the inn and into the courtyarci Kwaben and Oama were there already with Sandry’s mare; one of the hostlers held Wulfric’s bony cob. “There’s more news I didn’t want to give his grace,” he admitted as they mounted their horses. “The house-to-house search turned up three suspicious characters in East District. Looks like they had a healer up to see to one of them. They murdered the healer and the healer’s guard, then set a fire to cover their escape. I’ll let Captain Qais tell the duke about that mess.” He flipped a coin to the hostler.