The boy isn't crying any more. I hope it's worth the glances I'm getting from the other travellers. I unfurl my fingers one at a ti until he can clearly see the little orb of light that sits in my hand. Fascinated, he reaches out to touch it.
His hand passes straight through as if there were nothing there. He blinks for a mont, confused, and then tries again. The result is unchanged. "It's not really there," he complains.
"Well," I reply, "that depends on what you an by real." I'm instinctively quoting sothing similar I rember Edward saying in response to my own childlike wonder at magic.
While I rolled my eyes when I first heard him say that, the boy is impressed. "You an there are different kinds of real?"
"There are indeed," I say, hoping he doesn't ask for details. One term of Magical Theory plus miscellaneous informal lessons from Edward isn't enough to hold up to the interrogation of a sufficiently determined small child.
Thankfully, I don't have to suffer that interrogation just yet. "Can you do anything else?" he asks.
I pause for a mont, hoping ideas will materialise. "Do you have a toy I could borrow?"
He tugs at his mother's hand. "Mummy, can I have Woolly?"
The mother gives a sceptical look. "Now, Matthew, you know you shouldn't give your toys to strangers."
"Woolly will be safe with ," I say. "I'm just going to make it move. That's all."
"She's not a stranger," Matthew adds. "She's a nice girl who can do magic. Can you really make Woolly move?"
"Of course I can."
His mother still looks sceptical. I wonder if she's just overprotective, or if it's the magic that concerns her.
"What's your na, magic girl?"
Ah. Child-logic: if you know soone's na, they can't be a stranger any more and that ans it's perfectly safe to let them borrow your toys. It's just that I really don't want anyone here to know my na. "…Alice," I say. There are probably better choices of alias than my middle na, but it's the only thing I can think of that isn't Tallulah.
So now I'm stuck answering to Alice for the rest of this journey, and hoping that no-one starts asking questions about my background that would require to invent more lies. Maybe I should have just used my real na.
But I think about the reactions I've seen from people finding out who I am, and the fact I'll be stuck with these people for another day, and don't regret my decision.
"All right, Miss Alice," the mother says reluctantly, and reaches into her bag.
Woolly, it turns out, is a cloth doll with clothes and hair made from sheep's wool – hence, presumably, the na. I take him and turn him over in my hands a few tis. I was hoping for sothing with proper joints, which would be much easier to animate, but I can work with this.
I'm a puppeteer for the day, and my strings aren't really there. I set Woolly down on the floor of the coach. His form crumples: he can't stand on his own. But a little magic can fix that. I mutter the incantation and he rises and begins to walk.
It's awkward, staggering motion at first, as I get used to the natural way the fabric moves and adjust my ntal commands accordingly. I hold my hands above him, mimicking an actual puppeteer – partly for performance, partly because I've found it is actually an effective casting aid.
"Look, Mummy, he's walking! I told you he could walk!"
The mother smiles indulgently, and gives a smile as well. I feel as if I've done the right thing for once. It's a small thing, but after all the complicated situations I've been in and all the decisions I regret, it feels like sothing much bigger.
Which is why I'm so horrified when I hear the scream.
It's a high, screeching sound. The kind of sound that makes you wonder if it ca from a human or from sothing altogether different. It cos from the edge of the woods, further out than our torchlight so my head snapping towards the sound does nothing to help see.
My concentration on the spell slips and Woolly crumples once more. Matthew clings to his mother's legs. Soone swears.
"What was that?" asks the old man.
"Sounds like soone's in trouble. We should go take a look." This is the woman who was complaining earlier, and it seems like she's got on the nerves of more people than just .
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"Why, you volunteering yourself?" asks the red-headed man.
"What, with my hips the way they are? I'm too old for that sort of thing. Why not send our Miss Alice here? She is a magician, after all."
I flinch. But there's a general murmur of assent. I can see why: everyone agrees that sothing needs to be done, but no-one wants to put themselves in danger. And it is logical to send , I have to admit.
I'm not convinced that anyone should be sent. But… if there really is soone in trouble out there, could I live with myself if no-one went to help them? Try not to get yourself killed, Edward's voice echoes in my mind. He'd tell not to go.
"That's a great idea," says a small voice. Matthew. "If Alice can make Woolly walk, she can deal with whatever's out there."
I wish magic worked like that.
Everyone is staring at now. I glance around, assess the situation. Assess the likely consequences of refusing. Think again of soone lying alone and helpless in the woods. And get to my feet. "I suppose I'll go at once, then."
Charles First-King. Edwin the Just. Whatever is lurking in the woods could be dangerous. A monster. I'm still more scared of the monster within .
Once I've realised I have no choice, I don't bother with ceremony. I ignore their sudden concern for , ignore the offer to take a torch in favour of conjuring a brighter orb of light. The others move aside to let climb out of the coach.
I walk slowly, and try to keep my breathing slow too. A Malaina episode now won't help the situation. Can I trust myself to not have one if there really is a monster? Stars, it feels as if I'm the monster.
Have I made a mistake in relying on conjured light? If I need to cast sothing, the mont it will take to dismiss the light-spell could be critical. But one hand carrying the torch could slow down just as much.
I reach the edge of the woods, as close as I can judge to where the sound of the scream ca from. There's nothing gradual about the transition from road to forest: barely two paces away from the stone is a tree-filled darkness. Nothing for it, then, but into the unknown. There's a gap between a pair of pine trees just large enough for to fit through.
So I step into the woods. I take only a couple of steps, then stop and stand still, letting my light spread across the forest floor. Nothing untoward: undergrowth, tree roots, a clearing a few paces in front. I pick my way through the roots to the clearing, because it seems as good a place as any. It's as empty as you'd expect a woodland clearing to be.
For the first ti I realise that the problem might not be whether the scream was caused by sothing terrible. It might be finding its source when there's nothing to help navigate but the mory of the sound.
I take what I wish was a calculated risk, and call out "Hello?"
Silence. And then – not silence. A faint cry. A very human sound. There is soone out there who needs help. It ca from my left, I think, and not too far away.
"I'm coming," I shout, and begin picking my way through the forest. I take it one step at a ti, shining my light ahead of . The slowness is frustrating, but I can't risk injuring myself and making the situation worse. I'll just have to hope that whoever's out there can hold on a few more seconds.
It's only a minute or so before I see her: the broken form of a little girl lies at the base of a particularly large tree. I abandon caution and rush over to her. "Hello? Can you hear ? I'm here to help."
This close, there's sothing subtly wrong about the girl's appearance. She looks almost ethereal, as if she's not fully there.
Because, I realise an instant later, she isn't. Her form dissolves into a dark smoke barely distinguishable from the darkness of the woods.
A trap. A monster. I've never paid enough attention to old legends, I think. And I don't know how I'm supposed to fight this without unleashing Malaina. And I almost long for the detachnt that cos with an episode, because anything's better than the terror that consus . Should I run? Try to fight?
Doing nothing is clearly the worst option, and yet I stand frozen as the smoke coalesces into the form of a tall, hooded figure with a birdlike head and no facial features except a cruel hooked beak. I try to turn and run, but my feet are rooted to the ground by fear.
I'm not sure whether it's instinct or the beginning of a Malaina episode that makes channel more magic into the light-spell. But it doubles in size and becos infinitely brighter, in the process losing its silvery-grey tint and becoming a blinding white.
I don't know what I expected to happen. I guess it was just a vague hope that a monster made of shadowy darkness could be hurt by light. But it hardly seems to notice: instead it tilts its head to one side and floats backward a little.
Curiosity. Wariness.
What is this thing? How human is it? Not the questions I should be thinking about when it's just lured here by pretending to be a vulnerable child, I know, but the ones that appear in my mind regardless.
Then it nods once to itself, and bows. The gesture is unmistakeable despite the creature's shadowy form. Does it carry the sa implications? Because if it does… why…
I stand there, uncomprehending, as the creature floats directly upwards until it fades from view.
"What…" I say to what I hope is nothing. Has it gone? I have no way of knowing it won't co back for . But that doesn't seem logical. My light didn't pose it a real threat, at least I don't think so.
My hands are trembling, and while it's cold it's not quite that cold. Now I've established there's no-one really out there and in need of my help, I need to get out of this forest and back to the safety of the coach. Figuring out what in stars' nas just happened can wait.
Another benefit to my caution is that I'm reasonably sure I know what direction the road is in. I still should have taught myself a direction-finding spell. Once I'm safely ho (well, for a certain definition of "ho"), I'm going to make myself a list of all the spells I really need to learn as soon as possible.
I've only made it a few steps before I realise another problem. What am I going to tell the others? The truth sounds bizarre and fanciful, and besides… a strange thing like this connected to has a chance of being connected to certain things I don't want people knowing about . Stars, I need to dive into the nearest library and not reappear until I've worked out what that thing was and why it would bow to .
But I am reliant on the coach to get to that library. So I need to have a cover story figured out by the ti I make it out of the forest. Maybe I could just claim that my light-spell did in fact frighten the monster away? But then what if soone manages to figure out what it was and that it wouldn't be afraid of or hurt by light?
The safest option is to claim that I searched and found nothing, that there's nothing more I can do. That's probably the best way of handling things.
It takes only a few seconds more for to find the road again.
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