Bound Magic Read online

  I would have sat down on the bed, but I didn’t want my clothes and their questionable state of cleanliness dirtying the new mattress. Instead, I perched my butt on the dresser. “You’re saying that if I trade with humans I’ll be inclined to give them things and that would be bad?”

  “You know humans better than I do.” When I didn’t seem angry, he came closer. “Do you think they’d pressure you for help?”

  I thought of Apfall Hill. Digger had already said that the sensible ones in town would want to build relationships with the Faerene through me. I knew the people of Apfall Hill. Plus, it was a small town. I could handle the pressure of their needs and wants.

  Then I thought of the mighty Mississippi River and how many settlements were within reach of it and how people might be drawn to Justice with the hope of a handout.

  “I believe in helping people,” I said slowly. But a satellite city, a shantytown of humans existing in a state of beggary at the edge of Justice, wouldn’t help either the humans or the Faerene’s perception of them. “There are a lot of people who need assistance, Rory. The Red Drake said we would begin to rebuild. How can people…” I choked on emotion. Usually I was good at ignoring the trauma and ongoing cataclysm that was the apocalypse, but occasionally the grief of it skewered me.

  “Step by step. Day by day. They have to build a society they can be secure in.” He pulled me into a hug. “Us Faerene perform magic, not miracles. We’ll walk with humanity, but we won’t carry you.”

  “Tough love,” I muttered into his shoulder.

  “It’s hard on all of us, sweetling.”

  But some people—humans—were dying.

  I sniffed and dug a handkerchief out of my pocket. Blowing my nose, I managed a half-promise. “I won’t meet with humans in Justice without a Faerene around.”

  He rubbed his knuckles against my cheekbone. “That’ll do. We just want to protect your soft heart.”

  “I’m not a marshmallow.”

  He leaned forward and licked my face. “You taste sweet to me.”

  I probably tasted saltily of tears. I swatted at him, but he’d already danced out of reach.

  Left alone, I took a drink of water from my canteen before getting down to the business of unpacking.

  I was head and shoulders inside a crate of sheepskin fleeces when three goblins walked in, introduced themselves briefly and with a preoccupied air, and continued on into my bathroom.

  I crossed my fingers. If Peggy could get her kitchen working in a day, with luck I’d have a fully functioning bathroom by nightfall. “A hot shower.” Such were my blissful dreams before a roll of fabric thudded to the floor, sending the others that had been leaning in a corner tumbling down after it.

  I left them where they lay. Curtains, cushions and other things weren’t essential. I bent back over the crates.

  The crates of food were quickly dealt with. They could be carried down to the kitchen sealed. Except for… “Aha!” The grocer who’d packed the crates had included a list of each one’s contents on the side. I fished out a tin of hard mint-flavored candy. That, I would keep.

  I’d bought treats for everyone, both savory (mainly jerky) and sweet. Oscar and Peggy would see to the provisioning of the hall, but I hadn’t been sure if professionals would think to include treats.

  Over the last six months I’d learned how important little luxuries were, from a chance to wash one’s hair to a piece of candy when another row of potatoes had to be dug out and you were exhausted.

  The hall and its surrounding town might be coming into existence with astounding swiftness, but life would remain hard—and not just for humans. Even with magic, constructing a town and rubbing off the rough edges of personality clashes and competing interests would be arduous. Despite Istvan’s belief that the magistrate hall was separate to the town, I couldn’t imagine that we’d be spared Justice’s growing pains.

  “How’s it going?” Nils ambled in to check on me.

  The elf was the member of Rory’s new pack that I least understood. He clearly had a pre-existing friendship with Istvan, but why he’d joined a pack was beyond me. The elf seemed to be a loner.

  Perhaps that was why he’d joined the pack: so he wouldn’t drift away. The pack would provide an anchor.

  “Those crates need to go to the kitchen, but not till Peggy’s left for the day.” I refused to make the mistake of getting in our new cook’s way before I’d even introduced myself.

  Nils nodded.

  “Do Faerene have sewing machines?”

  His observant gaze snagged on the fallen rolls of fabric. “There’s a tailor setting up shop in Justice.”

  “Mmm.” I’d met the nymph in question, yesterday, with Istvan, and hadn’t particularly liked his fussy air. “But will he sew curtains?” I doubted it.

  “No,” Nils confirmed my suspicions. “But one of his apprentices would. Straight seams and an excuse to clamber around the hall measuring windows. We can definitely get curtains made up.”

  “And cushions?”

  “Of course.” He watched me extract blankets from a crate.

  I only wanted two for myself. I had the big, puffy purple quilt after all. I put two sage-green blankets with a subtle cream weave through them into my armoire. That left ten blankets. “Pick two,” I said to Nils. “Oscar will have stocked up with practical bedding, but these are pretty. I’ll leave a couple folded in the kitchen to snuggle under, and I think we should organize a common room somewhere, so that we’re not always in Peggy’s space.”

  “She’s a friendly soul. She won’t mind the company.” He glanced at the bathroom.

  Oops. I’d forgotten that her family were in eavesdropping distance.

  Nils took two brown blankets woven with a pattern of leaves. “Still a common room makes sense. Istvan can add onto the back of the building.” He said it so casually. “Anything you need help with?”

  “What are we doing regarding laundry?”

  He rubbed his chin. “You are a practical body, aren’t you? I imagine a laundry will open in town sooner rather than later, but until then, cleansing spells are your friend.”

  I indicated the stack of sheets, pillowcases and towels on my desk with a heap of new handkerchiefs squished in. “Can you?”

  He nodded. “All the bedding?” He glanced at the blankets.

  “If you can? Thank you.”

  I didn’t feel the spell. I wondered if I should be sensing magic. I hadn’t felt a glimmer, not even when Istvan was constructing the town’s foundation and bridge. It was something to discuss with him, and perhaps, to mention to Nora, the research griffin. Shouldn’t a familiar be able to tell when their bonded magician partner cast significant magic?

  “Anything else?” Nils asked.

  I fished in the open crate of treats. “Candy or jerky? I think the chocolate-coated coffee beans are in another crate.”

  “You bought food?”

  “Treats to share.”

  He looked at me thoughtfully. “You are very pack-minded. Interesting to match you with Istvan.”

  I raised an eyebrow, hand still hovering over the crate.

  He shook his head. “I’ll wait till the coffee beans are unpacked.”

  “All right.” As he turned to go, I added. “Nils? Why are the foods you eat recognizable to me? We had pizza for lunch. Pizza! And these treats, the coffee…did you not bring your own food plants with you?”

  He leaned against the doorjamb, the empty doorjamb. Occupying a building that lacked doors was weird. “There are only so many ways to cook food. You can call it different names and add different spices, but the basic type remains. A stew is a stew no matter what ingredients are included in it.

  “As for Elysium spices and foods. We brought a few, but the plants on Earth are best suited to it. We’ll adapt our tastes. Within a few generations, the old flavors will be a matter of history and curiosity. The few things that are important to us, wrapped into our cultural identity, we brou
ght with us. Like the orcs’ frost root, which they grind up and make what you’d call coffee from. The researchers are monitoring plantings to ensure there are no dramatic ill effects from the introduced species.”

  He paused. When I didn’t have a follow-up question or comment, he left.

  From the bathroom came a low murmur of voices and an occasional scuff of boots against the stone floor. The bathroom wouldn’t need to be tiled. Istvan had used sandstone to build the hall, and altered its composition in some places. So the stone of the bathroom floor had been smoothed to the point where it resembled tile, but wasn’t so slippery that I’d fall when it was wet. The pipes took that hardened, smooth toughness even further till they resembled ceramic.

  The trio of workers from Peggy’s family would have to use magic to connect the fixtures to stone pipes. Would that make their work faster?

  I made up the giant bed with white linen sheets and put the purple quilt on top. The bed looked so inviting, and so pre-apocalypse normal. No more sleeping on the floor! The bed had a proper mattress. Since the Faerene had removed plastic from the world, straw had been the popular replacement for furniture stuffing in Apfall Hill. But this mattress was stuffed with feathers. It would be like sleeping on a cloud. No more straws poking my skin through the fabric of the mattress.

  I unpacked my satchels, hanging my clothes in the armoire and folding my underclothes in the drawers of the dresser. They looked rather lonesome in there.

  I tucked my sheepskin slippers under the bed and looked around for the woven misty-hued rug I’d bought in Civitas to go beside the bed. It was lurking rolled up behind some crates. I sat down cross-legged to unknot the string that secured it.

  A throat cleared.

  A goblin man stood just inside my room with his two companions behind him. “We’ve finished in the bathroom if you’d like to look?”

  “You’re finished already? Wonderful.”

  They edged aside so that I could enter the bathroom. Everything was in place and white, as I’d requested. It looked shiny, new and hotel-expensive. I tried a tap at the basin over the vanity cupboard and hot water ran out. “It’s perfect. Thank you.”

  The one who’d spoken showed me the controls for the shower and the stone near the doorway that I needed to press for light. “And this stone turns on the light over the mirror.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Arnout will install the lighting in your bedroom, now.” The speaker and one of his companions hightailed it out of there before I thought to inquire their names.

  “Busy, very busy,” Arnout said, as if excusing their rapid departure.

  “I’m Amy,” I said. “Pleased to meet you.”

  He nodded sharply in a gesture akin to a bow. “I am Arnout. Now, where would you like your sconces?”

  Sconces turned out to be the term for the stones that Arnout magicked to provide light. In the bathroom there was one in the center of the ceiling and above the mirror that hung on the wall behind the vanity.

  In my bedroom, Arnout and I agreed on a central overhead light, reading lights either side of the bed, and a light on the ceiling that would illuminate my desk.

  “And I have an oil lamp and candles,” I said. I wasn’t sure how much magic Istvan would allow for ordinary everyday use. How did the Faerene ration it? Did they ration it?

  Rather than distract Arnout from his spell-casting, I carried my towels and personal items into the bathroom and occupied myself in filling the vanity cupboard with soaps, lotions and a few herbal creams for various minor ailments. I even had a natural bath sponge. It felt decadent.

  “We’ll build a linen cupboard in the corner,” Arnout said. He was up a ladder in the center of my bedroom and could see me surveying the luxurious bathroom. “Not as a priority, though.”

  “I’m in no hurry.” The few linens I had could fit easily in the armoire. “A door, though…”

  “Karo and Mark are hanging them. You’ll have a door to your room by nightfall and to the bathroom.” He said “door” but the doorway to my room was wide enough to allow a griffin entrance. It would need double doors to fill it.

  Arnout descended the ladder and ran me through the lighting controls; that is, which pebbles set into the stone walls I should tap. “Tap once for on. Twice to turn them off. If you used magic you could adjust the level and color of the lighting.” He’d inset other pebbles near the bed and desk.

  “The current lighting seems fine.” Or I’d ask Istvan.

  “Good.” Arnout hefted his ladder and marched out.

  Would Peggy prove to be as taciturn as her relatives? I guess what really mattered was her cooking skills, but I reminded myself to discuss with Istvan the possibility of adding a common room. I didn’t really want to socialize under the cook’s surveillance or that of any of her family who might visit her.

  Analyzing my reluctance, I realized that I’d hit my limit. It was barely a couple of days since I’d completed the familiar trials, and since then, I’d added Rory’s pack to the people I considered allies. In addition, I’d endured the curiosity of the Faerene about my existence and relationship to Istvan. I wanted to withdraw. I wanted a safe place where I wasn’t always wary of people’s expectations and unknown motivations.

  I hugged my elbows as I looked around my room. When the doors were hung, maybe this would be my refuge. Is that what Istvan intended? But loneliness wasn’t a solution to my problems.

  I picked up an open crate. It was of the tea chest kind, and as I carried it against me, it made it difficult to peer around. I descended the stairs, carefully.

  Two goblins in mustard-yellow overalls the same color as their eyes carried a door upstairs.

  I didn’t need to press against the wall to let them by. The staircase was wide enough to accommodate Istvan. But I did so out of habit. I adjusted the cumbersome weight of the crate in my arms as I contemplated the confusing nature of magic use—why were they muscling the door upstairs rather than levitating it as Rory had done with the furniture and crates in my room?

  But speculation was better saved for when I wasn’t lugging around a crate the weight of which was fast becoming as tiresome as its size.

  Empty crates were to be stored, temporarily, in the guard unit’s training room. Rather than traipse through the kitchen, I exited via the clerks’ room and walked around the rear of the building.

  I dropped the crate thankfully inside the guard quarters. The wood made a cracking sound as it hit the stone floor, but no boards splintered. I looked both ways along the corridor. I was alone. I pulled out a large calico-wrapped bundle from the crate and ventured into Yana and Berre’s room, aware that I was intruding even if there was no door yet to keep me out.

  The room was very simply furnished with a bare mattress on a large bed, a dresser, a single beech bentwood chair and an alcove where a cupboard could be built in.

  I tore away the calico wrapper and spread the red silk quilt I’d bought in Civitas over the bed.

  “What are you doing?” Berre asked from the doorway.

  I squeaked, snatching my hand back from where I’d been smoothing the cover. “I…um…the quilt is a gift from Istvan and me.” At least, Istvan had paid for it. He didn’t know I’d bought it to present it to someone else. “There’s a human custom to give a gift when a couple marries…um…when they formalize their romantic relationship. I thought becoming mate partners might be the same?” My rising intonation turned the last statement into a question.

  “There is an old custom,” Berre admitted. “Most people don’t follow it anymore.” He studied the red quilt. “Yana will like it.”

  I smiled. “I hope you’ll both be very happy.”

  “We will be.”

  I flinched. There was so much force in the typically good-natured werewolf’s response that I was suddenly antsy to leave the room—if he’d get out of the doorway.

  What was it with Faerene lingering and lurking in doorways? Did they have to be invited in like
vampires? No. This was Berre’s room.

  He detected my anxiety.

  “I’m sorry.” He backed out. “Our packs weren’t happy with Yana’s and my choices. We have chosen the right path for us.”

  I nodded, but he continued anyway.

  “My pack expected Yana to join them.”

  “More misogynistic rubbish.”

  Berre’s head jerked. It was as if he’d forgotten he was talking to me. “No. My pack is lower status. Having Yana join us would have benefited our standing. Her pack was annoyed that she claimed me. Her parents preferred one of their pack’s enforcers for her.” He shook his shoulders. “Hope Fang gives us a new beginning.”

  I didn’t feel comfortable questioning his personal life, but I considered that asking about Hope Fang was public stuff. “What status does Rory’s pack have?” I hadn’t guessed that the werewolf packs had a pecking order, but then, didn’t most sentients measure themselves against one another and band together against outsiders?

  “Any of the packs would have been happy if Rory had joined them. Our first formal alliance being with Magistrate Istvan raises our status, but purists won’t like that founding pack members include an elf and a goblin, or that—” Berre broke off as he stared at me.

  He swiveled away, searching for a distraction, and found one. “Is this crate empty? I’ll take it through to the storage room.” Apparently, that was the new name for the training room.

  I shrugged and fell into step with him. What we called unused and unoccupied rooms mattered little to me.

  Berre put the crate sideways on top of two others. “Rory will get a lot of petitions from women wanting to join his pack.”

  “He’s single.”

  “Yep. Sole unmated pack leader on Earth. Plus, he’s a powerful magician. I don’t know what the trials were like, but you treat the huge magic he and Istvan throw around as if it’s normal. It’s not.”

  I flicked a tooth with my tongue. “I didn’t know that.” Although the rush of people through the portal when Istvan held it open had indicated that it was a rarely performed magic and not to be missed. “I don’t know much at all about magic.”