With monumental effort, Skate pulled her head up and stared at the crystal ball. Its interior was clear still. The enhancer sat nearby, its motion arrested by Rattle’s intervening touch. Would I have stepped away on my own? It was entirely possible that she’d have been sitting here for hours more if they had not kept her from it. “People have collapsed and died.” Would I have been one?
“I don’t think I could’ve done it,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “If it weren’t for you and Rattle, I don’t think I’d have walked away.”
“Ah, well. Barrison would have returned eventually, and he’d have been able to pull you out of it. The danger was minimized, you see. That’s why anyone who learns any magic must be taught and guided by a teacher. Self-teaching magic is asking for trouble, though some fools take the risk anyway, thinking the rewards of their studies worth the risk. Learning magic without a teacher is like biting into a hunk of meat only to find it painted stone: you’ve learned something, but it was probably not worth the pain it took to get there. Those who are self-taught have decided they like stone food just fine and have never turned back.”
“Anybody who’d do this without help is stupid.”
“Or desperate or too ambitious. People do insane things all the time, for reasons that seem good enough to them in the moment. I’ve given up trying to understand why people do the things they do; it’s a waste of effort, and even when you find an answer, it’s always unsatisfactory.”
Skate excused herself to use the privy. Rattle came back into the room at the same time she did carrying food. She didn’t recognize it by sight, and the smell was also unfamiliar, but not unpleasant. There was the comforting smell of garlic among the swirl of nose-tickling scents, so she quickly dug into the orangish goop. It was a soup, with hunks of meat (probably chicken) floating within. It was hearty and somehow sour.
“This is delicious.” She slurped it down greedily, and Rattle looked on. “Thank you.”
It turned toward the stairs.
“And, Rattle,” she said, pushing the quickly emptied bowl aside, “thank you for earlier, too. For stopping—stopping it.”
If Rattle was emotionally moved by her words of thanks, she saw no hint of it. It clicked once and moved up the stairs as planned.
Skate stood and took Petre toward the fireplace. She set him down and threw another log on before rejoining him. “Petre, I have a question.”
“If this is about AB again, I—”
“No, it’s not that.” Based on Belamy’s earlier reaction, she guessed that it must be a person: he had almost asked where she’d heard those initials; she was sure of it. However, she didn’t want to press on that particular nerve anymore. If Petre wasn’t going to tell her then, he certainly wasn’t going to now. “It’s something else.”
When he arched an eyebrow and remained silent, she continued. “Is Mr. Belamy a good man?”
Petre started, somewhat taken aback by the question. “What? What do you mean?”
She sighed. “Nothing. Forget it.”
“Wait—” His voice cut off because she’d left him on the desk. She took the steps two at a time, despite her fatigue. She poked her head into the library and interrupted Rattle’s reading.
“Go grab Petre off the desk. He probably wants a better view.” Without waiting for a responding click, she turned toward her room and eased the door shut.
What am I gonna do? The way she saw it, she had at least three distinct problems of three totally different kinds with no easy answers. First, she needed to figure out how to keep Belamy from finding any more information on the Ink without being culpable for the interference. Second, she needed to figure out how to get Gherun’s books back to him anonymously, since if Ossertine had been any indication, just leaving them at the door would lead to complications. Third and most troubling, she needed to figure out what to do about Belamy and the Ink overall. The first problem was professional, a question of how to protect her business interests and those of her crew. The second was practical, a puzzle she’d be able to work on and solve given the time and attention. The last problem, though, was moral, and it weighed heavily upon her.
It was more than a simple question of right and wrong. It was a question of who she was. On some level, she understood that her choice was to be a defining crisis of her life, that to choose one way or the other would take her down avenues she would not readily find herself free of. To defy the Ink was unthinkable; to betray her teacher was unbearable. She could not make either choice without breaking something inside her, and she dreaded that more than she could describe. No matter what she did or put her mind to, she could not pull herself from thinking of it and dreading the crisis. Momentary distractions were all she’d been able to find: stealing, reading, walking, and the newest one given in the crystal ball.
Another such distraction shook her from her musings. A thump on the window left a spray of white powder behind. A second snowball hit before she had a chance to get there, exploding with a harder thud that revealed the hunks of ice smuggled within.
Skate opened the window and looked into the half-expected face of Twitch, the glow of the smile she’d seen in the crystal flitting around the corners of his mouth. He waved her down and pointed in the general direction of their nearby familiar meeting spot. She nodded and closed the window.
Skate rubbed her eyes before she climbed back down the stairs. Rattle was in the library; it must have quickly bobbed its way down and back, because Petre was not where she’d left him. She stuffed her boots on and wrapped her coat around her before stepping back into the cold.
She trudged across the street, past the street lamps toward the spot. The flickering candles within each lamp worked with the others to provide a mostly steady orange glow for her trek, helping her avoid the already frozen puddles left by the melted snow. Judging by the renewed chill in the air, those puddles were likely to remain as they were now for a few days.
That suspicion was reinforced as small flecks of white began to drift down from above. The remaining large piles of snow would become monstrous mountains soon enough.
Twitch was below the dingy awning, peering out at the night sky and grimacing. He nodded at her when she approached, but resumed his skyward grouching almost immediately. “Gonna be a l-long winter if this keeps up.” His voice was low. He was talking that way on purpose; even with his attempt to conceal it, the crack in the voice was unmistakable.
“Yeah, and it probably will.” He’s laughed himself hoarse. Whatever he’d seen must have a been a sight to behold. “What’s the deal? Why are you knocking at my mark’s window while I’m in the house?”
“Your mark? Listen to her,” he said to an audience of none—“when we were in it t-together just a few scant days ago!” He smiled, and his left cheek twitched violently for the effort. “I came to tell you about something amazing that I-I got to see. There was a street performance today—”
“That was the best thing you’ve ever seen.”
“Yeah, and I—”
“Laughed harder than you have in months because it was so great and had magic.” The appeal of sitting in front of the crystal to see struck her in a different light; being able to know things she shouldn’t was pretty great, but seeing the stunned confusion on Twitch’s face was even better.