Jayna got to her feet, smiled at Topher, and headed back to her room. She stared at the broken remnants of the wall. It was held in place with surges of magic, but maybe it was time for her to figure out some way of holding it more securely, ensuring the wall itself never fell.
She grabbed one of the spellbooks Char had given her and started flipping through the pages, looking for something that could be useful to solidify the stone. All she needed was a way of holding it more securely. This was something she had put off, much like she had put off trying to better understand what she could learn about Norej and Asymorn. Both of them worried her, as did her concern that even if she were to find answers, they wouldn’t be useful to her without Ceran to help.
She found a spell that might work. She read through it, then read through it again, trying to keep it fixed in her mind. Sorcery was more complicated than the kind of magic she used through her Toral ring.
Still, as she settled in to begin, she couldn’t shake the memory of the attack on the street earlier.
Char had been targeted by dark magic, used to agitate the crowd. Now there was a dead dark sorcerer surrounded by smoke. Something was going on in the city, and this time it seemed to be more than just dark magic.
She traced a pattern out along the floor, repeating it the entire length of the wall. It was a very different pattern than what she had used in order to place the wall. When she was done, she had to grab a chair out of the kitchen and stand on it in order to place the same repeating pattern along the ceiling.
There might be something within this that she could use in other ways. When she was done, she stepped back and pushed power out through the patterns, linking them. One by one, she worked her way down the wall until the energy surged, solidifying.
With a flash of pale-white light, the stone smoothed over.
Jayna stepped back. She had never seen anything quite like that before.
It had worked.
And she had done it completely with sorcery, not by using power through the Toral ring.
Jayna sat down, grabbing the spellbook and resting it on her lap. Maybe she needed to spend more time working through the spells. Until she did, she was at a disadvantage in chasing after dark magic, especially where it involved powerful sorcerers.
But they would soon go out to search for Eva’s contacts. They had time—she hoped.
6
It was now late evening, and well past the time Jayna thought Eva should be up again for the day. Jayna had wanted to visit Eva’s contacts, but her friend had been sleeping for most of the afternoon, curled up in front of the fire, the heat blasting off of it. Every so often, Eva would stir, then head to the fire and add logs to it, getting it blazing even more brightly, before curling up once again in front of the hearth.
Jayna would have found herself smiling at that if it didn’t make the inside of the home so blasted hot. She hated the heat, though to be honest, the more Eva added logs to the fire, the more the humidity was pushed away. It tamped down most of it, so while the air was still unpleasant, it wasn’t quite as unpleasant as it would have been otherwise.
She sat at the table, flipping through spellbooks. Answers had to be there, though she hadn’t come across any yet. There was one spell she found intriguing, and it reminded her a little bit of the memory bowl she had purchased in the market. It was an unusual use of magic. Most of the time, the Sorcerers’ Society frowned upon magic that could influence memories, especially the kind that could be used to take memories away from somebody, but they had an entire section in this spellbook focused on that. Some of the spells were as simple as altering a recollection, while others were a matter of extracting memories.
Jayna sat in place, reading through it. The extraction of the memories was similar to what she had used the memory bowl for. If she could master how that spell worked, maybe she could hold on to it if she were to need it again. She didn’t want to have to use that kind of spell, and didn’t want to feel a need to take memories from someone, but at the same time, there was no denying the value in it. And if she could figure out how to reverse the spell, she might be able to help Eva.
Eva stirred again, and Jayna sighed.
She needed information, but she wasn’t about to go looking for it without Eva. She needed Eva’s presence with her to go to the kind of places she wanted to go and get the kind of information she thought she could acquire, mostly because Jayna hadn’t taken the time to foster any relationships with the owners of many of the antiquity shops throughout Nelar. Despite Eva’s grumpiness, she could be quite compelling with them.
Besides, even though Jayna might grumble about it, having an opportunity to peruse these spellbooks, searching for answers, did appeal to her. She wanted to know more about the kind of magic they described—magic she had not had the opportunity to study because she had departed the Academy so quickly—and with this, she figured she could at least get a taste of that kind of magic. She might even find a way to understand it, though doing so was still complicated for her.
While working, she found herself looking around. Topher hadn’t yet returned. He often disappeared for long stretches at a time, and Jayna didn’t bother trying to figure out where he was going or what he was after. There was no point in it. He was trying to better understand his enchantment abilities, and it was something Jayna hoped he would learn. She suspected they might need his skills before everything was finished.
“What are you doing?”
Jayna glanced over to see Eva sitting up, tracing her hand through her long black hair. Her skin glowed subtly from the fire, the warmth radiating off of her, but she had no sheen of sweat on her like Jayna would have had if she were to lie in front of the fire for that long. Given all the smoke magic Eva put off, she would’ve expected the woman to absorb the heat.
“I’m just studying,” Jayna said.
“Studying.”
Jayna closed the book and slid it across the table, turning to look at Eva. “Well, I was waiting for you.”
“Why?”
“We were going to visit your contacts,” she said carefully. “Remember?”
Eva took a deep breath. “I suppose we could do that. I do need to go out and find more wine.”
“Why does it always have to be about wine?”
“Don’t you think it should be?” She inhaled deeply, looking around the room. “Where’s the other one?”
“Don’t tell me you actually miss Topher?”
“It’s not that I miss him, it’s just . . .” She shook her head. “I’m hungry.”
“You could get up and make your own food.”
“He’s been cooking for me.”
“That’s why you like having him around?”
“‘Like’ is such a strong word.”
“That’s why you tolerate having him around?”
“Yes.”
She shook her head. “I’m sure he will be quite pleased to learn that.”
“I don’t care what pleases him.” Eva stood, wiping her hands along her dress, and frowned at Jayna. “Are we going?”
Jayna just chuckled. She took the books back to her room, slipping them under the bed to hide them, figuring that was better than the cabinet in the kitchen where she had kept the other spellbook, and joined Eva before stepping out in the street. The evening air was cool—at least, cool for the usually warm city of Nelar—but the heavy humidity remained, making it difficult for Jayna to take a deep breath.