The sword is a saber, slender, curved, and well-balanced. It’s not overly long, but it is long for my short frame. Longer than my broken piece of broom handle, at least. The handle is also a little too big for my hand, but I know it won’t take me long to get used to it, especially if I can continue to find time to practice.
By the end of the day, my whole body aches from the time spent practicing. That night, I’m exhausted enough that I fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.
The next morning, I wake up later than normal with my body punishing me for the sudden increase in activity. I can’t help but groan as I sit down at the breakfasttable. Only Lent and Fem are left at the table by the time I get there, and I feel their eyes on me as I start to eat.
“Everything ok?” Fem asks, his voice worried.
“Fine,” I grumble back, “I must have just overdone it yesterday.”
I look up to see a look of confusion on Fem’s face, but Lent jumps in, saying, “Maybe it was summoning a demon by yourself?”
I glare at him and wonder if he’s going to make a big deal about it.
I couldn’t believe they all laughed at me after the concert during the carriage ride home. Yet again, I clearly did or said something wrong. When I see Lent’s face, though his brows are raised and one side of his mouth is tilted up in an uneven grin.
I make a growling sound at him, and he laughs.
Relieved I’m not being scolded, I return to my breakfast. The room is quiet while I finish my meal, and I enjoy the companionable silence.
As I finish eating, Fem says, “I thought maybe the three of us could spend some time with those new books you found before the concert?”
I look up hopefully and see Lent looking at Fem with his brows raised in surprise while Fem continues to look at me appraisingly.
“I’d love to,” I say breathlessly. I quickly stand and scrape off my plate before he can change his mind.
He moves us to the floral room, and we spend some time gathering the books we brought and stacking them in neat piles on the central table between the couches.
After a short silence as we each take a book and begin scanning through them, Fem says, “How did you even choose this one?” There is a presumptuous tone to his voice.
Before I can respond, Lent cuts in, “Heynow, Fem, we had our own method, didn’t we, Chaosta?” As he says it, he winks at me.
I laugh and say, “I mean, honestly, I just followed my instincts.”
Fem glances at me thoughtfully and then looks at Lent as he says, “Did you choose these or did she?”
Lent pauses and glances at me, his cheeks going pink. “She did,” he finally says.
“Hmm,” Fem says and continues to page through the book, which seems to be calledWeather It Will.
After a few minutes, Fem looks as though he is about to put it down, but then he freezes. I see him lean closer to the book and stare at the page. Then he reads a passage about how we draw power from and give power to the weather.
Lent listens thoughtfully.
None of it makes sense to me, but as he finishes reading, he looks up at us, his eyes slightly wide. “There are notes in the margin," he says, “including a rune I don’t recognize.”
He turns the toward us so we can see. Sure enough, in small, dainty, faded handwriting in the margin, there are a couple of notes and an odd, twisting shape. He pages through the rest of the book, but there aren’t any others.
The thoughtful, appraising look is back on his face as he looks at me. “Good find,” he says. “We’ll show this to Malam when he’s here later.”
“Malam will be here today?” I ask. I want to thank him for my sword. Of course, I don’t plan to mention that to the boys since they clearly think it couldn’t have been him who gave it to me.
“Yeah,” Fem says, “we started the summoning ritual this morning. We need to make up for the time that we lost to our concert preparations.” As he speaks, he marks the page and continues to look through the rest of the book.
The rest of the day passes in a similar fashion. The boys findpassages to mark, and I find a couple more margin notes, but only one more that includes a rune.
By the end of the day, the three of us have several passages we’ve marked, and yet we have barely begun on the massive pile of books we bought. Fem and Lent stand and stretch. I join them, groaning as I stretch my tight, tired muscles.
Fem looks as though he’s about to ask me again why I am stiff. Thankfully, though, Reem interrupts by coming to the door and reminding them that they have preparations to make before Malam arrives.
