“I hardly dare hold out any hope.” He shook his head. “Well, there’s obviously no reason to hide my true reason for being here given that I’ve obviously been robbed.” He put his hands on the table and took a deep breath. “I’m looking for a spell.”
“Of course,” she said, knowing she shouldn’t have expectedanything else. “Is this spell written down on one of these patterns?”
“Nay,” he said slowly. “You’re right to assume what you have, but the truth is, this spell is of a different sort. It might or might not look like a very thin wafer made from a cobweb spun by a very particular, artistic sort of spider. I think ’tis golden in appearance, but I vow it’s been so long since I laid eyes on it, I’ve forgotten.”
She smiled, prepared to chide him for having her on, then realized he was perfectly serious. She looked at him in surprise. “You’re mad.”
He smiled very briefly. “Believe that, my gel, if it lets you sleep more easily at night.”
“I haven’t been sleeping atallat night, which is absolutely your fault and not for any less gentlemanlike reasons,” she said pointedly. “As for the other, I don’t believe you.”
She waited for him to agree that she had every reason to think he was utterly daft, but he only stood there, watching her gravely.
“But spells don’t just lie about like abandoned pieces of tack,” she protested. “Do they?”
“If you are truly interested—”
“I’m not.”
“Which is why you’ve asked,” he finished. He took a pile of patterns, then very carefully started to sort through them. “In general, you have it aright. Most spells are simply words until a mage puts his power behind them. If a local wizard is exceptionally clever, he might write one of his spells in a book and add a bit of magic to it should he ever not feel quite up to making a full effort to sling that same spell at a bothersome youth or crotchety old sorceress.”
She supposed that since she was already knee-deep in the madness, there was no sense in not continuing to wade farther from the shore. “Is that what you did with your book in the library?”
He shook his head. “That was simply a spell of un-noticing layered over a very businesslike spell of protection. What I’m talking about is writing down a spell and depositing a bit of power along with the ink.” He glanced at her. “So the spell has a life of its own.”
“Rubbish,” she said faintly.
“Or not, but we can argue that later. It is also possible if a mage is either exceptionally gifted or perhaps even more cynical, to take a decent amount of his own power and bind it into some small object along with a spell of his choice. Elves do it constantly with their damned runes they draw on each other for their own fathomless purposes.”
“Why?” she asked, though she honestly wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
He shrugged lightly. “Such a thing might come in handy if a mage didn’t particularly care to make a display of his own mighty power.”
“Or if he couldn’t use any of that mighty power?”
He looked at her seriously. “Precisely.”
She found she had absolutely nothing to say to that. All she could do was stare at him and wonder how she had ever become caught up in events so far beyond her ken. She was fairly sure it had all begun in a barn, which she knew she should have found appalling somehow.
“The spell I’m seeking,” Acair continued, “has the delightful ability to explode into scores of shadows that then distract and disorient an enemy. Better still, as we’ve already discussed, itrequires nothing more to set events in motion other than to find itself flung in the proper direction.”
She set aside her first instinct, which was to roll her eyes, and forced herself to think in a different way. She considered, then looked at him. “Could anyone use something like that, or must you be a... well, you know.”
“Ah,” he said, nodding knowingly, “now it begins. Thinking to take it out for a trot around the meadow if you find it first?”
“Perish the thought,” she said without hesitation. “I’m just wondering about the danger of someone else finding it before we do.”
“More an annoyance than a danger,” he said, “but I would rather have it in my pocket than someone else’s. Hence my interest in Master Odhran’s work chamber.”
She wasn’t about to argue with him, and she absolutely didn’t want to know anything else. Unfortunately, she felt something run down her spine, her own fear or perhaps even the icy breath of someone she hadn’t seen come into the chamber. She glanced over her shoulder to make certain they were still alone, then watched Acair continue to sift through his tailor’s scribblings.
She didn’t see anything that looked out of the ordinary, but what did she know? She was a stable hand with a love for horses and a healthy skepticism for anything she couldn’t, as Acair had so correctly put it, take out for a trot through a meadow. She was accustomed to scanning the earth for unstable footing, not—
She put her hand on Acair’s arm more suddenly than she meant to, but he didn’t seem to mind. She pointed to the corner of something that was peeking out from beneath a pile he had yet to go through.
Acair took the piece of paper with a hand that was far steadier than hers holding the candle. He glanced at her, then took the candle from her and held it over the missive.
I’m watching you, but you knew that...
