This too she says with reverence.
Toto squirms in my arms, but I’m not about to let him go. Not in this bustling city. I scratch him beneath the chin, trying to distract him. “Magic is real here, isn’t it?”
I meant to ask for clarification, just to be extra sure Ana was saying what I thought she was saying, even though she literally said the wordmagic.
Instead, my words come out a little breathy, trembling with possibility.
“Yes.” She nods, the emerald drop earrings hanging from her ears swinging with the movement.
I shiver and turn back to the wizard’s statue. “I’m supposed to go see him. I’m told he can help me find my way home.”
“Oh? Do you know him?”
“No. Don’t you?”
The rest of the council furtively look at one another.
Ana says, “I don’t know him personally, but I’ve met him. Sort of.”
“What does that mean? You’ve sort of met him?”
Across the park, several people light candles at an altar set up behind the wizard. The flickering flames cast sharp shadows across their faces. Once the flames are lit, they close their eyes, mouths moving in silent prayer.
“Well…” Ana starts. “Every Cardinal Council is granted an audience with the wizard in the Emerald City once a year, on the eve of Remembrance Day, but the wizard is so powerful, it’s impossible to look directly at him.”
“What, really? That’s strange. Isn’t it?”
They all laugh nervously at one another.
“No,” Ana finally says, sober now. “If you look directly at him, your head will ring.”
The council, all seven of them, nod vigorously.
“Or your eyes will burn,” a woman adds.
“I got dizzy,” another says. “Nearly passed out.”
I glance up at the statue again. The wizard’s silhouette stands out against the darkened sky. And even though he’s rendered in bronze at nearly forty feet tall, the features of his face are soft, almost blurred, as if whoever cast the statue also had no idea what the wizard actually looked like.
“How old is he?”
Ana takes a step forward so we are nearly shoulder to shoulder. “It’s hard to say. Like the Cardinal Witches, he is ageless.”
That explains why Lacosta looked barely a day over twenty.
Other than his facial features, the wizard’s statue shows a great amount of detail. Tendons stand out on his hand, giving the indication of tension and movement. Fine lines run over his bent knuckles and his fingernails are expertly carved, like they’ve been manicured and trimmed neatly.
Gazing up at him, this all-powerful man, a swell of excitement rises in my chest.
I know I have one goal: meet the wizard and appeal to him to help me find my way home. But there is no denying the thrill making its way up my spine at the thought of being in the same room as someone with this much authority, this much presence.
I’ve never met a man like him.
Remy clears their throat.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to keep you waiting,” I tell them, leaving the statue behind.
“It’s an impressive effigy,” Remy says. “I don’t fault you for pausing to admire it.”
