“If it’s your order, my lady,” she says sarcastically.
“Please, I didn’t even ask for this. I just want us to eat together. Relax as friends.”
“Okay, Kilda, fair enough. I’ll try. Now do your work while I do mine.”
Ylvin wanted me to explore enchantments beyond temperature. To expand my horizons. Problem is, she did not give much instruction. I would figure it out, she said. Do the same as with the cold, she said. Feel it, she said. Not very helpful. Ylvin pushed my boat into the waters, but learning to navigate the waves—that’s up to me. A Volva’s power is a blessing from the gods, but is tethered to her being.
“Let’s see,” I whisper, uncertain what to practice.
“What will you do?” asks Eidunn.
“I… Ylvin said… you will think I’m crazy.”
“Try me.” She smirks, leaning on her palm.
“It’s hard to describe. I’ve already performed a basic enchantment—making something cold.”
“Making something cold?”
“Yes.”
“I thought enchantment was about warding the evil eye and all that.”
“I thought the same,” I whisper excitedly. “But this is more than that. This is the real deal.”
“Real deal?”
“It’s… magic.”
“So how do you make something cold?”
“I almost drowned up there, in the freezing waters. In the dark. When I use that experience as some kind of anchor, I can manifest the same impression in an object. Or transfer it, perhaps. It’s hard to?—”
“Rubbish,” she scoffs. “Children’s tales.”
“I swear it.”
“Do it then.”
“Fine,” I say, my cheeks flushing. “Give me something, anything.”
“Here.” she passes me a bone—the rabbit’s forearm.
Clasping it between my palms, I close my eyes and recreate the feeling of drowning in the river. Sure enough, the bone grows colder, and colder, and colder. Relieved it works, I hurriedly pass it to Eidunn. It lands in her hand.
“Fuck the gods,” shouts Eidunn as she drops it on the table. “It’s colder than ice!”
“It is,” I say. She’s impressed. Victory.
“How did you do that?”
“Like I said, I focus on an experience, and manifest it within the bone.”
Eidunn’s wide eyes dart from me to the bone. People are afraid of real magic, like Ylvin said. I would have been unsettled myself a week ago.
“It’s not dangerous,” I say.
“If you say so.”
