I studied the sorcerer’s profile as he looked at the picture. Every line perfect. He looked like he should be the oil painting. Or, rather, the oil painting, with all its errors and smudges, looked more human than he did.
He did not seem inclined to tell me more about it, so instead I asked, “What are you doing in here?”
He blew a stray hair out of his eyes, and I tried to stop myself from staring at his pursed lips. He stared ahead for a moment without speaking, then threw his hands up as if in surrender.
“I’m working on a ... cure, I suppose. For a ... disease. And it’s a particularly infectious and destructive disease, and a cure is urgently needed. The king has tasked us all with its finding.”
“Then the sorceresses are working on it too?”
“With more success, I am sure.”
I looked around at the mess again. I picked up one of the books at random off the floor and leafed through its pages. It felt unnaturally dense and heavy for its size, straining out of its physical boundaries as if it were a very large object pretending to be very small.
“You can read?” he asked, with a note of surprise in his voice. I don’t know why it irked me. It was a fair assumption to make; most village girls never bothered to learn. Or rather, no one bothered to teach them.
They didn’t have a Da like mine, who loved stories, and who sat his aching body in front of the fire every evening to read to me and help me shape my letters, guiding my tiny fingers with his coarse hands that always smelled a little of blood, no matter how much he scrubbed.
Most people assumed I was illiterate. Sylvester being surprised at my abilities, though—that stung.
I had expected the magical books to be in another language, perhaps even another alphabet, but I could read it all quite clearly. It was drily academic, from what I could tell.
“This is a recipe for a charm,” I noted. “You said you sold charms. Why? I can’t imagine you need the coin. Or ...” remembering the hearts, “whatever they use to pay you.”
He laughed a little. “No, I have little use for coin. I do not accept payment. But the king likes us to make ourselves useful to the common people. It keeps relations cordial, he says.”
I snorted.
“If anyone chooses to come to me for a spell, however, they must be desperate,” said Sylvester, resting his chin on his hands again. To my surprise, he sounded a little bitter.
“I imagine everyone who seeks out magic must be desperate,” I said.
“Not all. Some are simply greedy. No, I am the last resort when it comes to potions and charms. I told you, I am no better than a hedge-witch in that regard.”
“But you’re asorcerer.”
He crooked one eyebrow. “The others are more powerful than me.”
“Is that why you’re the only ...” I wasn’t sure how to put it. “The only one like you?” I ventured.
“Yes,” he said simply. “Magic manifests itself ... differently, in me. My spells can be somewhat unpredictable in their outcomes. And so those seeking magic come to me last, if the others have refused them.”
“What does that mean, unpredictable?”
He snorted. “Exactly how it sounds. Sometimes my magic works, and sometimes ...” he made a sweeping gesture at the mess of papers and ink, “it doesn’t. Or goes spectacularly awry.” His eyes flickered upward, unnaturally bright. “This is what I was made for. It should come as naturally as breathing. If not, I have already outlived my usefulness.”
I stared at him, and was about to ask another question when I was startled to hear a knock at the door—partly because it was a surprise, and partly because I was amazed I could hear it this far away. I thought at first I was hearing things.
“Did you hear that?” I asked.
“It’s the door,” the sorcerer said helpfully.
I felt oddly fearful. I had grown accustomed to the House and my role in it, and I was comfortable in my invisibility there. I was not eager to be seen by the world again. “Who is it?”
“I suppose you should answer it,” he said absently, preoccupied again with the papers on his desk. “Take them to the throne room.”
I muttered to myself about entitled sorcerers as I stomped to answer the door, and the House obliged (or hurried me to my doom) by making the corridor shorter.
Could it be one of the sorceresses? I didn’t know how I felt about seeing one of the magic-workers up that close. I’d only ever seen them at a respectable distance. Might she siphon the rest of my heart out of me on sight? Then again, I thought, how exactly would I be worse off?
