“It is the most powerful magic of all,” he said, tracing the lines with his finger. “For generations, we have searched for every remaining volume on the subject. Most were burned, of course, but some were hidden. And some snatched from the fire.”
He took the girl’s small hand in his large one.
“We repair the books,” he said. “We make them strong again. And we learn from them.Studythem.”
She found her voice. “But what is the sacrifice? For bone magic? Do your bones crumble all up?”
He smiled. “That is the beauty of it, my dear, and the power. Just as I showed you with your tooth—for bone magic, the sacrifice does not have to be your own.”
After that day, she studied the spellbooks of bone with him every afternoon. She was his assistant; his protégée; his little helpmeet. When her little sister hovered by the library door, he told her to go and play—that it was not yet her time. Although her sister was her only playmate, the young girl glowed with pride when she heard this. She was the oldest, the chosen. She would learn all the secrets first and best.
“What about this one?” she said on one particular day, holding out a book. It was a slimmer volume than the others,bound in a leather unpleasantly smooth to the touch. When she put her nose to it, it smelled like the ocean.
“Fish leather,” he said with distaste. “A flimsy binding. And it taints your skin.”
He took it from her and riffled the pages.
“Not the best-crafted of spells,” he remarked. “Look here, and here.” He showed her places where the ink was blotted and where the scribe had appeared to write in haste, forming the letters untidily. “I keep it more as a curiosity than for any serious research.”
“May I read it?” she asked.
He eyed her for a moment, then shrugged. “It could be a valuable exercise,” he said, passing her the volume. “Examine the spell. See what you would do to repair it, if repair is possible. See where you canimproveit.”
She pored over it in bed for a week’s worth of nights. The spell was like lace—intricately woven parts interspersed with gaps and holes where the writer’s knowledge or imagination had failed. She pored over it, running her finger across the careless ink, finding places where one word could be exchanged for another more precise, or an unnecessary section could be excised. The ocean smell of the leather seeped into the skin of her hands. When she played with her kitten later, it bit at them as if her fingers had become wriggling eels.
She knew she was on the right path when she scratched out her own version of the spell. Even on scrap paper, she felt it thrum through her skeleton when she spoke it aloud. She took her work to her father, who examined it and pronounced it good. It was not bone magic yet, he said, but she was on her way.
He showed her how to create a book of her own, with paper and hide and glue and ink, to house the spells she mended—and, later, created. She learned how to make a book in which the spellwords would thrive, as you build a tempting hive for a swarm of bees. With every spell, every book, she felt bone magic stir, just a little, from its long sleep.
It was addictive. It was powerful. And she wanted it.
So close were she and her father over the years, so aligned in their ambition, that she expected one day to take over his work. She was horrified, then, when he announced at dinner that he was fostering the son of a noble but impoverished family, in order to have a male heir. The girl protested, stamped her foot, even cried, but her father was implacable. She could be an assistant, a helpmeet, but never his successor. She was sixteen.
He took away her key to his study. She was still allowed in, but only ever in her father’s company now, and she was never again permitted to take a book from his collection to study alone in her room.
When the boy came, she avoided him. It was not difficult. Her sister played with him occasionally, she knew, but she was thirteen, still young enough to be amused by the boy as she would have been amused by a puppy or kitten. The girl was surprised, then, to see him hovering in the hall outside her room one day, watching her as she practiced an incantation.
“What are you doing?” she said sharply.
He flinched. He was a slight boy, and sickly, with changing eyes and a crooked smile that made him look sly. She had heard tales of him stealing food from the kitchen. Her maid had told her that he took loaves of bread to crumble for the ravens that lived in the grounds, and that she had even seen the boy speaking to them. The staff wondered if he were weak-minded, perhaps, or odd in some other way.
Seeing him now, the girl thought he was thin, pale, and altogether disappointing—so underfed that he looked younger than the six years old she believed him to be. Hardly the hale and upstanding heir her father had wanted. She felt a twist of spiteful glee.
“Go and play,” she told him when he said nothing.
He hovered in the doorway. “There’s no one to play with.”
“Go and play with Sybil.”
“She doesn’t like me. She pulled out one of my fingernails.” He held up a bloody finger, and his lower lip trembled.
Perhaps the boy could be of use. She crouched down beside him and used her best smile. “You poor thing,” she said. “Let me help you.”
It was a simple enough matter to find one of her books of healing spells and pluck a hair from her head to nourish it as she recited. The boy watched with fascination as his nail grew back, pale and perfect as a seashell. “Thank you,” he said uncertainly, as if the words were unfamiliar.
“You’re welcome.” She made herself ruffle his dark hair. It felt greasy and unwashed against her fingers. “Now, can you do something for me?”
He nodded uncertainly.
