Sitting on a rock near Caz, she ran through the different variations she’d read in the various books last night. She’d committed several to memory, as well as taken notes. “Maybe we need to use the recommended ingredients but vary the words.”
“Maybe we need to read a lot more books and take multiple years’ worth of classes,” Caz said. “Do you think that bird will be all right?” It still hadn’t returned from the forest.
“It’ll probably become friends with my chicken.”
Taking the notebook from Caz, she studied the notes they’d made so far. He was right that one day of reading and another of experimenting wasn’t a replacement for the rigorous training that an actual sorcerer underwent.I’m not trying to be a sorcerer, though.All I need is to perfect this one minor spell.She wasn’t trying to change the world. Just heal a tree. It should be doable.
Giving the notebook back to Caz, she looked out at the view. Beyond the orchard was the sea. She knew there was a fence to keep anyone away from the cliff, but from where they were, she couldn’t see it—it looked as if the orchard melted into the sea. Sun glinted on the water, like diamonds strewn out onto satiny blue. Far in the distance, she saw the scaled back of a sea serpent rise and fall.
Theydidhave a spell that healed trees. Couldn’t they just stick with that?
Not if our secret is immediately discovered.
There had to be a way to slow the effects of the spell.
Most sorcerers wanted their magic to be as showy as possible, to prove their worth. She’d once witnessed four sorcerers work together to create a spectacular light display over the city, to celebrate the anniversary of the emperor’s ascension to the throne. They’d been raised up on a dais lit by hundreds of candles, and their voices had been amplified to echo the spell through the city. Fire had danced in the night sky, drawn by their words. The display had begun as ribbons of light, but then the dance became more complex. It formed the shape of a sea serpent with the moon behind it, and then a lion racing between the stars, before it split into a thousand birds and then burst into flowers. She remembered later one of the other librarians saying the true magic wasn’t filling the sky with fire—it was extinguishing it later. For that, the sorcerers had embedded spells within the highest towers of the city. As the show drew to its end, the spells released and quenched the sky with rain. It had smelled like lilacs.
“What if I say the wordsbeforethe pine cone is buried? All the same elements will be there so it shouldn’t change the outcome, but it could change the timing.” As she spoke, she was already assembling another sticky pine cone.
Caz frowned at the orchard. “The spell was written in a specific order . . .”
“It was also written with specific ingredients, and we varied that. One more experiment, Caz, and if it doesn’t work, we just sell jam.” She noticed that the singing tree had switched from an aria to a lullaby. Perhaps it would be silent soon. At least it was on pitch.
“Do it,” Caz said. “But if you start sprouting leaves . . .”
She faked a smile. “Then we’ll be plants together.”
“It would solve the food problem if you had chlorophyll.”
She finished preparing the pine cone and wondered if she was making a terrible mistake. If she activated the spell while she held it, would it turn on her? As much as she loved and respected Caz, she did not want to become anything other than a person.
On the other hand, if this worked and she proved she could enchant the pine cones before she sold them, then no one would witness her speaking the First Language, which would go a very long way toward convincing islanders this wasn’t a true spell.
“Kiela . . . you know this is a risk,” Caz said.
“Everything we’ve done from the moment those fires began has been a risk.” Speaking the words directly to the pine cone, she recited the spell. And then she held her breath.
She didn’t feel any different.
“No leaves,” Caz reported.
Holding out her arm, she checked for any bark, leaves, or blossoms, but her arm looked the same shade of blue as always, if a little dry from being out in the sun all afternoon. She felt the same. Still blood in her veins, not chlorophyll. And she didn’t feel the urge to sing, which was nice. “All right, let’s see if the magic works at all.”
Kiela picked another apple tree and buried the pine cone between its roots. She stepped back without speaking and waited. Slowly, from the roots up, the tree came back to life. Leaves unfurled from the branches, the trunk thickened, and buds appeared. A few minutes later, the buds opened into blossoms.
“What if you wait longer between the spell and the burying?” Caz asked.
By sunset they had it: a slow-release spell to heal trees, encapsulated in a sticky pine cone.
Kiela and Caz spent the next day making jam, assembling pine cones, and preparing their shop for opening day. She positioned the jam jars on the new shelves, changed her mind and repositioned them, and then repositioned them again until Caz at last said, “It’s ready.”
All of the pine cones had been wrapped neatly in strips of cotton from clothes that were too shabby to be worn, and they were in a basket behind the shelves, ready to be offered to prospective customers. In total, they had several dozen jars of raspberry jam and an equal number of enchanted pine cones. Everything suspicious was hidden in the back bedroom, with quilts artfully arranged over the crates to make them look like extra tables. She’d added vases of daisies and roses on top to complete the effect, on the off chance that someone wandered back there before she could stop them. The bedroom door would be closed while the shop was open, though, and she and Caz had no intention of leaving any stranger alone in the cottage.
It was all as ready for tomorrow as they could make it.
She just hoped this wasn’t all a mistake.
Shortly after dawn the following day, Kiela ventured into the village to let the baker know that her jam shop was ready to open. She’d expected that Bryn would spread the word, and Kiela and Caz would see their first visitor later in the afternoon.
