Aisling Úllmhara's Arc

Chapter 5 of 6

The velvet chair still held Luca's shape, but Luca was gone. Grizzella clutched the torn book to her coat. Aisling knew what the missing pages meant. Threshold spells opened any locked door. In a rival court's hands, that magic could seal her out of the crooked mansion. Then her seat was lost, and the crown with it. She left the manor and ran across the field toward the sound of hooves. A black horse stood at the tree line, one front leg wrong. The leg was a man's arm, locked stiff in the wrong place. Luca's face slid from a woman's to a boy's and would not settle. A witch in black stood over him, a broom in her fist. Morgana Nightshade. Aisling had seen her mock the ragged court at the revel. Now Morgana pressed the broom handle against Luca's chest. "He took my flight stone," Morgana said. Flat. "Grey. Small. My broom is a stick without it." She pushed harder. "Where." "I don't have it," Luca said. No softening. "I steal what's fun. Your rock is not fun." Aisling looked at Luca's twisted arm. "Someone bound you," she said. "Halfway. You can't hold a shape." Luca's yellow eyes fixed on her. "Break it," he said. "I'll give the pages back." Grizzella arrived, breathing hard. She looked at the broken shape and shook her head. "A binding needs a fire spell. My best fire spell is on a page he tore out." Her voice was cold iron. "He cut the cure out of my own book." Aisling thought fast. Threshold magic linked a thing to a place. A binding linked a shape to a form. Both were about joining and splitting. She turned to Morgana. "Your flight stone splits you from the sky. His binding splits him from his shape. Same kind of knot." Morgana lowered the broom an inch. "Speak plainly." "Help me," Aisling said. "A witch's cauldron. Fire. Grizzella knows the old way, even without the page." She looked at Grizzella. "You kept every object you ever owned. You kept the method too." Grizzella's jaw worked. "I did." They dragged a soot-stained iron cauldron from the mansion porch. Morgana lit the fire under it. Grizzella spoke words she had not needed for twelve years. Aisling held Luca's twisted arm over the steam and named the shape it should be. The arm cracked. Bone shifted. The horse leg became a man's arm. Luca's face stopped sliding and held one settled face, pale and stunned. Luca reached into his coat and dropped the torn pages into Aisling's hands. Whole. Every threshold spell. "Fair trade," Luca said. He turned and walked off, one shape, steady. Aisling held the pages to her chest. Her seat was safe now. But Morgana stood watching, her stone still missing, her eyes on the cauldron and the book. She wanted something. And Aisling had just shown a rival exactly what her magic could do.