Angelica's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

Angelica walked home from the oracle's hut with the name pressing against her teeth. She would not say it out loud yet. Morphelia had told her the truth she came for, and the truth had a cost. The moment she confronted the caster, they would feel her coming. She had seen what their magic could do to her face. She did not want to know what it could do to her lungs, her hands, her heart. She needed a shield before she knocked on any door. She went back into the swamp before dawn. The path narrowed between hunched trees and pools of green water. Moss dripped from every branch. She was looking for the old man everyone in the swamp warned her about. He kept the crocodiles calm. If anyone knew how to stand in front of swamp-blood magic without burning, it was him. She found him gutting a fish on a stump outside a leaning shack. Groak the Swamp Elder did not look up. His green braids swung as he worked. Flies circled his beard. Angelica had been told not to waste his time and not to lie to him. She did neither. "Someone close to me cursed my face," she said. "I have to face them to break it. They'll feel me the second I try. I need something to hold them off long enough to get my hair back." Groak set the knife down. His pale eyes moved over her frog skin without flinching. "Swamp-blood curse wants a piece of you," he said. "You want a piece of them first. Fair trade." He wiped his hands on his pants. "There's a woman up the ridge who grows charms in crystal. Tell her Groak sent you. Tell her what you're carrying. If she says no, come back and I'll think again." The ridge path opened into a cave lit from inside. Clusters of purple and pink and lime crystal grew from the walls. Celestia Bramble stood at a low bench, threading a strand of moss through a shard the size of a thumb. Flowers moved in her hair though there was no wind. "Groak sent me," Angelica said. "Swamp-blood. Someone close." Celestia's soft face went still. "Close ones are the worst kind." She pressed the shard into Angelica's palm and closed her fingers over it. "Wear it against your skin. It buys you one blow. One. When they strike, the crystal takes it and cracks. After that, you're bare." Angelica tied the shard on a cord and slipped it under her collar. The stone was cold, then warm. She felt it settle against her chest like a second pulse. She walked home with one shield and one strike. She knew the door she had to knock on. She knew the name of the person on the other side. Tomorrow she would spend the crystal, and after that there would be nothing between her and whatever came back.