Beth Wonders's Arc

Chapter 19 of 29

Beth carried the prism vase to the far wall and stopped. The plan had a hole in it. To move her anchor tree past the ice, she had to drag it across the open floor. The tree bled star magic from every root. It would leave a bright trail on the stone, a scent the merchant could follow straight to her. She set the vase down. "He'll smell the drag," she said. "The tree leaks. There's no clean path." Elijah watched the mirror. "Then don't drag it." "It's a tree. It doesn't walk." Her hands curled into fists. Outside the glass, the merchant crouched by the north stone, one palm flat to the ground. He was reading her magic like a map. The void chef poured itself off the stall counter. Its star-eyes drifted from the vase to the tree to the trail of light already glowing where a root had brushed the floor. It bobbed once. Then it slid to the tree and touched a root with the tip of its dark body. "You already fixed my world," Beth said. "I owe you one favor. I can't owe you two." The creature tipped its head. It laid both eyes on her, flat and steady. It tasted the air near the glowing root. Then it made a sound like a low hum, its version of no coin, friends. Beth swallowed. "What do you do with it?" The void chef opened the dark space where its stall had been. The striped window widened into a black mouth of stars. It gathered the leaking root against itself. The light did not smear across the floor. It vanished into the creature, swallowed, tasted, gone. The trail behind the tree went dark as the void chef ate it. "You're eating the scent," Beth breathed. The creature pulled the whole tree toward the ice, foot by foot, drinking every drop of magic it shed. No trail bloomed. No light hit the stone. Beth walked beside it, guiding the branches through the frozen doorway into the sealed half of her cathedral. The cold bit her wings. The tree settled into the dead space past the ice, where the merchant could not reach. Beth touched the mirror. The merchant stood, wiped his palm, and turned toward the false trail she had seeded on the far ridge. He walked away. She let out a breath. "He lost it. He can't smell what isn't there." The void chef coiled back onto its counter, star-eyes bright. It hummed once and set a warm bowl on the ledge. "What do I owe you now?" Beth asked. It bobbed. Nothing, it meant. But its eyes held on her a beat longer, and she understood. The debts were not gone. They were waiting. Her anchor was safe, hidden past the ice, her star magic no longer bleeding a path for anyone to follow. She had time now. She just did not know how much.