Beth Wonders's Arc

Chapter 25 of 29

The star magic sat warm in Beth's hands, but the bazaar wouldn't stop moving. Below the swaying canopies, the ground kept sliding past. Every hour carried her farther from her cathedral. She had the magic she came for. Now she needed the bazaar to turn around, and it answered to no one she could see. She found the void chef coiled around a tall crystal post. The post wore festival cloth and beaded wires strung with glowing lanterns. "You said you steer," Beth said. "So steer us back." "Can't." The worm's star-eyes glinted. "Bazaar drifts on its own current. I nudge. I don't turn it." It tapped the crystal post. "These hold the anchor. Twelve of them. Snap the current, it drifts home. But something has to pull." "Pull with what?" "Star magic." It let the words drop flat. "A lot. More than you carry." Beth's stomach sank. She had exactly enough magic to finish a room in her world. Spend it here and she'd arrive home with empty hands. Elijah stepped up beside her, arms folded, red eyes on the drifting ground. "Use half," he said. "Keep the rest." "Half won't snap the current." She knew it the way she knew where magic ran thin. This bazaar needed all of it. Stellan crossed the deck then, pencil tucked behind one ear, their flaming star-head bright against the dark. The astronomer had sold Beth the marks to read her charts a day ago, and clearly tracked her still. They stopped at a wooden panel carved with planet symbols and pressed one insignia with a thumb. "Wrong post," Stellan said. "The anchor runs through the panels, not the cloth. Feed the magic here." "You could've led with that," Beth said. "You didn't ask." Stellan traced a spiral engraving. "One panel. One push. But you'll drain everything you're holding." Beth looked at the star magic in her hands. Weeks of chasing it. A frozen sea, a mountain wall, a floating star she'd nearly killed herself to reach. And now the choice: keep it and stay lost, or spend it and go home poor. She pressed her palms to the carved panel. The magic poured out of her. It ran along the wood, lit each planet symbol in turn, then leapt to the crystal posts. The lanterns flared white. The beaded wires hummed. Beneath her feet, the bazaar shuddered and swung. The drifting ground below slowed, stopped, then reversed. By morning her cathedral rose on the horizon, small and dark and hers. Beth stood empty-handed at the rail. The magic she'd crossed the world for was gone, burned to buy the ride home. "You're back," the void chef said. "Cost you the star." "I know what it cost." Beth watched her spires grow closer. She had her way home now, and nothing to build with. The far sources still glowed on her charts. She would have to reach them again, and this time pay a price she could keep.