Selene Moonshadow's Arc

Chapter 6 of 9

The real wizard sat by his own hearth with a blanket over his shoulders and a cup he did not drink from. Marcus had bound the bogey's hands with cord from his knapsack and shoved it against the wall. Selene set her notes on the table between them. Three words underlined. Names that wear names. She did not know what they meant, and until she did, the half-name in her pocket was a loaded thing pointed the wrong way. "Explain it," she said to the bogey. "The phrase. Slowly." The bogey's wide mouth worked. "Told you already. Owed you secrets. Paid." "You gave me the words. Not the meaning." She tapped the seal on the table. The sigil was still dark. "One more, or I use this again." The wizard lifted his head. His voice was thin but steady. "Let it be, girl. I know the phrase. I taught it, once." Selene turned to him. Marcus stayed by the bogey. "A name that wears a name," the wizard said, "is a false skin. A thing without a name of its own steals one and wears it like a coat. Strike the coat and you strike whoever the coat belongs to. You already know this part." "I do." Her hand went to her ribs where the stone halves sat. "I struck myself for years." "Then hear the second part. The stolen name is not the true name. It is the skin. Under it, the thing has a shape you can catch, if you know to look past the skin you already pulled." He held out a shaking hand. "Show me what you took." She set the two halves of the holed stone on the table. Sel—. Just those letters, humming faint. "That is the coat," the wizard said. "Your coat. Not its name. If you speak these letters at it as a binding, you bind yourself again. Worse this time. It will finish the wound your wand started." Selene's mouth went dry. She had been three days from doing exactly that. "Then what's under it," she said. "A sound. A shape. Something older than the skin it stole. The filter has to be built to strip the coat off first, then catch what's beneath. Two workings, not one. Marcus's stone was only ever half the tool." Marcus grunted. "Figures." "I can teach you the second working," the wizard said. "It will take days. And the shadow is coming." From the wall the bogey laughed, low and wet. "Coming fast. Wearing a face you'll want to open the door for." Selene folded the notes and put them in her coat. She looked at Marcus. He was already tightening the straps on his knapsack. "Teach me," she said to the wizard. "Start now." Outside, the raven on the roof beam shifted once and went still, watching the pass.