Summer Sun's Arc

Chapter 4 of 15

Angela wiped her face with the back of her wrist. The thermometer glowed above them, its needle pinned at the top mark. The grass around the base had turned yellow. A sunflower snapped at its stem and fell. Summer Sun watched a bee drop out of the air and land in the dirt. She picked it up. It was still warm. She set it down in the shade of her own shadow. "I don't know this magic," Summer Sun said. "I can't feel where the lock is. I can't pull it off if I can't feel it." "Then we find someone who can," Angela said. "You told me once about a tinker. The one who fixed the rain bell after it cracked. He works on enchanted things." Summer Sun nodded. Gideon Cogsworth lived past the meadow, in a workshop full of gears and jars. She had never asked him for help before. She had never needed to. She looked at the wilting grass, then at Angela, then ran. Gideon was already at his door when they arrived, goggles pushed up on his head. He said he had felt the heat spike from a mile off. Summer Sun told him everything, fast. The mind-control, the locked needle, the witch. Gideon listened without interrupting. Then he picked up a small brass tool from his workbench and followed them back. At the thermometer, Gideon pressed the tool against the glass and squinted. He walked around it twice. He touched the needle with one finger and pulled his hand back. "It's a binding hex," he said. "Old style. You don't break it. You feed it something it wants more than the needle." He looked at Summer Sun. "Hexes like this eat feeling. Anger, mostly. You got any anger?" Summer Sun shook her head. Gideon frowned. "Then borrow some." He pointed at the forest. "The witch had a red creature on a leash last time you saw her. That thing is made of anger. Bring me a piece of it and I can trade the hex up." Angela went with her. They found the creature tied to a stump near a black iron pot that bubbled with green sludge. Matilda was not there. The creature snarled and lunged. Angela cut a tuft of red fur from its shoulder with a pocket knife while Summer Sun held its leash taut. They ran back before it stopped screaming. Gideon pressed the fur against the base of the needle. The air hummed. The needle shuddered, then swung down, all the way down, past summer and into a cold reading that made frost bloom on the glass. Gideon winced. "Overshot," he said. "The hex pulled hard when it let go. I can't fix that part. That's yours." Summer Sun looked at the frozen sunflowers, then at the sky, which had begun to snow in the middle of July.