A Shadow Bright and Burning (Kingdom on Fire #1)(60)
“Where did the children go?”
“Er, storage. This is what we need.” He selected something, shut the box, and went to the window, covering it with what appeared to be a large and durable spiderweb.
“What are you doing?”
“I’ll need extra power for this. Use your stave.” He put his hands to the web and said, “Weave it with your malice, woven with your gall, grow to catch a spider, strength to see it fall.” My nose crinkled in distaste. “Well, it works for me. Activate Toast or Marmalade or whatever that stave’s name is, and use it as best you can. Only remember to envision something big enough to catch that creature.”
I put Porridge to the web, closed my eyes, and imagined a great net strong enough to hold a bird. Nothing happened. “I thought you said I was a magician.”
“Stop whining and think of exactly what you want to do.” Intentions—I had to be specific in my intentions. The screams below spurred me on. I envisioned the web catching that raven, saw the bird squawk and collapse as I snared it. First, I had to weave the web, make it grow. I spun my stave in a gradual spiral, beginning at the center and spreading outward. I imagined it growing larger, big enough to catch the bastard. Catch it. Catch it. Catch—
“It worked!” Hargrove yelled. I opened my eyes and stared out the window. The Familiar lay pinned to the earth in the center of the street, trapped beneath an enormous spiderweb. I opened the front door against Hargrove’s protests, pulling my cloak on and my hood around my face. The creature began to rip free.
Running down the steps, I sliced my stave through the air three times, using my anger as fuel. The wind rushed out of the east and pounded the thing. When the Familiar raised its winged arms to shield itself, the gale ushered it into the sky. I slipped back into an alleyway and hugged the wall, watching the Familiar struggle in the wind.
Out of nowhere, a great red-and-purple-and-orange cloak appeared, flapping in the breeze. The garment swept upward and wrapped itself around the raven. It looked as if the two were wrestling. With a wave of my hand, I stopped the wind. The raven plummeted to earth. When it landed, the coat rose up and flew away quickly, as if attempting to sneak off.
The Familiar lay still. Slowly, people began to approach. I kept my head down and inched forward in the crowd, stopping above the collapsed pile of rags and feathers to stare at the now-dead thing. I glimpsed the less-than-human face beneath the cowl. Its teeth were pointed and black, skin whiter than chalk, except where bits of crimson blood and gore had splashed onto its chin. Black feathers covered the top of the monster’s head, so that I could not see the eyes, and a once-human nose had sharpened into a pointed beak. Brackish liquid oozed from a stab wound in the raven’s sunken chest.
Someone grabbed me by the shoulder and, placing a hand over my mouth, spun me into a whirlwind. A moment later, hands released me. I stumbled around to face my attacker, Hargrove, who smiled and nodded behind me.
“Don’t step back; it’s quite a fall.” He grabbed me when I didn’t listen and almost tumbled into space. We stood atop a roof. Below us, the crowd’s confusion was a persistent murmur. Balanced on the roof’s slope, Hargrove cleaned blood off a silver blade. “Another great defect of the sorcerers is they don’t get creative with their weaponry. Magic is fine, but a knife works marvelously well. Ravens tend to die best with a blade of silver. I wrote all about it in my journal, The Life and Times of a Really Fantastic Magician, His Thoughts and Theories, Volume Seven.” He studied his reflection in the blade’s surface and licked his thumb, rubbing it over a patch of black blood on his forehead.
“How did you fly without wind? How on earth did you disappear? How did you get us up here?” My voice was high and breathless. It was impossible. It was brilliant.
“Those,” he said, slipping the knife into the folds of his coat, “are the sorts of questions you can’t ask.”
“You don’t have to teach me how to do what you do. Just teach me—”
“How I do what I do, but not how to do what I do? What if what I do has to do with my knowledge of what to do, and doing requires only the knowledge of doing? What would you do then?”
I blinked. “I believe you hurt my brain.”
“It’s a good brain, all things considered. Listen, my adorable bonfire, I cannot teach you much. Our safety requires it. But I suppose a little magic never did a body a great deal of harm. Unless it was the magical art of rearranging bones. Or turning flesh inside out. Or—never mind. Really, I’d forgotten how much I missed being collegial with my own kind. A magician without an apprentice is like a dog without a bark.”
“Will you teach me how to fight them?” I waved my hand over the Familiar’s corpse, far below. “How to kill them?”
“Bloodthirsty, are we? You don’t want to go and get yourself slaughtered before your big commendation.”
“I can’t let these people suffer. If the Order won’t do anything, I will.”
Hargrove sighed. “Very well. Next lesson, we’ll discuss battle techniques.”
“I may not be able to come often.”
“Whatever time you can spare.” He looked at me with something like sadness. “You did well today. You used a bit of magician trickery yourself, you know, even with the stave. I’m sure some of that will bleed into our lessons. Now, speaking of blood, I must seek out a bath.” He wrapped the cloak around us and, instantly, we stood in the alleyway again.