Stolen Songbird (The Malediction Trilogy, #1)(109)

“It’s worth the risk,” Ana?s argued. “I’d do it myself if I didn’t have to stay here to mind the human.”

“Go then,” Victoria said. “I’ll stay with Cécile. You’re probably the only one left in the city who isn’t nearly drained, and no doubt she will prefer my company to yours.”

She didn’t need to be told twice. Without a backward glance, Ana?s bolted out the door and I watched resentfully as she went. She could move rocks the size of horses with the flick of a finger, dig out miners buried beneath the mountain. She could save lives, and all I could do was sit here and wait. Worse yet, both Victoria and Ana?s could be out helping, but instead their magic was wasted on minding me.

“I feel so useless.”

“No one is expecting you to help, Cécile,” Victoria said, her voice sympathetic. “This is work for trolls.”

I sighed. “Let me find you an unbroken glass, then. I can do that much at least.”

With my little ball of magic in tow, I wandered from room to room, picking my way through overturned furniture, fallen items, and broken glass. The entire palace looked like a dollhouse that someone had picked up and given a good shake.

Spying an unbroken goblet on the floor, I called out, “I’ve found you a…” but then trailed off as I looked through the doorway. My friend was leaning back in a chair, mouth open, the sound of gentle snores filling the room. “Glass.”

Walking out onto my balcony, I looked down at the city. It was darker now. The trolls were all spent and had retreated to their homes. The tree was flush with power, the pillars, arches, and canopy visible even to me. It was up to the builders now to direct the magic to best balance the load. Up to Tristan.

I could feel him, so I knew that he was well enough. Anxious and tired, but unharmed. My knee ached unmercifully, but I tried to ignore the pain as best I could. I didn’t want Tristan coming back here because he thought I was hurt when his people desperately needed him. I racked my brain for what should be done to treat it, berating myself the entire time for not paying more attention to Gran. Why couldn’t I be strong like a troll, not… fragile. Human.

Tiptoeing around Victoria, I extracted Anushka’s grimoire from its hiding place. Flipping through the pages, I found her healing spell, but the plants were not native to the Isle. Turning to the last page, I stared at the word curses. Once again, I hoped for inspiration to come. For some answer that would save all the good in Trollus while protecting the world from the bad. But as before, there were no answers.

“Victoria,” I said quietly, deciding it was time to wake her. She didn’t even twitch, so I walked over and shook her shoulder. One eye opened and regarded me blearily, and I watched as realization struck and she leapt upright. “Cécile! My apologies!” She looked around wildly. “Has something happened?”

“Nothing,” I said calmly. The last thing I needed was for her to overreact like Ana?s had. “I cut my knee during the earthshake. It isn’t that bad,” I added quickly when her eyes widened. “Ana?s stitched it up, but I need some herbs to clean it properly.” I listed off several. What I really wanted was an opportunity to go to the library. There had to be more grimoires in that vast collection of books, and maybe there was one with a spell I could use to fix up myself.

Victoria nodded uncertainly. “The kitchen, perhaps? Ana?s stitched you up?”

“The kitchen is a good place to start,” I said, pulling on my cloak. “And yes, she did.” Opening the door, I walked out into the hallway. “It turns out she isn’t as awful as I once thought.”





Victoria was utterly useless at helping me find anything in the kitchen – not that I was overly surprised. “What about this?” she asked, holding a sprig of rosemary. “Smells nice.”



I shook my head and took the sprig from her. “Sit over there and wait,” I said, scanning the shelves filled with spices and herbs. The palace’s kitchen seemed to have everything but what I was looking for – most likely because what I was looking for didn’t go in a pot for flavor.

“élise, where are you when I need you?” I muttered as I moved deeper into the kitchen, which was devoid of life. Everyone was out helping fill the tree with power – including both my maids. I could hardly begrudge them their absence, but they would have been useful in my search. They both had minds like steel traps. If they’d ever seen comfrey or calendula or any of the other herbs that I could use, they’d remember.

Remember.

I glanced down at the sprig of rosemary in my hand, the smell of it triggering my recollection of a spell in Anushka’s grimoire. Making sure I was out of Victoria’s sight, I motioned for my light to come closer and flipped through the pages until I found what I was looking for: a spell for retrieving lost objects. “The incantation can be performed to help retrieve the memory of where the object was last seen,” I read softly. “The memory is pulled into the mind of she who casts the incantation.”

Neither of my maids had precisely lost what I was looking for, but I thought the spell might do. That is, if earth magic worked on them at all. They were half-human, but would that be enough? Never hurts to try, I thought to myself.

Firstly, I tracked down paper, pen, and ink. After giving it a bit of thought, I wrote clove oil on the paper and then rolled it up. Next, I needed something belonging to one of the girls. I looked myself up and down. élise had lowered the neckline on the dress I was wearing – that meant the work was hers. I hoped that counted. Carefully, I pulled loose the piece of thread and wrapped it around the bit of paper, followed by a twist of rosemary. “Water,” I mumbled, finding a basin and filling it to the brim. From what Martin had told me about human magic, I understood that a witch drew power from the four elements, in this case water, but I didn’t understand why. Nor did I know why certain herbs were used in certain spells, but not others. Her grimoire was like a recipe book that told me how to perform certain spells, but I had no idea how or why they worked. And I didn’t have time to figure it out now.