Fallen Magic

I'd love to say it's a carefully-planned operation, but it is definitely not. I just stay up an hour later than normal, reading by enchanted light, and write a brief note to Omar. Then, once I'm reasonably sure my dad is asleep, I crawl out of bed. I never changed into my pyjamas, so I don't have to change back in silence now. The only tricky question is whether to get my coat.

The wardrobe door creaks loudly whenever it's opened, so doing that risks waking my dad. And given that I can cast a warming-spell, I don't strictly need it… but what if I also need a light-spell to see where I'm going? Or I'm attacked, and I lose a precious moment dismissing the warming-spell before I can cast something new? Yet again, I find myself jealous of Edward's ability to simultaneously cast.

Getting the coat is probably the sensible option. It'll make me less memorable to anyone who's also out at this hour, as well. I wish vaguely that I knew a spell that would silence the wardrobe. According to Edward, though, it's perhaps best if I don't: there are records kept of magicians who show a particular interest in spells that would be suited to criminal activity, which are admissible in court.

This is hardly criminal activity, though. It's just the only way I have of managing conflicting obligations.

I take a deep – but quiet – breath and pry the wardrobe door open. I hoped that moving slowly would quieten the creak, but it does no such thing. Even if my dad is woken by it, I tell myself, he'll just dismiss it as a random noise and roll over. Maybe it's smart to wait a little longer before I leave the apartment once this is done. Despite the fact I'd much rather have the extra fifteen minutes' sleep.

I remove my coat with care, leaving the wardrobe door open, and wriggle into my coat. As I sit down on the edge of the bed to wait, I have a horrible thought: what if my dad wakes up and comes into my room to find me not there? After what happened on Saturday, I can only imagine how panicked he'd be.

I find a quill and a scrap of parchment and write a brief note: I'm fine, and I'll be back soon. Tallulah.

Then I wait for a few minutes which seem like an eternity. I don't hear any noise from the living room, so eventually I get to my feet and pad through. I grab the key from its usual hook beside the door and tuck it into my coat pocket. Then open the door as quietly as possible, step through, and close it.

I creep down the stairs until I'm outside, and then take a deep, delightfully loud breath of cold night air. The cold is biting, even with my coat; it must be below freezing. I'm glad I didn't decide to rely on only a warming spell to shield me.

I don't stop to cast one, though I'm tempted. Best to get this done as quickly as I can so I can sleep and my dad can never find out I was gone. I set off for the market at a brisk walk.

The streets are deserted, but there's lamplight (I wonder vaguely if it's enchanted or lit by hand) to see by so I don't have to reveal I'm a magician. It's still more than dark enough to make me uneasy about what could be lurking unseen. This is a respectable street in a major city, though, not a haunted forest. I'll be fine.

And I am until I realise that my route takes me directly past an inn and spot the small crowd of obnoxiously loud drunks gathered outside. I glance up and down the street and see no convenient patrolling police officer or bouncer keeping them from becoming drunker inside the inn. I could reroute, but that would involve several dark, narrow alleys and I'm not confident enough that I wouldn't get lost.

Right. Keep walking quickly. Head down, not interested in what they're doing, just want to get where I'm going without interruption. Not worth paying attention to. Ignore the pounding of my heart in my ears, except to check that I'm not on the edge of a Malaina episode.

"Hey, stranger!" a slightly slurred male voice calls out. "Come share a drink!"

I ignore him and keep moving. It's dark enough and my coat is thick enough that my form isn't obviously feminine, which is probably saving me from worse (much though I hate the thought). But he's drawn attention to me now: there's a small round of cheers in response to his invitation.

It occurs to me that I could have tried casting a veil. I still struggle with them, and certainly wouldn't be able to conceal myself as well as Edward does, especially while moving. But with the light so low, it might well have been enough to escape the drunks' notice.

"What's the hurry?" another voice asks. "No time for your fellow man?"

I'm not a man. And besides, it would be illegal for me to accept the offer of a drink – and quite possibly for it to be made to me, though if I'm remembering alcohol laws correctly that would rely on the maker having reasonable cause to believe me a minor, which would be near-impossible to prove in these circumstances –

I really shouldn't be thinking about legal technicalities right now. Just keep walking until I've passed them and they forget about me.

"Come on, be friendly," calls out a third man. I see movement in my peripheral vision, and then someone is blocking my path. Stars. I try to sidestep him, but he moves to remain in front of me.

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"Oh, it's a shadow-girl!" he calls out to his drinking-companions, finally getting a proper look at me. "Hello, shadow-girl. Come drink with us!"

Well. At least he doesn't seem hostile, little though I appreciate being referred to as shadow-girl. But that doesn't solve the immediate problem that he's stopping me from getting to where I need to go. "No, thank you," I say, keeping my voice as level and clear as I can. "Please let me pass."

"Aw, but – "

I think of the ice in my voice when I told Electra that she was wrong two days ago. "Let me pass."

He throws up his hands clumsily. "All right. Good evening, shadow-girl." And he steps to one side.

I don't wish him a good evening in return. I just walk on as soon as I can, trying not to imagine what they're doing and what they think of me and whether they're going to… I'll be fine as long as I don't stop moving, I tell myself. And if they do try anything then, well, I'm a magician and I have the power to defend myself.

No-one stops me. I ignore the drunken calls beyond parsing them as not immediate threats. And then I'm past. I did it. Stars, my whole body is shaking with fear and relief. But I can't relax now, because I'm still alone in the dark cold night.

There's a few more streets between here and the market. They're still just about well-lit, though the side-streets leading off them are decidedly not. I walk in the centre of the road: it's not as if there's going to be carriages at this time, so I might as well stay as far away from those side-streets as I can.

I don't encounter anyone else until I reach the market. Where what I do find is a problem that hadn't occurred to me. The stalls aren't selling at this time, and their goods are all packed away to prevent theft. Which makes it somewhat difficult to tell which belongs to the scarf-sellers. I know the approximate location of that stall, but I don't trust myself to identify the exact one with nothing to go on.

I could guess, I suppose, and hope that if I'm wrong the stall-holders know each other well enough to pass on messages and aren't the sorts of people to read mysterious notes not addressed to them. The alternative… there are signs above the stalls identifying them. But the lamp-light isn't bright enough for me to read them. I'll have to provide my own light.

I sigh and whisper an incantation. A familiar ball of silvery light forms in my cupped hands, and I lift them just enough that I can make out the signs. I'll have to move even more quickly now if I don't want to make myself known as a magician to anyone who finds me.

That's what I do, darting from aisle to aisle, checking carefully that there's no-one around. Not that there's supposed to be – but when I reach the third aisle, I see a group of half a dozen people taking up its centre. One of them is holding a burning torch. I'm pretty sure this is the row that contains Omar's stall, as well, so I can't just skip it.

But maybe I can cast a veil, as I thought of doing earlier. I press my palms together to extinguish the light. It's risky: if I try a veil and am seen regardless then they'll know I'm a magician with something to hide. But if I don't, and they're the ones with something to hide…

Maybe being known as a magician wouldn't be such a bad thing in that scenario. It means not an easy target. Veil it is. I crouch in a corner where I can't be seen from the aisle and begin casting. It takes maybe thirty seconds of calm and focus to work the veil, and even then it's not something I can maintain properly while moving slower than a crawl.

If I'm slow and careful enough, though, and no-one is paying particular attention to the space just next to one row of stalls, I shouldn't be noticed. It's not quite a crawl I adopt, but more an awkward crouching shuffle, forcing myself to pause for two or three seconds between each movement. My legs are screaming silently at me before I've made it more than a few normal steps.

Omar's stall is towards the middle of the row, around where the group are gathered. I should at least be able to make out the signs by torchlight, but placing the note without being seen might be harder. Or if I'm on the wrong side of the row, and I have to dart across it… this might have been a bad idea.

But it's the only idea I have, so I keep going. As I get closer, I get a better sense of what the group is doing. They seem friendly to each other, though one of them glances around warily every so often. I can't make out any goods exchanged; all that appears to be happening is talk. They're speaking softly so as not to be overheard, so I can't make out any words at this distance.

This probably means there are no magicians in their number: there's no indication of the privacy wards that a magician would work for a meeting like this. Which in turn means that if I do get caught, I stand a good chance of escaping if I can react quickly enough.

I grit my teeth against the pain in my legs and shuffle another step, then count to three and repeat. The rhythm would be calming if the circumstances were… well, not this. After about a minute, I'm finally close enough to make out my target. Omar's stall is on my side of the row, thankfully, but it's almost exactly where the group is. Passing that close without being seen – or heard – will not be easy.

I reach into my pocket and remove Omar's note, not wanting to risk the additional motion when I'm even closer. As I do so, I'm finally able to make out a little of what they're saying.

"The signs are clear." A woman's voice, with the accent typical of this city, tinged with frustration. "There are months at most."

"Lauren, no-one is questioning the signs," a man replies with the same accent. "We're questioning the actions that should be taken."

There's a general murmur of assent in response to that. I shuffle another step closer.

"I would have thought the actions obvious," says Lauren. "We do everything possible to prepare ourselves for what's to come. I'll ask the stars where we can find – " there's a sudden gust of wind that carries her words away; all I can make out is something like ages.

I wasn't planning to eavesdrop on these people more than necessary, or to remember the details of this conversation after tonight. But that sentence makes me curious: ask the stars. Temple doctrine is that the stars know all: the future, the past, all things kept secret in the present. Most sects hold that their knowledge is not for mortals, and that their signs are arbitrary and not to be sought or relied on.

Some, though, disagree with this: if knowledge is written in the stars, why not learn to read it? Thus some priestesses are trained to interpret the stars and use them to predict the future. It's very uncertain how reliable those predictions are.

But also, I discovered when researching for Elsie that it's relatively common amongst oracles to obtain their knowledge as if from the stars.

Is Lauren an oracle, then? Does she know some of what Amara called the art of seeing what cannot be seen?

And if she does – then does her power extend to seeing a poorly-veiled magician sneaking around?