Date: 5-3-165 (concerning the events of 4-3-165)

  Perhaps I should have taken Siltstrom more seriously.

  ***

  The day after Suzet Colvar’s visit, Nadine went to the clinic by herself, and she didn’t return until after dinner. I was worried that she’d left to sign on with Colvar, but Olrick insisted that she wouldn’t do so without consulting him. I mentioned my concerns to Jacque during one of our lessons, and he said it wouldn’t be like her. I wanted to believe them, but Olrick seemed concerned, too—either he was worried that she actually had gone behind his back, or else she had consulted him and he was too embarrassed to admit it.

  I suppose it must have been the former, because, the following day, Nadine graced us with her presence late in the evening. She summoned Olrick and I to the sitting room, where she had prepared for us small cups of a hot, bitter drink called “coffee.” We sat in a circle, waiting for our coffee to cool, and stared into the fire for a time as I searched for the right words.

  “Are you making the plan to work for Colvar?” I asked.

  She continued watching the flames dance about the fire pit. “It’s a lot of money.”

  “You promised,” I reminded her, clinging to the faint hope that her word actually meant something. “I became your apprentice and helped you, so you will take me to the Valia audience.”

  Olrick gave a nervous laugh. “Maybe if we put our heads together, we can figure out a way to do both?” he said. “Maybe Nade can take this job, but you go to the audience anyway?”

  I gave Nadine a hopeful look.

  My hope went unrewarded. “Even if I was willing to lie to House Valia, which I am not, there’s just no time,” she said. “I need to give my answer to [Madame] Colvar by tomorrow. I don’t think Lord Governor Valia would be willing to see us if he knew I had another job lined up.”

  “I can see what you mean,” I said. “And can, um… Madame Colvar help take my husband out of the ocean?”

  Nadine’s lips tightened. I’d seen the same expression whenever one of my actions failed to meet her approval. That was her answer, then? After everything I did to elevate her to the height of her craft, she was prepared to cast me aside for a higher stipend?

  I took a sip of the coffee before continuing. “That is very unfortunate,” I said, pretending for all the world that this was mere inconvenience. “But she has a large number of moneys. Can she use her moneys to…hire one who is like that?”

  She gave me a confused look. Thankfully, Olrick was on hand to interpret for me: “Why’s asking if Madame Colvar could hire someone to do the salvage job.” He sighed. “I reckon it’d be possible, if you threw a shipload of money at the problem and you could find enough Kinesiomancers for the job, but…” He gave me a helpless shrug.

  “So…” I let the word hang between us. I had hoped one of them would speak up, would offer the correct and honorable solution to our situation. And yet they remained silent, and so I had to be the one to say it. “There is no help for it. We have to stay with the House Valia plan.”

  “Why, I’m sorry,” Nadine said.

  “Please, do not say sorry.” My hands began to tremble, and I had to set down my coffee and focus on my language spell. “My husband is down. Is down there. You promised to help me. Why are you not keeping your promise?”

  She reached out to take my hands in hers, but I pulled away.

  “Maybe we can’t get your husband’s remains back,” she said, “but surely there’s something else we can do. Hold a proper [funeral/memorial] down at the church. Truly honor his memory.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “It is not…” The room around me felt sharper, the flames in the fire pit taking on vivid oranges and reds, our shadows dancing across the walls becoming the deepest blacks. At the same time, somehow, it all felt less real. These people had no concept of Soulcalling, of the fact that existence can continue after death. My need to retrieve your body must seem like eccentricity. How could I explain that nothing mattered more? “Not only remains. His bones. His…mind. You are keeping me from him.”

  I think they were quiet for some time after that, but my memory is quite hazy on the details. There may have been sobbing.

  At last, Nadine spoke up. “You have to know that’s not true. We have done so much for you, Why. We gave you a home and paid for your education even though we were already struggling to feed ourselves.” Maybe it was meant to be consoling, but there was a cold edge to her voice. “I have to take this opportunity, don’t you see? That doesn’t mean we’re giving up on you or your…your husband. But what I need you to do for me is to be patient.”

  “Right.” Olrick’s voice, on the other hand, was wavering. Pitying. “Sooner or later, another chance’ll come our way. You just wait and see.”

  I don’t remember standing, but I was on my feet. “You only have the opportunity because I gave you miracles. But if you are…turning away from my side…” My voice raised in volume as I spoke, and these last words came as a shout. “Then I will find another way!”

  Without giving them a chance to respond, I fled.

  ***

  I would like to think that you’ve always known I’m a fool. It takes a fool to set out on an expedition over the ice wall and into a vast unknown where the only certainty was death. But, just as it is now, my foolishness then was motivated by you: your vision of a wider world, the light you shine on those around you, the love I carry for you in my heart. So, again, I plead that you forgive me, and that you understand.

  I don’t know what my plan was when I set out into the Panzean night. Perhaps I didn’t have one. All that mattered in that moment was getting away from the Seabornes. There was a nip in the air—autumnal, as always, though the Panzeans had no concept of autumn—and I hadn’t thought to grab my overcoat on the way out. Still, I had resolved to set out on my own, and the night chill would not turn me back.

  I lingered a moment over the spot where Jacque had been hit by the carriage. The wall was fully repaired and there were no signs that anything unusual had ever happened there. This was the place where I learned the truth of Panzean magic. In less than fifty days, I’d nearly matched Nadine’s control over Theramancy, and I’d far surpassed her in terms of magical output. Could I not do the same with one of the other schools of magic? House Valia was beyond my reach, but hadn’t Olrick said something about using Kinesiomancy, the magic of force, instead?

  Seizing upon the vague notion of finding a Kinesiomancer, I began my trek down the hill. If I’d been in my right mind, I suppose I would have gone back to the Seabornes then and there, as Olrick himself was a Kinesiomancer. I couldn’t stomach the idea of crawling back to them, however, and so I set myself to finding one elsewhere.

  My suspicion was that the greatest mages would be found closer to the palace, but more than anything I wanted to become lost. Sooner or later, I surmised, Olrick or Nadine would come after me. There were no crowds or tangled side streets to duck into in this part of the city. Even if there had been, my height and face would stand out among the nobles and aristocrats of Valia’s Watch, with their diminutive statures and bulging eyes.

  The commoners and Heartless of the low town lacked the uniform appearance of those who lived above. I would never look like them, but at least I would look less different.

  I descended. As the homes became smaller and less grand, and the sun faded into a blackish-reddish splotch in the distant sky. Bright lampposts lined the streets, so the city was never truly dark. Something about the sound of the waves coming from an ocean I couldn’t see reminded me of home.

  Arrested by the moment, I stopped at a park near the foot of the slope. From my vantage point, I could see the sprawl of the city, the colorful square boxes below looking like so many paper lanterns. For a moment, I was transported back home.

  The midwinter festival. Children laughing and playing, teasing each other in a familiar language that I haven’t heard in so many seasons. The smell of the rice cakes as the farmers took turns pounding it in their wooden mortar. The feeling of your presence as you stood beside me, your fingers lightly brushing over my shoulder, your voice—

  The sound of a carriage issued from around the bend, rolling slowly along. The Seabornes didn’t have their own carriage, and I doubted they could have hired one on such short notice. Not at this time of night. Deciding it must be some aristocrat out for a nighttime dalliance, I didn’t pay the carriage any heed, opting instead to live inside my fantasy for a minute more.

  The carriage came to a stop behind me. I turned to look, and then pain shot through my skull, and then there was nothing.