"Well," he said finally, "a spell of un-noticing is a handy thing for anyone to know. When you have tender radishes growing that you don't want the pigs to find. When you have a particularly tasty cluster of grapes that you'd prefer to save for yourself after a long day of harvesting. That kind of thing. But you also have to know how to undo it or fairly soon your entire garden is invisible."
"Then you know the spell?"
"Aye." Several of them, actually, in several languages of wizardry. But he had to admit, he liked the one from Camanaë the best.
"Well," she said, "spit it out!"
He hoped he could pretend a look of concentration mixed with a little doubt well enough to convince her. "You wove it thusly. You unweave it this way. "
He gave her the words. She took them from him as if he'd handed her a bowl of steaming dung, then spat them back out as quickly as possible in the direction of the brush.
There was a substantial rending sound as the spell tore itself apart.
The brush was revealed, in all its dusty glory.
Actually, all three brushes were uncovered. The others lay in the dirt across from them.
Morgan leaped to her feet. "Let's run."
Miach found himself taken by the hand and pulled from the stables. He was long since past the time where the mere touch of a woman's hand was enough to bring him to his knees, but somehow, his poor self had seemingly forgotten that.
"Doesn't your leg hurt?" he managed.
"Not enough to stop me."
Unfortunately, or fortunately perhaps, he soon found himself running alongside Morgan as she fled across a farmer's field. He counted himself fortunate that he had passed so much of his life outrunning his demons in the same way she had, else she would have left him on his knees, panting, leagues behind her. It did, however, take all his self-control not to whisper a few of his favorite words and exchange legs for wings and so he could outfly what troubled him.
He wondered if Morgan could change her shape.
He suspected he would do well not to ask.
There came a time, after the moon had risen, peaked, then begun to sink, that he suspected he might simply fall over if she did not stop. He took her arm and pulled her back as he stumbled into a walk.
"You have bested me," he said, gasping for breath. "I can go no farther."
She was breathing deeply as well, but it was a very even, measured bit of business. "We have doubled back. The barn is just ahead."
"Good. You can carry me there."
She looked at him in surprise for a moment, then she laughed. It was not a loud laugh, nor a long one, but it finished him as the run had not. He hung his head and prayed for sanity.
"You're killing me," he wheezed.
She patted him quite firmly on the back. "You're soft, Miach. Pick up a sword now and then along with your ploughshare."
He heaved himself upright and caught up with her as she started toward the barn. "I'll remember that."
She was silent until the barn was within reach. Then she stopped and looked at him. "How did you know those spells?really?"
He shrugged. "I heard them somewhere." And that somewhere was the schools of wizardry at Beinnòrain. Actually, it might have been earlier than that. He suspected his mother might have taught them to him. "From my mother, perhaps."
"Did she have magic?"
"A little."
"I do not care for magic."
"I know."
