“This is all just gobbledygook. I can’t get my head around it.” She pointed at one of the tomes spread out on the bed around her. “This one lists a whole bunch of spells, and that should be great, but it also references incantations I can’t find anywhere else, so they’re all useless.” Her hand waved at the next book. “This one has two pages on incantations, but it’s structural and hypothetical, with no actual examples.” She sighed, jabbing another. “Whoever wrote this one went on to invent Ikea instructions. Half of it is in Latin, and mid-sentence it drifts into Gaeilge.”
“This one is mostly history,” Eve said, closing her book with a snap. “They do like to waffle on and self-congratulate, don’t they?”
“Oh, I hate that one. Definitely reads like the smug patriarchy wrote it.”
“I’m sure there’s an answer here somewhere.”
“So am I. That’s what’s so damn frustrating. These texts are the real deal, but it’s like putting together a ten-thousand-piece puzzle with three thousand pieces and no picture.”
“Maybe we should take a break?”
Cally shook her head. “We don’t have time for a break. Three more days until Antoine’s week expires.”
“But you’ve been working on this non-stop. It gets to the point where you can’t see the wood for the trees.” She added in a mutter, “At least for me.”
“How hard can it be to findone damn spellthat could help?” Cally prodded the book beside her. “If I wanted to remove a wartor preserve some herbs, I’m sorted. I can lower the ambient temperature and might even be able to use a basin of water to scry—which admittedly is pretty cool—but where’s thepower?”
“I expected more boons and curses,” Eve mused. “Didn’t Belle say that was what witches were known for?” Cally flinched at Belle’s name, and Eve added a hasty, “Sorry.”
Cally waved it off. “There are curses in this one,” she said, pointing at the third book beside her. “But they’re all fragments.”
“Yeah, I know, I—” She faltered, then frowned. “Wait. What do you mean by fragments?” Eve rose from her chair, leaving her current book on the seat, and came over to look.
“Fragments. As in two lines of a spell that really should have, like, six or ten. They feel incomplete.”
“But wasn’t there something in this one about fragments?” Eve pulled around the book that Cally had been using to cross-reference incantations.
“Yeah, I think so,” Cally said wearily. “I’ve read it three times but it doesn’t get any clearer. Besides, the curse one doesn’tsay ‘fragments’. That was my word.”
“Look, here.” Eve flipped to a page a third of the way through, tapping a section in Latin, where she’d scrawled the translation in the margin. “‘The work of one witch is never complete. And next to it—frusta contexta—pieces woven together.’”
“Yeah, I saw that. Isn’t it a coven reference again?”
“That’s what I thought, at first. But what if it’s your fragments?” Her head jerked up, eyes startled open. “Wait, wait, wait.” She turned pages rapidly, scanning the text while Cally stayed perfectly still, trying not to distract mid-epiphany. “Here!” she said, stabbing at a page. “Schema, vox, voluntas.”
“My phone battery’s low.” Cally flapped a hand. “Just…?”
“Structure, voice, will.” Eve had found some energy, her fingers drumming the page, her words quick. “Will is intent, right?”
“Sure. Okay.”
“Voice is obvious.”
“Gaeilge rhyming couplets.” She grimaced. “I’m sure the rhyming is essential.”
“Schema—it means structure, but also arrangement and framework. It’s used in architecture.”
“Like a building block?”
“Exactly! It’s not Ikea, it’s Lego—just like you said once before, right? You’ve got a bunch of mismatched pieces, and you have to weave them together! Put the wrong bit in the wrong slot and your spaceship’s a lawnmower.”
“Great,” Cally said dryly. “So I blow Antoine’s head off instead of imbuing him with strength.”
“Yes, but don’t you see? That’s why the curses felt chopped up. Some texts only kept the words—voice. Others describe the setup—structure. Then you drive it with intent.” She grabbed the curse book, flipping through. “Like here: ‘To grow hunger,’ ‘To bind a shadow.’”
Cally groaned, raking a hand through her hair. “So we have to play magical join-the-dots until it works.”
“It’s kind of genius, actually,” Eve said with a note of awe. “Build your own spell. Plus, it prevents just anyone from flipping through and learning how to kill their neighbor’s goat.” She laughed. “No wonder the Order left these well alone. Historically, men were encouraged and educated to focus on linear, rational, ‘scientific’ thinking. But women were excluded from those roles, and our witch sisters of old have embraced the ‘intuitive’ or ‘relational’ stereotype.” She shook her head in wonder. “Hidden in plain sight. Brilliant.”
