Father interrupts my thoughts. “I was thinking about a proper meeting, but not quite sure what would be best. Your mother was always better at things of this nature.” He rubs the gold wedding bangle wrapped around his wrist. Fourteen years and he still wears it. He stares over my shoulder at the huge map of Wickery covering one wall. What is he thinking when he looks at that map? Naupure’s vast land, our oath to our people? Or about our future alliance with Belwar?
I open my mouth to respond, but stop when someone knocks on the door. We both turn.
“Yes?” my father asks.
“A letter for you, Maharaja,” a man’s voice calls through the door.
“Come in.”
The young man who thanked me for his sister’s life holds out a note. I take it and my father thanks him. I look down and stare at Adraa’s name, and the envelope addressed to the maharaja.
“Like she knew we were talking about her.” I give Father the envelope. I imagine it’s some apology about her not being here today, but Adraa surprises me again when Father reveals the contents.
“She says she has recently found out about a corruption in firelight distribution and wants to set a time to meet with me.” The girl from the street had already gotten to Adraa, then. She worked fast.
“I’m going to respond. Maybe this will be an opportune moment for you two to meet again?” Father raises his eyebrows in question.
“Fine by me,” I lie.
Two full excruciating days pass before I have the time to visit Maharaja Naupure. Re-creating and distributing firelight, and questioning people in the East Village, takes up most of the hours, but I have other responsibilities as well. And during it all I have to act normal and sit on the one lead I have that connects Vencrin and my missing firelight.
I distract myself with training with Riya in the courtyard, each session getting me closer to the final test and no nearer to mastering white magic. I also observe one of Father’s meetings, which went particularly poorly considering Hiren’s father, the raja of the northern mountainous region, asked why I was so out of it. So with my leftover hours I help Mother in her smell factory. I cook up most of the potent potions, boiling them just right to be mixed with some other herb or by-product. Riya always tells me she doesn’t want to hear about the bitter herbs or goat eyes unless it is a potion she should learn for her father, so I don’t. Much of pink magic is used to heal ailments like a broken bone or an open wound. This is the type that, as a guard, Riya is trained for. But disease and sickness need potions infused with a healing spell. That is the type my mother excels at.
Pink magic might be the rarest on the mainland. In our coastal homestead, most study blue water magic to catch fish or green vegetation magic to produce bountiful crops. Everyone wants to learn yellow to be able to fly and orange and purple to protect themselves. For an average citizen, the ability to do up to three or four types of magic is a blessing. Healing spells are hard to master, and the materials difficult to acquire. But injury and sickness are rampant in the harsh wilds of Pire Island, so pink magic is a necessity there. Thus, the best healers come from Pire, and Mother might be the best Wickery has ever seen.
And yet, when one’s fingers fish for the liver of a goat, one doesn’t feel high and mighty or grateful for the opportunity to work under the best. Zara, my maid and Mother’s top apprentice, is sure grateful, though. I’ve seen the girl up to her knees in sheep dung and the happier for it.
“Your mother wants to know how that liver is going,” Zara says, rounding the corner from the patient room to the workroom, where jars of everything imaginable line the walls and kettles filled with thick liquid bubble.
Half a goat lies on a smooth metal table before me. Its head is missing, but I don’t want to know what’s happened to it, especially the eyeballs. “I’ve got one lobe.” I point to a platter.
Zara nods, all smiles, and turns, ready to report.
“Hey,” I call. Zara bends back around the door. “Tell her after this I’m leaving. My appointment with Maharaja Naupure is in an hour.”
Zara’s eyes go wide. I’m sure she can’t imagine jetting off to another country to meet with a maharaja. She can’t fly either, so the prospect must seem doubly inconceivable. I think she sometimes forgets she doesn’t work only for a powerful pink magic user but also the Maharani of Belwar. Though sometimes even I forget how hard it is for most. The trip might be only an hour away, but some wizards can’t make the journey without resting at one of the three flying stations floating over the city.
“Yes, of course, my lady,” Zara replies, before doubling back. “Oh wait. Does this mean you’ll be meeting…” She claps with excitement. “Want me to do your hair?”
“What’s wrong with my hair?” I start to reach for the braid and remember the goat’s blood.
“Ah…”
I point a finger. “Youdid my hair this morning.”
“Ah,” she repeats, and then ducks away with a smile. Never mind. I can’t begin to comprehend Zara. She’s an amalgamation, code switching based on her duties so fast I can hardly keep track.
Someone knocks on the door on the other side of the room, where the palace hallway connects to Mother’s area. I withdraw from the goat’s intestines and shoot a purple magic lever that flips the locked hatch. Riya barrels in, blowing my fading red mist into chaos before it disappears.
“Hey, Adraa, we better get—” She stops upon seeing me covered in blood. “Gods, couldn’t you have warned me?”
“Not exactly.”
“You should clean up. We need to go.” She pulls out a timepiece. “Hope the wind is with us.”
“Or we can make some,” I say as I dive back into the goat. I’ve cast a purple spell to materialize a thin knife, but my red tools are hard to see amid all the goat blood. I slice away at the fat and at last I dislodge the rest of the liver. “Got it.” I place the meaty piece on the tray.
“That’s really great, Adraa. Really great.”
