I smile in satisfaction. Next, I take a handful of purslane seeds. The tiny things scatter everywhere as I try to put them on the board, and I use Dinah’s dagger to control them with the edge of the blade. Oddly, the knife isn’t even warm now.
When the seeds are finally gathered in a little pile, I switch the blade onto its side and crush them. I’m probably watching with even more curiosity than Ruben. Given the magic imbued in the blade, I’ve no idea what to expect.
I wait with prickling anticipation … only for precisely nothing to happen. It’s like using any old knife, but I’m fine with that. It gives me a chance to use my magic again. Once again, I call it forth and a minuscule amount of moisture is drawn out of the seeds, only to expand on the chopping board.
‘The seeds hold sap inside, but they don’t like to give it up,’ I explain to Ruben as he watches on in awe. ‘Magic helps.’
‘That’s incredible. You really are phenomenal.’
With an unexpected sense of pride, I tip the seed husks into the pan with the lungwort while blanching two petals from a yellow agrimony flower. They’ll stay on the ice until the very end, when I’ll drop them into the tonic just before Noleen drinks it.
‘What’s it like?’ Ruben asks as he watches on. ‘Having your magic back. Do you like it?’
‘Do I like it?’ I parrot in surprise.
‘Yeah.’
I consider the question. ‘I’m not sure. In some ways, it’s like it’salways been there. Like it was just waiting to return to me. But it’s more powerful now.’
‘Because you’re older?’ Ruben questions. ‘Or because the Goddess gave it to you?’
‘Both, I think.’
‘Maybe at some point you’ll show me what you’re capable of. Besides making seed sap,’ he says with a grin.
‘Hey, that’s harder magic than you think,’ I laugh back. ‘Way harder than something like this.’ I move my hand to the pot of mint on his window ledge, splay out my fingers and twist my wrist. Instantly, the plant grows to double its height.
‘Shit!’ Ruben laughs. ‘Though maybe you could do it with something a little scarcer. Mint grows like a weed, anyway.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry. I’ll just get rid of it, shall I?’
This time I twist my wrist in the opposite direction and the foot-high bush shrinks down, smaller and smaller until nothing more than a seedling remains.
‘Now you’re just showing off.’ Ruben’s chuckle is infectious, and it’s only when I feel the ache in my cheeks that I realise I’m grinning too. It feels good to do this. To play with magic the way I would have done when I was a child. And at least now I’m not worrying about Kay or William or crying over Kyor. I have a purpose, and only now do I realise how much I needed that.
‘You’re amazing, Rosey,’ he says, and the soft wonder in his tone makes me uncomfortable. I’m nothing special.
‘That needs a little more time to steep,’ I tell Ruben briskly. ‘Are you okay if I look at your mother? See if there’s anything else I can do?’
‘Anything. Anything you can do will help.’
My mother’s healing ability hadn’t come to full fruition until she was in her early twenties, a few years before she had me, by which time her green abilities were already formidable. Her speciality was in what she called ‘flow’ in the body.
She could fix a broken bone and heal a wound, but she also had the power to create more subtle changes. To help a body return to its natural rhythms. Just like with our spell work, it wasn’t always visually impressive, but the relief she could bring to people was immeasurable.
With the touch of her hand, gallstones would move painlessly out of the body, or an insomniac would find reposeful sleep. Swelling and clots would disappear as she restored the flow of blood, and then, of course, there was her ability to assist with childbirth. To aid the unborn to flow easily and painlessly from its mother into the world.
Most times, anyway.
That power, combined with her knowledge, green magic, and general spell work, made her one of the most invaluable healers Wrohelm had. Of course I don’t know if I’ve inherited even a fraction of that magic, but now, with Noleen, it might well be the time to find out.
‘Use what you’ve got.’That’s what Mother would always tell me.‘The body wants to be at ease – at harmony with its magic and itself. Find the place where that happens, and the magic will do the rest.’
As I approach the now-slumbering Noleen, I notice the way her jaw is chattering, even in sleep. The action catches me by surprise. With her magic, I didn’t even know being cold was possible for her.
With my pulse drumming in my ears, I gently run my hands around her body, not sure what I’m hoping to feel.
Come on. Flow. I think the words rather than speak them, reaching out with my magic, but there is nothing for it to grasp. I push, trying to spark something, anything, and find only absence.
