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"I'll trade you something for him," Kaye said, scrambling for a plan.
One of the men snickered, and the other drew a little knife with an ivory handle and a metal blade that stank of pure iron. The third threaded his hand through the boy's hair, tipping his head back.
"No!" Kaye yelled as the iron dagger stabbed into the boy's left eye. The orb popped like a grape, clear liquid and blood running down his face as he screamed. The flesh hissed where the iron touched it.
"So much better with an audience," one of the skinny men said.
Kaye stumbled back, reaching around on a nearby table, finding only a goblet. She hefted it like a small club, unsure of what she was going to do with it.
One skinny man drew the iron blade over the skin of the boy's cheek, down his neck as the boy trembled and squealed, his one good eye rolling weakly in his head. The iron left a thin red line where it passed, the skin bubbling to white welts.
"Going to save him, poppet?" another of the skinny men called to Kaye.
Kaye's hands were shaking, and the cup seemed nothing more than a heavy thing she held; certainly, it was no weapon.
"We're not going to kill him," the man who was holding the boy's hair said.
"Just softening him up a bit," the one with the knife put in.
Fury surged up in her. The cup flew from her hand, hitting the shoulder of the man with the knife, spotting his coat with droplets of the wine it had contained before falling ineffectually to the dirt floor, where it rolled in helpless circles.
One of the men laughed and another lunged for her. She ducked into the crowd, pushing aside a dainty woman and sidling through.;Move it back and forth between your hands. There you feel magic in its raw state, ready to become whatever you want it to be."
Kaye nodded, cradling the energy that was like a handful of nettles, letting some of it trickle through her open fingers. It was a feeling she remembered, sometimes coiling in her gut or pricking over her lips before some strange thing happened.
"Now, how did you accomplish raising the energy? What did you do?"
Kaye shook her head slightly. "I don't know… I just pictured it and stared at my hand."
"You pictured it. That is the easiest of the senses. Now you must learn to hear it, to smell it, to taste it. Only then will your magic become real. And be careful; sometimes a simple glamour can be seen through out of the corner of another's eye." The creature winked.
Kaye nodded.
"When you do magic, there are two stages: focus and surrender. Surrender is the part that so many do not understand.
"To do magic, you must focus on what it is you want to do, then let go of the energy and trust it to do your bidding.
"Close your eyes. Now picture the energy surrounding you. Imagine, for example, a ring on one of your fingers. Add detail to it. Imagine the gold of the band, then imagine the gem, its color, its clarity, how it will reflect the light… that's right. Exactly like that."
Her eyes fluttered open as Corny gasped. "Kaye! There really is a ring on your finger. A real, imaginary ring. I can see it."
Kaye opened her eyes, and there it was, on her index finger, just as she had imagined it, the silver carved into the shape of a girl and the glittering emerald set in her open mouth. She turned it against the light, but even knowing that she had magicked it into being, the ring was as solid as a stone.
"What about undoing… things?" Kaye asked.
The kelpie threw back its head and laughed, white teeth shining even in the gloom. "What have you done?"
"Enchanted someone to… like me," Kaye said, in a low voice. Corny looked at her, surprised and a little annoyed. He wasn't going to be happy that there was another part of the story she'd left out.
The kelpie grinned and clucked its tongue. "You must remove the enchantment on him in the same way that you would take off a glamour. Feel the web of your magic, reach out and tear it. Practice with the ring."
Kaye concentrated, letting the energy swirl around her, feeling it run through her. It seemed to ebb and flow with each beat of her heart.
They were driving back when Kaye pointed to the hill. "Look at those lights. Wonder who's up there."
"I don't see anything." He looked at her sharply in the rearview mirror.
Cemetery Hill was a large sloping hill with a steep incline on the side that faced the highway. That side had neither graves nor tombs, and in the winter kids would blithely go sledding, piling spare mittens and scarves on the monuments. An abandoned, half-built mausoleum stood at the base of one gently sloping side. With two levels but no roof, the top was overgrown with smallish trees and vines. There were dozens upon dozens of monuments, tombs, and gravestones erected around it.
