The Last Orellen - Chapter 34: The Lonely Twins

The Lonely Twins

Halfway between Hemarland and the continent lay a pair of islands separated from each other by just a few short miles of sea. Elder Twin was large and surprisingly flat, and though it was forested, the trees looked strange to Kalen’s eyes.

“They’re so short!” he exclaimed as he stood on the deck beside Yarda, trying to gawk and stay out of the crew’s way at the same time. “I thought something was funny about the buildings, but it’s the forest. Every single tree is short.”

There was so much greenery—a beautiful thing after weeks without even a speck of the color on the horizon. But nothing taller than twenty feet grew anywhere on the island. Compared to the towering trees of home, Elder Twin’s forest looked like a beard whose owner couldn’t resist trimming it before it had gotten properly underway.

“It’s a peculiar sight,” Yarda agreed, gripping the railing tightly with her swollen fingers. Her spirits had never flagged once on the whole journey. Or at least she wouldn’t show Kalen if they did. But the sight of land seemed to have put a fresh spring in her step, too. “And a welcome one. My feet will be happier on dry land for a time.”

“Let’s sleep onshore,” Kalen said at once. “There must be an inn or a cabin with an extra room.”

He honestly felt like he could sleep wonderfully right on the beach. They would be in port for just a few days, and he wanted to take full advantage of the reprieve from the ship’s cramped quarters.

“I’ll not object to it!” Yarda smiled down at him. “Mayhap you’ll be able to practice your wizarning while we’re here, too?”

“I will actually. If the magic stays the same as it is now.”

It was weak, but it wasn’t nothing. There were flashes of pale color in the sky, almost invisible even to his eyes. It was more of the suggestion of an aurora than anything else, and he was glad to see it.

Kalen’s eyes tracked a bird as it winged its way from Elder Twin toward Younger Twin. The smaller island was also green and flat, and it looked almost perfectly round from this angle. The circular shape seemed unnatural, but Captain Kolto assured Kalen that it was just a normal patch of land, though only a few people made their homes there.

The whirlpool appeared twice a day between the two, just offshore of Elder. He was looking forward to watching the current finder swim in it.

The larger island had a town and a breakwater, but there weren’t many ships in the harbor and none half as large as Ester Ivory. When they were finally anchored, Kalen nearly flung himself at the jolly boat in his eagerness to make it to shore.

“If you have that much fire in you, we ought to make you row,” one of the Tiriswaithan sailors said cheerfully.

“I can row,” said Kalen.

He tried not to feel offended when the man laughed.

Soon, he was back on dry land for the first time since he’d left home. One of the sailors who was familiar with the town gave him directions to the church so that he could check the mail and offered to lead Yarda to a boardinghouse where they might be able to find a room.

Kalen strolled down the narrow oceanside street, ignoring the swaying sensation as his sea legs tried to adjust to solid earth and admiring everything in sight. The buildings here were different than the ones he was used to. They were narrower, and they were made of brick or daub as often as wood.

Adults and children all stared at him openly as he passed, and for a while he worried he smelled so strongly of Yarda’s seal fat liniment that he was offending the locals. But after sniffing himself all over, he eventually decided it was just the fact that he was a stranger.

The church was easy to find, since it was the only large building in town made of stone. And over the door the words “To All the Gods Known and Unknown” were carved.

Well that’s a good way to make sure nobody gets left out, Kalen thought as he pulled open the heavy door and entered. A boy and a girl around Lander’s age were scrubbing the floor. Or, rather, they had buckets and brushes as if they were meant to be scrubbing the floor.

He pretended not to notice their flustered appearance and swollen lips. The latest churchmail receipts were just shoved in a cabinet at the back of the church, and they showed it to Kalen without asking for payment. He scanned the list for his tracking verses and was sad to find that it was far more out of date than the list he’d seen on Hemarland before he left. They had no record of his letters at all.

“Is there any chance of a new list arriving this week?” he asked hopefully.

“Maybe that big ship that came in this morning has one,” the girl suggested.

“I’m from that ship,” Kalen said. He wondered suddenly if they were carrying letters, alms, and a copy of the list from Hemarland. It seemed likely, actually. He didn’t know exactly how the churches decided which ships to send the mail with, but Ester Ivory’s competent crew and nearly direct route from Hemarland to the continent must have made it a perfect choice. “We’re continent-bound so if we do have the list from my island onboard, it’s probably for a Church of Yoat there.”

The boy scratched at his stomach. “I guess that’s how it works. Sometimes we get them in months late I’ve heard. I think it’s because they forget us sometimes, since we’re dedicated to all the gods instead of just one.”

“If we do have a list on our ship, would you like for me to make a copy of it for your church?” Kalen asked.

They both blinked at him.

“I can write,” he said, in case that wasn’t clear. “In a neat hand. And then you’d have the updated receipts.”

What he was really hoping for was to charm them out of some free paper in payment for his services. He’d written so many letters during his confinement in the cabin with Yarda that he would soon need more.

They exchanged looks. “We don’t really know anything about that,” said the girl.

“You’d have to ask the priest or his wife.”

“We just clean.”

“Oh.” Kalen glanced around at the dusty floors. “I guess I’ll come back when the priest is in then. Have fun cleaning.”

He’d been planning to mail a couple of their letters back home from here. He thought that since they had so many, he shouldn’t wait until he got to the continent. If he sent them from multiple churches along the way, then their families would be sure to get word from them even if one of the deliveries went astray.

But he had some doubts about the mail system on this island now. He kept his letters with him and decided to wait until he’d talked to someone more competent.

After he left the church behind, he explored the town. It was as large as Baitown, but poorer Kalen thought. He stopped and talked to a group of children who were jumping a rope behind a fish-smoking shed. He only wanted to ask about whether or not the island had a doctor or healer of some kind, in case they could offer Yarda something better for her legs and feet than what she already head.

But they kept him for over an hour, peppering him with questions and answering his own.

To his shock, even the ones close to his own age thought he was fascinating and worldly. None of them had ever left the Twins, and since Kalen had come from across the sea on a large vessel, he was an adventurer already in their eyes.

“I’ve really never been anywhere but Hemarland and here,” he protested. “I haven’t traveled far at all.”

Well, unless you counted the previous life in the desert he couldn’t remember. Or being portaled from the Orellen place into the sea. Or astrally projecting to the second world.

Kalen didn’t count them himself. They were all terrifying accidents of fate, not proper travel.

At least he learned everything he could possibly want to know about Elder Twin while he turned the rope for them and talked about the height of the trees on Hemarland and the way longcabins worked.

There were midwives on the island. And an herbalist. And a man who was known to have a knack for setting broken bones.

A couple of practitioners lived in town as well.

“Where?” Kalen asked eagerly. “Are they magicians? Mages? What kind of magic do they practice? Do they teach?”

The children didn’t know what the difference was between a magician and a mage. They said the practitioners were a married couple who’d moved to Elder Twin a dozen years ago. They made small charmed objects.

“Enchanters!” Kalen cried. “I’ve never met one before!”

Well, he’d never met any real practitioner besides Zevnie, Arlade, and the Orellens. So he could have said the same about almost any type of magic they’d named.

“I don’t think they teach,” a girl told him. “Except their own son. It’s not useful anyway, my father says. What their charms do a person could do better with their own head.”

That hardly dimmed Kalen’s enthusiasm.

He hurried to the boardinghouse to check in on Yarda and found her taking up an entire cushioned bench in the main room. Her legs were propped on a chair, and she was regaling the owners and the sailor who’d brought her with funny stories about her son.

Kalen devoured the remains of the house’s lunch when it was offered to him, and after he’d finished off a plate that was mostly boiled root vegetables and turnip leaves, he told Yarda he was going to talk to the enchanters. “About minor practitioner things,” he said.

He stressed the word minor as much as he dared. Yarda knew he didn’t want anyone to hear about how he’d “smote the forest” with his magic, but she seemed so boisterous right now he was afraid she might forget. They’d discussed it at length before they ever left Hemarland, and she hadn’t mentioned it to a soul aboard the Ester Ivory. The Captain and crew were all fine with him being a practitioner, but even they might find that story a little too much to tolerate.

Miraculously, they hadn’t been informed of the situation when they made port in Baitown.

Kalen had been sure someone would spread the story to them, and his parents would have to beg and offer them a small fortune before they’d let him onboard. The uncharacteristic lack of gossip was likely due to the fact that Yarda Strongback was beloved by everyone who knew her. Half the town had come to see the ship off when they sailed, and none of them wanted her to have to travel alone.

She gave him a grin and a nod to let him know she remembered the need for secrecy. Feeling relieved, he headed back out.

#

The practitioner couple were welcoming, even after they realized that Kalen hadn’t come to buy anything from the little shop they ran in the front room of their home. And they were real practitioners, born in small clans on the continent and trained for some years despite their lack of talent.

Kalen tried not to be disappointed in them.

The man was a low magician, like Kalen himself. And the woman was a mid-level one. They were open about the fact that they’d both given up on studying and advancing long ago. With job opportunities in short supply for such minimally skilled enchanters, they’d made the bold decision to move to this place, where they’d have no competition from others and be able to provide a unique service.

They sat Kalen down and offered him a cup of some bitter beverage that wasn’t much like the tea he was familiar with. The cup had an enchantment painted on it that helped its contents maintain their temperature, and Polla took the time to explain how it worked.

“You have a sharp hand and good memory,” she said, while Kalen copied the runes onto a writing slate they’d loaned him.

“My teacher insisted,” he replied. He missed Nanu. “And accuracy and memorization are some of the only things you can practice for free. What are these little hook symbols that repeat in between each rune?”

“That’s my husband’s signature mark.” She nodded at the man’s back as he polished glass balls on one of the shelves. “It lets people know who enchanted the object. It doesn’t take away from the magic if you do it properly, and some practitioners find it helps them keep a good rhythm to add it in while they’re working.”

“I know—” Wrong word. Know sounded like he had personal experience, and he didn’t want to bring up cantrips. “I heard once that some spells have a sonic pattern, and rhythm would be important for those I guess. What does it have to do with enchanting though?”

“I think it’s something to do with tightening the connection between the working and mana itself, but…it’s been a while since I was a student. And that’s not something we worry about at our level, is it Ben?”

“I just like adding a signature so the world remembers me for a while after I’m gone,” the man said with a chuckle.

Kalen nodded.

“I’m sure this teacher you’re traveling to meet will know the answer,” Polla said encouragingly.“The difference between a mage and a magician is night and day.”

Kalen wasn’t sure why he’d let them think Arlade was a mage. They’d just assumed it when he said he had an offer from a master and was traveling to meet her, and he hadn’t corrected them. Now it felt like it would be awkward and self-aggrandizing to say that she was actually a high sorcerer.

He finished memorizing the enchantment and set his slate aside. It was useful, and he was very interested in the way a couple of the runes seemed to be simplified versions of ones he knew from the heating circles he’d used at home.

“Thank you for teaching me. Do you…should I teach you something I know, too?” He felt his face heat even as he made the offer. They were adults, and even if they didn’t have his ambitions, they had a lot more experience. But it was right to suggest it, wasn’t it?

And trading knowledge could only be a good thing for him.

“I think we’ve got enough of our own tricks, lad,” said Ben. “But if you happen to know any water magic? We have a couple of texts, but I’d sell my teeth for a good beginner’s manual from the Helonda family. They’re damn hard to find.”

“We’ve been sending out requests to all our old friends ever since we tested Gare a couple of years ago. But nobody’s been able to lay their hands on one, and good luck prying them out of the Helonda’s hands directly.”

Gare was their seven-year-old son. Kalen hadn’t met him yet. According to his parents, he was probably down by the shore, waiting for the tidal shift that would start the whirlpool this evening. Apparently he didn’t get tired of it even though it was such a regular occurrence.

“I don’t have any water spells,” Kalen said. “I do know a thrawning that will let you hold your breath for longer?”

“Oh, that is a useful one for a water specialist isn’t it? He’s too young for it I’m sure, but if you wouldn’t mind writing down the pattern for us?”

Kalen did so gladly, relishing in the quality of their paper so much that he became unnecessarily specific in his instructions. The pen they loaned him could be filled with ink instead of dipped, and it wrote so cleanly that for the first time in his life he was seriously tempted to become a theif.

He wondered if drawing a decorative border would be too much, decided it would, and set the beautiful pen aside.

I can’t waste my money on something like that, he scolded himself before he could ask what it might cost. And rough paper is fine.

“My goodness, this is…detailed,” said Polla, peering over his shoulder at the drying ink. “Thank you, Kalen. And feel free to come by anytime while you’re in port. It can’t always be tea and talk, but we can put you to work for a day or two if you just want to have your hands on some enchanted items and ask questions.”

“That would be wonderful! If I wouldn’t be in your way?”

She shook her head, and they agreed he’d return in the morning.

He left humming to himself and wondering how much work he’d have to do before it felt all right to ask them for access to their bookshelf. They seemed generous, but they hadn’t offered to let him go through the texts they had. Maybe if he brought one of his own books to show them, it would prompt such an invitation?

He met a couple of familiar faces from the ship on his way back through town and found out that Captain Kolto wouldn’t let his current finder enjoy the local whirlpool until tomorrow. “Too dark this evening to see much, and he doesn’t want to lose her if she has a sudden urge to misbehave,” a sailor with a curled mustache said with a sigh.

“Does she do that much?” Kalen asked. Every time he’d seen the current finder fly, it had returned promptly to the sound of the captain’s whistle.

“Only twice,” the man said darkly. “But he’s mad in love with that creature. We had to chase it for eight days when it took off toward the south like it meant to head straight to the Undergale.”

The Undergale was a famous whirlpool at the bottom of the continent.

Having seen almost everything else the island had to offer over the course of the day, Kalen headed toward the eastern beach. There was a straight dirt track through the short, broad-leaved trees. It was wide enough for a wagon, and it led all the way to a white stretch of sand adorned with large pieces of driftwood.

A couple of girls were there, pretending to have a sword fight with sticks while a third collected shells in a basket. The only other person was a little boy with brown hair and long bangs who was splashing up and down the beach, kicking up fans of water with every step.

They all stared at Kalen, but he was getting used to it. He ignored their gazes and went to the water’s edge to look toward the smaller island. The water between them was dark and choppy.

“You’re Gare, aren’t you?” he asked when the boy splashed near him.

The child’s eyes grew round and he took a step back from Kalen.

“I know your parents,” Kalen added hastily. “I visited their shop today, and they told me about you. You have a water affinity. That’s amazing!”

The boy’s expression instantly brightened and he ran up to Kalen eagerly. “I’m a practitioner just like them!” he announced. “I’m going to have an even bigger shop than they do one day!”

“Maybe I’ll come visit it some time. I’m a practitioner, too. You could sell me paper.”

“My shop is going to sell magic water.”

“What’s that?” Kalen asked. He’d never heard of magic water. Maybe it was a spell ingredient of some kind?

“It’s water I do magic on.”

Oh. Right. He was only seven. Kalen probably shouldn’t take everything he said at face value just because he’d been raised by magicians.

“Are you really a practitioner?”

“I am.”

The child grinned, revealing a missing front tooth. “Like my parents?”

“Well, I do wind magic. And I haven’t had training. But I’m a magician like them.”

“Do something!” Gare cried, jumping up and down in the sand. “Do something with wind!”

Kalen winced. He had younger cousins. He should have seen this coming. But nobody ever really asked him to show off back home. If anything it was the opposite.

“I…don’t know any wind spells.”

“Then how do you even know you’re a wind magician? Maybe you’re an enchanter. Or a water practitioner!”

“My affinity is wind. I just don’t have any books to teach me,” Kalen said.

The younger boy frowned. “Are you sure you’re a practitioner?”

“I’m sure.”

“It’s fine if you’re not. I’ll still play with you even if you can’t do magic.”

“I can do magic!” Kalen exclaimed. “I’m not a liar. Look, I…”

He started patting at his pockets. He had one of his magnetic wood buttons somewhere. He’d almost taken it out at the shop, but he was trying to make a good impression and he’d been worried that Polla and Ben would judge it harshly since they were real enchanters.

“Here!” he said triumphantly, presenting the button to Gare. “I made this! I am a practitioner.”

The boy took it and pried the two halves apart with his fingers, watching them clack back together.

“See? They’re good, right? I’ve sold them for money before.”

Kalen felt a little smug.

“These are enchanted,” Gare said gently. “That means you’re an enchanter.”

#

Kalen had a difficult time persuading Gare that practitioners weren’t limited to casting a single type of spell. He claimed his parents only did enchantments, though Kalen was sure that wasn’t true since they’d been happy to accept the thrawning. Maybe it was just the boy’s age and the fact that he’d only learned a few water spells himself.

“You can cast outside your affinity,” Kalen insisted for the dozenth time while they stood knee deep in the waves, letting the outgoing tide gradually bury their feet in the sand. “It’s just that you’re better at your affinity than anything else. So your high level workings will mostly be specialized for it.”

“I’m not sure…”

He sighed. “Show me one of your water spells, then. I’ll do it, too, and prove it to you.”

“Okay!” Gare splashed back out of the water, almost falling in the surf and crouched just beyond the reach of the waves in the place where the sand was still fully saturated. “This is my Summon Blob spell.”

“Is it really called Summon Blob?”

“No. But I forget what it’s really called because it’s boring.”

Using a fingertip, he slowly drew a pattern in the sand and enclosed it with a simple circle. It took him a couple of minutes, but Kalen watched avidly. To his surprise, instead of doing something with the pattern, the boy drew a mirrored version of it nearby.

When he was finished, he turned to Kalen with a serious look on his face. “Don’t touch my patterns.”

“I won’t.”

“You’ll mess it up.”

“I promise I won’t.”

Finally, Gare closed his eyes and placed one palm inside the second pattern. His face was screwed up in concentration. Kalen stood by quietly. He was worried the spell wasn’t working for the little boy. He’d be embarrassed, and that wasn’t what Kalen had intended. But then he noticed a thin layer of mist was forming just above the sand inside the first pattern the child had drawn.

Fascinated and thrilled, Kalen leaned over as close as he dared and watched. The mist slowly grew thicker as the sand beneath it dried out, but it didn’t dissipate in the breeze. It just hung there inside the circle.

Kalen could have examined the phenomenon and the pattern that had produced it until night fell, but a few minutes after he’d begun, Gare suddenly toppled over and let out an angry wail. The mist was swept away in an instant.

“I don’t have enough magic!” Gare cried, slapping his hands against the sand in frustration. He looked to Kalen with a trembling lower lip. “I did it earlier! That’s why! Usually I can finish it. You…you can ask my Papa.”

“I believe you,” Kalen said hastily, gesturing at the patterns. “It was amazing! I’ve never seen a spell that makes fog before. It pulls the water from the sand, doesn’t it?”

“It’s not supposed to make fog. It’s supposed to make a big drop of water.”

The mist must normally condense even further, Kalen guessed.

“That’s such a good spell,” Kalen said. “It’s so much better than anything I could do when I was your age. When I was your age I was just learning to read!”

Gare’s face was red. “Really?”

“Really,” Kalen said.

“Are you going to cast it now?”

“Oh. If you don’t mind? Is the internal pattern just a match of the external one, or do I need to learn another?”

“It’s different. It’s more complicated. I’ll show you, but you’d better pay attention.”

Kalen shuddered at the word complicated. At least if I can’t do it at all, he’ll get to feel superior instead of being upset he ran out of magic.

Gare drew another pattern in the sand. It was just the two of them on the beach now. Kalen wasn’t sure when the girls who’d been hitting each other with sticks had left.

“You’ll have to let me know the dimensions,” Kalen said as he watched the pattern take shape.

“Dimensions?”

“I mean if it’s not meant to be flat.” The simplest patterns were. But more often internal patterns were three dimensional, with line weight, colors, or symbols indicating which threads of magic went where on a visual pattern map.

“Oh. I don’t remember how to write that. Can I just tell you?”

“Yes.”

That might work if the boy was good at explaining.

When Gare finished, he pointed at a spot on the pattern. “This connection point is above this one, and it’s in front of this one. This other one over here is between these two.”

Kalen grimaced, trying to analyze the drawing. He thought he understood it, but…could seven year olds usually do one this complicated?

Kalen probably wouldn’t have been able to before last year.

“Are you paying attention?”

“I am. Let’s try it.”

The sunset was warm on his back as he knelt in a patch of wet sand and drew out the mirrored symbols, the younger boy had shown him. He patted down rogue clumps of sand as he went to keep it looking clean.

“You’re fast.”

“I’ve got to be fast at something,” Kalen muttered to himself. Louder, so that Gare could hear him, he added, “You’ll have to be patient, all right? Since it’s a new pattern it might take me a few tries to get it right.”

Assuming Gare’s drawing had been accurate, it would only take one try. It was just that the one try was going to take Kalen a long time to complete.

“All right. I’ll watch the whirlpool while you figure it out.”

“Oh! Is it here?” Kalen jumped up and spun to look out at the ocean. “I wanted to see it.”

Gare pointed. Unnecessarily. Just a short distance away, the water was beginning to swirl and froth.

“It’s about to get bigger,” the boy said. “It gets really, really big sometimes. You’re not supposed to swim, but you can throw wood at it and it will pull it in.”

Kalen was not too dignified to resist such a tempting proposition. He collected a couple of driftwood sticks and tossed them into the sea. They were pulled with uncommon swiftness away from the beach. They circled the growing vortex, disappearing for a time then reappearing suddenly before being pulled away again.

Then they just disappeared.

“It’s getting loud,” Kalen said.

“Sometimes you can hear it from the other side of the island. I’m going to swim in it one day. When I learn all about water magic.”

He had just finished telling Kalen that swimming wasn’t allowed.

“You’ll probably like the animal our ship’s captain has brought with him. It swims in the whirlpool.”

“Is it a current finder?” Gare asked excitedly.

“Oh, you’ve heard of them?”

“A captain came with one last year!”

“I’m sure it was the same captain. He probably makes port here regularly, and I don’t think they’re common.”

“Is it out there now?!” Gare dashed out into the water, and Kalen leaped after him to grab him by the collar of his shirt and yank him back.

“Don’t do that!” Kalen’s heart was suddenly pounding. “What if you get pulled into it?”

“It’s fine if I don’t go too deep.”

“What if you make a mistake? The current finder’s not here anyway. He’s letting it out tomorrow morning. You can see it then.”

Gare stepped away from the water, looking devastated.

“It’s only a night’s wait,” Kalen said, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. “Come on. Watch me try your spell, instead. Give me tips while I do it.”

He didn’t think he needed tips. But he suddenly felt the need to make sure the boy didn’t try anything reckless, and keeping him talking seemed like a good way to do that.

Over the next few minutes, he built the internal pattern. He had to make a couple of adjustments and guesses, but it seemed like it might work. He had plenty of magic for multiple attempts, and he could always draw more in if he ran himself dry. The power in the air was still thin but available.

Just like Gare had done, he placed his palm on one of the patterns in the sand. There were natural looking places for his fingers to fall, so he positioned them there.

“Are you doing it?” Gare asked, squinting at the circle where the mist should gather. “I don’t think it’s working.”

Kalen wasn’t used to getting questions mid spell. Keeping his grip on the pattern tight, he said, “I haven’t pushed my magic through yet. Give me a second.”

He debated the merits of slow versus fast. He wasn’t sure what was ideal in this situation, but he’d enjoyed watching the fog form so he went with slow.

As he flooded the pattern he’d just shaped inside himself with magic, he had the sudden unusual impression that his hand was glued to the sand. Instead of trying to pull it away, he kept going, and mist began to spiral up in the containment pattern. It swirled and thickened, coalescing quickly even though Kalen had thought he was being miserly with the magic, and an instant later a silvery globe of water had formed, hovering less than a finger’s width above the sand.

“You DID it!” Gare shrieked. He jumped up and down and pointed. “You did it, Kalen!”

Kalen cut his eyes toward him. “Why do you sound so shocked?”

“You really are a practitioner!”

He must have thought I was a very dedicated liar if he still wasn’t sure about that.

“I am. Is there a way to make the water ball float higher?” It would be better if it floated higher. Then you could drop it on people.

“I don’t know! That’s bigger than any blob I’ve ever summoned!”

“I am a lot older than you.”

“How big can you make it?”

Kalen wasn’t anywhere near his own limit, and there was plenty of water in the sand. But the spell itself would have limitations.

He kept pouring power into it at a steady pace, and the ball of water grew and grew until it reached the edges of the containment circle.

Kalen thought it would probably break if he tried to push it past them, but this spell seemed really…good. He didn’t know how else to think of it. It was so well designed. It did more than one thing without being stupidly difficult or magic hungry. It felt streamlined somehow compared to most of what he’d cast before.

“This is nice spell,” he said as he watched the water ball hover.

“That’s because it’s my first. You’re supposed to have a really good one for your first aligned spell. Papa and Mama said this one was perfect for a water affinity, and it would give me the cleanest foundation.”

Kalen hoped he didn’t look as pained as he felt. I wonder what kind of foundation blowing up a forest and shooting your soul to another world gives you.

“They paid a whole bag of gold for it!” Gare announced.

Kalen jerked involuntarily at that, and the water splashed down onto the sand.

“Awww, did you run out of magic?”

“I did,” Kalen lied. “Gare, don’t you think your parents might mind you sharing a spell that they had to pay that much for with me for free?”

The boy’s brows drew down. “Why? It’s not like two people can’t use it at the same time.”

“No…I mean, I agree with you. I feel exactly the same way, and I’d be happy to teach you some spells I know. But some practitioners like to keep their spells private. And if your parents paid so much, I wouldn’t want to—”

“You won’t tell on me will you?” Gare asked in a panicked voice. “I don’t want to get in trouble.”

Kalen was much more worried about him telling. Nobody was going to blame Gare when the strange foreign wizarn boy had come and conned him out of his special spell.

“I’ll never tell a soul,” Kalen swore. “And you shouldn’t either. And when I get to the continent, I’ll find you another water spell just as good and send it here for you.”

“Swear it!” Gare demanded. “We’ll swear it in blood! Let me find a sharp stick.”

Kalen was about to agree to a blood oath. The same concept was popular with children on Hemarland, though he’d never had occasion to swear one himself. But then an unsettling thought occurred to him, and he shook his head.

“I’m really scared of blood. Let’s just promise it before the gods. Like at a wedding. That’s even stronger.”

“Do we tie our hands together like they do at weddings too?”

Kalen wasn’t familiar with that tradition. “Yes,” he said. “That will work.”

Kalen removed his shirt and tied their right hands together with the fabric. “Oh gods,” he said, hoping he sounded suitably solemn, “I promise to keep the great secret Gare shared with me here and this beach, and to return the favor to him one day.”

“Until the last night falls on the world, and we crumble into dust,” the younger boy added.

Their weddings must be a little grim here.

“Yes, until then,” Kalen agreed.

Gare beamed at him.

The whirlpool was at its peak now. It had a strange sound to it. The water roared, but it also screamed.

“It’s funny that you’re scared of blood. You should try not to be, or people will think you’re a coward,” Gare told him seriously.

“I’ll try.”

They watched the whirlpool until the sun started to dip below the horizon. Then Kalen walked Gare home.

Afterward, he headed to the boarding house. He doubted he would get to sleep on a real mattress, since he’d be sharing a room with Yarda and she should have the bed. But he was looking forward to a night of rest on land.

Halfway there, he stepped over a broken piece of brick in the street. Then he turned back and picked it up. It had a sharpish edge.

Don’t be stupid. You’ve seen your own blood plenty of times before.

But now that the thought was in his head, it was easier to satisfy it than to resist. He dragged the pad of his thumb across the edge, nicking it, and watched his blood bead red against his skin.

It looked like it always had. Like everyone’s did.

Normal.

Lutcha had said that blood magic made Kalen and his siblings. And of all the things he’d learned lately, that had seemed like one of the least worrisome. But then Gare had asked. And Kalen had been reading the healing magic book that was too advanced for him a lot lately, so the thought that some diseases were carried in the blood had flashed across his mind…

It was dumb. Logically, he knew it was. Being an Orellen wasn’t contagious or they’d have just gone around bleeding all over strangers to make more of them instead of doing creepy magic with souls and dead bodies.

But he still tucked his bleeding finger into his fist and stuffed it deep into his pocket.

He still took the piece of brick and tossed it into the sea.