Magic Under Stone

Now I felt sheepish. “Still. Don’t flatter me. I don’t want to start thinking myself a ‘natural talent’ or I’ll get frustrated later.”

“Pah.” He grinned at me, then looked away, poking the ground with the pitchfork. “Well, I’m impressed. Clearly, I’m no natural talent myself, but I’m making progress.”

“With your magic?”

He nodded. “Things are starting to wake up for me. Not that the plants have as much to say when they’re going to sleep for the winter. It took me a while to figure it out. I don’t have… breath and heat and… well, it’s easier to connect with things when you’re alive. All I’ve got is my soul. I guess… maybe what I can do now isn’t fairy magic, it’s spirit magic.”

I shivered and covered his hand with mine. “Don’t talk about it.”

“Why?”

“Just let me think of you as alive right now.” Then I had an idea and I took his other hand. “Let me try something.”

I drew back my hands and pulled off my gloves. He took his off too. Maybe it would help. As always, his skin felt like a living man’s, but beneath his clothes, the illusion ended, and cold metal and wood began. I thought he would yank his hands away as I slid my hands underneath his sleeves, but he didn’t. I wasn’t entirely sure what possessed me, but I kept thinking of the day he had come out from the water and told me he felt cold and wrong all over.

I wanted to know if I could make him feel warm.

I drew in a very slow breath, and as I released it, I tried to direct the heat from the fire and from my own heart into him. As long as I let the magic move very slowly, I felt I could guide it, and sure enough, the cold armature warmed under my touch. I slid my hands back to his fingers, and clasped them tightly a moment, keeping the heat close and contained.

I felt Erris tremble, but I knew it wasn’t from cold. For a moment, we shared the same warmth, our eyes locked, until I started to lose my grasp on it. It slipped from me, dissipating into the air.

Erris kept staring at me for what felt like an age.

“Did it work?” I asked.

“I know I felt something.”

He put a hand to my shoulder, and then his arms were around me, pulling me against him, and my lips parted, inviting him.

He kissed me, still trembling, his lips tasting like life-perhaps all illusions, but I didn’t care. I didn’t want to be mere friends. I wanted this. I wanted to know he desired me like I desired him even if he couldn’t have me- yet.

“Nim.” He spoke in my ear now. “Why did you let me kiss you?”

“You chose to kiss me.”

“Yes, but- That magic you just did…”

I drew back a bit, suddenly feeling as if it had been very illicit. “I just thought you’d want to feel warm. I don’t really know what I’m doing yet.”

“No, it’s not…” He sighed. “You did nothing wrong. I felt like my old self for a moment, is all, and- You looked so beautiful, doing magic. I can’t explain it. There was something so confident about the way you took my hands, and…”

He sounded so anguished. Suddenly I felt awful. My own body was so warm, tingling with a desire I couldn’t help, but my lips were dry as if he had never kissed me at all. The glamour left nothing behind. It was cruel to make him feel like his old self.

“I’m just so tired of pretending I don’t want you that way!” I covered my face, taking a deep breath to keep back the tears. “Ever since I was fourteen, I’ve had all these men looking at me, while I danced. Ogling me. It made me feel like I didn’t want to see men. Or boys. It made me feel like love was just a lie, no one around me seemed to really feel anything for each other. Even friendships meant next to nothing-I was just so alone. But here, with you… Even if you can’t hold me and I can’t touch you like we wish, it’s still better than trying to act like we don’t care. Or maybe you don’t care. Maybe you hate me because I have to wind you every morning and it’s all my fault. I never know what you really feel. First it’s this and then it’s that!”

“Nim, I…” He sounded choked. “Please don’t cry.”

“I’m not! I’m making a great effort about it too!”

“All right. I’m trying not to cry.” He pressed his palms to his temples. “Seventeen is far too old to cry, but it’s also far too young for… for this. I just-I need…” He swallowed. “Maybe you’re right. I don’t know what to do. I crave someone to hold me and… and help me with this. So badly. No one can really give me those things.” His voice broke as he said, “I miss my family, Nim.”

I pulled a wrinkled handkerchief from my pocket and wiped my nose. “I will hold you and help you, as much as I can. You just have to let me.”

He nodded, fidgeting with the edge of his coat.

I stood up and moved in front of him and put my hands on his shoulders. Moving slowly, acknowledging each other with the slightest of gestures and expressions, I settled onto his lap, and put my arms around him, and drew his head to rest on my shoulder. I think it helped that we were so far away from anyone who would care. We could form our own ideas of what reality ought to look like.

“I truly do believe that your real body is alive somewhere,” I said. “I’m not going to lose you.”

He put his hand to the back of my head and held me close, so close, and then I did start to cry, but my magic warmed my tears.

Chapter 16

Even if Erris and I had tried to pretend the kiss had never happened, I don’t think we could have. Some things simply can’t be ignored.

Sometimes I was jealous of Erris winding down and sinking into automatic sleep, because he didn’t have to lie awake at night and think about it all.

The snow came more regularly now, and every morning I woke to windows furred with frost and loathed the thought of leaving the cocoon of my bed, but I used these mornings to work on magic. I would light a candle and draw a thread of warmth from it. Every day I seemed a little better at making heat from almost nothing, and one day I found I no longer needed the candle.

I didn’t want to stop pushing the magic farther by inches. One morning, I tried warming Erris’s key first and using it as a channel for magic when I wound him.

He didn’t let me slip out of his room that day. He caught my hand and smiled. “Look at you, Nim! What’ve you been up to? Pretty soon we can use you to cook toast.”

“I’ve been practicing. It’s easy to want to practice when it’s so cold.” I hesitated. “But I can’t make fire. I haven’t even tried. With what happened to Celestina… I wish I had someone to guide me.”

“You’ve been very cautious so far. You started by moving heat and now you’re learning to make heat, so maybe you can do the same with fire. Move it first.”

“Maybe you’re right. I just don’t want to burn the house down. Celestina will have a fit if I start practicing magic indoors.”

It was snowing that morning, but when it stopped after lunch, I took a lantern out and teased the flame with my gloved hand, trying to connect with its spirit. At first I could still only move the warmth around, and then I realized the fire itself felt a little more fickle. Shy, even. Maybe because I was starting with a mere lantern flame, whereas I’d tried moving the heat with a steady bonfire. Or maybe kerosene fires were simply more difficult to connect with than wood fires. Soon I could “catch” the fire with my mind, but it slipped away if I tried to manipulate it. I must have tried to hold on to it a hundred times before I made any progress. Just as I finally managed to make the accursed thing grow and shrink in some small measure, the snow started again.

I came inside and slammed the lantern down on the counter by the kitchen door and started unraveling myself