Her other task remained to be done, of course, so the spell hadn’t been a total waste of time, and she would also keep looking on the way down, in hopes of catching a glimpse of the couch, but her earlier high hopes had vanished. Her steps were heavy as she marched down the air.
A flicker of movement in an alley caught her eye at one point, but appeared to be merely a dog; other than that she descended without incident until she was walking just a dozen feet above Ithanalin’s own roof, the rope trailing across the slates.
And here she slowed, spiraling in carefully toward the chimney that vented the parlor hearth. While still holding the lantern she caught up the dangling rope across her forearm, working it across until the free end hung down just a few feet. She twisted and maneuvered it, working intently until that loose end slid down into the open chimney.
She smiled, and quickly began feeding the line down the flue as she continued to walk in slowly sinking circles around the opening.
Finally the entire rope was hanging down into the chimney, just inches below her; she reached down and dropped the axe into place across the opening.
Now all she had to do was go back into the house and fish the bottom of the rope out of the fireplace. As long as the knots held, anything tied to that line was going to stay in the parlor. No bench or chair or couch could possibly pull that axe down the chimney!
That done, she raised the lantern high as she marched out over the street and back down to earth.
Chapter Nineteen
By suppertime Yara had paid Kelder the household’s tax and the guardsman had gone about his business, though he promised to stop in later to check on the situation-he said he still felt partially responsible for Ithanalin’s condition. Kilisha had secured the table, chair, bench, and coatrack in the parlor with various cords and leashes tied to the rope in the chimney, had taken the rug from the pantry and packed it into a solid box, and had then moved the locked boxes containing the dish, spoon, and rug into the workshop, to have them all in one place. The latch was still firmly attached to the front door, and the mirror still hung in its accustomed place on the parlor wall. Ithanalin’s body was in the workshop with a sheet draped over it, so that any visitors would not see what had happened-and so Kilisha wouldn’t feel as if her master was watching her whenever she tried to do any magic.
The spriggan was unsecured, and that worried the apprentice, but she saw nothing she could do about it while the athame’s magic resided in the creature and its fingernails served as lockpicks. Any cords used to bind it would fall away uselessly, and any attempt to lock it into a box or closet would hold it only for the few seconds it needed to spring the lock. Asking the rug to hold it might work, but she didn’t really feel as if she could trust the rug unless Yara kept an eye on it, and Yara had better things to do with her time.
Perhaps if they found a box that relied on bolts and bars too heavy for the spriggan to work, or arranged so it couldn’t reach them...
But spriggans were much stronger than they looked, and inhumanly flexible, and she really couldn’t be sure anything could hold it. Better, she thought, to avoid antagonizing it and to instead rely on the fragment of Ithanalin’s personality it held. After all, she might well need its active cooperation during the restorative spell.
The dark brown goo on the workbench was still simmering over the oil lamp, and Kilisha still had no idea what it was; she had asked the spriggan and received merely a turned-up palm and “Don’t remember” as a reply. The mixture’s savory smell had turned to a sort of burned odor, then that had faded away, leaving a faint sourness in the air. Kilisha was fairly sure that it was no longer fit for whatever it had been intended to do or be. Still, she could see nothing sensible to do but leave it where it was. Thinking it the safest course she had refilled the lamp when it burned low, her hands trembling in case that altered the spell and triggered some catastrophe, but nothing untoward had happened.
She had not yet had a chance to practice Javan’s Restorative; the pursuit of the chair and bench, and the levitation to look for the couch and put the line down the chimney, had eaten up most of the day, and besides, she still had no jewelweed. She could not attempt the spell until she had all the ingredients.
Of course, she also did not yet have the red velvet couch. That was the only piece of furniture still missing.
She had most of what she needed to restore her master, though, after less than two full days. She was reasonably pleased with herself as she sat at the kitchen table with the children, eating the boiled supper Yara had prepared-but still, every so often she glanced uncomfortably at the empty scat at the head of the table.
“Is Dad going to stay petrified very long?” Lirrin asked, as she reached for the spiced green beans.
“I hope not, sweetie,” Yara said, glancing at Kilisha.
“He’s not really petrified,” Kilisha said. “He isn’t stone, he’s just... well, deanimated.”
“Is he going to stay that way?” Telleth asked. Where Lirrin had sounded worried, Telleth sounded belligerent.
“Not if I can help it,” Kilisha said. “I still need two more things before I can bring him back to normal.”
“What arc they?” Lirrin asked.
“I still need something called jewelweed for the spell,” Kilisha explained. “I don’t know what it is-a plant of some kind, I suppose. There might even be some in the workshop, but I can’t tell.”
“We can get that from an herbalist, I’m sure,” Yara said. “Or from Kara, if it’s something only wizards use.”
“Who’s Kara?” Lirrin asked.
“Kara’s Arcana, on Arena Street,” Kilisha said.
“That’s where Dad gets lots of his stuff,” Telleth explained to his sister.
“I want Daddy back,” Pirra said, clearly on the verge of tears.
“We all do,” Yara said quickly. Then she turned to Kilisha. “Jewelweed?” she said. “You know, I said I don’t know what it is, but I think I remember it now. It has white flowers, and the leaves have healing properties, if I remember correctly. We can find that.”
“I’m sure we can,” Kilisha agreed.
“You said you need two more things. What’s the other one?”
“The red velvet couch from the parlor.”
“Do you know where it is?”
“No.” Kilisha shook her head- “It ran off to the west, with the other furniture, and Kelder chased it, but he lost track of it. I tried to spot it-I levitated up several hundred feet and looked at all the streets and courtyards I could, but I didn’t see it anywhere. I think I’ll need help finding it.”
“Who’s Kelder?” Pirra demanded.
“The soldier who was here today,” Kilisha explained.
“Oh,” Lirrin said. “There’s a boy across the back court called Kelder; I thought maybe you meant him.”
“There arc a lot of people named Kelder,” Yara remarked.
“Is the soldier going to bring Daddy back?” Pirra asked.
“No,” Kilisha said. “We need a spell to do that, not a soldier. But maybe he can find the velvet couch.”
“Can I help look tor it?”
Kilisha smiled. “Maybe,” she said. “Anyone who can help find it is welcome, as far as I’m concerned. We’ll all start looking in the morning, shall we? And we’ll ask all our friends and neighbors to help.”
“Couldn’t we look tonight?” Telleth asked. “The torches are bright, and a couch is too big to hide in holes or anything.”
“I want Daddy back,” Pirra said.
Kilisha looked at Yara, who said, “We might look a little. But it probably isn’t anywhere on Wizard Street, and I don’t want to go too far in the dark.”
“Kelder said he last saw it on the East Road,” Kilisha said. “It’s not on the street now, at least it wasn’t when I was looking a couple of hours ago, but it might have ducked in somewhere.”
“The East Road?” Yara said. Kilisha nodded.
“Headed for the gates’!” Lirrin asked, horrified.
