Chapter Twenty-five
Reassembling a smashed egg with Javan’s Restorative was different from repairing a stick-largely because of the liquid nature of its contents-but was not, Kilisha was pleasantly surprised to discover, significantly more difficult. A shattered earthenware mug was midway between the two.
She ignored the occasional voices in the parlor and kitchen, and the frequent activities of the spriggan.
Allowing for rest periods and preparation time those few iterations of the spell used up most of the afternoon, and after the last Kilisha decided that further attempts could wait until after supper. She undertook her usual chores, sweeping out the kitchen and picking up after the children, then did a quick inventory of the furniture and the spriggan before returning to the kitchen to assist Yara with dinner preparations.
As she chopped carrots and onions for the soup Kilisha asked whether there was any news of the couch, and Yara responded with a detailed report that lasted well into the meal but, in the end, came down to “no.”
Kelder had mobilized the city guard-that portion of it not committed to other, more urgent activities such as guarding the Fortress in case Empress Tabaea launched an attack, or running errands for the Wizards’ Guild in their attempts to analyze and neutralize the self-proclaimed empress, or preparing refuges for the fleeing nobility of Ethshar of the Sands. The guards at all eight gates had denied seeing any ambulatory furniture leave the city, and at least a hundred other guards were patrolling the streets, looking for the couch and spreading the news that it was wanted.
Of course, they would be patrolling the streets in any case, as part of their ordinary duties, but Kelder had assured Yara that they would also be searching for the missing couch.
Opir had all of Kilisha’s friends and family from Eastgate and the surrounding neighborhoods making inquiries through the usual network of chatter and gossip. Yara thought it very unlikely that the couch could be in Eastgate, or would even have passed through-it would have been seen, and the news would have been reported by now. The search had now spread to Eastside, Lake-shore, and Farmgate, and should eventually take in the entire city- save perhaps the wealthy areas where neighbors gossiped at fancy balls and dinners, rather than in the streets and shared courtyards.
Istram had brought word to the Wizards’ Guild, and the missing couch would be placed on the agenda for discussion as soon as Tabaea had been dealt with. In the meantime, several wizards and apprentices had promised to tell him if they saw such a couch.
And in their own neighborhood, on Wizard Street between Lakeshore and Center City, Adagan and Nissitha and others were making inquiries. Nissitha was very proud of the effort she was putting in, but as yet had no positive results.
Kilisha was impressed by the extent of the net being cast, but even so, after a moment she remarked, “Except for the soldiers, we haven’t heard anything from the south half of the city, or from the waterfront.”
“Not yet,” Yara agreed. “If the couch isn’t found soon, we’ll have to start looking there.”
“What if we never find it?” Lirrin asked, worried, and Pirra burst out crying. Yara quickly jumped from her chair and snatched up her youngest to comfort her, hugging her to one shoulder. Pirra’s weeping faded to a whimper.
“We’ll find it,” Kilisha said. “You can’t hide something as big as a couch forever!”
“You can if it’s invisible,” Telleth said.
“Yes, but it’s not invisible,” Kilisha said.
“How do you know?” the boy asked.
“It wasn’t invisible when it left here. Kelder saw it go. And it doesn’t have any hands to work spells with, so it couldn’t turn itself invisible.”
“Well, what if some evil magician, a demonologist or a sorcerer or someone, turned it invisible?”
Kilisha glowered at him. “Why would anyone do that?”
“I don’t know — but why else hasn’t anyone found it yet?”
“There arc plenty of places to hide in this city,” Kilisha said. “Someone will find it eventually. You’ll see.”
And with that she pushed away her half-finished meal and stalked back into the workshop, where she went through Ithan-alin’s book of spells once more, looking for some magic that might help find the couch.
She found none, and in the end set about practicing Javan’s Restorative again, failing her first attempt to reassemble a shattered jar, then getting it right on the second try.
She also repaired and cleaned a torn tunic, and fixed a toy juggler Telleth had broken a twelvenight before; she had decided that if she was going to work the spell, she might as well make it useful, rather than specifically breaking things so that she might restore them.
The jar, the tunic, and the toy all came out as good as new, gleaming and flawless. By the time she finally went to bed she wondered why the spell wasn’t used more often.
Of course, the ingredients weren’t free, and it took at least an hour, usually more, of a wizard’s time — hardly reasonable for repairing broken toys. It really wasn’t an especially difficult spell, though. She was confident that she would be able to use it to restore Ithanalin, once she had all the pieces.
All she needed was the couch, and with so many friends out looking for it, it would surely turn up soon. She told herself, as she lay on her narrow bed, that it would probably be found within a day or so.
It wasn’t. The nineteenth and twentieth of Harvest passed without any news. Kilisha grew very tired of working the same spell over and over, and eventually, despite Yara’s insistence that she practice the Restorative, she began reviewing some of her other spells instead. The possibility of making a few homunculi to join the search for the couch occurred to her, but a careful study of a few likely spells in Ithanalin’s book convinced her that she was not yet ready to attempt them on her own, with no master to guide her hand-or to interpret Ithanalin’s sometimes cryptic phrasing.
She wished she could go out looking for the couch herself. When the searchers continued to report no success she had begun to wonder whether it might have somehow gotten up on a rooftop, or in a ditch somewhere; she wanted to levitate herself again and see if she could spot it from above. She almost managed to convince herself that she had missed it before because she had only looked at ground level, at streets and courtyards and gardens.
Yara, however, forbade Kilisha to leave the house. “I don’t trust the furniture, let alone that spriggan,” she explained. “I want someone here who knows magic, and who can catch them if they get away. And I want someone here in case the couch comes back, or someone comes by with news.”
Kilisha was tempted to argue, but resisted. “Yes, Mistress,” she said.
Yara herself, though, felt free to go out searching, or recruiting more searchers. By the afternoon of the twenty-first it seemed as if half the city was looking for that red velvet fugitive. Yara and the children had gone to Arena and Bath to post more announcements on the message boards and see whether anyone had responded to yesterday’s crop, and Kilisha had the house to herself- except for the furniture, milling about the parlor and tangling the ropes, and the smaller pieces thumping in their boxes, and the spriggan swinging by its fingertips from the edge of the workbench.
She was staring at the heap of jewelweed, trying to decide whether to attempt yet another iteration of Javan’s Restorative and wondering what she could try it on this time, when someone knocked on the front door.
The distraction was welcome, and the possibility that someone might have found the couch gave her steps speed as she leapt from the stool and hurried to the parlor. She dodged the bench as she ran to the door.
The latch had already unlocked itself; Kilisha had to give it only the slightest tug to open the door and find herself staring at the tall, dark-haired beauty who stood on the stoop.
Kilisha had expected Kelder or Opir or Adagan, or perhaps Istram. It took her a moment to adjust to the reality and recognize this visitor.
“Lady Nuvielle!!” she said. She bowed hastily. “A pleasure to see you, my lady; but alas, my master is indisposed.”
“Is he still? I’m sorry to hear that,” Nuvielle replied. “But perhaps you can answer my question, apprentice-Kinsha, is it?”
“Kilisha, my lady. And I fear I have not yet studied animations, and can tell you very little about your pet
