The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic

winters.”

Aruendiel glanced around. The library was almost empty again. “Nothing else to do here. We can be on our way. Mistress Nora!”

Nora was in the history section, looking for the book that had mentioned Aruendiel in the title. She turned with a twinge of guilt. “Yes? Are we leaving?”

“Yes, make haste,” he said. “And I want to know more about this book of yours.”

“Well, I have a theory about how it got here,” Nora said. “Ilissa brought it. It must have fallen out of my pocket at Ilissa’s castle, and then she found it. What I don’t understand, though, is why she brought the book to Semr. Could she have been planning to use it all along to trap Bouragonr?”

Aruendiel gave a crooked shrug. “Perhaps. It was a shrewd place to hide him, a book in a foreign tongue that no one would likely open for years. Or she may have brought the book with some idea of doing you harm. Since it was your possession, it would give her some limited power over you. That’s a very primitive, imprecise form of magic, and not Ilissa’s usual style, but it’s a possibility.”

“But how could she have known that I would even be here in Semr?” Nora objected. “We only decided to come yesterday.”

“Perhaps she was reading your book,” said Hirizjahkinis. Aruendiel snorted. “No, I am only half-joking,” she added. “Mistress Nora says that it is a very famous story, and it is all about love and marriage, very much to Ilissa’s taste, I think.”

“I don’t think Ilissa can read,” Aruendiel said stiffly.

“It’s really not one of my favorites,” said Nora. “But I was going to have to teach it in summer school.”

Even if Pride and Prejudice wasn’t one of her favorites, it left the library with her, tucked surreptitiously inside her sleeve. Finally, something to read.

Leading the way from the library, Aruendiel chose a route through the palace that went through back staircases and side corridors. Nora could guess why. The news of Bouragonr’s kidnapping had already spread throughout the court. They got stares and whispers from the people they encountered on their way.

“Ridiculous uproar,” Aruendiel muttered.

“Don’t pretend you’re not enjoying it,” Hirizjahkinis said.

The chamberlain waylaid them near one of the winter banquet halls. He expressed a hope that the two distinguished magicians who had just rendered such a great service to Lord Bouragonr and the king were not too fatigued to join the king’s other magicians and ministers in the council wing, in order to give a full account of the day’s remarkable events.

Before Aruendiel could answer, Hirizjahkinis said they would be pleased to do so. The three followed the chamberlain to a part of the palace where the corridors were smaller and dingier. Through half-open doors, Nora saw clerks filling their scrolls with brushwork or dropping stones into a complicated wooden gadget that, she decided, must be some sort of abacus. This was evidently the palace’s back office.

After a few minutes, they entered a long, columned gallery. A knot of men engaged in conversation turned to greet the two magicians; then an older man with a ballooning double chin claimed Aruendiel’s attention. Nora could not get close enough to hear much of what was being said. Aruendiel was speaking rapidly, matter-of-factly, the double-chinned man interrupting with what seemed to be a tinge of skepticism. Aruendiel paid no attention to the interruptions.

Hirizjahkinis, closer at hand, was drawn into a technical discussion with a youngish, heavy-featured man about the spell that had imprisoned the royal magician. That was interesting, or might have been—Nora was hoping for some clue as to how this magic thing actually worked—but their talk of edges, stops, seals, and wicks soon lost her.

With some frustration, Nora moved toward the other end of the gallery. Portraits hung between the columns that lined the walls—grave, elderly men, mostly, although there were some grave, young men represented, too. Nora amused herself by noting the change in men’s fashions, from layered, vaguely Chinese- looking robes to tunics and knee-length coats worn over close-fitting breeches. The coats seemed to be the more modern note; only a few men in the room now were wearing tunics, the older style. Aruendiel was one. Again, she wondered how old he was.

A fireplace was set into the wall at one end of the gallery, with a pair of ceramic animals guarding each end of the mantelpiece: a wolf and a lion. Nora had seen variations of the two-headed wolf-lion carved, painted, and embroidered all over the palace that day. Some sort of dynastic symbol, obviously—representing the union of two kingdoms, or two ruling families? This was the first time she’d seen the two animals depicted separately. She ran an exploratory finger over the ceramic lion’s head. It was clear that the artist was familiar with exactly what a wolf looked like—especially a large, hungry wolf—but was not so sure about a lion. The lion he had shaped had a luxuriant, shawl-like mane of carefully curled ringlets and a round, rather merry face.

“You know, I was the one who found Bouragonr,” Nora told the lion quietly, slipping into English. She glanced back at the group at the other end of the room. “And it was my book, and hey, I’m from another world. Not that I’m a magician or anything, but you’d think they might want to talk to me, too.”

The lion looked at her with wide, amused eyes. She touched the glazed mane again, gently tracing the curve of one clay lock. It really was a lovely piece, she thought, the kind of sculpture that belonged in a museum— if there were museums here. “I don’t know anything about art—art in this world, anyway,” she said, leaning close to the clay figure, “but I know what I like, and I like you very much. I can tell you’re a lion of character.”

She raised a finger in a brief, ironic good-bye, and then turned slowly to retrace her steps.

Midway down the gallery, an open archway on the right led into a spacious hall, lightly trafficked, with a grand bronze door at the far end. On the left, another archway opened into a very small, enclosed garden. Nora stepped outside and took a turn around the stone path. After a few minutes, she went inside.

As she stepped into the gallery, Nora had a direct view through the opposite archway, into the other hall. A woman was passing—tall, wrapped in a dark green cloak. She turned and looked at Nora. It was Ilissa.

Chapter 16

Afterward Nora thought that if she had reacted more quickly, if she had called out or run away or done something, there might have been time to escape. Ilissa seemed as surprised to see Nora as Nora was to see her. For a moment neither of them moved. But then Ilissa smiled and looked heartbreakingly beautiful and kind, and it was too late.

The truth—Nora felt it come scuttling out from the shadows of her heart—was that when she had told Aruendiel that day that she didn’t want to meet Ilissa, she had been lying. Or rather, she both dreaded seeing Ilissa and hoped that she would. It was a kind of bravado: This time, she wouldn’t be weak. She’d be strong, wise, adult enough not to fall victim to whatever sweet, suffocating magic Ilissa had worked on her before. Also, she was curious to see whether Ilissa was as perfect—as lovely, as loving—as Nora remembered. Surely there must be a flaw somewhere, a clue that it was all fake. The tip-off would be obvious once you saw it; the trick was to see it clearly for the first time.

But that moment of revelation would not occur now, Nora realized, facing Ilissa. Ilissa’s charm was still intact, her face ready to launch a thousand ships or sell a million magazines, and worse, Nora herself had not changed, or at least not enough. Whatever unprotected place Ilissa had found before, she still knew how to find it.

“Nora, you poor darling!” Ilissa’s voice was soothing, gentle, impossible to ignore. “Dressed in rags! We’ve missed you so much, you know,” she added sadly.

In spite of herself, Nora’s heart was wrung. Without exactly meaning to, she took a step toward Ilissa.

“Are you really happy, darling? You don’t look happy. There’s something so dissatisfied in your face.”

Nora willed her feet to stay firmly planted on the marble floor. After a few seconds that seemed very long, she took another step.

“You look lonely, I think. Are those magicians”—a little purr of scorn underlined the word—“being kind to you?”