“Yes,” he said, in a voice that stopped his mages in their tracks. But it didn’t daunt Noa.
“That’s not fair.” She wanted to sound as cold as him, but her voice had a tremor in it. “I want him gone as much as you do.”
Julian blinked, then took her hand. She knew that, like her, he was thinking of those terrible hours in the fishing boat. The sloshing of the waves; the dark all around. The palace disappearing into the sea like a sinking ship.
“We’re still on course for Greenwash Strait,” he said in a placating voice. “We’re going to keep searching for the Lost Words. If there’s another book, we have to keep it out of Xavier’s hands.”
But Noa wasn’t about to give up. “Julian, why did we sail all the way to Evert? Just so you could turn an island right side out? We found one of the lost languages of magic! Let’s use it. Let’s get rid of Xavier once and for all.”
Julian didn’t answer for a moment. “I’ll think about it,” he said finally. He didn’t look like he was going to think about it. If anything, he looked gray at the idea of Noa tangling with Xavier. But that didn’t matter.
Noa settled back into her pillows, strangely calm. Her anger cooled into something dark and unyielding as basalt, glittering with anticipation.
She was a magician now. And she was going to do whatever she could to make Julian king of Florean—whether he liked it or not.
14
Noa Has Her First Magic Lesson
Noa paced back and forth, each step thudding in a satisfying way against the flagstones. She had decided to wear her black boots today instead of her usual sandals. They were more magician-like, in her opinion, though warm for the weather. Her sweaty feet made small squishing sounds as she walked.
She was in the expansive courtyard at the back of the castle, waiting for Julian to come and start her lesson. Mite was playing in the fountain, even though Noa had told her not to. But as Mite was now soaked from head to foot, Noa didn’t see the point of dragging her out—she wasn’t going to get any wetter.
The salty wind rustled through the ivy that wreathed the courtyard. Astrae was chugging along at a nice pace toward Greenwash Strait, and hopefully another lost language, which should have felt satisfying, but Noa found that becoming a magician had temporarily driven many of her plots and schemes out of her head. She was filled with fantasies about the wondrous feats she would surely be able to perform soon. She wondered how magicians got anything done.
A number of Julian’s mages were standing about or sitting on shaded benches. They had all heard about Noa’s new power, of course, and had come to see it for themselves. Noa was glad she had worn the boots, though she did wish they would squish a little more quietly.
When Julian finally arrived, he was carrying a single book. Noa was unimpressed. She had expected him to come to their first magic lesson with stacks of books, as well as rare magical objects—she didn’t know what kind, but certainly rare ones.
“What, am I just supposed to read this?” she said when he placed the book in her hands with an elaborate flourish. It was the dictionary from Evert. “That’s not much of a lesson.”
“You’re going to read it aloud,” Julian said.
“Oh, well, that’s something I couldn’t have thought of myself.”
Julian gave her a look. He seemed a little more well-rested, though his eyes were still shadowed. “A part of you already knows every word in this book, but you need to get comfortable with the language. Maita Marchena,” he added, turning, “get out of that fountain. If you ruin another cloak, Petrik will tear out what’s left of his hair.”
“I don’t see the point of this,” Noa said. She was still tetchy from yesterday. “You don’t want me using my magic to fight Xavier.”
“There are other uses for magic besides getting rid of traitorous, murdering kings,” Julian said. “We’re going full steam ahead to Greenwash Strait, Noa, but we won’t arrive for a few days. We may as well figure out what you can do.”
Yes, Noa thought. Let’s figure out how I can get rid of a traitorous, murdering king. “What if the ghosts come again?”
“They shouldn’t unless you summon them,” Julian said. “That’s how magical languages work—speaking random words in Briar, for example, wouldn’t cause that vine to flower. I have to command the vine to do my will. That’s all spells are—commands, precisely phrased.”
“I know,” Noa said impatiently. “But the ghosts came before without me summoning them.”
“Yes. If that happens again, I’m going to anchor you.”
“Oh, good.” Noa let out a sigh of relief. That was what Julian did when he and Mite practiced magic, to keep her from blowing things up. A mage could anchor another mage, or keep them from losing control of their power, if they had the opposite power.
“What’s the opposite of death magic?” Noa said.
“Blood magic.” Julian smiled. “Yet another reason why I knew the Lost Words weren’t a myth. Marrow has no opposite, yet all the other languages do. They aren’t in perfect oppositional harmony—at least, given what I’ve seen so far. But then, a lot of mages make the same point about Salt and Spark, or Worm and—”
“Uh-huh, right.” Noa wasn’t in the mood for Julian’s tangents, or rather, she was further away from the mood than usual. “So what’s the language of death called, anyway?”
He raised his eyebrows. “You tell me. You’re the only one
