“What’s she doing there? Oh, thank you, Nannie!” Finola’s face beamed. She kissed Nannie’s hands and skipped to the door. She stared wistfully at the sky. “It’s going to turn out to be a lovely day,” she said.
“You sure about that?” said Cailean, screwing up his face at the sight of the dark clouds.
“They’ll blow over. The gulls seem to think so, anyway.” She clutched a weather charm on a string around her neck and grinned.
Nannie sighed after Finola left. “Now for a day of unexpected glimpses of a certain cow called Queenie, cowpats and all. It’s almost enough to put me off my pottage. Though not quite. Ladle some into bowls, you two.”
They sat around the fire as they ate.
“People believed that Finola’s mother had power to influence the weather and she got paid a pretty pile of coin too for her charms and spells,” said Nannie.
“And did she have that power?” asked Kaetha.
“I certainly saw no evidence of it. But I don’t blame her, even if it was a pile of lies. Her husband left her to fend for herself and her children, taking all their savings and going off with some whore from Penntir. She needed to make a living somehow.”
“I don’t think Finola has magic either,” said Cailean.
“No,” said Nannie, “neither do I. But she’s as honest as her mother was false. I believe she’s convinced that she has the same gift she thought her mother had. Unlikely. Most I’ve known with magic are known to have Edonian ancestors, and the MacFarlands are Dalrathan through and through. But you Morays have some Edonian blood,” said Nannie. She casually slurped from her bowl, then quietened, waiting for Cailean’s response.
“I know,” he said. “We’re related to the Onuists a few generations back.” He paused, glancing from Nannie to Kaetha. “I can guess what you’re thinking. I’ve known for a while now. Is it that obvious?”
“Only to those who know what to look for, like Kaetha here. Though you must be careful to control you gift or it might betray you to those who see magic as dangerous.” She held out her hand. “Here, test your Earth magic. See if you can feel what element my magic belongs to.”
“But I know—”
“Just try it.”
Cailean put his palm to hers and closed his eyes. “I can feel cold flowing through my hand. Definitely Water magic. It’s strange. The sensation is different when I feel the properties of plants.”
Kaetha grinned. “Well done, Cailean.” She patted his arm. He flinched, looking at her in alarm, and she snatched her hand away.
“You have magic, too,” he whispered.
She hadn’t even touched his skin, only his sleeve. How could he have known?
“I think you’re becoming more open to your gift, lad,” said Nannie with a chuckle. “I wondered when you’d figure that out about her.”
“You knew?” said Kaetha.
“I guessed. So,” she turned back to Cailean, “what magic did you feel?”
“Give me your hand,” said Cailean. Kaetha tried to stop it from shaking as he placed his palm on hers and closed his eyes. His brow creased.
“What is it, Cailean,” she said, hoping that by naming him, her Air magic would reveal his thoughts to her. But she heard nothing.
His eyes shot open. “Fire,” he said. “I felt Fire.”
They were all silent for several moments.
Solemnity stole over Nannie’s face. “Have you used Fire magic before, lass?”
“No,” she lied.
Nannie’s eyes glittered like polished black stones. “To be gifted at all is unusual but those with Fire magic are particularly rare. It is said that such people must be careful that they don’t become consumed by their gift.”
“But it wasn’t just Fire,” continued Cailean, “there was something else. It was faint at first, not as deep-rooted as the Fire magic I think. But it came at me all at once like a gust of wind. Goosebumps rose on my wrist and up my arm. I think you have Air magic too.” He turned to Nannie. “Can people have magic of more than one kind?”
Nannie didn’t turn from Kaetha. “I believe, as my old teacher Bess Hardy told me, that when magic chooses a person, it is only one element that claims them. The person may not know of it until they’re passing out of childhood, but it’s there, from before their birth, part of them. Part of their destiny.”
“Then how can Kaetha have a second kind of magic?” asked Cailean eagerly.
“I know someone whose magic did not choose them. It was magic that belonged to someone else once, someone who gave it to their chosen heir upon their death.”
“You?” Kaetha suggested after a pause.
“Me,” said Nannie. “Bess Hardy was a healer. This was once her cottage. I nursed her in her old age and she told me she would pass her gift on to me. She felt sure it would bind itself to me, though it might not have, for all she knew. Some lack whatever it is in body, mind or soul that allows magic to dwell in a human. Our capacities for magic are as varied as we are. I don’t expect there are many with the ability to hold two kinds of magic.”
Kaetha’s face grew hot. “So,” she ventured, “so, when did you find that you did have Water magic?”
“I felt the awakening of it in me when Bess died.”
Kaetha felt as though ice was trailing across her skin. When she died.
Stillness
