get over how easy a Master kin jest do stuff—y’all are gonna make them copies with magic, ain’t ya?”
Rosamund smirked. Giselle giggled a little, but she also felt a little sorry for Cody Lee. Ever since Rosamund joined them, she’d been . . . not exactly acting superior, but never allowing him to forget which of them was the Master.
“Yes, I am. It is much faster than copying by hand, and unlike most such things, doing the copying by magic is also less effort than doing so by hand.” Rosamund spread her hands wide. “As you probably know, most times, it is far easier to just do something than it is to do it with magic.”
“But—the book—” Cody persisted.
“This book is something that the Brotherhood has been making and sharing for hundreds of years,” Rosamund said, “And it’s supposed to be only in the hands of a member of the Brotherhood because if the general public ever saw it . . . well, things could go badly.”
“I don’t follow.” Cody frowned. “I mean, it ain’t likely anybody’s gonna ask about magic, but—”
“It was not that long ago that the Brotherhood had to remain secret in order to keep from being burned as witches,” Rosamund pointed out. “Weren’t they still hanging witches in your country two hundred years ago?”
“Huh.” Cody scratched his head again.
“And these days, while that isn’t a problem anymore, we prefer not to frighten the folk we are supposed to be protecting.” She sucked on her lower lip, thoughtfully. “When you see the book, you will understand. And of course it is always possible that one day we will have to keep this book out of the hands of ordinary folk because anyone who reads it will think we are mad and try to lock us up. That is a problem that Elemental Magicians in the great cities have now.”
Cody’s cheek twitched a little. “Uh, ayah. I might could’ve run into that little problem myself, a time or two back home.”
“I’ll get the book,” Giselle offered. “You’re going to need it back to copy it anyway.” It wasn’t far to the vardos, and she knew where to put her hands on it in the dark. It was a very lovely night, warm and balmy, and the camp had settled into the cheerful sounds of people just about ready to look for their beds. She took her time sauntering back, in part because she hoped that the Captain’s temper would have cooled by the time she returned.
By the time she came back with the book in her hands, Cody’s feelings indeed seemed to have been soothed. She started to hand the book to Rosamund, but the Hunt Master shook her head. “Let him see it first,” she said. “He deserves it, after his interaction with the Vilis.”
“Actually, let me find their page!” Giselle replied. “I was just looking at it.”
She had left a stem of grass to mark the place, intending to ask Rosamund about them once there was time. She’d also left a stem of grass marking the vampir, but that was much earlier in the book. “Here,” she said, finding the page and opening it, before handing the book over to Captain Cody.
“Huh,” he said, looking from the book, to her, and back again. “How come I kin read German now?”
It was Leading Fox who answered that. “Because that is what I asked for when my spirit birds and Giselle’s Elementals exchanged languages,” he told Cody. “And when I used my own magic to grant you Giselle’s language, I made certain it included both spoken and written.”
“Huh,” Cody said again. “I didn’ know you could read.”
But he said it with a sly expression, and Fox aimed a buffet at his ear, which he ducked. “One day,” Fox threatened, “You shall awaken without your scalp.”
Cody laughed, and turned his attention back to the book. “How come not all of these ghost-women are made out t’be as bad as the ones we run into?” he asked, his eyes still on the page, his fingers tracing the lines of a sketch illustrating the Vili.
“Most likely because the members of the Brotherhood that wrote those passages did not, for whatever reason, incur their wrath,” Rosamund responded. “Perhaps the Vili that the others encountered were sated. Perhaps they were not subjected to the terrible things the Sisters of Saint Magdalene inflicted on the poor young women in their care. I was not there, I do not know, and there could have been