paper, the forbidden letters burning away, I shook myself. I wouldn’t trade my family for anything. Not even the wonders of the written word and the magical power it could unleash for those from the right bloodlines.
“Well, that’s done then,” said Alice when the parchment had turned completely to ash. “We should be going.” She looked over her shoulder at the road, clearly eager to be gone.
But uneasiness stirred in me.
“But surely the real question is where did he get it.” I looked down at the boy who had snuggled into my shoulder, his tears finally fading at the mesmerizing sight of flames. “Where did it come from? Kingslee doesn’t need that kind of trouble.” Not when we stood so close to the capital, in all too easy reach of any number of the king’s guards.
Samuel grunted. “Didn’t you see earlier? A couple of fancy carriages came rolling through on their way to Corrin.” He gestured up the road past my house where the capital lay, far out of sight. “They deigned to stop, and the mages inside even went into your parents’ store. I’ve no doubt one of them dropped the thing, and this idiot found it.”
At his angry tone the boy began to tremble, attempting to burrow into me. I hoisted him a little higher on my hip and glared at Samuel again.
“It’s not his fault. He’s too young to know better. Things like this aren’t supposed to be lying around.”
“He’s obviously a smart one.” Alice watched him with sadness lurking in her eyes. “To try to copy what he saw.”
“Smart? Ha!” Samuel barked a laugh without humor. “Idiot fool, more like. He could have exploded us all with a single word, you know that.”
“Well, he didn’t!” I snapped, my nerves having eaten the last of my patience. “And it’s getting late. I’m taking him home.” I narrowed my eyes, daring Samuel to try to stop me, but he merely glared back.
“Do you know where he belongs?” asked Alice tentatively.
I nodded. “I recognize him. I’ll have him home soon enough.”
Neither of them moved, so I took off, winding around them. I would have preferred to walk behind them, but I didn’t have time to wait around. Not now that I would have to return to town before heading home.
I walked quickly, the boy’s weight growing heavier by the minute. I considered putting him down and letting him walk, but the slow pace would have killed me. Instead I pushed on, stopping only once to switch hips.
So someone from the mage families had passed through today. It made sense since no one else would have written words with them. If I hadn’t been out gathering, I would have seen them for myself. Spoken to them even, perhaps, if they had come into the store as Samuel said.
What would they have been like? It was one thing to learn the facts of them in school. How they alone could control the power that written words always unleashed, and therefore they alone could be trusted to read and write. About the way they built the kingdom with the power of their written compositions. Even about the different color robes they wore to signify their various disciplines. But that wasn’t the same as knowing what they were like as people.
Proud, haughty, and disagreeable? That was how I always imagined them, and how the ones who occasionally rode through Kingslee usually looked.
But what if they had instead looked normal? Friendly even. A person just like me, only wearing fancier clothes. Would that be worse? To know that no more than an accident of birth separated us.
I pushed open the door of a small cottage, set a short way back from the main road, without knocking. A young woman, her eyes red, looked up and gave a small shriek.
“Joseph! There you are!” She rushed forward and snatched him from my arms, wrapping him in her own. I had thought he looked like Isadora’s boy, although I had forgotten his name.
She regarded me with wide eyes. “Where did you find him, Elena?”
I shifted from one foot to the other. “Down by the river.”
She shrieked again and squeezed him so tightly that he protested and tried to wriggle free. I only just refrained from rolling my eyes. This was a lot of dramatics for someone who hadn’t even been out searching for her child.
I wanted to hurry away, but something kept me locked in place. I cleared my throat.
“He wasn’t in any danger from the river,”