Phantom of the Library - Lidiya Foxglove Page 0,62
the most basic plants. I have a lot to teach you before you go.”
“But you will teach me, Bevan?”
“I feel obligated.”
“I feel like it might take me years to catch up…”
“That might be true. We’ll see.”
She gave me a devastatingly private smile. She could be so coquettish in her expressions that. She wasn’t really that pretty, I thought, if I put her on pause. Sort of plain, like you would expect a toad to be. But I thought she must have experience using charm and the thought made me feel downright annoyed. Well, I hope she wasn’t flirting with anyone, wherever she came from. If she’s given any smiles like that to other men than I’m not special at all, I’m just getting suckered. Or…is it a survival technique? Oh, no. That’s even worse.
“Can I try?” She was watching me scrape the aloe from the leaf.
“I don’t want you to strain yourself. There’ll be plenty of time to make you do menial labor when you’re healed.”
“But it looks fun.”
“Not yet.” I worked the aloe gel into the mashed leaf and by this time the roots I’d set to boil on the hearth were getting soft, so I added the root and a little of their boiling liquid, and worked it all in together. “Now, salt, and then it goes into this jar with a weight and sits under the moonlight for a week.”
“A week, huh? So that’s why you’re making more now.”
“You have to plan ahead with magic or you’ll get in trouble. Not that—well, my witch doesn’t listen to me when I tell her that.”
“You must really love this witch of yours,” she said, more pensively.
I wasn’t sure what to say. If she had never felt the bond between a familiar and a wizard, then it would be cruel to rub it in. In my insufferable youth I might have lectured her on familiar etiquette.
“I do love Helena…but she also loves me. She trusts me, but she doesn’t lean on me when she can get things done herself.”
Jenny reached her hands to mine and I took them, although I was slightly confused. She put her arms around my waist and clenched me with a lack of inhibition that left me startled. My hands moved, as if by instinct, to her slender shoulders.
“I’m scared that I might be forced to go back,” she said.
“If you are forced back…I’ll come and get you.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“What if you can’t?”
“How about this? We’ll make it more official. We can enter into an official apprenticeship so I can teach you how to cast garden spells. And we’ll make it a blood agreement. But then you have to do as I say for seven years.”
“I will!”
“You agree way too readily for something so serious, I think.”
“No, really! I would be happy to do what you say! I’ve been enjoying every moment of being here. I want to learn all these interesting things you’re doing.”
“All right.” I took a sharp knife from the counter and grazed my palm with a light cut to draw a little blood and then I handed the knife to her. She bit her lip but didn’t hesitate to follow my lead.
We clasped hands. “You’re my apprentice now,” I said. “I’ll teach you Ethereal magic, and because we have this bond, I’ll be able to find you and have at least some claim to you. If the worst should happen, that is.”
She suddenly went rigid.
“No need for second thoughts. I’m not too tough on an apprentice…”
All her limbs started jerking and twitching, and she screamed in agony.
“Bevan!” She flailed a hand toward me and clutched my shirt.
“What is it?” I grabbed her, frightened now. “I can get you more healing poultice!”
“No…I’m being called back.”
“Shit. Shit! Jenny, look at me. You have to resist. We have a bond now so focus on that. Just in the nick of time.”
Her eyes welled. “You know I can’t refuse his call…Bevan, I’m sorry…I’m sorry…you’re sweet but you’re still just a familiar…”
“You’re hurt. Jenny!” I screamed as I saw her face fighting it, sweating, her fingernails digging into my clothes. “Some ancient covenant…you can fight that. You just need to have the will. Concentrate on me. Damn it!”
It was all useless. She vanished out of my grasp without another word.
My hand throbbed. I could feel her presence. I could find her, most likely, but she was right. I couldn’t free her from her bond. The best I could do would be to abandon Helena and join Jenny in her