Spellmaker (Spellbreaker Duology #2) - Charlie N. Holmberg Page 0,29
Their small talk ceased upon her entrance. Elsie’s eyes went first to Bacchus, who stood from his chair, polite as always. He was wearing the same blue waistcoat he’d stripped off in Ipswich so she could remove the temporal and physical spells embedded into his chest. Her cheeks warmed at the memory. The sun was high and not coming directly through the windows, and the lighting made his skin look darker. His hair was pulled back into a folded tail just above the nape of his neck.
Miss Prescott wore a smart violet visiting dress that was notably finer than what Elsie had donned, and her light hair was meticulously curled and pinned.
“I do hope I’m not late.” Elsie spared another glance to Bacchus.
“Not at all,” Miss Prescott replied. “I was early. I always am.” She clapped her hands together and turned to Bacchus. “Master Kelsey, where would you like to begin?”
He simply gestured to the low table between them. “Here is fine.”
“Excellent.” Miss Prescott dug through a large bag on the floor, and Elsie, feeling awkward, crossed the room to stand beside Bacchus.
“Thank you,” she murmured.
“I’m interested to see what you can do,” he replied, and though he didn’t laugh, she could hear the sound of it edging his words.
Elsie rolled her eyes. “I beg your pardon, but this is hardly funny—”
“Here we are.” Miss Prescott set a small tin dish and a bottle of water on the tabletop, then knelt beside it. Bacchus pulled up a chair for Elsie, who gratefully sat, before kneeling across from Miss Prescott.
“Master Kelsey and I have discussed his repertoire, and I think we’re set.” Miss Prescott poured a third of the bottle into the dish. “Now, Elsie, I want to discuss runes with you. You see, every spell has a rune.” She reached down and pulled out a thin book, passing it to Elsie. She flipped the cover open, and an assortment of runes peeked up at her. They were organized by color: blue for physical, red for rational, yellow for spiritual, and green for temporal. Elsie recognized nearly every single one—hardening spells, softening spells, emotive manipulation, luck, aging of plants, and so on.
And then remembered she had to act like this was all new to her.
“Aspectors can’t see these runes”—Miss Prescott gestured to Bacchus—“and technically we can’t, either, unless it’s a physical rune. Each discipline of magic has its own flavor, so to speak. Physical runes you can see, which makes it that much better for our first lesson to be with a physical aspector. Spiritual runes are auditory, temporal runes are olfactory, and rational runes are tangible, in a sense. You’ll understand what I mean when we get to those.”
Elsie glanced at Bacchus, who seemed interested in the lecture, but perhaps he was simply better at pretending. I know, Elsie wanted to say, yet she forced the words into her stomach, where they boiled and popped. Miss Prescott was going to cover every single basic premise of spellbreaking, and Elsie would have to take it all in without complaint. Because if she complained, then her story was flawed, and she would go to prison.
“Miss Camden?”
Elsie’s eyes shot to Miss Prescott. “Oh, yes, it’s incredibly interesting!”
Miss Prescott smiled. “Now, I’ll show you what I mean. Master Kelsey, if you would freeze this.”
Bacchus leaned over and touched his hand to the dish. Magic tickled Elsie’s senses as the water froze and pulsed with a glimmering blue rune. Changing the state of water was a novice-level spell. Bacchus could have placed a stronger enchantment on it—a more complicated rune that would be more difficult to break—but he’d gone for the simplest option, knowing Miss Prescott would expect to start with something elementary.
Elsie could have untied that rune with a sneeze. Instead, she said, “It’s so lovely.”
“Isn’t it? I’ve always thought so.” Miss Prescott slid the dish to Elsie and then began explaining how the rune held, and how spellbreaking could be applied to it, and how all spells were like an algebraic equation—
Algebraic . . . what? What nonsense. Elsie had always seen runes as knots to be untied, not numbers to calculate. Miss Prescott was making it far more complicated than it needed to be. The sum of this and the division of that to determine where to start . . . Elsie just tugged at the thing until she found a loose end. She highly doubted counting and equating would make the process any faster.