Wicked As You Wish (A Hundred Names for Magic #1) - Rin Chupeco Page 0,49
Her Dirty Work
It was nearing midnight by the time they’d left the dubious safety of the desert to make for the Invierno exit. Tala’s parents had brought their van; she, Alex, Zoe, Ken, West, and the firebird were crammed into the back seat, while Lola Urduja, Cole, and the rest of the titos and titas followed behind with the car Tita Teejay had hot-wired. It was like the world’s worst road trip.
The plan was to make it out of town without any more incidents, but Tala’s mother was worried.
“They should have shown up,” she griped, while Tala’s father hovered around the speed limit, the uneven ground and sand making everyone in the car bounce up ever so slightly, with Ken grunting every time his head hit the ceiling. “You could hear the ogre from miles away. If the agents had set up a blockade outside of town, they would have heard all the ruckus. Why not send their people over to investigate?”
Her father frowned. “More likely they had orders to stay in position no matter what. Reckon they might think it’s a ploy to lure them away from their watch.”
“It still doesn’t make sense to me that they wouldn’t send at least one person to find out what the screaming and the explosions were all about.”
“You do know it would’ve been worse if they did find us, aye?”
Her mother could only scowl, staring ahead with her arms folded. “I just don’t like it, Kay.”
“If it helps,” Ken told Tala cheerfully, “I puked my guts out after killing my first nightwalker. Barfed all over Commander Hagrenot’s shoes too. He made me clean them afterward.”
“I really don’t wanna talk about it,” Tala mumbled. She turned her head toward West, who had managed to find a pair of pants somewhere in all the chaos. “And how the hell did he do that? Is he a werewolf?”
Ken chuckled. “Wondering about the shape-shifting, aren’t cha? He’s a Roughskin.”
“It’s easier to concentrate when I use this,” West offered, holding up his fur cloak.
“Where’d you even get those clothes, West? They’re all a couple of sizes too big for you.”
“Found them in the mansion Zoe sent us to when the ogre first attacked.”
“You literally stole someone’s pants?”
“Nobody else was wearing them.”
Zoe sighed.
“You’re going to have to explain a lot of things to me,” Tala said. “I don’t know much about a lot of spelltech, so I don’t really know much about…well…” She nodded at Zoe’s whip, which was now looped around her waist again.
“This one isn’t standard spelltech, exactly. Weapons like my whip and Ken’s sword are called segen. ‘Charmed.’”
“I’m not sure what the difference is.”
“So magic’s the law of equivalent exchange, right? You’re familiar with the rules. Like casting a minor glamour spell for a phone app will cause its creator to age for a week, but it won’t affect other users and can be replicated. That’s how they’re able to mass-produce some of the simpler magic, right?”
“Right.”
“Simple magic is mainly category three spells, though. You can cast them on almost anything, and the consequences tend to be minimal. As you know, that’s terrible on mass production because the spellforger will have to shoulder the consequences of each spell they cast per user, so they don’t. But segen spells are especially potent because it can bind category one magic both to an item and to a specific person, even a bloodline, permanently. And the person gets to shoulder most of the repercussions instead of the spellforger.”
“Bloodline? That’s possible?”
“Yup. Spelltech passed down generations that can only be used by a specific family tree. Of course, some restrictions remain. Certain family members might not even qualify. My mom didn’t, so she passed her whip on to me.” She shrugged. “I’m a blitzsegner—a lightning-charmer. The whip’s called an Ogmios, named after an ancestor of mine. Most Bandersnatchers possess at least one kind of segen. A bit classist, though; most come from noble families, mainly because they were the only ones who could afford creating segen in the first place.”
Alex nodded. “I remember Dad talking about taking that rule away when they were trying to rework the guidelines for admission to the Order.”
“I’m not as fortunate as Ken to inherit two segen,” Zoe pointed to the pair of swords strapped to Ken’s back, “but they come in different shapes and forms. It’s rare enough for most families to have one. They’re hard to forge nowadays; too expensive, too difficult for a good cat one spellforger to get it right without