A captured cauldron, p.15
A Captured Cauldron, page 15
“Did he say anything else?” Sherry peered over his shoulder.
“Nothing.” He handed her the note, then ran both hands through his hair. “Is there anything else we can say to him? Any other note we can send?”
Banneker fidgeted with a leather bracelet around his wrist. “That was the last of our paper. I could try to come up with another way—”
“It’s too late at this point,” Grim cut in, setting a heavy hand on Eli’s shoulder to anchor him in place. “Beake got us the important information—we’ve got one week to prepare and we know where he’ll be. Now it’s our turn to put the plan into motion.”
An uncomfortable silence settled over the workroom, leaving only their thoughts, the distant bustle of Rosemond Street, and the scratch of Rory’s pen on paper. The same taut concern crossed all their faces, Dawn’s most of all. There was no plan. Just like Banneker’s paper, they only had scraps to work with. A few disguise ideas here, an entrance strategy there…
And a signature wand that hadn’t even been started yet.
But while Dawn’s nerves paralyzed her, Sherry’s drove her into harried action.
“Well, I’ve got the clothing for Grim and Eli.” She dragged Viola and a reluctant Xavion to a table piled with fabric. “This jerkin and cloak should match the travelers we saw at the Forge entrance. I’ll add some armor underneath the cloak, naturally—”
“And I’ll get a disguise spell going.” Viola nodded to energize herself. “Yeah, we can do this. Xavion, do you have the extracts we talked about?”
The potioneer rolled their eyes and handed over a bag of clinking crystal. Viola dug into it and pulled out a tiny vial.
“Hm.” She held the clear liquid up to the light. “Good. Keep this up, and I might make you your favorite dessert one day.”
Xavion snorted. “As if you know my—”
“Earl grey cake with fernberry jam, lavender buttercream, and candied rose atop a vanilla cinnamon glaze.”
Xavion swallowed, their voice shaking. “N-no, that’s—that’s not it.”
Viola smirked. “Thought so.”
In the other corner, Eli and Grim had gathered for quite the opposite discussion.
“I still think we can sneak in a weapon if we’re careful,” Eli murmured.
“That guards will be looking.”
“We’ll make them invisible, or—or shrink them.” His eyes glinted at the idea. “Sherry might have something, actually… Hey, Sherry!”
The whirlwind left only Dawn and Banneker in the middle of the sawdust-covered floor. She turned to the artificer, but he was already lost in his own planning, muttering to himself as he gathered a pile of scraps and baubles before him.
“If I can reactivate this with…” He hefted a copper scrap in his hand, then tossed it aside. “No, if I combine these parts with the old wand parts I salvaged…?”
His mutterings ran in useless circles. When Dawn forced herself out of her own nerves and joined him at the table, he gave her a weak nod.
“Hey,” he said, rummaging through a small heap of old cannon parts. “Just seeing if there’s another way to contact Ames.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“But the paper wasn’t enough.” He weighed a copper screw in his palm. “If I had made it differently or found some way to stretch the materials—”
Dawn carefully took the screw and set it on the table. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “I’ll get you that Aphosian signature wand today, and you can start work on the teleporter.”
His eyebrows rose. “Wait, today?” he repeated. “But I thought you hadn’t started.”
A true observation that Dawn staunchly chose to ignore.
“I’ll get it done,” she reassured him. “I’ll be back by tonight, I promise.”
She strode out of the shop, exuding cool confidence for his sake—then broke into a frantic run as soon as she reached the street.
She could do this, right? She had done more with less in the past. It would be just like her days studying for apprenticeship finals, only this time she was making a completely unfamiliar wand using notes from a post-fake-date fever dream. It was completely and totally under control.
“Dawn!” Rory called after her. “Wait up!”
An excited tingle shot up her spine, but she didn’t dare stop or turn around. No, no, under control—
“Can’t stay!” she called back, fiddling with the key to her shop. “I have to make this wand for Banneker.”
“I know.” Rory jogged up next to her. “Let me help you.”
Dawn made the mistake of looking at her—at her friendly, eager smile, her soft undercut. The way she leaned against the shop wall, waiting for Dawn to open the door with fumbling hands.
There was no part of her that wanted to rebuff Rory’s company, but…a wandmaker’s workshop wasn’t entirely journalist-friendly.
“You got a wandmaking certificate?” she asked, tearing herself away to regain control over the door key.
Rory shrugged. “No, but I can help with something, right?” She folded her arms. “If you’re going to finish the wand in one night, you can’t do it alone.”
Dawn grimaced. Doing it alone was better than setting Rory near sparks and sharp objects all night. Then again… She slowly opened the door in thought. She’d have an apprentice soon: someone just as clueless and just as eager. Having Rory around would simply be good practice.
At least, that’s what she told herself as she ushered Rory inside.
“Come on in,” she said. “First step is snacks.”
As Dawn suspected, Rory was a natural at the snacking part of the project.
“All right.” Rory rubbed her hands together over a table in the loft. Ember the salamander perched on her shoulder, napping through her gestures. “I grabbed what I could from your kitchen and the food cart on High Vine. Oh, and”—she picked up a chocolate cupcake—“nabbed some half-price desserts from Viola.”
Dawn’s mouth watered. “Anything enchanted?”
“Mundane. It was all she had left.”
A mild disappointment—she had been hoping for another calming petit four, or maybe one of those extra-jolty espresso cookies Viola sold every morning.
“You’ve prepared a feast.” Dawn nodded solemnly. “Ember, do you approve?”
The salamander licked his eyeball in response. Rory winked. “High praise.”
As they dug in, Dawn continued filling pages of her notebook with thoughts on the signature wand. The wand itself wasn’t complex, but Banneker’s teleporters were already filled to the brim with magic components. To make a signature stick, the wand needed to be elegant, efficient…
“The sigil itself doesn’t contain any magic,” she rambled aloud, pacing around the table while Rory carefully constructed a plate of cheese and crackers. “It’s just a marker, a signal that Aphos’ barrier magic picks up on. If the device doesn’t have the right sigil, the barrier won’t let the magic through, and Ames won’t be able to get out.”
“Well, you saw the sigil yourself.” Rory’s tongue poked out as she balanced a slice of salami atop a cracker tower. “You can just recreate it, right?”
“It’s more than that.” Dawn’s shorthand scribbles grew more incoherent. “The vessel—that’s the wand part that everyone thinks of—has to communicate it clearly. Perfectly, or else the marker won’t take. And all my wand components have magical properties of their own. Throw them together wrong, and the wand could backfire.”
She glanced at Rory—the journalist was watching her pace, her chin on her hand and a soft smile on her face. Dawn blinked. “What?”
“Uh, nothing! Here you go.” Rory grabbed the cracker plate and handed it to her. “So, what does all that mean?”
“It means…” She stopped to admire the little snack tower. Rory was an excellent snack assistant—delivering edible architecture, already perfectly formed and ready to go.
Wait. Perfectly formed. Her wand shaper, of course—
She tossed aside her notebook. “It means,” she repeated with a grin, “that I get to pull out one of my favorite tools.”
She eagerly led Rory into her workroom. The little square was hardly bigger than Ambrose’s workroom, and paltry compared to Banneker’s, but she prided herself on how she made it work. Many of her tools and tables were fastened to the wall or on wheels, ready to shift at a moment’s notice. On her busiest days, she could set up three workshops in one with her myriad of configurations.
But today, all she needed was one folding table on the center wall. She unfolded it and locked the legs with a flourish.
“Behold!” She gestured to the table with both hands. Rory had her notebook poised, eyes bright.
“Yeah, I’m beholding.” She nodded along. “What, um…is it?”
“It’s an automatic, gem-powered wand shaper,” Dawn said proudly. “Bought it a few years after I inherited the shop from my old mentor, to celebrate another year of not running this place into the ground. This”—she patted the smooth wood—“will shape my wand for me.”
She could understand Rory’s lack of applause. By itself, the table didn’t appear to be much—just a wooden surface with a series of leather straps and a small divot in the center. But with an added gem and a decent wand base…
She set a raw fire citrine in the divot, then perused her cabinet of wand bases. She had many pre-turned wands, but those were all finely carved and polished, a process that often whittled down the raw power of the wood in favor of balancing the magical effect. But this wand required clarity over balance, so she instead opened her drawer of raw dried branches. This drawer smelled like a forest she had visited once, along with the charcoal-like smell of wand magic. She inhaled deeply, then selected a branch: beech, with smooth bark and a smattering of knots in the wood.
“This”—she pointed to the table with the branch—“will help the wood grow around the gem, rather than me having to install the gem into the wand.” She secured the branch with the leather straps. “These sorts of wands are way more powerful than my usual stock, but they’re also harder to control. The only folks who request this sort of work are my veteran customers.”
Rory grinned. “And people looking to break into Aphos?”
“And heroes looking to rescue their friend,” Dawn corrected, then dragged over a chair. “Can’t turn this bad boy on yet, though. Sigil’s gotta go on the gem first.”
“Sigil. Right. Need me to step out for that?”
Dawn paused from sifting through her carving tools. Unlike much of her work, carving was a quiet activity. If she did it alone for too long, the silence began to itch at her ears.
Typically, this was where Ambrose would help. Every now and then, he’d write to her on the rose statue, giving her an excuse to step away and take a break. But in his absence…
Perhaps Rory could help a little further.
“This might be a weird ask—”
“Not weird!” Rory pulled up a stool and plopped down on it. “Ask away.”
“It helps to talk while I’m doing this sort of work.” She laid out her tools. “Normally I talk to Ames or Eli, but…” She caught sight of the tattoo on Rory’s neck, the petals slowly unfurling. Magical tattoos like that were never a casual decision—there had to be a good story behind them. “Could you tell me about your tattoos while I work?”
“Oh. Yeah, of course.”
Rory stood up, and Dawn quickly realized that if she wanted to focus on her task, she had asked for precisely the wrong thing: because Rory was taking off her jacket.
Part of her hoped she was wearing a long-sleeve shirt under the jacket, perhaps another few layers—but what remained left just enough to her sprinting imagination. The clingy, sleeveless top showed off a menagerie of tattoos running up and down her arm, some shifting and swaying, others static.
And menagerie wasn’t an exaggeration. Nearly all the tattoos were of animals, though a few other flowers and clouds formed a dreamy setting around them. Dawn couldn’t help but stare at the large tattoo spread across her left shoulder blade: a sea turtle, drifting slowly on an invisible tide, a wavy line undulating below it.
Carve, Dawn reminded herself. More carving, less staring.
As she selected her first tool and steadied the gem on the table, Rory began to speak.
“The sea turtle was my first one,” she said. “My dad’s family symbol.”
She knew she was supposed to be carving—but Dawn couldn’t help but take another peek at the tattoo. The unique shape of the wavy line under the turtle was too familiar. She looked up at Rory’s head, where a similar line had been carved back into her undercut. “It matches your hair,” she said, delighted by the discovery. “It’s a Deepriver symbol, right?”
Rory looked just as delighted at Dawn’s connection. “Yeah. Grew up near Blue Marsh Island. Can’t say that island’s my favorite, though. I once stole my dad’s boat and nearly sank it in a night race there…”
As she spun a tale of daring drunkards on dinghies, Dawn focused on the gem—for real, this time—and carefully traced the Aphosian sigil into every facet, all while learning about Rory’s adventurous childhood. Compared to her current career, her upbringing had been decidedly non-academic. There was schooling somewhere in there, of course, but most of her stories centered on working and playing along the shores of the Deepriver, and a carefree life with her father. He figured greatly in her past: his dorky humor, his unkempt beard, his leisurely pace.
Dawn kept waiting for a mention of her mother in the tales—but none came.
“Was your mom with you in Deepriver?” she ventured when Rory had stopped to take a sip of water. Rory hesitated but didn’t lose her energy.
“Oh, she left a while back.” She leaned in to inspect Dawn’s work. “That looks gorgeous. You ever think about going into Grim’s line of work?”
Dawn didn’t dare think about how close Rory was, how the warmth of the woman’s arm seeped under her skin. She held the gem up to the light instead, carefully dusting off each sigil. She did love working with gemstones, that much was true—but there was a satisfying heft to wands, a particular satisfaction in aiming and using them, that she could never get from a necklace or a ring.
“Nah,” she said. “Grim’s bracelets can’t shoot fireballs.” She stood, and the absence of Rory’s warmth was both a relief and a disappointment. “Ready for me to start up this wand shaper?”
“Absolutely. Where should I stand?”
Dawn pointed to the large metal sheet propped up in the corner. Rory deflated.
“But I’m gonna miss all the fun,” she said. “It’s not like you’re welding anything, are you?”
“It’s more dangerous than that.” Dawn tapped the gems embedded in the sides of the table. “These pull energy in order to make the branch grow, and they don’t care what energy they pull. You’ll be safer behind the shield.”
Rory still didn’t retreat. “Wait, what about you?”
Dawn had to suppress a smile at the concern. “Oh, I’ve got gloves and a charged druzy it’ll pull energy from. I’ll be safe, don’t worry.”
Rory narrowed her gaze. “Okay…”
She finally slipped behind the shield and ducked down until only the top of her purple hair was visible. Dawn tugged on her thick leather gloves and placed her charged amethyst at the head of the table. The gems flashed once, already hungry for its energy.
“All right,” she called, pulling her activation wand off the wall. “It’ll just be a few minutes.”
She waved the wand over the table, then set both hands on the branch to keep it steady. All around her, the gems bathed her in their light, pinks and purples and oranges creating a raucous spotlight. Under the leather straps, the branch grew as if she were watching a full spring season pass in seconds. It stretched toward the carved citrine, tiny branches cautiously dipping around and over it in a twisting, natural cage. Dawn kept her hands firm and her eyes on the growth. About halfway through, now. Once the branches thickened enough to properly pass along the magic—
The light within the amethyst guttered.
“Oh, no,” she breathed. Not daring to take her hands off the branch, she twisted around, looking for a druzy to swap in. She thought she had fully charged it, but if the energy didn’t hold out before the magic was complete—
The purple light flickered once, twice, then went out.
She had no time to move or even breathe—the gems around the table latched onto her energy, their greed far too strong for her gloves to block. Her vision tilted; her knees buckled. But she could no longer release the branch if she tried, far too tied into the magic now. The spell would hold her until it finished—
Or it finished her.
“Dawn!” The shield behind her clanged. Two arms grabbed her, and suddenly, a second energy pulsed under her skin, sating the magic’s hunger. Through her daze, she expected a rush of warmth, but lost herself in cool water instead. In rushing rivers and deep shadows, the scent of petrichor and soaked stone—
The spell released her, and both of them tumbled back, a tangle of arms and heat. Dawn flinched, expecting to strike the stone floor—but Rory’s arms caught and held her inches above the ground. For a suspended moment, they both stared at each other, breathing in exhausted, shaky gulps.
They were fine. They were both fine.
“You all right?” Rory finally managed.
Dawn wasn’t sure there was a response that properly communicated My crush both fed me crackers and saved my life, how do you think I’m doing? But in the absence of the right wording, she squeaked out a thoroughly unconvincing “I’m fine. You?”
Rory’s breath steadied. “Good. Yeah, good.” She blinked at her own arms, still securely holding Dawn. “Gods, sorry. I just—wanted to make sure your head didn’t hit the floor—”
“Appreciate it.”
They awkwardly untangled from one another, their legs both wobbling. Dawn leaned against the table and finally gathered the wherewithal to check the entire purpose of this work, and the thing that nearly killed her: the signature wand.
