A Daughter of No Nation (24 page)

“Check her head,” Sophie advised. Mirelda immediately came upon one of the gastropods, blood-gorged and entangled in Zita's hair. A second, behind her ear, was even bigger. She transferred them both to the bowl.

Cly emerged from another part of the house with a scrap of paper. He handed it to Autumn. “Zita's name.”

“Anything I should know about?” the spellscribe asked.

“She had her teeth straightened when she was nine.”

“She can bear a major intention, then.”

“She's a duelist,” Cly said. “She's young yet for such a heavy load.”

Autumn was looking at scrolls now, examining each. “If it was just the blood loss, we might transfuse, but leech sickness, with a foreigner…”

“We will transfuse. Just prevent the infection. And speaking of which, Mervin has forfeited his immunity to the creatures.”

“The family spells are there.” Autumn gestured at a cabinet she'd opened earlier.

“I'll find it.” Sophie hopped up, trying to look nonchalant, and opened the cupboard. There were envelopes and rolled scrolls and sealed boxes, all wrapped in one way or another.

She had imagined they would be labeled—and they were, but not in Fleet. There were spells for Mirelda and Mervin, for Fenn and her husband, even one for Beatrice, written on an ivory parasol. Cly, too—a thick accordion of a spell, sealed with wax. One word on that label did look familiar:
TEMPERAMENT
, it said.

“Find it?” Cly purred.

Sophie held out two scrolls with Mervin's name on them.

He plucked one from her grasp. “Do you wish to come downstairs?”

“If Autumn doesn't mind, I'd like to stay.”

“For Zita or to observe?”

“Um, both.” She felt herself coloring. “If it's okay.”

“Autumn doesn't notice anything when she's working,” Mirelda said. “We could play a double-harp.”

Cly tapped at her camera. “Don't enpicture Zita's full name. It's the key to enchanting her.”

“I remember.”

With that, he stalked away.

Sophie watched him go, then looked around the room. Autumn and Mirelda were focused on Zita.

On impulse, she transferred the spell with Cly's name on it to an unlocked drawer, farther down within the cabinet, before relocking the cabinet securely and then taking a position where she could film the inscription process.

Autumn had laid out a series of herbs and begun grinding them between two black and white flecked pieces of granite. Mirelda was watching from a quiet corner, alert for orders, like a nurse assisting a surgeon.

Sophie joined her, turning on her camera and taking footage of Zita—the leech marks, the burned leeches. Then she made a quick turn around Autumn, who was examining a pristine-looking pair of ostrich feathers, seeming to weigh which would best suit her purposes. She did indeed seem oblivious to Sophie and the camera.

“The spell itself will be written on calfskin,” Mirelda murmured as she returned. “What is that object, cousin?”

Sophie answered as Parrish had taught her. “Atomist gadgetry from the outlands.”

“Oh.” Mirelda lost interest, as most people did, but she sounded a little disappointed.

“So…” Sophie switched into interview mode. “You know a lot about scribing?”

A mix of pride and shame crossed the teen's face. “Mervin's right—I don't deserve to be taught. I'd be a waste of resources; I don't have the makings of a scribe.”

“Autumn seems to think differently.”

She shook her head. “There are many ways to be of use to the institute. I'll be an assistant.”

It seemed harsh to deny her the chance. “But you understand the principles?”

Autumn was mixing the ink now. Her expression was serene.

Much of what Mirelda told her next was stuff she had already seen in action: you had to know the subject's whole name, you had to write just the right words on the right material, using the ingredients precisely defined by the spell's precedents and nature. They called it laying an intention on someone. Intentions had weight and one could only bear so much.

“That's why Autumn wanted to know what else Zita had done to her.”

Mirelda nodded.

“Cly's going to tear up Mervin's immunity to leeches … so he won't be impervious anymore.”

“He was a sickly child,” Mirelda said. “Mother had it done, just in case. He shouldn't get leech sickness from the spell's reversion.”

“If he does, will he die?”

“No. He's stronger now, and he eats swamp food. It's really just foreigners who die, those who get lots of bites.” She gestured at Zita, whose wounds were already looking festery. “I'd be surprised if he so much as fevers up. May I ask
you
a question, Cousin?”

Sophie made a go-ahead gesture.

“Beatrice is Verdanii. A Feliachild.”

“Yep.”

“Not you?”

“I repudiated Verdanii citizenship.”
And now I'm blowing off Sylvanna.

“The Feliachilds are said to be one of the ancient branches of the Allmother's line.”

“Um. Maybe?”

“The nine families, then, they're a myth?”

Gently she said, “Mirelda, all I know about the Verdanii is they're in what used to be the grain belt and their culture is institutionally biased in favor of women. I haven't a clue what you're talking about.”

Mirelda paused. “The nine families are said to practice an older form of magic. Wordless, irreversible, beyond inscription—and each family has its own knack.”

“That's news to me.” But she thought of Aunt Gale, fumbling that odd-looking brass watch just before the first time Sophie found herself in Stormwrack.

Or Verena, with her pewter clock.

There's the way she always takes us from and to clocks—the great tower on Erinth, the grandfather clock at Beatrice's San Francisco home, the one in Gale's old cabin on Nightjar.…

“You
do
know something.”

She'd promised not to tell anyone here about Earth. “Is this something you're thinking you could learn? Since you've less aptitude for…” She indicated Autumn, who was busily scribbling.

“Would it be possible?” Hope bloomed on the girl's face. “I'd heard abilities ran in families, through the Allmother's blood tree. Mother to daughter. Isn't that why Arpere permitted Cly's marriage in the first place?”

“Is it indeed?” Her thoughts raced.
Mother to daughter, inherited magic—this is part of why everyone was so hung up on my being Gale's heir, and it's why they're so freaked out about me learning too much. What if they're afraid they can't keep me out of Stormwrack?

This could be why Annela jumped on the chance to have me repudiate Verdanii. And why she kept threatening me with magical amnesia.

“Sophie?”

“Sorry, Mirelda. Thinking hard. I wish I had answers for you.”

And Cly. If what Mirelda just said is true … could he have chosen Beatrice because of her family connections?

She moved to get Zita back into the shot. The festery, red look of her weals was washing out as Autumn worked on inscribing the calfskin; they were pursing shut, like little mouths, becoming mere wrinkles on her flesh that, in their turn, also vanished.

Autumn set down her pen. “Mirelda, go see if your uncle has summoned a blood donor.”

The girl bowed and left.

Sophie was still humming with that sense of discovery, of pieces snapping together. She thought of Gale's watch, tucked away on a shelf at Bram's place.

Magical amnesia, she reminded herself. She would have to tread carefully.

Cly appeared in the doorway with a big, soft-looking fellow in tow. He gestured, and the man knelt beside Zita, chafing her wrists and the insides of her elbow. Then he laid the flat of his enormous hand against her chest.

Sophie leapt up, bringing the camera as close as she could. The man's palm had darkened, the skin mottling to a wine-colored blush, and she could see an impression of red wetness in the join between his flesh and Zita's, as if it was soaked there.

“Want a look?” The man raised his palm carefully, about an inch above her skin. Rivulets of blood, thin as twigs, were twisting against Zita's flesh. There were no visible breaks in his skin or hers, but Zita's color was returning.

“How do you know your blood type is compatible?”

“It's the family business,” he replied. “My mother's mother's mother was a giver, and my fathers going back six generations. I have papers from my nation, Gittamot. We provide givers to all of Stormwrack.”

“So you know you can donate, and you only marry people who are also donors?”

“Only bear children with them.”

“But you don't actually know how many blood types there are, or—”

“There are two. Giver and not.”

“There's more than two,” Sophie said. But if all the givers were type O negative, they could donate to anyone, whether they were A, B, or AB, positive or negative.

“We follow strict sanguinistic procedures. Here.”

He extended his free hand, pointing at her with his index finger. She filmed it as a little whirl of blood extended outward from the tip.

Sophie held out her hand, palm up, in the video frame. “No guts, no glory.”

“Marvelous sentiment,” Cly murmured.

“Small pinch,” said the donor. She felt it, as the blood spout made contact, a quick painful jab. The little thread whirled around on her palm, which pinkened. She could just feel a sense of increased pressure there. Then the donor closed that fist, withdrawing the spout.

There wasn't a mark on her palm.

“That's incredible!”

“I thank you, Kir.” He turned to Zita, whose color had about returned to normal. “She's out of danger. And ready for a proper bed, I think.”

“Sophie,” Cly said. She climbed to her feet and let him draw her off to a corner.

“First, you deserve multiple apologies for my awful family.”

“You're not responsible for Mervin's actions.”

“I am, actually, in law. But what I wish to say is thank you. For helping Zita. You acted quickly. I so admire your cool head.”

She couldn't quite crush a swell of pride. “No problem.”

“I also wondered if you might like to meet someone more … compatible with your inclinations.”

“Meaning?”

“Some faint proof that some of my countrymen aren't … how did you put it? Malicious trolls?”

“You overheard that?”

“It had the inestimable ring of truth.”

Note to self: keep lips buttoned, she thought.

Then she heard Bram's voice:
Yeah, Ducks, when have you ever managed that?

“Mirelda seems like an okay person,” she said.

He gave her a look that seemed to say:
Who?

“There's a fellow who's interested in your thoughts on the turtles. I recognize it's been a long day.…”

It had been, hadn't it? Perhaps more for him than her: he looked tired and strained.

And, maybe, more likely to slip up? She hadn't seen any behavior that absolutely argued that he was or wasn't sociopathic.

If she and Cly were away, Fenn and her family could lick their wounds in private for a while.

“Should I change?” she said. “One of those sporty outfits?”

He nodded. “That would be very … yes. Thank you. I'll show you to your room.”

Her room looked out over the apiaries and the hillside, a view terminating in the green jewel of a swamp. There was no lava glass here: the screen was made of a silk so sheer it was almost transparent. The breeze shivered the strands. The bed was covered in a russet, leaf-shaped blanket and the walls held more of her grandmother's oil paintings. It had an odd atmosphere: not quite tense or impersonal, but somehow far from cozy.

“I'll be out in a second,” she said.

“At your leisure,” he replied, shutting the door.

Sophie pulled off her swamp- and sweat-soaked T-shirt and then opened her trunk, digging out her messageply sheets from Bram and Verena.

Verena:
ARRIVING SYLVANNA TOMORROW. CAN YOU HOLD IT TOGETHER FOR ONE MORE DAY?

Bram:
WITH VERENA, COMING TO FIND YOU. DIDN'T SAY ANYTHING TO THE PARENTS.

She stared at Bram's message in mixed delight—she missed him!—and consternation. Last time he'd been on Stormwrack he'd gotten kidnapped; the pirates had hurt him.

They formed the Fleet to stop that kind of thing, Zita had said. Held their noses over the slavery so they could stop the raids and torture.

A tap at her door. “Sophie? Should we bring your memorician?”

“No. You and I need to talk, Cly.” She yanked open her bag, found a protein bar, devoured it, and pocketed another.

“We can send Krispos ahead if you think we'll need him.”

“I should be okay. Let him read.”

Bram, coming back to Stormwrack. She inhaled, fighting the whirl of her emotions: excitement, joy, relief, and more than a little fear. What if he got kidnapped again, or hurt? Or killed?

Well, the answer was to get herself and him back home, pronto. If she didn't come to Stormwrack, neither would he. If he didn't come, they'd both be safe.

Because that was the answer, wasn't it? It was all very well to maunder on about the cost to herself of living, even part-time, in this other world, but she couldn't keep risking Bram's life.

She would have to give it up somehow.

Which meant, suddenly, she had a pile of things to sort out. She grabbed the turtle case file and her own notes, changed hastily, and ran a brush through her hair.

Okay. Agenda item one—see what Cly knew about the Verdanii succession and spellcasting. Item two—the Turtle Beach guy. Item three—finish seeing Sylvanna, free Beatrice, then hook up with Parrish and Bram and Verena.