Seph noticed he didn’t really answer the question. “I have information that might be helpful to him.”
Nick cleared his throat. “Perhaps you should think of the Dragon as more of an icon representing a movement than as an individual.”
“Fine. I’d like to talk to the icon who’s been ripping off magical weapons from the Roses, freeing members of the underguilds, and posting Leicester’s secrets on the Internet.”
Just then they heard a door slam elsewhere in the house, and someone’s noisy progress through the kitchen. “Hello?” came the familiar voice. It was Jack.
“We’re on the porch,” Seph called back.
A moment later, Jack joined them. “Hey, Nick. Hey, Seph. I think I aced my government exam, even though I didn’t get to study.” He sprawled into one of the Adirondack chairs, seeming to fill up the porch with his raw physical presence.
“Hey,” Jack said. “Did you hear there was some kind of Satanic sacrifice on the commons?”
They filled Jack in on the news. “So Will’s Uncle Ross thinks you’re a practitioner of the Old Religion?”
“Old Religion?” Seph looked from one to the other for explanation. “Is that like Old Magic?”
“No. This is a kind of blood magic that predates wizardry,” Nick explained. “It goes back to the polytheism that existed before the Anglo Saxons came to Britain. Their ceremonies focused on animal sacrifice, sometimes human sacrifice.” Seph shuddered, and the old man smiled reassuringly. “Don’t worry, Seph. Like the other gifts of the Weir, wizardry is not a religion. It’s a gift, and a talent and a calling. It’s compatible with Catholicism, or any other faith. You would be surprised how many well-known defenders of the faith have been Weir.”
Maybe. But when Seph thought of the display on the commons, it reminded him of the ritual at the amphitheater at the Havens, Trevor’s neck chain in the ashes.
It didn’t help when Ross Childers brought Linda home in late afternoon to report that the BMW was a total loss.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said, shaking his head, watching Seph for a reaction. “They slashed the seats to ribbons and then they set the thing on fire. How they got it to burn, I have no idea. It burned so hot the tires were melted to four puddles on the asphalt. It would’ve been hard to even tell what make it was, but they wrote your name on the pavement, just like they did at the fountain.” He whistled, like he was glad it wasn’t him. “You got any enemies Seph?”
Once school ended, Jack and Ellen and their friends Will Childers and Harmon Fitch were in and out of the house all day long. Fitch was tall and lanky, with bleached-blond hair, glasses, and an uncanny ability to speak to computers in their own language. He spent several days helping Seph build a new computer system to replace the one he’d left at the Havens.
Fitch had his own computer consulting and Web page development business, counting among his customers the school board, Trinity College, the town government, and chamber of commerce. He also had several major corporate customers in Cleveland.
Seph began working for Fitch part time, writing basic HTML code, taking digital photos for the sites, and calling on clients, since Fitch’s edgy thrift-shop attire freaked some of the corporate customers.
They worked for several weeks installing the hardware for the first citywide wireless network. Fitch danced on rooftops like some kind of manic digital maestro in a Wi-Fi headset, waving his arms and crying, “More power! Need more power!”
Fitch rented space on the second floor of Blaise’s shop, since his four younger brothers and sisters made it impossible to work at home. The room was lined with servers and flat screens. On Monday nights he hosted a Multimedia Monday Monster Movie Megafest (5M).
While Fitch wasn’t a member of any of the magical guilds, Seph was reminded that there are many kinds of gifts. Fitch had the ability to turn out the lights on the entire county or change any grade at Trinity High School.
Seph also worked part time for Harold Fry down at the docks, helping in the charter office and filling in dockside. He found he enjoyed the physical labor at the harbor. His skin resisted the sun, as always, but his body filled out, morphing from gaunt to lean and muscular.
One night, Jack and Ellen invited Seph to something called a plaisance at heavily wooded Perry Park. Jack parked the Subaru in a secluded spot, and he and Ellen retrieved their swords from the trunk. The three of them hiked more than a mile through the woods to a hidden meadow. Jack paced the perimeter, throwing up a kind of magical barrier with quick, impatient gestures, while Seph trailed behind, making mental notes on the charms he used.
Ellen stood, relaxed, waiting at the center of the field, the late-day sun glinting off her blade. When Jack was finished, he strode toward her, stopping a short distance away, facing her. They both inclined their heads, grinning like they were about to be married. Seph had his instructions, and when he saw they were ready, he said, “Go to.”
It was the remarkable dance of two gifted athletes, evenly matched. They covered the meadow, moving furiously forward and back, thrust and parry, attack and then retreat, calling challenges to each other, trading insults and promises. The forest rang with the clash of their blades, and flames spun and sparkled among the trees. Seph called time every fifteen minutes, and they battled to a draw after four bouts.
Although the heat of the day had gone, they were both soaked in sweat, practically steaming. Ellen drank long and deep from her water bottle and wiped her mouth with her gauntleted arm. “Are you feeling all right, Jack? Your play’s flat, all in all. I was hoping to give Seph more of a show.”
Jack tested the edge of his blade with his thumb. “Actually, Ellen, I wondered if you were coming down with something. You were downright lethargic. I nearly dozed off once or twice.”
“Well, that explains it. You looked like you were asleep.”
With that, they threw down their weapons and it dissolved into a wrestling match. In the end they were kissing each other.
It was certainly a different kind of courtship, but there was a chemistry, an understanding, a kinship between Jack and Ellen that Seph envied.
* * *
The Weir colony of Jefferson Street embraced him, and he made the most of the opportunity, marshaling weapons for a battle that might never take place.
Mercedes Foster, weaver and sorcerer, invited him into her garden, being careful to warn him away from the poisonous plants that grew there. In the kitchen of her cottage, she made dyes and love potions and memory cures. Soon Seph was helping her with potions and extractions, scanning through her recipes for poisons and hypnotics, committing them to memory. He asked questions about talismans like the dyrne sefa and borrowed her books on the subject.
She was less cooperative when he asked about Flame, the drug Alicia had used on him in Toronto. They were in her kitchen, drying trays of plants in her oven.
“I hear sorcerers make it for the trade,” Seph said. “It’s also called Mind-Burner.”
Mercedes fixed him with her sharp, birdlike gaze and put her hands on her bony hips. “I don’t know how to make it, and I wouldn’t tell you if I did. I don’t believe in trading away your future for a little extra power in the present.”
She wouldn’t say anything more about it, but he found several recipes for it in old texts, written in Latin.
Blaise Highbourne, seer and silversmith, demonstrated the art of lost wax casting and showed Seph how to make silver wire jewelry. He also explained the irony of prophecy: the fact that it is always true, but often misleading. Iris Bolingame, wizard and glass artist, showed him how to capture space with blown glass, to wrap bits of glass with copper foil, and solder them together. She also shared charms and incantations from her own Weirbook. While Nick carefully edited the information he shared with Seph, Iris did not.
It wasn’t long before a walk down Jefferson Street was like running a gauntlet. Mercedes had a new plant to show him, or berries to send back to Becka. Blaise wanted to
share a book with him, and Iris had another trick of wizardry for him to try. He couldn’t make a move out of the house without reports flowing back to Becka and Linda.
“Welcome to life in a small town,” Jack said dryly. “Where everybody makes it their business to put their noses in yours.”
The perpetrators of the sacrifice on the commons were never apprehended. Ross Childers dropped by occasionally to update Linda and Seph about it, but the investigation went nowhere. Seph saw no more signs of the alumni.
Seph joined St. Catherine’s, the Catholic church by the university. He usually attended on Friday nights, when the masses were in Latin.
Though Jack had said that Linda never lingered very long in Trinity, she seemed in no hurry to leave. Seph helped Nick finish wallpapering the room upstairs, and Jack helped him pick out a new sound system.
Linda still refused to allow Seph to leave the sanctuary. When Becka invited Seph to go to Niagara on the Lake with her and Jack for the Shaw festival, Linda kept Seph in Trinity with her.
He argued with her to let him go to Canada. “Don’t you think it’s safe now? I can’t stay locked up in here forever.” It had been more than a month since their encounter with the alumni, and there was no sign of invasion of the sanctuary. But Linda was unmoved.
When he wasn’t working, Seph spent long days at the public beach with Jack and his friends once the weather turned hot. It was lorded over by cliffs, with clear, cold water and pebbled sand that sparkled with quartz when the water retreated. Jack taught Seph to windsurf, and he found he had a talent for keeping the frail board upright and driving forward in long slaloms, parallel to the shore.
Best of all, after his long dry season at the Havens, there were girls.
“Anaweir women can’t resist wizards,” Jason had said. Once, the notion had made Seph feel uneasy. Now he flexed his wizard muscles in every way he could.
He flirted with the year-round residents and summer girls, ate their chocolate-chip cookies and fruit salad, and smoothed sunblock into their sun-warmed skin. He danced with them at the beach pavilion on Friday and Saturday nights and stole kisses under the pier. He stayed out late, since Linda was unaccustomed to enforcing curfews.
Despite his late hours, most mornings he rose early and walked to the lake, grappling with memories that kept him from sleep. Jason, Jason’s father, and Trevor were dead, but Gregory Leicester still lived, spinning his intrigues, effectively imprisoning Seph within the Sanctuary. Seph was building his arsenal of magic, but he had no way to use it against his enemy—and no way to connect with the Dragon, who might be able to use the information Seph had.
When he walked in the mornings, he often saw the same girl sitting on the rocks at the water’s edge, her fair head bent over her sketchbook, one knee up, the other straight, her bare feet braced against stone. Her hand danced over the page, laying down shape and color. She frowned as she concentrated, her lower lip caught behind her teeth. Sometimes she swiped at her face with the back of her hand, leaving a smear of color.
He began to look for her, and she was there most days. She usually brought her sketchbook, but sometimes she sat and read, the book tilted to catch the slanting light, drinking coffee from an insulated travel cup. Some days she wore jeans and a T-shirt; on others she wore long tiered flowered skirts and sheer cotton blouses that slipped off her shoulders.
He thought she noticed him, but she was careful not to look at him, and something in her expression and body language kept him at bay. He began bringing books along, an excuse to linger, sharing the same stretch of beach. Finally, after a long, frustrating morning in the hot sun, he decided to introduce himself.
As soon as his shadow fell over her, she clutched the sketchbook to her body as if to protect it.
“You’re in my light,” she said, without facing around. Her accent reminded him of Trevor’s, with its soft southern vowels.
“Sorry.” He circled around, squatting next to her. She’d hitched her skirts up to mid thigh, exposing her legs to the sun. The wind had torn locks of her hair free from the elastic, and she tucked them behind her ears. Up close, he saw that her hair was all different colors, like butter and sugar and caramel, painted by the sun. “I see you here all the time,” he said. “I was wondering what you were drawing.”
“Your being curious don’t make it your business, now does it?” Her eyes were watercolor blue in her sun-gilded face.
Seph blinked and sat back on his heels. “Well, no, I guess not. . . .”
She laughed. “You should see your face. You aren’t used to girls saying no to you, are you?”
He shrugged and rested his arms on his knees. “We haven’t even come to the hard questions yet.”
“Save them for someone else. I come up here to sketch, not to flirt with the summertime boys.”
“You’re not from around here, are you?” No. He couldn’t believe he’d said that.
“No. I’m not.” Sand adhered to her long legs, to the tops of her feet. Following his gaze, she scowled at him, then redistributed the fabric of her skirt, covering herself to the ankle. She wore a ribbon with a familiar cameo around her neck, and he suddenly realized where he’d seen it before.
“You work at the Legends?” The Legends was an inn and restaurant in a Victorian mansion overlooking the lake. Linda and Becka liked to go there for brunch.
“I’m waitressing there, okay? I’m from Coalton County, a place I’m sure you never heard of.” She snatched up the case of pastels and snapped it shut, shoving it into her tote bag, following with her sketch pad. Seph watched this, unsure what he’d done wrong.
“Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to run you off.” Why was he always apologizing?
“Never mind. The light has changed, my mood is ruined, and my shift is about to start.” She stood, brushing sand off the back of her skirt.
A pile of drawings sat nearby, anchored by a large rock. Seph reached for them.
“No! Leave them alone!” She shoved him, hard, and the pages went flying, caught by the shore breeze.
Bewildered, he scrambled after them, snatching some of them practically out of the waves. When he had them all, he turned and found she hadn’t waited for him. In fact, she was already a good distance away, striding down the beach, shoulders hunched, head thrust forward. “What the . . . ?” He looked down at the wad of paper in his hand. The drawing on top was a face in charcoal, a three-quarter profile, long, curling dark hair, high cheekbones, a Romanesque nose, half smile, eyes set under a smudge of dark brows.
His own face.
He pawed through the others. Seph McCauley sprawled on his back in the sun in his bathing trunks, muscles picked out under the skin of his chest, one arm flung over his eyes. Seph walking along the shore, a tall, angular figure silhouetted against the bright water. Seph sprawled on the rocks at the water’s edge, looking toward Canada. Studies of his back and shoulders, his arms and hands, tendons and muscles faithfully rendered.
In each, he was surrounded by a nimbus of light, as if illuminated from within. Like images of the saints in the old manuscripts. They were all of him, save a few still lifes of shells and rock at the bottom. Thoughts surfaced, as from a dark pool.
Why is she drawing pictures of me?
She knows I’m a wizard.
And then he was running, pounding down the beach after her, leaping over boulders and half-submerged driftwood. He was perhaps a hundred feet away from her when she heard him coming. She didn’t look back, but increased her speed until she was running herself. Her hair escaped from its elastic and streamed out behind her as she dodged around tree stumps and late-day beach strollers.
He ran faster.
He’d almost caught up with her when she tripped over a tree root and went sprawling, sliding forward in the sand.
He fell to his knees next to her. He put his hand on her shoulder and she flinched at his touch. “You okay?” She didn’t reply, but folded into herself as if she wanted to disappear.
He rolled her over onto her back and wiped the sand from her face with the hem of his T-shirt. She squinched her eyes shut, like she could pretend he wasn’t there. Her white lace blouse was smeared with wet sand, her chest heaving as she fought for breath.
“Who are you, really?” he demanded.
“I . . . told . . . you. I’m a waitress.”
“What’s your name?”
“Madison Moss.”
“Did Leicester send you?” Now she opened her eyes and squinted at him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“How did you know that I’m . . . a wizard?”
She said nothing.
He dropped his hands onto her collarbone on either side, fingertips pressing lightly against her skin. Her stealing of his image somehow gave him permission. “Now you’re going to tell me the truth,” he muttered. He released power into her—gentle persuasion. At first it felt good, like a long breath exhaled. A trickle at first, and then a flood, and then he tried to pull away and couldn’t. And more, and more, until he was drained and nauseous and dizzy, like his very essence was being pulled out through his fingertips.
Finally she reached up and pulled his hands away, then rolled him over on his back, folding his hands across his chest like a corpse laid out on a bier. Black spots circled through his vision like vultures, blotting out the sun.
She leaned over him. Touched his cheek gently and kissed him on the forehead. “Good-bye, Witch Boy,” she whispered. She stood, retrieved her bag, slung it over her shoulder, and walked away, not in any hurry this time, as if she knew he couldn’t follow.
He wasn’t sure how long he lay there, unable to move. Like a drunk on the sidewalk. Or a creature that had washed up in a storm. Finally, he propped up on his elbows. His head swam, and he thought for a moment he might be sick, but it passed. He rolled to his hands and knees. Several of the drawings had been trapped under his body. He folded them carefully and stuffed them into his back pockets, then stood, listing a little, shaking the sand out of his hair. He felt empty. He looked up and down the beach. The sun had passed midday, and the beach was crowded. No sign of Madison Moss.