I wake with a start in the golden light of dawn and hurriedly pack my things, taking special care to tuck Asra's tarot cards into a hidden pocket in my bag. I splash water on my face and change into something more presentable than the rumpled clothes I slept in.
As I run downstairs I pass by a mirror and catch sight of myself. It looks like my hair exploded on one side, but I don't have time to fuss over it. I braid the top layer of hair down, leaving the rest in curls and waves over my shoulders. I appraise myself with tired eyes and think, Good enough.
Hoping that I haven't made myself late to meet the Countess today, I throw on my cloak and run out the door. I'm halfway down the street when I sprint back to the door and engage all three locks and the protection spell, cautious after last night's strange visits.
The morning mist is thick in the streets, blanketing the world in an otherworldly, milky glow.
I close my eyes for a moment and cast out my magic to find Mephisto. He should have been back this morning, but hadn't returned. Our link establishes and I see he's over at the palace already, splashing around in one of the fountains.
Are you coming back anytime soon? I ask.
Later, he squawks back. Bathing!
I laugh, amused at how bird-like he could be (considering he's an ethereal manifestation of magic) and shake my head, letting the connection drop.
Suddenly, the back of my neck prickles with the sensation of being watched and I can't help but groan to myself. Not again.
Turning slightly in the direction the sensation is coming form, I spot in my periphery a hulking figure. It stands in the foggy alleyway I need to take to get to the marketplace.
Squaring my shoulders, I walk past with as much confidence as I can muster, feeling the prickling increase as I near. As I get closer, I realize that the figure is indeed human. Closer again, and I can see their flesh is a map of scars, clean and jagged, shallow and deep. Shrouded in a pall of weatherbeaten furs, it's hard to make out a face but I catch the glint of eyes and they are definitely watching me. I shift my shoulders but the sensation lingers uncomfortably. Just as I'm passing them and the discomfort is at its height, they lay a heavy hand on my shoulder. The movement is accompanied by the rattle of weighty chains from underneath their robes and the shudder I'd been holding in becomes uncontrollable. I freeze and tremble.
"He will return, uninvited." His voice is like thunder, low and ominous. "He will offer you an escape, when you need it most… Turn it away, or you will fall into his hand… Just like the rest of us."
I struggle to wrap my mind around his words. He… Asra? Devorak? The milkman? The vague prophecies and omens of the cards are more clear than this.
The stranger's eyes bore into mine, searching intently for something. I suppose he doesn't find it, because he sighs and turns away, disappointed. His hand, large as one of Asra's special teapots, lifts from my shoulder. He shuffles away, chains rattling underneath the rustle of his cloak. Then the fog swallows him up, and there's silence.
My brain feeling just as foggy as the street, I start walking towards the palace.
By the time I reach the marketplace, the fog is dispersed and sunlight warms my face. The wood groans under my feet, and the water beneath the boards sends the sunlight glinting and shimmering on the canopies above.
I feel calmed by the water's presence after that encounter with the hulking stranger and his… perplexing message.
Three odd encounters, I muse. The power of thirds. Something big is going to happen.
Over the cacophony of bartering and laughter that surrounds me, Dorsa the baker calls out to me as I pass. She offers a sweet pastry and conversation. My stomach growls and my resolve wavers. It's been over a month since we've talked, and she always has the best gossip about the city.
But I summon what inner strength I have left (after my body betrayed me with that ridiculous trembling earlier, I need to redeem myself...to myself). I wave as I pass her stall, calling out, "Next time!"
"Alright," she yells back. "But you'll never believed who eloped yesterday!"
It's a long way to the palace, and I've already lost some time. Damn.
The crowd ahead of me is thick with workers on their way to their shops and tasks: I weave in and out of the bodies, trying to find a clear path.
A sharp cry above me draws my attention and I pause, stepping out of the crowd. Pressing my body against a stone wall gently warmed from the sun, I shield my eyes to look up. A raven, perched on the awning overhead, meets my gaze and cocks its head. There's something about this bird… Then its eye shifts to something behind me, and I turn to follow its gaze. My heart skips and then thumps painfully.
Devorak.
He's walking casually through the crowd, his height and black cloak making him stand out. Though, somehow, nobody seems to have noticed him yet except for me. He isn't wearing his mask, and his the skin under his eye is a deep purple, indicating a sleepless night. Or a couple of sleepless nights. He hasn't spotted me yet and before I know it, my feet are in motion and I'm fighting against the flow of people towards him.
My questions from last night that I didn't get to ask him bubble up: Why did he come back to Vesuvia? Why was he looking for Asra? Or was he looking for something in our shop? And questions that pop up now at the sight of him threaten to completely boil me over: What's he doing unmasked in broad daylight? Does he want to get caught?
He looks so...calm. Almost at ease, though I can tell from the set of his shoulders that he's holding tension there. His gaze roams over the stalls with mild interest.
Instinct pulls me in his direction, telling me to hide him before he's recognized. It hasn't been long enough for anyone to have forgotten his face, not yet, and I increase my pace.
There's a gap in my memory that I can't fill. I remember Doctor Devorak, a man who threw his body and mind at the plague, hoping he could cure it with either one. I remember Asra, and living in the city. The memories are bare-bones, like pencil sketches of an oil painting. Powerful, crippling migraines thwart every attempt I make to think about the time between when I was spending half my time as Asra's apprentice and the other on the streets with plague victims, and waking up one morning to Asra's concerned face hovering over me.
He asked me to stay in bed for a while and rest. My body was exhausted, so I did. And when I recovered, still feeling weak but desperate to move around, Asra kept me busy enough that I didn't have time to do anything else but learn, and keep the shop.
There were moments in the early months after this event, this Waking Up, when I would stay out late at the bar, sharing stories and laughter with strangers, or exploring the city, looking for hidden corners and secret passageways.
It felt natural and familiar, like I was connecting to the life I had lost after Waking Up. And then I would come home to a concerned Asra, and he would caution me: about how dangerous the city could be; how afraid he was of anything happening to me; how much he needed me here at the shop. Too tired to argue and guilty for worrying him, I stopped going out at night and within that first year settled into a comfortable routine of collecting herbs, mixing potions, reading fortunes, and coming up with ways to drive more business to our shop.
I wasn't an apprentice anymore, not really, but I wasn't a full-fledged magician yet, either. At least, not in the same way Asra is a magician.
The one secret I kept from him, and still keep, was that I still practiced my water magic. He hadn't said outright that I shouldn't, but I had a feeling that he wouldn't be happy if I did. Especially if he knew I was occasionally still experimenting with the water-based blood magic that kept me from succumbing to the plague.
So I practice when I'm out gathering herbs or when he's gone on his trips. I take notes on what I learn in notebooks that I hide under the floor or in the forest, developing what feels like a forbidden art.
It's exciting.
I'm thinking about all of this, and then wonder how disappointed Asra would be if he could see me chasing after a wanted man that I had barely spoken to years ago, when suddenly the raven cries again from overhead.
It had followed me, hopping on the boards above the marketplace, keeping pace with my progress. I look back at Devorak at the same moment his gaze drops from the raven to me. We both freeze, and a look of shock and confusion passes over his face. I lift my arm to reach out to him -
And a cart rolls over my foot. I curse and jump back to save my other one, and the cart blocks my view.
When it passes, he's gone, and so is the raven.
I ask myself, why am I turning away from the palace to go after him? And then, why am I pursuing danger like this? And in response, moments from my dream, intangible and brief, flit through my mind and I exhale slowly.
Curiosity. Attraction. Adventure.
Mixed together, they create a dangerous cocktail that I can't resist. Another call from the life I once lived that I didn't realize I missed so much.
In another word: Foolishness.
I almost threw away the life I've built over the past three years! I can picture Asra's face as it was back then when I Woke Up, concerned and anxious and berate myself for doing something so thoughtless as trying to catch a condemned murderer.
But… there are doubts about his conviction…
I turn back and the flow of bodies carries me forward until I break out towards a stairwell. I catch sight of a fortune teller's booth. Seeing those colorful cloth walls, the sparkling silver moons, and smelling the incense breaks me out of my brooding, and I smile at the nostalgic memory of when Asra worked out of one.
A patron is emerging as I pass, so I swing wide and keep my head down.
The woman, her copper tresses bound up with a colorful scarf asks as she pushes the tent aside into the street, "What are my lucky numbers today?...Three, six, seven, nine. Got it." She repeats the numbers as she backs up and crashes into me. The impact makes me stumble, and twelve pomegranates spill from the basket on her hip. I help pick up the pomegranates, diving for the last one to save it from getting crushed under the wheels of a cart.
My head shoots up and I glare at the driver - the same cart that ran over my foot.
The woman's eyes sparkle as she takes the rescued pomegranate from my hands.
"Thank you! How sweet of you to help. And after I bumped into you in the first place!" She helps me up with a strong, calloused hand. "I probably shouldn't do this, but…" She takes one of the pomegranates and hands it to me. I accept it, and she rewards me with a warm smile. It chases away my ire toward the cart driver. "Take care, all right?" With a wink, she departs, slipping into the crowd.
The fortune teller tells me the woman is Portia, the Countess' favorite servant, and then offers me a telling. I note the progress of the sun and turn her down, hurrying further up the stairs.
The crowd thins the farther I go, and the sounds of the market fade away behind me. My legs burn with the effort. While I started out by taking the stairs two at a time, I'm now trudging up each one, trying not to look up at how many are left. Night is falling now, bringing a cool breeze with it. I reach the top and look up to see the palace looming in front of me.
Gold-topped turrets shimmer in the light of the setting sun. The palace is perfectly geometric, the towers stretching to the stars. The sight of its opulent splendor makes my breath catch, every single time.
I step up to the tall iron gate, intricately wrought and protected by guards who may as well have been statues, as still as they were standing. I clear my throat.
"The Countess is expecting me," I announce. Is that what you're supposed to say? I hadn't put any thought into it before now and I feel myself slipping into timidity.
The guards glance at each other.
"We've had no word to expect a guest," the one on my right says.
"So you'll need the code to enter," continues the one on my left.
Do they rehearse this?
I think quickly. Asra taught me long ago… something about the answer being given to you, if you're listening for it…?
In a flash I remember Portia.
"Three, six, seven, nine," I state, hands on my hips. The guards glance at each other again, then open the gate and let me pass through. I grin to myself. Never mess with a magician.
Portia meets me just inside the gate.
"Oh, you made it!" she says gleefully. "I hadn't realized that you were the guest the Countess invited tonight!"
Portia guides me across a huge alabaster stone bridge. It crosses over a moat of swirling waters and I pause a moment to lean over them.
There's a kind of water magic I've been practicing where I can learn the history of a place by drinking its water. Most people don't know, but water absorbs energy from the life around it and carries it. The sea would be a challenge - it's so massive that the energy travels with the currents around the world and might be difficult to tap into. But this moat water, contained in an oval around the palace since who knows how long, would be concentrated with enough energy to make it possible.
As I'm staring, wondering how to take a sample without looking suspicious, a shape corkscrews through the current. It glows like a bloodless ghost, its ribbon-like body long and rippling.
"Something catch your eye?" Portia asks, leaning over the stone railing next to me. She catches sight of the ghost. "Ah, do you like animals?" I tell her that I do. "You'll definitely enjoy your stay here, then! The palace is home to all kinds of exotic pets. But you don't want to get too friendly with that one." She points at the creature making figure eights in the murky water. "It's a vampire eel, imported from faraway swamps. No eyes or ears, but they're still pretty graceful, don't you think?"
I murmur my agreement, mesmerized by the smooth patterns the eel makes as it swims.
"Unless you splash around a lot, they won't even bother you." She stands straight and starts to walk, and I drag my eyes away and follow her. "You wouldn't want to catch a bite from one of them. If they get their teeth into you, they won't let go until all your blood is drained from your body." She grimaces. "Anyway," she continues, "what's your favorite animal?"
I think for a moment. "I'm partial to birds."
"Really? Well, maybe you can help me out with one in particular that I'm having some trouble with."
Portia peppers me with questions as we walk - "What's it like to be a magician?" "Can you see the future?" "Can you see my future?" - and I realize how long it's been since Waking Up that I've had this kind of interaction with someone. Asra I see (almost) daily, and we're long past the point of "getting to know you" conversations. Everyone else, it's usually just business. I could call Dorsa a friend, but we don't see each other very often… I feel suddenly guilty that I didn't stop to talk to her today.
Portia drags me out of my thoughts when she scoffs asks, "But how do you know mermaids exist if you've never seen one?" and she's managed to make me promise to go shopping with her and do her tarot reading when I realize that we're at the palace doors.
Uncertainty rises up in me like a gaseous bubble and I face the legitimate fear of vomiting. Is this wise? What awaits me in this fortress, so far from home? If I walk through these doors, will I ever walk out again?
Portia turns to me with a winsome smile, which does a lot to soothe my nerves.
"We've arrived."
She lifts her hands and knocks slowly, three times. The sound is skull-rattling. As the last echoes fade, the pendulous doors swing open, and we step inside.
