Page 136 of A Palace of Smoke & Mirrors
Rubbing the space between my eyebrows, I made an effort to physically shake my shoulders, imagining that I was freeing myself of the regrets that plagued me and the horrors that haunted my subconscious mind. Like the memories from the Court of Darkness and the Court of Light, where magic had sent me into a spiral on more than one occasion. And the lingering echoes of my childhood, where I had befriended an entity that abandoned me in my time of need and left me with countless scars on my heart.
If I was going to take magic seriously, I needed to understand it—how it could build a throne of vines beneath a woman with peace all over her face and bring light into the streets, instead of only seeing how it could paint walls black and leave whispers in the dark.
“Help me figure out what that means,” I pleaded.
forty-six
Glass Rose
“Levitation.” Morgoya picked up a small glass orb from the cart of wares Batre had hauled out of a hidden storage facility on the other side of the training room. It was thin, reflecting the fog-tainted light like a pearl, and extremely fragile.
She let it drop.
Her hand flattened in the air above it, halting the descent. The orb floated a few inches away from an untimely death upon the floor. With a glance at her girlfriend, she withdrew her hand, and the orb wobbled midair but remained in place. Batre had extended her own palm flat and horizontal, accepting the transfer of power and keeping it safe.
“Any faerie can do it,” the High Lady informed me as Batre’s bare hand guided the orb back to its place on the cart. “There are a number of basic abilities thatanyonewith magic can complete, though everyone has different strengths and weaknesses. It doesn’t matter which Element you were born to inherit.”
“I did that once,” I announced, pointing to the orb.
Morgoya’s face betrayed mild surprise. “You did? When?”
“I was a child. I didn’t mean to do anything like that, but during one of my”—I searched for the right name—“episodes, all of the objects in our living room started levitating. I had no control over it.” Bile rose in my throat, the familiar prickle of abhorrence triggering the hairs on the back of my neck, so I took a deep breath. “Like…Icouldn’tput them down.”
“Hmm.” Morgoya tapped a manicured finger against her upper lip. “Is that the only instance of baseline magic you’ve experienced?”
Ignorance jerked my eyebrows up. “Um… What are the others?”
The High Lady elevated one arm, sharply clicking her fingers as she brought her fist towards her face like she was pulling a string. A book appeared on top of the cart.
“Summoning,” she declared simply, and then proceeded to let her arm fall back to her side, releasing her fist into a flat hand as if she were wiping a table, and the book disappeared. “Vanishment.”
I watched as she summoned the book once more, then twisted her hand as if to flick an invisible switch. Immediately, the hardcover book flipped open, and pages began to turn of their own volition.
“Enchantment,” she announced, and then the orb was in her hand once more. “Summoning,” she reminded me with a pointed look, before she tossed it into the air.
I braced for another round of levitation, but Morgoya let the glass shatter upon the floor, and it was all I could do to keep up as she brought her hands together above it as if she was praying. The broken shards of glass morphed back into the original item without a single crack or scratch.
“Restoration.”
The High Lady made the motion of lifting a string and the orb floated up to rest on the waiting palm of her free hand. Amoment later, she made a pinch towards it, and the glass orb was once again shattered into hundreds of tiny pieces.
“Destruction.”
Keeping her fingers in place above the remnants of glass gathered on her palm, she rubbed them together like she was seasoning a pot with salt, and I stared open-mouthed as the glass refashioned itself into the shape of a rose. The delicate petals shone in the low light, the transparent stem harnessing a bluish hue. With a theatrical curtsy, Morgoya handed the glass rose to Batre—who took it while fanning her face with her other hand and batting her eyelashes exaggeratedly—and then she twisted back to face me.
“Transformation,” she concluded.
“You’re already aware of transportation,” Batre added, kissing the rose before she sent it floating back to the cart of magical supplies. “That’s what we do when we evanesce, but we can also do it with items. Certain faeries are skilled enough to do it to other people, too, but that’s often frowned upon.”
“Necromancy is another one,” Morgoya mentioned, swishing her hips as she walked over to the throne. “That isn’t just frowned upon, though. It’s a banned magic, commonly viewed as a practice that only the Witches still acknowledge.”
“Oh, and don’t forget telekinesis!” Batre exclaimed.
The High Lady clicked her fingers as she sat down on the throne of vines. “Yes, that one, too! Thank you.” Her gaze settled on me. “I tend to forget telekinesis because I’m fairly weak in that area, but it’s the practice of mind-reading or mind-sharing—which is what you and Lucais are able to do through the mating bond’s magic—and memory-scraping.” She shrugged, a reticent look in her eyes. “The last part of that is controversial, but it’s not actually banned unless you’re permanently removing the other person’s memories. It’s also one of the mostuncommon skills, second only to necromancy. Lucais’s father was a very talented telekinetic, actually.”
“Healing!” Batre threw in as she rustled through a cabinet. “So common we always forget it. Everyone can heal themselves to a degree, but only some have mastered it well enough to be able to heal others.” She straightened, pensive. “I think that one ranks about third on the list of uncommon talents—for being able to heal other people, that is.”
Head spinning, I held my hands out in front of me to beg for pause.
