Page 5 of A Winding Wave of Magic
Most seers were not fans. I, however, was just grateful that Dr. Cardy’s state of mind seemed pleasantly lucid.
“The pleasure is mine, my dear,” she said in a thick Yorkshire accent as she took her hand back. “Do call me Rachel. ‘Dr. Cardy’ sounds like I’m your physician.”
Like all fae, she was noticeable, with porcelain skin and bright eyes that twinkled when she smiled. Her shiny auburn curls bounced with every small movement.
But it was her translations of ancient texts that had made my heart ache from their beauty long before this meeting. Critics called her the next Seamus Heaney because of the way she had made old Irish stories accessible and even popular to a new generation, so much so that her most recent work, a translation ofLebor gabála Érenn, had become aNew York Timesbestseller.
“Rachel,” I repeated carefully. “I’m Cassandra, one of Professor James’s students.”
“Yes, yes. I understand you’re the lovely girl who’s arranged all of this. Horace tells me it will be standing room only. Well done.”
Professor James scowled at the informal use of his first name.
“Ms. Whelan will finish prepping you for the discussion, Dr. Cardy,” he said. “I’m going to the café while I still can. Like anything?”
“No, no, Horace. We’ll be just fine, happy as clams, the two of us.”
Rachel waved a hand, swiping my shoulder just long enough to allow me to hear her internal laughter as she goaded my advisor. It was hard not to join in.
Once the doors had shut behind him, she turned and smiled again, this time more knowingly. “Well, you’re quite something, aren’t you?”
“You’re very kind,” I said, suddenly unsure under her probing gaze. “I hope the talk goes as planned. I was excited about the prospect of you coming?—”
“No, no, not that, although youhavedone a lovely job with the event. I meanyou,Cassandra. A mind witch, aren’t you? Or perhaps a sorceress, although you haven’t the terrible coldness about you that they do. Locked up tight as drums, aren’t they? You’re certainly not one of us. Forgive me for saying this, but Ididread that paper you published last year. Insightful, but a bit dry. Not bad, though, not bad at all.”
I blinked, dumbfounded by her instant analysis. Sometimes, in my isolation, I forgot how easy it was for most of us to identify each other.
“Am I wrong?” she pressed. “Are you a shifter after all? I wouldn’t have pegged you for a selkie, but that black hair…it wouldn’t be the first time I was fooled.”
“No,” I finally blurted out. “No, I’m not a shifter. You were right on the first guess. We prefer ‘seers,’ though. As I’m sure—I’m sure you know.”
There was room for debate on the matter, of course. Some fae used the term witch to apply to any or all of us. Mind witches like me. Fever witches like her. Shape witches like shifters or stone witches like sorcerers. As with many other bigoted terms, “witch” had been reclaimed by plenty of fae determined to rewrite its definition with more positive connotations.
But that didn’t mean its origins had disappeared with new meanings, either.
“Oh, how rude I am,” she said. “Terribly sorry, truly.”
She was so earnest that I couldn’t help but grin. “How did you know? Am I that obvious?”
Rachel smiled like I was a child, even though she was the one who was only a bit over five feet tall. “No, no. Just practice and intuition, you see. It was harder since you were so polite.”
I frowned. “Polite?”
“Not prodding all about my head like your kin usually do. Except for that handshake, of course. Powerful, that one. But everyone is a little curious.”
I swallowed. She could have no way of knowing that was because I wasn’t capable of reading her mind without contact. Or that I couldn’t stop once it started.
“It’s not foolproof,” she rattled on charmingly. “So sometimes Idomake mistakes, but you have that aura about you only seers have. Quite bright, quite lovely. Very sharp. Mostly blue of course, though you’ve got some other unusual tinges of crimson too. Perhaps you’ve got a shifter in your genealogy somewhere, eh? You’ve also the face of some of the wise women. Sharp nose, sharp eyes, like they could see right through you. Of course, that’s exactly what you can do, isn’t it?”
She erupted into laughter at her own joke, and it was so utterly contagious that this time I did join her.
“Er, thank you,” I said once we had calmed down. “I suppose that’s good to know about myself. Did Professor James show you around?”
I wasn’table to enjoy much of the lecture after giving my introduction. Instead, I was more concerned with shoving myself into the corner but trying to touch as little as possible and also keep my distance from the standing-room-only crowd that inched closer to Dr. Cardy as she discussed Pliny’s accounts of the ancient Celts.
They were magnetized by her charisma. I just tried not to panic.
From the other side of the podium, millions of unwanted thoughts, feelings, histories, and dreams threatened to swarm this space the moment the talk was over. I couldn’t See them. Not yet. Not without touching, though a conversation about a new library from when I guessed was approximately 1925 kept trying to sprout through the soles of my boots like a persistent dandelion. Still, the other possibilities from the attendees heated the room like pressure building in a teapot that hadn’t yet whistled.
