Page 14 of To Clutch a Razor
To get to Gdansk, they fly a nonsensical route through LaGuardia, at Ala’s insistence. There’s something she needs to do there. When they land in the new terminal, she grabs Dymitr’s wrist and drags him to the fountain in Terminal B. Then she points at an empty chair and tells him to sit and wait. Dymitr’s just listening to a voicemail when she walks away from him and faces the fountain.
It’s simple in structure, just a wide cylindrical base with a column of water and light falling from the ceiling. It’s the light that’s remarkable, displaying patterns in the fallingwater that passersby stop to marvel at, even if they’re in an obvious hurry. Right now, the Statue of Liberty glows green in the water column, her torch held high.
Ala tucks her hands into her pockets and takes out something hard and beige. It’s an old baby tooth—her mother saved them for her, for just such a purpose. She balances it on her thumbnail and flicks it as hard as she can, so it lands in the middle of the fountain’s base—not exactly the kind of fountain you’re supposed to throw coins in, but once it touches the metal grate, the tooth disappears, and all of the hair on the back of Ala’s neck stands on end.
Standing beside her is a woman. But notmerelya woman. She has long hair—most wila do—and her feet are bare, but otherwise she’s opted not to look like a figure from an old book of fairy tales. She wears, not a flowing white gown, or a crown of flowers in her hair, but a hot-pink dress that makes her skin look even duller and greener than it would have otherwise. In an attempt to mitigate this, perhaps, she’s wearing a lipstick to match the dress—but it’s garish on her, and incongruous, like it’s painted on a corpse.
Not all women are beautiful by the standard definitions, and not all wila are, either. This one isn’t. There’s something froglike about her round eyes and her wide mouth.
“My lady,” Ala says, bending her head a little in greeting. The wila is smaller than Ala is, but much older. It’s obvious in the way she appraises Ala, like she’s about to correct her posture or scold her for bad manners.
“A zmora,” the wila says, her voice raspy. “How interesting. Are you on a journey, zmora?”
“I am. Back to our homeland.”
The wila snorts. “What reason do you have to go back there? Everything you need is here.”
She gestures to the room around them. No one is paying attention to them, not even Dymitr, who’s turned away from Ala, his phone still pressed to his ear. Everyone is moving more slowly than usual, too, which is likely due to the magic created by her tooth donation. It’s the price of speaking to this particular wila, who’s an odd one—living inside an airport, for one thing; separated from her sisters, for another.
Wrapped around the circumference of the large room are restaurants and shops. A Dunkin’. A Hudson Booksellers. A Starbucks. She supposes, depending on your priorities, the wila has a point: everything she needs is here. A body of water, in the fountain. The lives of mortals, to observe and occasionally intrude upon. Food, if she desires it. And all the little debts and sacrifices that build on each other day by day—taking an earlier flight to see a loved one sooner, or giving up a seat so the plane can leave on time, or just the thankless labors of the airport employees who frequent this place—which create the potential for strong magic, if someone knows how to make use of them.
“Is that man your friend?” the wila asks. When Ala nods, she says, “I had friends, once.” She sounds wistful.“We used to dance and sing together in the river. Then mortals came and built a dam, and the river dried up, and we had to scatter. I don’t know where my friends are now. I gave up looking for them long ago.”
“I’m sorry, my lady,” Ala says.
The light from the fountain is reflected in the wila’s dark, round eyes.
“The world always changes,” the wila says. “For now, it changes to exclude us. Someday it may change to suit us once more. But not yet.” She looks at the fountain again. “You’ve come to ask me for something, but I only help warriors, and most zmoras I have met can’t claim to be warriors. Are you an exception?”
She looks at Dymitr, who still has a phone pressed to his ear, and says, “I’m going to kill a Knight.”
The wila raises her thin eyebrows. “And you believe you can accomplish this?”
“I’m not an experienced killer,” Ala says. “But I’m excellent at illusions. I have a plan to get close to her. I just need your help for the last part of it.”
“Then you’d better ask, zmora. Your tooth won’t buy us much more time.”
“I don’t speak the language, where I’m going,” Ala admits. It’s not exactly shameful, but it makes her feel sheepish, like it’s some personal failure. As if she doesn’t deserve to claim their mother country if she can’t speak its language… even though it wasn’t her choice, not to be taught.
“To purchase fluency would be costly indeed.”
“I don’t need it to be permanent. Only while I’m visiting.”
Ala is wary of her own request, wary of its cost. She could have gone to a lesser witch for something like this, but a lesser witch might give her the ability to speak Polish, but only in someone else’s voice, or they might have made her forget English in the process, or she could speak Polish, but only at night or only at the full moon. Everyone knows that if you want something to do with the voice, you go to a wila. She’ll do it properly.
“For as long as you speak our mother tongue, you will lose the ability to speak for twice that time upon your return,” the wila says, after a moment. “If you stay for a day, you’ll give me your voice for two days. If you stay for a week, you’ll give me your voice for two weeks. Understand?”
“Yes, my lady.” Ala doesn’t love the idea of losing her voice for that long, but of all the bargains she could have made, it seems the most straightforward she could have hoped for. Because wila only help warriors, they tend to be more up front about the costs of their magic. If they’re going to turn on you, they do it right away, before the bargaining even begins.
The wila reaches into the pocket of her puffy skirt, and takes out a crystal bottle, small enough to fit in her palm. She takes the stopper out of it, and offers it to Ala.
“Whisper your name into this bottle,” she says. “And it will be done.”
Ala takes the bottle and holds it up to her lips. “Aleksja Dryja,” she whispers, and then the wila takes it and stoppers it. For a moment, Ala thinks,Is that all?She’s not good at sensing magic, as a general rule. But then she smells petrichor, and the fountain in front of her starts to look… strange. Strings of water pull away from the column like hair blowing in a strong wind. They stretch toward her and then wrap around her, not quite touching her, but distorting her vision. It’s like trying to see through a waterfall.
She looks at the wila through the curtain of water, and notices for the first time that her bare feet don’t seem to be touching the tile. She’s floating a half inch above the ground.
Ala can tell the moment the time-slowing magic runs out, because all the water collapses against her at once, soaking her from head to toe. She splutters, water running into her eyes and ears and mouth. Everyone around her stares at her like they’re waiting for an explanation, but Ala doesn’t offer one. She just walks back over to Dymitr, running a hand over the back of her neck to keep a drop of water from rolling down her spine.
