Page 57 of Ink Blood Sister Scribe

His head was pounding. He dropped it into his hands and when he picked it back up, he had pasted a rueful smile onto his face.

“Honestly, you’re right,” he said to Richard. “I’m sorry. I’m just being stubborn for the sake of it. God, am I that easy to read?”

Richard hesitated, then grinned back, clapping him on the shoulder. “Only to one who knows you as well as I do. Not ill after all, then?”

“Only ill-tempered. You know I’m useless this early in the morning. Let’s get this over with so I can go back to bed.”

He could see that Richard was glad to take him at his word, glad to spring back into action and begin the ritual they’d done so often together. Nicholas told himself it wouldn’t be so bad, a truth spell needed about twenty thousand words, and they could get that with under a pint.Probably he’d barely feel it, if they went slowly enough and he didn’t try to stand too quickly afterward. Richard had done this for him hundreds of times—there was nothing to suggest today would be any different.

The only difference was that Nicholas did not trust him anymore.

He drank some more juice to ready himself for what was coming. It was the mental effects he dreaded most, the way too much blood loss blunted the corners of his mind, slowed him down, made him want to sleep and nothing else. And making the ink was the least time-consuming part—he’d still have hours left of work, of careful, breath-held writing. How was he supposed to collect his thoughts if he’d barely have time to think?

He wondered if the spell itself would suffer from how badly he didn’t want to write it.

Richard was arranging the collection bag. Nicholas finished his juice and then forced himself to survey the contents of the table in earnest. A bowl of still-damp soil, stones, water, and feathers.

“We’re going elemental this morning, I see,” he said, picking up a red candle.

“If there’s no objection.”

“None here.”

Ink needed ceremony, but as with the addition of herbs, there were no set rules for what that ceremony should be, though the ink came out noticeably darker if a Scribe had some connection—emotional, geographical, familial, or all of the above—to the ritual that helped create it. Nicholas’s magical imagination had been heavily shaped by the fantasy novels he’d loved as a child, and many of those fantasy novels had themselves been influenced by earth-based spiritual traditions from the British Isles; so because of this, he made his best ink within a strong framework of natural symbolism. The ink he made under such ceremonial conditions was darker than any other, which meant there were more uses to a single book and the spells lasted longer, their effects stronger.

He had set up a circle so many times in this kitchen that it was nearly second nature—the bowl of soil at the north with a heap of stones and asmall lamb skull; fresh flowers and incense to the east; to the south, a dish of desert sand and a burning candle; to the west, water and blue silk. In the center, an amethyst geode Richard had given him when he was a child.

“Ready?” Richard said when he was done. He was holding the pressure cuff and Nicholas sat again to let him fix it around his arm, the familiar, constricting sensation almost comforting despite his rattling pulse. Richard fastened the Velcro and paused, his hand still on Nicholas’s arm, his gaze distant.

“What?” said Nicholas.

Richard blinked as if rousing from a dream, though his eyes were still unfocused. “Oh,” he said. “Nothing. Just... I remember doing this with your father when we were young.” He smiled to himself, an insubstantial, melancholy smile that solidified when he raised his head to Nicholas. “He was stubborn, like you—and like you, he could admit it. Sometimes, Nicholas, you remind me so much of him I can hardly...” He trailed off, then cleared his throat and began busying himself again with the instruments. Then he said, “I feel very lucky to have you, that’s all.”

Nicholas swallowed. He had to fight hard to push away the swell of complicated feeling that moved in him at Richard’s words.

He watched as Richard rose to light the white candles clockwise, and then he began to grudgingly murmur the invocations for each cardinal direction as the candles flared to life, his voice hoarse in his own ears.

“No singing today?” Richard said, as he returned to Nicholas’s side to push the needle into his arm.

The magic was always stronger when Nicholas sang, especially in the context of making ink for a truth spell, as he was doing now. Usually when he wrote truth spells, he sang “The Bonnie Banks o’ Loch Lomond,” a Scottish folk song he could swear he remembered his mother singing to him. Yet the memory was a pure lie. He had been scarcely two months old when his mother died, far too young for that kind of specific recollection. Emotionally, however, the memoryfelttrue—and the tension between truth and figment made for fantastically powerful ink.

Today, however, the thought of raising his voice in some silly tune while his uncle watched was insupportable. He shook his head once and Richard did not push him, only sat back in the chair across from him to wait. The familiar honeyed blur of magic hummed to life in Nicholas’s ears, in his bones, and even in the face of so much uncertainty he relaxed into it, into the rightness of it, the certainty of his purpose. And despite everything, he felt gratitude swell along with the churn of slow wings. How many people in this world could claim to know exactly what they’d been made for?

He sighed, watching the jewel-toned blood slide through the clear tubing and into the plastic hospital-issue bag that Richard held so lovingly in his elegant hands. It pooled at the bottom like a dark mirror. Nicholas tilted his head back and closed his eyes.

Whatever horrors he’d imagined did not come. The ink-making went off without a hitch, as it always did, though Nicholas felt a bit woozy as he stood over the cauldron and watched the powdered herbs dissolve into the thick darkness of his blood. He had claimed nausea earlier and now, as if he’d cursed himself, it had come to pass, and the brain fog he’d been fearing was actually something of a relief. His thoughts felt slipperier, less urgent, though his anxiety had not decreased.

“I have a meeting in London today,” Richard said, “but I’ll be back well before supper. Maram and I interviewed a few employees yesterday with our last truth spell, and I’m pleased to say the chef is fully reliable and back on duty, so do let him know if there’s anything in particular you’d like.”

The thought of food was stomach-turning. Nicholas nodded anyway. Richard scrutinized him and said, “Back to bed with you. Though if you do manage to get some of the writing done today, I’d much appreciate it. The sooner we’re back to our full complement of staff, the better. I don’t think Collins much likes being bodyguard, butler, and scullery maid all at once.”

“I can’t say I like it, either,” said Nicholas. “He makes a terrible maid.”

“Well,” Richard said, “he’ll have to endure it for a bit longer—this kitchen needs tidying and I haven’t the time.” Richard checked his watch and clapped Nicholas on the shoulder: a dismissal Nicholas was only too glad to take.

The jar of ink was warm in his cold hands and Nicholas found himself holding it close against his chest as he trudged up several flights of stairs, then through the portrait gallery and to his room. Collins was in the anteroom listlessly throwing a miniature tennis ball for Sir Kiwi, who left off her chase as soon as she saw Nicholas. It was always gratifying to be greeted so enthusiastically, and Nicholas bent to greet her in return. When he straightened the blood roared in his ears and he staggered once before regaining his balance. Collins looked away.

“I didn’t forget what I promised you,” Nicholas said. “I need a few days’ rest but then I’ll write the reversal to your NDA.”

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