A Book of My Own

On birthdays, I did the math.

Seventeen, plus seven. Twenty-four.

Twenty-four years old. Back home, that was old enough to vote, sign a lease, and get a credit card I'd regret. Here, it was old enough to be told, very firmly, that I wasn't allowed in the kitchen.

"Just until breakfast," Mara said, steering me out by the top of my head. Something sweet was cooling by the stove. "And no looking."

"I wasn't looking."

 I didn't get the chance to argue, because she Shut the door.

So I sat on the bench in the hall next to her old boots and waited. There was a cloth parcel hidden behind the papers on Dad's desk, about the size of a book. I'd seen it at dawn and pretended I hadn't.

My drills were done and breakfast wasn't. Most of the last three years had worked like that.

◇◇◇

I'd assumed having a retired court mage teach you at home meant shortcuts. Secret techniques. The old master taps you on the forehead and suddenly you can throw fireballs.

What it actually meant was scales.

Every morning: bring the warmth from under my ribs to my left hand, across the shoulders, down to my right hand, and home. Ten circuits. If Dad felt it thin out through his thumb on my wrist, I started over at one.

Then measures. A seed flame was one, a candle three, a lamp six. Everything got counted in them. Then hold one flame steady while he counted. By six, I could do sixty without words.

"Court apprentices do this every day," he told me.

"For how long?"

"Until they die."

He wasn't joking. He did it too. He'd lift the kettle by its hot iron handle with his first two fingers and no cloth, poured his tea, and did his drills at the window while it went cold.

I tried the kettle thing once and spent the morning with my hand in a bowl of cold water.

He wrote my numbers in the cheap notebook, the one he kept turning face down. When I finally snuck a look, I still couldn't read, but he'd drawn a line graph.

Dad had been charting me like a stock.

The line was going up. I checked.

After breakfast came diagrams, drawn on ordinary paper that couldn't hold a drop of mana. Every diagram had four parts: the seat, where mana goes in; the channels, which shape it; the binding, which keeps it from leaking; and the key, which lets it go.

"Always in that order," Dad said. "Your hand teaches your head."

"What if I draw the key first?"

"Then you've built a door before the house."

I could usually find the seat before he pointed to it. The lines just leaned, like a road sign with no words on it. Maybe everybody saw it that way. Either way, you don't tell anybody what you've got until you know what it's worth.

Mara used one quick loop where Dad drew his binding in three careful strokes.

"Hedge notation," he called it, in the tone some people save for gas station sushi.

"It worked when a wyvern was trying to take my head off, Youngest Instructor."

"And how many times didn't it work?"

She thought about it. "Twice. I'm still here, aren't I?"

◇◇◇

The affinity test happened when I was four. Dad brought down a wooden case with a crest on the clasp. Mara looked at it the way you'd look at a photo of someone's ex.

"You kept that."

"It was mine to keep."

"That's not what the inventory man said."

Inside were four dishes: a candle, water, pale sand, and a paper spiral balanced on a pin.

"A court assessment," Dad said. "The guild uses a stone. Mine is better."

"His is older," said Mara. She looked at me. "Wind."

"We don't know that."

"He's mine."

"Half of him."

"Then you won't mind betting on it."

They settled on one silver. Dad took fire. Mara took wind. I supplied the talent for free.

Dad had me bring three measures to my palm and pass it over each dish. The candle leaned toward me. The water rippled. The sand did nothing.

The spiral spun so fast it lifted off the pin and disappeared under the cabinet.

Mara fished it out with a wooden spoon.

"The candle leaned too," Dad said.

"Leaned. Mine went under the cabinet. Silver, please."

The coin went past my hand, from one parent to the other.

"Mine?" I said.

"No," they said, together.

Much later, Dad showed me what he'd written: Wind, strongly. Fire, mild. Water, slight. Earth, none.

Under that, in smaller writing: Spiral left the pin. Haven't seen that since--

When I asked him what the rest would have said, he told me to go do my circuit.

◇◇◇

A week later, Mara waited until Dad had gone into town, then took her staff and scuffed boots from the hall.

"Your father," she said, "can light a lamp. Get your shoes."

She took me to the hill behind the house and planted the staff in the dirt.

"Your father makes small things very well. Wind is big. Watch."

Her incantation sounded like it had been passed hand to hand through a lot of people who'd needed it in a hurry.

"Wind of the high passes, come down. Gather on my word. Run where I point you. Break what stands."

The staff hummed. I felt it in my teeth.

She swept it out over the slope.

The whole hillside lay down.

The grass flattened in a silver wave, down the far side and across the field to the stream. The hedge roared. Birds blew out of it like someone had kicked a box of them. The trees along the lane bent over, every leaf showing its pale underside, the whole valley turned inside out.

Hell yes. THIS is what it's supposed to look like.

Mara grinned over her shoulder, and she looked about nineteen.

Then she let the spell go. All that air was still moving. It rolled back up the slope, over the top, and down toward our washing line.

The pole snapped.

Shirts, a dish towel, my spare trousers--and Dad's court coat.

Dark blue wool, silver thread, brushed every spring and put away without being worn. It went up like a big dark bird trying to remember how flying works, then came down in the exact center of the compost heap.

One of the chickens got on it immediately.

Mara ran. When I caught up, she was holding the coat at arm's length. Chicken shit dripped off one sleeve. There was a tear in the back you could have put your arm through.

"Your father doesn't need to know about this."

"How much?"

"Are you blackmailing me?"

"How much?"

"I'm your mother!"

"Then you get the family rate."

She looked at the coat.

"One copper."

"Two."

"You're four!"

"And three quarters."

She closed her eyes. "Two. And you never, ever, ever--"

"Never."

We shook on it. Her hand smelled like compost.

By evening, the coat had been washed twice and there was honey cake, which made Dad suspicious. Then he found the coat.

He looked at us through the hole.

"What happened?"

"Moths," said Mara.

"This hole is the size of my arm."

"Very determined moths."

He looked at me. I was four and three quarters and a professional. I ate my cake.

She never paid. Two copper, agreed and shook on, witnessed by a chicken. She put the coat in a chest and said she'd do something with it.

It took her five years, but she did.

◇◇◇

Dad taught me my first breeze a few days later. He folded a paper wheel and pinned it to a cork.

"Three measures. Same as the candle. Different words."

"Mana, gather at my hand. Take the shape of a gentle breeze. Hold your--"

The wheel was already turning. Then one blade bent over, and it went wobbling around the pin, catching on the corner every time.

Fire I had to hold together. Wind just went.

"You didn't finish the words," Dad said.

"It didn't wait for them."

"Wind always goes somewhere. That's the trouble with it."

He wrote a line in the notebook and turned it face down.

That breeze felt like whatever had carried me here in the dark, and this time it went where I pointed it.

He offered to fold a new wheel. I kept that one.

◇◇◇

Ten copper made a silver. Twenty silver made a gold. By five, I'd priced most of the house. My own net worth was a paper wheel and some strong opinions.

That winter, I went into business.

Tally brought the milk before dawn. The wind kept blowing her lantern out on the hill, and she'd stand on our step striking her flint with cold hands and missing.

"I'll light that for a copper."

"I've got a flint."

"You've been using it since the gate."

She held it out. "Light it. If it's any good, I'll pay you tomorrow."

I knew that one. I said yes anyway, because she was my first customer, and she was cold.

A lamp flame was six measures. I could do six at the table, with Dad counting. I'd never done it on a step with a customer watching.

Halfway through, my heart gave the hard thump, the one from the candle. I almost coughed, and something closer to nine went out instead.

The flame came up as big as my head. Then the lantern glass made a small, expensive sound.

"You've gone white," Tally said.

"It's cold."

Mara came out and took the lantern. She looked at the crack for a second, and at me for a lot longer.

"What happened?"

"It slipped."

She paid five copper for the glass. Tally was nice about it and took all five.

That night, Dad made a rule: outside the house, I only cast if Mara said I could.

I didn't tell either of them about the thump. It had stopped on its own. If it happened again, I'd cough.

Coughing was free.

I still did the phone number every night. Sometimes I remembered late and did it twice, like apologizing to someone who wasn't in the room.

I didn't really believe a phone number would get me home. But if I stopped saying it, and I was wrong, and there was a hospital bed somewhere with someone sitting next to it, I didn't want to be the one who stopped.

◇◇◇

The kitchen door opened.

Breakfast was honey cake with berries. I got the first slice, as was only right. Then Dad set the parcel beside my plate.

"Happy birthday, Xavier!" Mara said.

The knot was tight. When she reached to help, I turned my shoulder and worked a finger under the cloth until it gave.

Deep blue leather. A brass clasp. Corners still sharp because nobody had carried it around in a pocket yet.

"Mine?"

"Yours."

For a while I just held it.

Then I priced it.

"How much was it?"

Mara put her fork down. "You don't ask what a present cost."

"That's the first thing you ask about a present. How else do you know how grateful to be?"

Dad's mouth twitched.

"Enough," he said.

"Enough silver? Or more than a gold?"

"Enough questions."

Then I opened it, and for a minute I forgot to care.

Inside the cover, in Dad's tight, careful hand, it said: Xavier.

On the first page he'd written the breeze incantation and the title, A Small Breeze. Below it was an empty space. The rest of the book was blank. There had to be eighty pages.

"You'll be putting them in yourself," Dad said. "Starting with that one."

Eighty spells I could keep without asking permission. I'd never owned anything that felt that much like a future, in either life.

After breakfast, he brought the pen and ink. I rubbed the first page between my fingers. Thicker than practice paper, slightly cool.

"Practice paper carries the instructions," Dad said. "This takes the instructions and the charge. A mistake here costs more than a sheet of kindling."

I took my time. Seat. Channels. Binding in three strokes, not Mara's loop. Key last.

Dad traced the heavy hook on the key a finger's width above the page.

"That will do."

Coming from him, that was a parade.

When the ink dried, he slid my old paper wheel across the table. One blade was still bent.

"Charge it. With words, this time."

"I don't need words for a breeze."

"Putting it into a page is new. When something's new, you use the scaffolding."

I put a finger on the seat and brought three measures down my arm.

"Mana, gather at my hand. Take the shape of a gentle breeze. Hold your shape until I release you."

Pale yellow light followed my finger. By hand, the mana went where I sent it. On the page, it pressed at the binding, looking for gaps like smoke under a door. Every time my finger moved forward, part of my attention had to stay behind.

"Slower."

The binding lit, then the key.

"Now stop feeding it."

Every flame I'd ever made died when I stopped. But holding it was the whole point of the page.

I let the warmth go back up my arm.

The diagram stayed lit.

I shut the book, fastened the clasp, and opened it again.

Still there.

"It won't run away while you eat," Mara said, putting more cake in front of me.

I kept my hand flat on the table. It felt like I'd carried a box up three flights of stairs and set it down, and my arms still expected it to be there.

"Tired?"

"No."

"You're pale."

"I'm concentrating."

"On cake?"

"On not being pale."

Dad looked up from his notes.

"How many measures did you put in?"

"Three."

"And how many did it take?"

I'd been too busy watching the light to count.

"More."

"Closer to five. The binding costs. Holding a shape when you aren't there to hold it takes more work than holding it yourself."

Five in, three back. A forty percent handling fee. I'd been ripped off by a piece of paper, on my birthday, in my own damn home.

"Two charges a day," Dad said. "Into the book. Until I say otherwise."

"Two per book, or two per me?"

Mara snorted into her tea.

"Per you."

"What about by hand?"

"You'll feel it when you've done too much."

"What does too much feel like?"

He was quiet long enough that Mara glanced over. His first two fingers rubbed against his thumb.

"Like that," he said, nodding at my hand on the table. "But more."

That was the whole explanation: one rule and one sentence. I heard it the way I heard most rules, as an opening offer.

When the table was cleared, I gave the key a nudge, half a seed, barely more than a thought. The shape came loose like a knot sliding undone. The wheel turned, caught on its bad corner, went around once more, and stopped.

The page was dark. I touched it again. Nothing.

"Releasing it doesn't need words," Dad said. "You do the hard part when you have time and quiet, and use it when you don't."

"Could I make a few before bed? For when my room gets hot?"

"One. You have one left."

"What if it lasted longer? Then I'd only need one."

"Duration. Later. Once you can store this without going pale."

I looked at the empty key.

"Could I have it go off by itself? After I'm asleep?"

Dad went still. Then he reached for his own book.

His breeze had an extra curl beside the binding.

"A waiting loop. The key opens when the loop runs out."

He charged it, touched the curl, and set both hands on his knees.

We counted. On five, the wheel spun.

Holy crap. A timer.

"Teach me that!"

"Tomorrow. After your circuit."

I took a practice sheet and wrote: Breeze for hot nights.

Below it, I drew his loop from memory. Lopsided, but the join with the binding was exactly right. I'd only seen it once. The line had shown me where it went.

Next to it: Make it last.

Two separate problems. I wanted a breeze that waited until I was asleep and kept going until morning, and I figured I'd work out how later.

Seventy-nine blank pages left.

◇◇◇

That night I had one charge left under the rule, and didn't use it. Partly maturity. Mostly because a breeze off the page lasted a second or two, and the night was a lot longer.

I lay in the dark with the window open. No wind.

I tried to hum my old alarm, the marimba one, and couldn't find the start. I had the loop and the middle. The first two notes were gone.

After a while I gave up and ran the circuit. Left hand, shoulders, right hand, home. I just wanted something that worked.

When the warmth came home, my heart gave its hard thump.

I lay still and waited, and after a while it went away.

It always did.