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“That won’t work. There. This whole phrasing would be meaningless to stone. You have to frame it around the problem.”

“I’m just putting what I know. Change whatever you want.” He added another sigil before passing it to me; his fingers lingered as I took the chalk. I studied it a moment longer, then wiped out a few of the phrasings with the side of my hand and replaced them with ones I liked better. Another minute of staring, trying to feel the spell. Then I made another big change, and some small adjustments.

“What do you think?” I asked Kalcedon, turning the board around in my hands to show him.

He shrugged. “I wouldn’t know.”

“I know you wouldn’t know. I asked, what do you think.”

“It’s long. How much power will it take?”

“It’s a sink,” I admitted.

“Koraica is a large city. There are other witches,” Oraik said. He stared at the dead golfu with an expression on his face like he’d just taken a bite of something unpleasant.

“They won’t be as powerful,” I said.

“Oraik has a point,” Kalcedon admitted. “It’s better than nothing.”

“You’re agreeing with me? Again?” Oraik looked up from the monster, sounded surprised. “Meda, I fear he may have hit his head.”

“A group working…?” The largest I’d ever cast with was three. My mother and brother, firing the pottery kilns. Eudoria and Kalcedon, scrying. But I’d never cast with strangers before. “Maybe someone else will have an idea how to fix this.”

“I guarantee they won’t,” Kalcedon said dryly.

“Well, they’ll have as good a chance as us,” I said absently. I frowned at the phrasings we’d written and added another line.

“You really don’t get it, do you,” Kalcedon muttered under his breath. “You aren’t normal, Meda.”

I wasn’t sure if it was an insult or a compliment, and I was too focused on the spell to care.

“Someone had better start spreading the word,” Oraik said.

“I’ll stay.” I tapped the slate. “I want to keep fiddling.” I wanted to add directional limits, to stop the spell from spreading to the other statues or the city itself if it went wrong. The last thing we needed was buildings coming to life, or all the creature’s victims destroyed in one go if it were wrong.

“The statues are curdling me. I’ll go,” Oraik said, exactly as Kalcedon started to say “Fine, I’ll…”

Both men looked at each other. Kalcedon looked away.

“...big city. We could go different directions,” Oraik mumbled half-heartedly as he slowly stood.

“Shouldn’t be by yourself,” Kalcedon muttered in response.

“Well, if it’s for the greater good, then…” Oraik trailed off.

Kalcedon’s reply was a wordless grunt.

“We haven’t seen Painter’s Hill yet,” Oraik said cheerfully, straightening and turning towards Koraica’s high ground. “Let’s head that way—might as well, no? The view is supposed to be spectacular. On a clear day, you can see all the way to Degnac. Today’s clear, isn’t it? Clear enough?”

Oraik had already started walking towards the end of the street. Kalcedon stayed standing in place for a long beat. His masked head swiveled to look at me. Then, with a sigh, he walked off after the still-chattering prince.

Chapter 40

I had just stood up to stretch when I heard footsteps. A young man and woman were wide-eyed at the edge of the alley, whispering to each other. I didn’t feel heat from either of them.

“You’ll have to walk around,” I called.

“We came to watch,” the woman announced. I blinked at her in surprise.