Page 29

THE SPINNING WHEEL

T he books on rare metallurgical magic were fascinating and confusing, in a way that had become familiar to her.

Descriptions of fae magic certainly involved a lot of long-winded flowery language and over-use of metaphors.

Was that a requirement or just the popular style for fae academics?

When she asked Mal this, all his fur fluffed up indignantly and he made a great many remarks about humans not properly appreciating the complex nature of the universe or the genius of Zorantula and went off to sulk in his workroom for an entire afternoon.

He did, however, return with a different set of books on magical theory for her the next day alongside his own handwritten notes, written in a significantly less flowery style, and in exchange she gave him the index cards she’d made for the metallurgical books.

None of them contained the answers to her unstable magic.

Mal was much more concerned by this than she was.

While of course she wanted to control her magic, the dismae were a perfectly liveable solution, and she could wear them to the ball if she had to.

Surely it would be better to prioritise looking for an alternative to a diviner, so they could avoid the trap that the ball might represent?

They argued about this several times over the next few days.

“I won’t have you in dismae for a second longer than necessary,” he said grimly, a shadow darkening his eyes.

“And I won’t need them if we find your name sooner rather than later, Wolfgang.”

He grimaced. “I already told you that you will not find my name by simply guessing . And I would not have a dog name in any case.”

She crossed off the name in her notebook. “No harm trying, Wulfric.”

He threw his hands up and stalked out.

She stubbornly persisted in her search over the next few days, sorting through his vast collection of uncatalogued and forgotten books and refusing to read yet another essay on magical theory until he’d let her read out five full pages’ worth of names to him.

He retaliated by insisting she read five chapters of Zorantula before he would explain what a reference she’d found to grass-names meant (which sadly turned out to be—while interesting—irrelevant to her search).

She was absolutely not enjoying herself.

She absolutely was.

She had absolutely no common sense.

The wards remained unsettled, despite Malediction’s attentions, only keeping fae creatures out of the garden about half the time. Apfela continued to cheerfully haunt the orchard whenever possible. Gisele learned that she lived in a tree-house on Skymallow’s doorstep—a literal tree, with a door.

Gisele refused to let herself get lured into gardening, but it would have been unnecessarily vindictive not to deadhead as she walked or to avoid picking the fruit as it ripened.

Keeping firm boundaries was no reason to let good food go to waste.

It was simple pragmatism to prod Skymallow into locating a set of preserving jars and spend an afternoon slicing peaches.

Gisele had just finished canning when Mal came into the kitchen carrying a spinning wheel and stool in his arms, a bag slung over one shoulder. She froze.

“Ah, there you are!” he said cheerfully.

“I’ve a new theory to test. I thought the garden would be best, to minimise interference.

” His singlemindedness finally ebbed enough to take in her kitchen apron and the rows of jars.

“Oh. Only if you’re finished here, though.

Did you do all this? This is wonderful. You should have told me—I could have helped slice. ”

He was so, so irritatingly charming in his hapless enthusiasm, and a smile tugged reluctantly at her mouth despite the shock of seeing him with a spinning wheel. “You can help me with the apples, then. I’m done for now. What is this new theory?”

“Take those off, first.” He ushered them outside, ears alive with excitement. She trailed him with rather less excitement, rubbing at her naked wrists.

After setting up the spinning wheel in the shade of a crumbling plinth, he perched on the stool and fiddled with the positioning.

“Since your gold-magic appears to currently function as the inverse of mine, I thought it might help to observe how mine works. Then, in theory, you ought to be able to use the same process, reversed.”

From his bag he began to pull handfuls of straw. Everything in her went cold, and she desperately thought of doors slamming shut between them. He paused, frowning, but she kept her face expressionless, and he slowly resumed his task.

“This is a specific type of greater transformation magic, at heart,” he was saying, as her heartbeat filled her ears.

“And as in all transformations, will is key. I force my own version of reality onto it; in my mind, it is already gold.” He was feeding straw into the spinning wheel, treadles clacking, and her whole world narrowed to the shining golden thread winding onto the bobbin. It was so, so familiar.

It was even more familiar when the golden yarn sprouted leaves and burst into flames at almost the same instant. Mal leapt back with a yelp.

She felt utterly cold as she watched the wheel burn.

“Gisele?” Mal said from a long way away. He moved in front of her, blocking her view, and took her hands in his. The warmth jolted her out of her strange paralysis, gasping for air like a fish.

“Gisele,” he repeated softly. “Talk to me. Are you hurt? I’ve done something wrong, haven’t I? Is it— Oh, I’m an idiot. Spinning straw into gold. Of course.” His voice tightened.

She sucked in a breath, embarrassed. “It’s not as if I didn’t know you could,” she said wryly. “Sorry—I’m fine. You should make sure the fire’s out.” She moved half-heartedly in the direction of the spinning wheel, but he kept hold of her hands.

“Do not be sorry,” he said furiously. “Skymallow will deal with it.” He led her firmly away from the smoke to a seat beneath the shade of a great linden tree. “Sit.”

She sat and let the sounds and sights of the garden seep into her. Mal’s presence burned in her awareness, only scant inches away.

Zingiber appeared from beneath the weeds and jumped up beside her without ceremony, bunting his head against her leg. Pet me; you will feel better , he suggested.

Mechanically, she began to stroke his fur. It did help. Now that the shock was fading, she felt deeply foolish for how she’d reacted.

“Is it…Is it that it reminded you of how the curse began?” Mal asked tentatively.

She shook her head, staring at her hands. “Do you know how much a roomful of gold is worth?”

He started. “Is that a rhetorical question? I know the terms of the bargain I made.”

Giving him an amused look, she clarified, “Not in terms of firstborns. There was roughly thirty tonnes of straw in the barn my mother was locked in. An unexceptional amount, in terms of straw. But when it became gold, suddenly my mother, and shortly thereafter the crown of Isshia, was in possession of more gold than the treasury had ever seen before. A kingdom-changing amount of gold.” She nudged a pebble with her shoe, watching it roll to a stop beside a dandelion.

“Do you know what happens to small, unimportant kingdoms who become very, very rich overnight?”

Trepidation crept towards her. “They become suddenly not unimportant?”

“Exactly. Fortunately, Isshia had my mother. After marrying my father, she steered the country through the shoals of threatened invasions and diplomatic manoeuvring. Boern was betrothed to a Bavaren princess. Isshia remained un-invaded.”

She told him how her mother had the gold melted down and minted into coins, all except for a single bale that was kept on display in the throne room.

“She ought to have melted that one down too, but she said it was an important symbol.” Gisele had loathed the sight of it.

“The rest of the gold went, oh, everywhere. Roads, canals, public sanitation, libraries. Isshia has one of the best public education systems on the continent, did you know? All paid for with the straw-turned-gold. A kingdom built on it.” She sighed, deeply.

“It seemed like a reasonable trade, to be honest. Royals are supposed to be of service; this was mine, paying for all that gold.”

Mal made an involuntary noise, failing to shield his horror. “You are worth more than any amount of gold.”

She turned to him then, almost angrily. “Didn’t I just tell you what that gold did for Isshia? How dare you tell me it wasn’t worth anything.”

He met and held her gaze, unbending. “I’m glad that it was used well, but that does not make it your measuring stick.”

She looked away before he did, her chest a nest of emotions. Zingiber rubbed his chin against her fingers.

“What happened to the gold, Gisele?” he asked softly, arrowing in on what she’d left unsaid.

She could imagine now what had happened the night her mother had made the firstborn bargain. A room full of straw bales, and Mal’s long-fingered hands gracefully spinning it all into shining gold.

“It started to change back. There was…I lost control of my magic one day, in the throne room. It was Boern’s fortieth birthday. There was a ceremony.”

“It was your birthday too.”

She shook her head. “We always celebrated separate birthdays. In case you mistook one of us for the other.”

Mal made a disgusted sound. “Never.”

“I shouldn’t have gone. I knew my presence would only make everyone uncomfortable.

I knew my magic was unstable. I thought if I sat away from the family, it would be all right.

It wasn’t. What gold didn’t burst into flames turned into wood.

Every bit of gold in the room. People were injured.

” She could still hear the shrieks of the courtiers as golden goblets exploded in their hands and the gold-leaf on their chairs sprouted leaves.

“The one remaining golden straw bale changed, too.”

Mal’s hand covered hers, his presence in her mind a steady flame.

She took a deep breath. “That wasn’t the worst of it.

Afterwards, I overheard my mother taking a report from the treasury.

Some of the minted coins had begun to revert.

I wasn’t sure whether it was my magic that had caused it or if it was because the bargain had gone unfulfilled for too long.

I wasn’t going to let Isshia suffer while I waited to find out.

I’d been thinking about leaving before then, because of…

well, you know.” Her gesture encompassed the rest of the curse. “But that was the day I decided.”

It was hard to hold on to the memories of her grim determination, here with butterflies fluttering between clusters of brightly coloured flowers.

Mal broke the quiet that had fallen between them.

“You asked me not to keep apologising, so I will simply say that I think you are very brave and very good, princess, and I loathe the idea of you as a sacrifice. We will find the way to undo all this, and you will return to your family unburdened by it,” he promised.

She withdrew her hand from his. “Yes,” she agreed, watching a thrush hop in search of earthworms. The thought, somehow, did not fill her with happiness.