“Weeks? The sleep charms you made last month lasted a couple hours.”
“I made those in a hurry, and they needed to knock someone out immediately. I’ve got sleep charms that would keep someone asleep for a week, but they’d doze off gradually, which was not what we needed at the time.”
True. “What’s the upper limit on how long a charm can work?”
“Theoretically there isn’t one. Practically, it depends on what kind of charm you’re making, how it’s powered, and how good you are. But for reasons we don’t understand, charms don’t last beyond a single moon cycle. You’d have to be an adept to make one that lasted longer, and then what you’d have would be called an artifact.”
Startled, she paused just short of the deck Rule had added at the back of the house before Lily met him. “So an artifact is like a charm on steroids?”
“Pretty much, yeah. Or so I think. Since no one knows how to make an artifact anymore, I can’t prove it.”
“You’ll get a peek at the dagger used on Bixton this afternoon. Will you be able to tell right away if it’s an artifact or a . . . I guess a charm, though that doesn’t sound right when its purpose was death.”
“A charm that kills or wounds is often called a curse, but that’s poor nomenclature. Curses can also be spoken spells. I prefer to call a cursed object a maluuni. That’s from Swahili, though the original derivation is Arabic, and it means—”
“Back to my question,” she said firmly, stepping onto the deck.
“One glance will tell me that much. If I don’t see the spell and can’t call it up into my vision, then it’s an artifact.”
“Wait a minute. What does that mean? If you don’t see it—”
“I’ve got a spell that brings up the details of other spells so I can see them.”
“Your magnifying spell, yeah.”
“It doesn’t work on artifacts. At least not the ones I’ve seen. I’ve seen five objects we’d call magical artifacts. With four of them, the details of the spell—the construction of it, the girders and wiring and plumbing—were hidden when it wasn’t being used. The only part that showed was the trigger, the part designed to interact with the user. Adepts didn’t like to give away their tricks, and they knew how to hide what they wanted hidden. And no, I don’t know how they did it.” He brooded on that a moment. “If I ever get that damn elfstone figured out, I’ll be able to tell you more.”
“The gem you snatched off Rethna, you mean? It’s an artifact?” It had made bullets bounce off the elf lord. Or maybe they’d poofed out of existence. She didn’t know how the gem worked, but she knew it worked. She’d shot Rethna several times at close range. Didn’t hit him once.
“Oh, yeah. Tricky bugger. I haven’t figured out how to activate it or get the rest of the spell to show, but the trigger shows, and I can see the power, so I know the charm didn’t evaporate with Rethna’s death.”
“Which makes it an artifact.” She opened the back door. No one in the kitchen, but Rule was upstairs. Maybe the Leidolf Rhej was with him. “And the fifth magical artifact you’ve seen? What about it?”
“With that one, nothing showed but power, even when it was used.” He followed her inside. “Which ought to be impossible, because the trigger has to show. Otherwise there’s nothing for the user to connect with.”
“But you’re sure it was an artifact?”
He slid her a grim smile. “Oh, yeah. But that one wasn’t an adept’s work. That was the staff she made.”
ALL Rhejes were Gifted, but their Gifts varied. Two were healers. The Leidolf Rhej was one of those two, a statuesque woman with skin the color of hot chocolate made with plenty of milk. Her hair was a tight cap of mixed gray and black that showed off a high, round forehead and the pair of huge gold hoops in her ears. Lily didn’t know her name. It was custom to not refer to a Rhej by name unless the Rhej gifted you with her name personally.
“No need to cram your lunch down so quick,” she told Lily, leaning comfortably on her forearms, crossed on the round kitchen table. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“I’m supposed to, though.” Lily finished the corned beef sandwich she’d thrown together and reached for her glass of milk. She was usually a Diet Coke girl, but corned beef demanded milk. “Tell me something. Your Gift doesn’t work on me, so why is it you can peek inside my body?”
“Same reason Mr. Gorgeous here can see your magic,” she said promptly. “It’s not vision I use, but it’s a way of sensin’.” She flashed Cullen an amused smile. He looked all twitchy with the need to interrupt . . . but she was a Rhej. Even Cullen managed a modicum of respect with a Rhej. “An’ he’s just dyin’ to argue with me and explain it all real pretty, but you don’t need all that talk. Does the Nokolai Rhej sense where you are, even though she can’t see a thing?”
“Well . . . yes. But she’s a physical empath.”
“But your magic doesn’t keep her from sensing you. The way I see it, physical empathy’s a lot like healing, but a physical empath has all her Gift sittin’ on the sensing side of things. A healer has a bit of that sensing, only we have to lay on hands to do it, and then we can look under the skin, not just on the top. But it’s a sense, not that different from when Cullen here senses the shape of your magic.” She smiled. “You ’bout ready to begin?”
Lily’s stomach jittered unhappily. She didn’t think it was the corned beef. “I guess so. Do I need to do anything?” The only healer who’d worked on Lily before was Nettie. This woman’s methods might be different. Probably were, because she wasn’t a shaman like Nettie was. Same Gift, different practice.
“Just a few questions first. Tell me about these headaches of yours. You’ve had three of them?”
“Yeah. They hurt pretty bad, but didn’t last long. The first was just for seconds. A minute or less the second time. I’m not sure about the third.”
“Just over a minute,” Rule said. “I didn’t time it, but it was probably between one and two minutes.”
“Okay,” the Rhej said. “Where’d it hurt?”
“Here.” Lily rubbed the back of her head. “Um . . . the third time it happened, I was exhausted afterward. I couldn’t stay awake.”
“Any dizziness? Nausea? Weakness in one place more’n another? Any change in vision?”
“You mean like a migraine aura?”
“Any kind of change.”
Lily shook her head. “I felt dizzy after it happened the third time. Exhausted. No nausea, though. I thought it might be some kind of migraine. My aunt has migraines.”
“Let’s find out. Give me your hands.” The older woman stretched her hands across the table to Lily.
The Rhej had warm hands with wide palms and long fingers . . . and lots of magic. Healing magic, yes, and Lily loved to touch a healer’s magic. If air could experience touch, it would feel like this beneath the slow stir of the summer sun, with new-grown grass blades brushing against it like a friendly cat. But there was more. Lily felt that more, banked and waiting and massive—the fur-and-pine prickle of lupi magic.
A Rhej could, at need, draw upon the magic of the entire clan. Lily had no idea how. The Rhej was fully human. She didn’t hold the mantle, couldn’t affect it, wasn’t part of it. But she could use it to do what the Rho could not.
The Rhej’s face smoothed out, her eyes losing focus. She hummed softly . . . “Amazing Grace,” Lily realized. Maybe she did work with spiritual energy like Nettie did. Lily didn’t feel anything. No wave of seeking magic touched her skin. She didn’t get sleepy the way she usually did when Nettie examined her, but Nettie almost always ended up putting her in sleep, so . . .