However, Prin pulled herself together and carried her backpack and belongings up to her room. She removed the painting of her parents. The hook she’d requested was on the wall. When she hung the painting, she noticed the expressions they wore were barely faint smiles, worried possibly, but proud. She sat on the edge of her bed and cried herself to sleep.
When she woke and looked at the small window in her room, the sun was low. She opened the door and found Sara missing, but thumping sounds from the warehouse told her where to look and what she was doing. Prin stood on the bottom stair and watched the knife spin in the air and strike Treeman, waist high.
Prin said, “You’re getting better.”
“After all the throws my arm does hurt.”
“Have you been doing that all afternoon?”
Sara said, “No, I spent some time looking at the two books we bought at that first dealer. One is filled with simple spells, and I know many of them, but there are a few I haven’t heard of.”
“Are you going to teach them to me?”
“When you can read better, I won’t have to. But, there are a few new ones I like. Remember the dry-spell where you can stand in the rain?”
Prin said, “Yes, and I remember that I must wet my hair and clothing, so others don’t see the raindrops are missing me.”
“Well, besides the usual spells for love, there is one to make someone forget.”
“Why that?” Prin had not mentioned her escape where Sir James had used a similar spell on small grape-sized globes.
Sara spread her arms wide, “To forget pain, or the death of someone close . . . but I have another idea.”
“Tell me.”
“That young mage is no more resistant to a sorceress’ spell than anyone else. The spell makes you forget the day before. It doesn’t skip a day but dulls the senses, so you don’t remember. What if he finds something to lead him to us, but we have him forget that information?”
Prin rolled her eyes. “Do you think that will work?”
“Do you think I’m not going to gather the ingredients and try it? Or, at least, be prepared to use it?”
Prin spun, pulled her knife as she did so, and let it fly. The thwack of striking Treeman was solid, the blade parallel to the ground, buried in the softwood chest high. Six paces.
“Show-off.”
“Practice. I’ve almost got it at six paces, and I do have it at three and a half. I think ten is my next to learn, and that is as far as I can probably throw accurately. That spell on your arrows that makes them never miss. Will it work on knives?”
“I think so, but it certainly won’t tell it to strike with the tip of the blade first. I guess it could be used to throw at someone’s head, and that might hurt them, even if the butt end struck them,” Sara said.
Prin said, “It’s dark in here.” She reached for a candlestick on a workbench among a dozen other candles.
Sara motioned to the next table where more materials were stored. “Flint and tinder.”
Prin held her finger to the candle and produced a tiny flame. She held it to the wick, watching Sara the entire time.
Sara shook her head in wonder and asked, “Can you make it bigger?”
“It’s like sorcery that takes properties from a plant and moves it to a potion. I use heat from drawn from my body to make it, so the larger the flame, the more heat is pulled from me.”
Sara came closer and examined the finger. “Can you make it turn cold?”
“I would think so. It seems like it should be the same thing, only backward. But, why would I?”
“This summer when the drinking water is warm, can you put your finger in my mug and cool it down?”
Instead of laughing, Prin raised her finger and concentrated. “Touch it.”
“It’s cold. Not like ice, but cold.”
“Instead of sending heat to my finger, I pulled it away.”
Sara said, “Have you ever heard of anyone else doing that?”
“No, but this afternoon I learned to make cold, and you learned to make people forget things. For one day’s lessons, that’s a lot. Listen, I want two tables and chairs right in front of the windows in the loft where we have good light and can study. We should have El come back and make us some bookshelves, too.”
“Our study room?”
“I feel like reading is becoming more important daily, and I think I almost have it. Did I tell you I read hat, bat, mat, rat, sat, and cat? By myself? Six whole words.”
Sara broke out in a huge smile. “It’s like jumping into a lake. One instant you’re dry and the next wet. You cannot read, and then you can.”
“I wouldn’t say I can read.”
“I will. Now it is only to what degree. Since we’re hiding out here the next few days, you will work on reading, and I will study the books we bought and see what else is in them. We need to hire people to do our shopping, so we don’t expose ourselves to the young mage, or anyone else. We should become hermits.”
Prin said, “I agree. The one is a book of simple spells, you said, but what’s the other?”
“A diary.”
“Which is?”
“A sorceress took an ordinary book and wrote between the lines of printing, then enchanted it so only another sorceress can read them.”
Prin was excited. “Oh, wonderful. What does it have in it? Secrets?”
Sara led the way to the loft and inserted kindling into the oven. She stepped back and motioned for Prin to light it with her finger instead of striking the flint. “No, not those kinds of secrets. She didn’t write in it every day or even every month. But when things of interest in her life happened, she wrote them down.”
“For who?” Prin asked as the flames took hold.
“For us. Or for any other sorceress who found it. I’ve only read a few pages, but it tells how she learned her craft, who she trusted, and why.”
Prin considered it for a time. “If she trusted someone, we probably should find them and trust them too.”
“Good idea but for two details. She didn’t live in Indore, and I think she lived long ago. The leather cover is dried and cracked. The ink has turned brown in most places, but there are a few traces of black. That happens to ink that is maybe a hundred years old.”
“Oh.”
“Hey, the information may still hold something good, an idea, or new spell, or a plant used in a way we don’t know. But mostly, it’s just a story about a woman like us, her experiences, triumphs, and failures.”
“And nobody else can read it but us?”
“Well, they can read the words originally printed in the book, but not the ones she wrote. They can’t see them.”
Prin warmed her hands on the dome of the brick oven and watched Sara make a simple soup from some of the items they’d purchased in the last four days. She said, “I’m going to give a small copper penny to one of the kids outside to go tell El we want to see him. He can buy two tables and chairs, and maybe some other chairs for up here.”
“And what will you use as an excuse for not doing it yourself?”
“I will tell him you are sick and I have to stay and take care of you.”
Sara set the small pot on the lip of the oven where it would get plenty of heat. “I wish we had a few people we trusted to watch out for us and tell us what’s happening. That young mage is the one we must avoid. I thought about dressing you as a boy, but I don’t believe it would work. I’ve never met a mage, and don’t know a lot about them, but he might be able to see right through a disguise, and it might even make you stand out more.”