Page 2 of Homegrown Magic

It isn’t a high bar to clear, they acknowledge.

When the barkeep sets a glass of a swirling, dark-gold drink on the counter in front of them, they take it gratefully. “To my health,” Yael says, raising the glass.

It never makes it to their lips.

Snatching the drink from their hand, their father holds it just out of reach as he sniffs its contents and frowns. “In your haste to embarrass your family, I don’t suppose you stopped to think about this lovely young barkeep, who—had she injured you, even if by accident—would’ve been dismissed from her job, then run out of Ashaway at swordpoint? You never do stop to think, Yael.”

The barkeep’s mouth trembles, her freckles the only color left in her chalk-white cheeks. She stutters an apology, dips her head, and slips away as soon as Baremon’s turned his attention back to Yael.

They mumble, “I wasn’t going to—”

“Tell me, Yael.” Baremon holds the glass higher, as though inspecting the clarity of the poison. “Who is the heir to the kingdom?”

This is a bit much. Yael may not have been a model student, but they are at least aware of the royal family of Harrow, as is every child old enough to eat solid foods. “Princex Sonja,” they answer dutifully.

“That’s assuming the queens rule the kingdom.”

Yael swallows a deep sigh. Clearly, their father has set them on the path to their own humiliation, and now they’ve no choice but to keep walking. “If not the queens, then who?” they ask blandly.

Baremon seems unbothered by their lack of curiosity. “Ask anybody in the Golden Court, and they’ll claim that it’s the seat of power in Harrow. Ask anybody else in the kingdom, and they’ll tell you the Copper Court is where true power lies. And who is the king of the Copper Court?”

“You, I assume.”

Baremon glares down at Yael. “Precisely. We Claunecks are the uncrowned monarchs of Harrow. Lenders to queens, cousins to the highest judges in the land, keepers of the keys to this country’s economy. Nothing moves in the kingdom without flowing through us and the Copper Court, like blood through a heart.” As he speaks, Baremon’s eyes light as coldly purple as the candles throughout the ballroom, and the old, familiar smell of ozone and iron crackles around him.

Not natural magic, but Clauneck magic.

Just like fresh water or fertile soil, stone or sand or any other resource, magic exists in Harrow and the world beyond its borders in natural deposits. But instead of occurring in lakes and beneath fields, it occurs in living things, beasts and plants and people. In some of them, anyhow. While every life-form is, like a bottle made of cellular stuff, capable of containing magic, only some are born full up. Others, like the Claunecks, have the barest drop in the bottom of the bottle. It’s been three generations since a natural caster—folk born brimming over with magic—married into the family. Such people are increasingly rare in a world that has largely moved on to silver and gold.

Still, like the metal at the bottom of Oreborn’s deep-delving mines, magic can be found or borrowed or purchased for a price.

For folks who lack natural abilities but wish to cast anyhow, that means securing the favor of one of the deities or devils who exist in the planes beyond theirs, from which magic leaks into this plane. Those who work as healers may whisper a prayer to a god of health or medicine. A bard—a true bard, not just a common player in a tavern—may sing their prayers to a god or devil of revelry, hoping to please them in exchange for a bit of magic. Warlocks, on the other hand, make bargains. The Claunecks pay regular homage to their patron, fulfilling promises and performing tasks that increase his influence in the world, assuring his prosperity in exchange for magic they wouldn’t have otherwise. This is the family way.

Generally, Yael’s family prefers to speculate in stocks and bonds over spellwork, but they still rely upon their patron. And if the “offerings” their guests and customers leave on the altar happen to benefit the Claunecks financially? Well, their patron’s fortune and glory will inevitably rise alongside their own.

“And you,” Baremon continues his lecture, “are heir to the true power in this kingdom. You, Yael, are alas the only seed that I and your mother have sown.”

“Uncle Mikhil has plenty of—”

“But you are ours,” their father cuts in, voice sharpening to a dagger’s edge. “And if you fail to produce, our efforts will have been for nothing. Can you understand that much, at least?”

“I…I understand.”

“Then see that you remember it and behave accordingly.” Finished with Yael, Baremon turns and strides to the center of the floor, where he booms out, “Friends, colleagues, I bid you welcome! Dinner will begin shortly, but first, a toast.”

Every eye in the ballroom turns his way.

Baremon Clauneck is…well, everything that Yael is not. Tall—or taller, though the man is no Denby—and impossibly sharp in his pressed suit, stitched to resemble bronze and black dragon’s scales. Somber. Square-faced. Sure of himself far beyond the film of false confidence that Yael wears at all times. And, as always, in total control. “To the future of the company,” he says. “To the future of the family. To us.” He hoists the Copperhead and drains it down, probably believing himself too important to be felled by paralytic venom. He’s likely right. Wiping his lips, he says almost as an afterthought, “To Yael.”

“To Yael,” the vast ballroom full of clients and associates of the Clauneck Company echoes. None of them tear their eyes away from Baremon to find Yael in the crowd. A good thing, since nobody notices as they slip out through the towering purpleheart wood doors into the corridor and disappear.

Because the grand ballroom sits on the third of six stories, it takes a full quarter of an hour for Yael to make their way out of the suffocating manor house and into the chilled air of a late-winter twilight. The ornamental gardens and the aviary are likely occupied by guests pretending to care about cold-blooming flowers and winged things, so Yael heads for the stables. With the party well under way but far from over, they find it blessedly empty of people.

Instead, it’s stuffed to the rafters with mounts from across the realm. Horses from the southeastern Swamplands, saddled with moss mats and bridled with vines. Sleighs from the civilized fringes of the Northlands, each pulled by half a dozen icy-eyed Laika. In one stall, a giant salamander—a dappled, poisonous-looking blue-and-gold beast—has its bloody snout buried in a ten-gallon bucket of mice.

The stable hands are probably sitting around a barrel fire out back right now, just as they used to, sharing their tips and a bottle among them. Yael would love to join them, hiding out until the dinner is over and the guests have departed.

But Yael has responsibilities. They have obligations. Their parents have been crystal-clear on that since the moment Yael returned from their travels.