Page 51 of Homeward for a Spell

Araphi would like to say something, but what could she say? Perhaps: I’m afraid to fail. Or: Maybe you should’ve found someone else for this task. Or: I think you’re spectacular, can I kiss you under the stars instead of trying to raise an artifact?

But no.

Araphi forces herself to focus. She inhales sharply and then lets out a long breath. Once for courage. Twice for calm. Three times for steadiness, just as her mother taught her in the music room.

Courage.

Calm.

Steadiness.

She’s going to need all three if she wants to pull this off.

What are you doing, Araphi Clauneck? Why are you standing on the edge of a river, having convinced these people that you can work this kind of magic? Thinking that you can accomplish anything more important than a few floating lights or a charmed crowd?

The voice isn’t her own. Nor is it Clauneck’s or even her mother’s. Rather it sounds a bit like Denby’s—drunk, incredulous, self-assured.

But her wretched fiancé probably hasn’t even noticed she’s gone.

Courage.

Calm.

Steadiness.

She steps closer to the edge of the Swallow, peering into the fast-moving current. Ice crusts the stones along the water’s edge, gleaming in the dancing flames from the lantern Sage holds. The stream itself seems so small. Little more than a trickle. Truly, with a running start, she could probably leap across the entire thing. And yet, if Sage and Remy are to be believed, there’s an entire sideways river down there, the deadliest thing they’ve faced yet.

Araphi runs her fingers over the lemon charm at her throat and then over the bronze acorn as well, even though neither are made to bring luck. Araphi trusts her ranger—gods, when did Sage become her ranger?—but she’s just not confident about herself. “Are you very sure the dragon’s tooth is here?” she whispers.

“I’m sure.” Flickering lantern light deepens the shadows cast by Sage’s frown. She glances from the water to the ruined temple. “It has to be. This is exactly like the map.”

Dragon’s tooth? Clauneck’s voice is suddenly thunderous in her head. Where are you, Araphi Clauneck? What are you tangled up in, to toy with powers far beyond you?

She winces. Her hateful patron always manages to wedge himself in when she feels at her weakest, sensing the cracks in her confidence as soon as they appear. Clutching her lemon charm so tightly that the texture surely imprints on her palm, she hums frantically to herself, a rotation of melodies to drown out his scathing voice until, once more, she’s shored up her walls against him.

She’s still not entirely sure where her bard magic lies. In the skill with which she plays? In her intention as she beseeches powers on another plane? In sheer luck that a god or devil is listening?

And how will any of it interact with Tea’s spellscroll?

“You can do this. You were top of your class at school,” Araphi mutters to herself as she slips the parchment out of her coat and unrolls it, holding it up to the faint moonlight.

“Were you really, Bard?” Sage’s eyebrows quirk.

Araphi meets her gaze and smirks, immediately on steadier ground with the ranger by her side. “Indeed. Though I dropped out to marry Denby.” Then she scowls at the memory. The argument she’d had over it had been vicious.

They’d been at a family dinner in late spring, after Yael had absconded to Bloomfield the first time. The whole clan—minus Yael of course—had been called down to Hazelbend, her Aunt Menorath’s ancestral home outside Lintonbury, to strategize beyond the scrutinizing gaze of the capital. “I know you’ll miss seeing your friends, but there are some things more important than school, Araphi,” her mother had said to her. A note of regret laced the words, but she still pushed through them. “It’s time to focus on what will serve the family, and what will ultimately serve you best.”

“How does leaving school help the family, or help me?” she’d snapped back.

Aunt Menorath had laughed. Because of course Yael’s parents had more of a voice in this conversation than her own parents. Araphi’s wedding was a business negotiation, after all. Aunt Menorath and Uncle Baremon were heads of both the family and the family business, and they weren’t taking any chances with her wedding. “Darling, be serious for once in your life,” Menorath said. “You’re studying what, history?”

“Musical history.”

“Ridiculous. Utterly. What will you need that for? You have your beauty, your connections, the lifestyle you’ll be looked upon to maintain as both a Clauneck and an Oreborn spouse. You don’t need classes. You need to be seen in society!”

Uncle Baremon had agreed, obviously, and the conversation had moved on from there. Araphi withdrew from school the next day—the very same day she was supposed to be meeting with her advisor about an ancient ballad she’d been studying for translation.

Sage squeezes her wrist gently, the touch pulling Araphi back to the present. “I never finished school either,” Sage confesses. “Never could sit still long enough. But maybe you’ll get back to it someday.”