“You’re not going to teach me how to spell words, right? I already know how to do that.”
“Well… that’s how you do magic. Spelling is magic.”
“Stop. Spelling like… my name is Pie. P-i-e. That kind of spelling?”
“Yes.”
I let out a long breath. “I don’t understand. In my world spelling is just… you know. Academic. It’s just writing.”
“Oh. But isn’t writing… magic?”
“Nnnnnooooo.”
“Interesting.”
“I mean, I don’t think it is. As far as I know, spelling words is just… well. I guess I’ve never thought about it before. It’s not really something that is. It’s something you do.”
“Right.”
I blink at her.
She blinks back. “OK. Let me explain because I think we are talking about the same thing, but we view it in two very different ways.”
So she explains.
Spelling—i.e. the stringing together of letters to make words, and paragraphs, and whatever—is how they write spells.
“See?” Talina says. “Spells. Spelling? Hmm?”
“I get it,” I say. “The root words are the same. But they don’t mean the same thing. I think this is called a homonym, if my memory of third-grade education is correct.”
“All magic is done through writing.”
“All of it?” I ask. Because I don’t think that’s true. “Then why do we need herbs and crystals?”
“We don’t.”
“We don’t?” I want to laugh. But my confusion is real. “Then why the fuck am I here? Tarq wants me to use the bloodhorn to open the portals. If we only need words, why the bloodhorn?”
“Without the right words,” Talina says, “the bloodhorn is useless. But words can work on their own.”
“Hmm. Even if you just say them out loud?”
“A very powerful alchemist can use speech instead of writing. But most cannot.”
This makes me think back to the day I had to expel Grant and the sheriff from the sanctuary. I did have my magic moths, and fire-breathing Tomas was there, of course. And Pell’s super-powerful horn blood. But the real banishing happened when I yelled, Get out!
“Want me to show you, Princess?”
“Yes. But please don’t call me that.” She starts to protest, but I put up a hand. “Talina. For real. Even if I am this princess, I do not want to be called princess. I don’t like it. Just call me Pie like everyone else.”
She deflates a little, her shoulders dropping, her face sullen.
“Please. I’m begging you. My greatest wish is to be… invisible, Talina.”
Now she looks confused. “Why would anyone want to be invisible?”
“If you had grown up being known as the weird girl, or the crazy girl, or the scary girl—you’d get it.”