“I tire of crouching to do my work.” And to work, he went. She watched in eager fascination as he used the bamboo to draw on the floor.
“Do you not need a book?”
“I have memorized this particular spell.”
“Oh.”
He chuckled at her response. “I did not lie about my skill, my love. I am practiced in the magical arts—and I suppose, most substantially, the dark ones.”
“I am married to a master necromancer.” She said it to herself aloud in hopes it might help to sink in. “I am married to a master necromancer.”
Turning to her, he paused in his work, a sympathetic smile etched on his face, though there was only sorrow in his eyes. “Does this trouble you, my princess?”
“I do not honestly know. I believe I have not yet determined how I feel on the subject. It certainly is a bit…theatrical.”
Laughing quietly, he turned back to his work. “I had hoped to introduce you to this part of me more gently. But it seems you are wont to turn over rocks to see what you might find beneath.”
“It seems so. I did not know this about myself.”
“It is astonishing what you learn about yourself when you are tested. I hope this is the end of what you will have to endure from me.”
“Somehow I doubt that. But I appreciate the sentiment.” She smirked and leaned her elbow on his desk and propped her chin on her hand. A human skull sat on the wood surface not far from her, its jaw removed. She hoped it was not sentient. She wanted to explore his collection, morbid and frightening as it was, but she could not tear her eyes away from the symbol he was drawing on the floor. She worked hard to commit it to her memory.
When he was finished, he stood back and placed the reed of bamboo against the wall. He gestured to the symbol. “Now, it is up to you.”
“What?” She blinked.
“We shall see if you have the talent for magic or not. Come, stand within the circle. You are the one with the connection to Leopold, not I. Summoning the dead against their will is painful for both parties—and I suspect he does not wish to speak to me.” He frowned.
“No, I would guess not.” Standing from the chair, she crept toward the circle, staring down at the symbol. “What else is needed? Incantations? A bowl of blood?”
“Nothing but the will required. In time, you may learn to do this without even the symbol. Magic is merely the strength of your soul working within the universe around you. All the rest are tools, meant to assist. You can kill a man with your bare hands, or you may use poison, a knife, or a bludgeon. The act is the same.”
“You have the tone of a tutor. Have you taught many magicians in your day?”
“Never once.” He smiled. “You are my first, princess.”
“You have a talent for it.”
Still smiling gently, he bowed at the waist. “Now…step within the circle and focus. Find him where he sleeps and knock upon the door. Call him to you.”
Cautiously, wondering if it might turn into some endless pit beneath her, she took a step into the circle. Nothing happened. She glanced to Gideon nervously. “I do not know what to do.”
“Shut your eyes. Think of him. Reach out through the veil…and knock. He will answer. He will come to you.”
Taking in a deep breath, she slowly let it out in a long rush. “I do not think it will work.”
“You have not tried, silly thing.”
Shutting her eyes, she squared her shoulders and tried to do as he said. She focused on the world outside of her. The stone floor beneath her feet, the walls, the air that was cool and thick and musty in that way that all basements were. She took another deep breath and slowly let it out.
And then she felt it at her feet. A strange…sensation was the only word for it that she could summon. There was no other way to describe it. It was not heat. It was not cold. It was not like the presence of a storm before the rain. It simply was.
She felt as though she were standing upon a raft at sea. No, even that was not quite right. It was as though around her was the ocean, raging and swirling, but she herself stood on solid ground. She was immovable, in the torrenting rage of power around her. “The symbol. It is a shelter, not a door…”
“Yes. Yes, princess. That is precisely right.” He sounded so very proud. Overjoyed, even. “Soon will come the time you can weather the storm without its aid.”
She was not so certain of that, but it was a nice thought. The power around her was overwhelming. Like the raging winds of a hurricane, yet silent and still all at once. It made her skin crawl.
It did not matter. She had a mission. She reached out her hand in front of her. But in truth, she tried to reach it out into that strangeness around her. She tried to reach out…and find her friend. “Leopold.”
She whispered his name. But she summoned to her mind every memory of him she could. Lying in a field, watching the clouds, laughing and holding hands. All the years of training her uselessly with a sword for naught but bruises and skinned knees.
All the laughter. All the tears. All the times they had merely just been. Her friend. Her companion. The man she would have married to save him from the shame he would have endured.
The one she did not know how she could live without. “Leopold.”
It was not that something took her hand. It was not a physical touch. But she felt something reach back to her. Something brushed against her very soul and stepped forward from the veil.
“Marguerite?”