Page 91 of Minor Works of Meda

“It’s not a show.”

“Let them,” a voice said behind me.

I turned to see another witch approaching, her power far more palpable than mine. She was tall and thin, pale, with trousers and a billowing blouse.

“It could be dangerous. It’s not entertainment. It might go wrong,” I said. It was all true, and easier to say than ‘and we don’t know who’s scrying for us.’

“Many will want to see,” she informed me staidly. “It’s our city, our people. Let them watch.”

I pressed my lips together and turned back to the couple, only to find they’d been joined by an old woman and a pair of young men. They crowded around the faerie creature.

“No, no, get back,” I admonished, and strode towards them. “If you want to stay, stay. But keep back, please.” I waved them past the last statue.

The other witch had picked up my slate board.

“What do you think?” I asked eagerly. But she only blinked and bent to set it down again.

The crowd kept gathering, and I kept pushing them back away from the statues. Some twenty minutes later an old, bearded man walked out of the crowd, leaning on a cane. I almost snapped at him to turn around before I felt the familiar warm hum of magic from him.

I took him to look at the runes, but he waved a hand and shook his head.

“Spare me. I’m just here to do my part.”

The next witch was an enthusiastic young man with honey-brown eyes. Then a young copper-skinned girl hand in hand with her grandmother. Some felt as powerful as the first woman, some as weak as my mother. One, a middle-aged man who stared at me defiantly, felt as weak as me. Still, he insisted that he would do his part, even though I knew unless he was good at holding sigils he wouldn’t have anything to add. They came from every direction, the witches of Koraica emerging to lend their strength. The final one was a strong weather-witch from Buis, whose ship happened to be docked in the harbor.

When Oraik and Kalcedon returned, they could barely squeeze their way through the crowd. Hundreds of people had come to watch. I tasked the prince to keep the throng from slowly shifting forwards.

“How do we choose who to start with?” I muttered to Kalcedon, after he’d approached. “If it goes wrong…”

“Her,” he said, and pointed at the statue of the old lady. I raised my eyebrows.

“What, just because she’s…? That’s so mean.”

He snorted. “Because she’s the one closest to us, dunce. You cast. I’ll manage the draw.”

He threaded power from all the witches, and slowly fed it to me as I read the slate and signed out what I’d written. It felt strange. Even though the power was coming from Kalcedon there were so many threads mixed in, mostly unfamiliar, none used to working together. Without him to wrangle it all I couldn’t have focused on the spell. I read off the chart we’d made, for some reason unable to hold the sigils in my mind—perhaps they were too complicated; something about them didn’t fall into place for me.

At last I released my hands from the casting. The stone woman in front of us was unchanged.

The crowd craned their heads for a better view. Some jumped to see over the front. They were staring at me as much as the statue, and I wished I had worn my mask like Kalcedon.

Kalcedon reached out and touched it.

“Meda,” he said. I put my hand out too and pressed it to the woman’s shoulder. It felt… soft. Not like stone. There was a little give, almost sponginess. But it remained cold and unliving. I picked up the slate and glared at it.

Oraik trotted over.

“Do you need anything?”

“No, go away,” I said. Then I sighed. “Oraik, wait. What makes a person different from a statue?”

He leaned back on one heel, eyes looking up to the sky.

“Everything?” the Prince asked.

“Come on.” I narrowed my eyes.

“But I’m awful at riddles,” he groaned. “I don’t know. People breathe? Their hearts beat? We eat, we talk, we feel, we laugh, we dance, we—” he was rapidly counting ideas off on his fingers now.

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