Page 89 of The Whispering Night
Why?she wants to scream at him.Why are you sorry when I’m the one who left you behind? Sumus unus in somno et somniis.
Winnie blinks. She didn’t think those last words; she heard them because Erica just uttered them. Static laps across the room, gentle as a hot blanket pulled fresh from a dryer, and with the faintest dusting of mist to curl out from Erica’s source, still clasped in her hands.
For half a breath, that mist curls past Erica, obscuring her face like the blindfold. Then it is gone. Her eyes open. “You’re watching.” She blushes. “I told you not to.”
“I wasn’t.” Winnie sets down the pen, the binder. Paper crunches as she folds it. “Just at the end, when you said those words—Sumus unus in somno et somniis.Katie was right? That’s really how you end a spell?”
Erica nods, and with more care than she showed earlier, she slides the source back into the dampener. Jenna’s spell, Winnie notices, is no longer tucked inside.
“How does it work?” she asks as Erica stands, legs wobbly. “The magic—what did you just do?”
Erica sniffs. Classic Ice Queen. “Now is not the time for Spells 101.”
“Okay, give me the SparkNotes version, then.”
“Give me the duffel first.” Erica holds out her arms, and Winnie complies, crossing the small space in two steps. She watches as Erica tugs out a pair of black leggings, and there’s no missing a shiny red pucker on the tips of Erica’s fingers. Next, Erica rolls up her shirt to reveal her abdomen. “Since my mask is in a toilet tank half a mile away, I’ve got to make a sling.”
“Why?”
“Because your source has to be on your body to use it. The closer to you, the better.”
“But can’t you just hold it in your hands, then?”
“Sure.”Tug.“But judging by our wild escape to get here…”Knot. Tighten. Release. She glances at Winnie. “I figure I’m going to want both hands free.”
Bilateral symmetry,Winnie thinks. “So you’ll just put the source in that… swaddle?”
“Yep.” Erica demonstrates by swooping down, fetching her source—which no longer oozes mist—and tucking it right into the leggings now wrapped around her midriff. Then she grins. “Perfect.”
“Okay, but now how will you summon the hiding spell?”
“I just say the right words, and the spell will be there.” She wets her lips. “Probably.”
Later, Winnie will consider that word—probably—and wish she’d paid closer attention to it. She will wish she’d paid closer attention to lots of things Erica said, and that she’d examined the harmonic overtone too.
In the moment, though, Winnie is thinking only of Signora Martedì. Of where the woman could have hidden her source on her body. People conceal weapons all the time, so Winnie supposes it wouldn’t have been hard for the signora to stash a chunk of stone or metal in her clothes.
“Anyone can put power into a source,” Erica explains, tucking her shirt over the new swaddle. “You just bury your source in the forest. Thehardpart is getting the magic back out. I’m… not good at that part.”
Again, Winnie really should be paying attention.
Again, she isn’t.If I could find the Crow’s source, could I take it off her? Would that nullify her magic?
“Imagine the mist,” Erica continues, “now imagine if you could shapeit into whatever you want, instead of what the spirit wants. Right now, we want be hidden. So that’s what I’ve told the magic to do.”
Winnie finally homes in on Erica again. “So that’s why I saw mist when you finished? There isactualspirit mist inside the source?”
“Yeah. That’s whatallmagic is. At its most fundamental base, it’s the mist. The spirits use mist to create their dreams, and Dianas use mist to create their spells.” Erica rummages in the duffel. “Is there anything in here you want to bring? Otherwise, I’m leaving it behind.”
Just my sketch,Winnie thinks,which I already have. She shakes her head. “We’re good.”
“Then”—Erica smiles, a grim, almost frightening thing—“let’s get moving.”
CHAPTER
37
There’s a story of a Korean hunter who lived an entire night inside a swamp serpent’s esophagus. When the mist appeared at dawn and scattered the serpent away, the hunter reemerged. Except he was transformed into a half man, half swamp serpent.
