Page 19 of Sonnets and Serpents
Despite herself, Eliza smiled back, releasing the tension from her shoulders. She laughed, retrieving her book and sliding it back into her pocket. “Yes, there is ... boy. I ... Ineedboy. Need to speak Pravish.” She licked her lips, then added nervously, “Understand?”
Or maybe that was “memorize.”Analamak. Enelemek?
“I help,” said the woman, giving another reassuring pat.
Eliza sagged in relief, shoving her coin purse forward, not caring how much it cost. She couldn’t bear to hit another delay, couldn’t bear to lose hope again. Thishadto work. Ithadto lead her to Henry.
The Stone Caster tucked away the rest of Eliza’s silver and then lifted the rock again, rolling it between her palms. She closed her eyes, humming a low, drawn-out note that rumbled pleasantly in Eliza’s bones, somehow piercing the din of the marketplace—quieting it, even. For a moment, a blanket of peace settled over Eliza.
The yellow stone glowed faintly before rounding and elongating as if it were soft, pliable clay rather than solid rock. With a quick twist, the woman wrenched the stone apart, splitting it in two. The glow sharpened, flaring through her fingers like rays of sunlight through broken clouds, dotting Eliza’s vision with spots.
Suddenly, the woman held out two golden bands, flattened and curved. Eliza had seen similar bracelets worn by other Pravish people.
Gesturing to the first and then to Eliza, the Stone Caster said, “You wear.” She pointed at the second and then away, toward the city wall. “Boy wear.”
Eliza’s tentative smile vanished as her jaw dropped. “Boy? Oh, no, I—he isn’t—” She struggled to switch back to Pravish. “Only me. Cast me.”
But the woman shook her head. Enunciating, she said, “Boy speak Pravish?”
Eliza swallowed. This had gone so terribly wrong.
But she thought of Silas instead of Henry. Thought of his smug dismissal and carefree demeanor in the library.
She did know a boy who spoke Pravish.
So she said, “Yes.”
The woman gestured with the bracelet. “Boy wear.” She lifted the other bracelet. “You wear. You speak Pravish.”
Apparently, the Cast could not summon language ability from thin air. She had to borrow it from someone who already possessed it.
So? It was not too much to ask Silas to wear abracelet. In fact, this was the perfect compromise. He wouldn’t have to lift a finger to help Eliza himself.
You can’t force me into anything, his voice taunted from memory.
Watch me, she thought.
Before she could second-guess herself, she closed the first bracelet over her wrist, holding her breath. But she felt nothing. The woman pressed the second bracelet into her hands with a wink, and Eliza understood that message well enough. They would only work together.
This was her path to Henry. She just had to believe in it.
“Thank you,” she said to the Stone Caster. And then, since she didn’t know a stronger gratitude phrase than the standardtezekurler, she said a nonsensicaltezekurler kol. “Thank you very.”
Beaming, the woman inclined her head and said something too quick and wordy to fully catch. Something aboutyour boy.
With heated cheeks, Eliza bowed in return, tightened her grip on the other bracelet, and fled.
The day Silas had almost lost his magic, it had been raining all morning—a light drizzle that annoyed and dampened but kept no one at home—and when the overhead gray broke at last, he’d been on the outskirts of campus, basking in the rays of sunlight. There was a path out to the cliffs that he sometimes liked to walk, though he hadn’t made it that far yet. With a few other students on the path around him, he thought nothing of a jostle when someone passed.
Until the girl caught his hand. His eyes widened as she went up on her toes, and that moment hung frozen, her face and his, a breath apart, her blue eyes approaching like a sudden wave to capsize an unsuspecting ship.
Then she kissed him.
He should have been appalled to kiss a stranger, but Silas enjoyed the unexpected, and there was nothing more unexpected than being suddenly kissed by a girl he’d never met. Curiosity flared in his mind. Why him? Why this way? Most likely, she was a Fluid Casting student on a dare. Because of the increased heart rate during a kiss, maybe she was experimenting with his blood.
She’d be expelled for unsanctioned experiments on other students, but he was having difficulty focusing on the lecture she deserved.
It was only his second kiss; the first had been an innocent peck at boarding school, followed by a lot of giggling from the girl and a lot of confusion from Silas about why people chose to do this repeatedly. Now he had a better idea. He could have written an essay about what this girl’s lips were doing to his senses.
