Dainty, crystalline snowflakes descended from above the high table Ada and I had claimed for our own, two small pitchers of what she called sowhl keeping us company.
To blend in better, she’d said. But I could see the way she eyed the drink, her fingers dancing around the rim as if she couldn’t wait to wrap them around the glass and take a sip.
There was no true need to blend in since we were crammed right in the middle of twenty or so tables, every one of them surrounded by people who chatted away while enjoying their chosen beverages, not paying us even the slightest attention.
But I was fairly certain Ada needed that sowhl.
Her excitement was almost tangible, a mix of nerves and eager anticipation I had to actively block to prevent it from becoming mine, too.
With the volatile, although not entirely unpleasant buzzing of the surrounding crowds, it would have been all too easy to get swept away. A part of me wanted to experience the celebrations in full again, but I supposed it was a good thing that I couldn’t shake off Ada’s words that had exposed the festivities for the breadcrumbs they were, an illusion that went beyond magic.
Nor could I forget why we were here.
A curious observer was the only role, the only liberty I could allow myself.
I dropped my gaze to the honey-colored liquid in my pitcher, inhaling the rich scent. Not sweet, exactly, but more of a sharp blend that seemed to cut through the false day, yet alluring nonetheless.
“So… What exactly is sowhl?”
“A drink,” Ada said coyly, seeming to drop her constant, though discreet, monitoring of our surroundings for a moment. “Especially welcomed when you need to warm up your body a bit.”
At least that explained why everyone clustered around tables here seemed to be underdressed for the light chill of the afternoon, their jackets and coats draped over whatever convenient free space they could find. I suspected we would need to follow their example soon if we wanted to continue fitting in.
I looked down at my sowhl, then Ada.
Back home, I’d snuck tastes of all the beverages my parents would have been mortified to find me drinking before I came to the conclusion that I favored red wine above all else. For the most part, the bottles in my father’s personal cabinet had been positively vile. Especially those he kept on hand for his esteemed guests.
I really hoped sowhl’s alluring fragrance wasn’t misleading.
Lifting my pitcher, I lowered my voice and asked, “Is it any good?”
Ada chuckled, but the sound was almost…timid.
“Let’s just say I got so carried away when I first tried it that I accidentally brought up an illusion of the whole square burning.” She sucked in a breath, then muttered, “While wrapping the people’s bodies in heat at the same time.”
I stared at her, wide-eyed, my lips pressed closely together to hold back the roaring laughter rising in my chest. “How many did you have?”
Ada dropped her gaze to her pitcher, the corner of her mouth quirking up as if caught between amusement and penance.
“Well?” I nudged.
She glanced at the crowd, then up, towards the blue-veiled stars before training her green eyes on me. “Eleven.”
I raised an eyebrow. Whatever sowhl was, I was pretty certain I would have been passed out by that time.
Magnus had called me a lightweight, and unfortunately, he was right. Three glasses of wine were as far as I could go to still be able to form coherent sentences—or not doze off whether I wanted to or not. And wine… It was the least heady drink of them all.
I bit my lip and spied the drink out of the corner of my eye. Eleven…
“Our bodies… I think they work differently from yours. Or—or not. Maybe it’s just the type of power that’s different and the effect…” She exhaled and squared her shoulders while I did my best to hold back the amusement. Ada was babbling. And despite all the trouble her faster-than-brain mouth had caused us in the past, it was nice to see her like this.
“One of my ancestors was a healer,” she tried again, her words slower this time. “She wrote of how the magic in our veins affects our system. How it makes us burn through food faster…and, mercifully, the same goes for our drinks.”
“You’re telling me that you lit up an entire square to get sober?”
“Not intentionally! It was supposed to be just a simple trick… You know, something to keep my mother from finding out. Not an escort from the Prince’s guard back to my house and a fine for scaring dozens of citizens.”
I couldn’t help it. I broke out in roaring, choking laughter. And Ada joined in.
Our outburst gained us a few glances, but the people casting them appeared to be thrilled that someone was having a bloody good time, nothing more. They weren’t wrong. Tears wetted the corners of my eyes once I was finally able to stuff some air into my lungs, although my shoulders kept shaking.
One look at Ada told me she wasn’t any better off herself.
Our gazes locked, and another round of laughter erupted. My fingers tightened around the pitcher of sowhl.
Sun claim me, but the need to try was suddenly far louder in my ears than the warning that I didn’t have any means of erasing the alcohol from my blood. But given where we were, I was fairly certain Ada wouldn’t succumb to the temptation of another round, and I certainly had no desire to lose even a second in this world to the haze too many drinks liked to place upon my mind. Useful at parties, dreadful on days when you didn’t want to miss a thing.
I lifted the pitcher in salute. “Here goes nothing.”
Ada watched me with an odd combination of feline curiosity and innocent intrigue as I brought the glass to my lips, tipped it, and…
I swallowed down a cough. “Sun, that’s strong!”
Yet even as I struggled, I couldn’t deny this alcoholic thunderstorm had a nice taste to it. After one regained the wits the drink had tried to burn down to ashes.
Carefully, I took another sip, this time letting the taste swirl through my mouth before the sowhl slid down my throat, scorching, but bearable. Mischief gleamed brightly in Ada’s green eyes.
“Better?”
“Much,” I admitted, then bravely ventured to tip the pitcher a third time.
It wasn’t all that bad, but I knew one of these was enough for one day. Or a week.
Still, I was grateful Ada had brought me here, even if it was just part of her plan. Somehow, the chatter of people all around me, the laughter, the illusions dancing across the painted-over night sky, and the company of a peer who wasn’t bullied by her parents until she became their painful model of virtue and grace… It felt good. It felt—it felt like I belonged.
“So this Eriyan we’re meeting…” I started, quiet enough to not be overheard. “Who is he? Friend? Lover?”
Ada nearly choked on her sowhl.
“Lover…” She snorted and shook her head. “Definitely no lover. He’s an Illusionist. One of the best in Somraque, though don’t tell him that. Unless you want your ears to fall off from listening to his self-praise. Eriyan can be as full of himself as he’s powerful.”
“Wait… But you’re a Mage. Doesn’t that make you, you know, stronger?”
“It does,” she agreed, then drank another mouthful. “More versatile, too. But a good Illusionist has the ability to specialize, really hone their skill. And Eriyan—there’s no one quite like him when it comes to making people invisible.”
“Right you are,” a cheerful voice bellowed out of thin air on my right.
I jumped away out of instinct and almost upended the entire damn table as I slammed into it with my side, ribs screaming from the hit.
Ada swore, then scrambled to catch her pitcher, but mine…
It careened over the edge—and hovered in midair.
I felt more than saw Ada shooting daggers at the invisible man who, apparently, decided to down a third of my sowhl before placing it back on the table. With my heart still hammering in my chest, I wasn’t sure whether to mirror Ada’s expression or laugh.
Either way, I’d recognized the antics for the grand entrance that they were.
Ada clearly hadn’t been exaggerating.
Once he dissipated the illusion, I could see Eriyan was thin as a wisp, with messy blond hair and eyes that appeared unable to decide whether they were green or blue. His cheeks had a nice splash of color to them, and his skin, unlike mine, held a warm hue. But it was his wide, blinding smile that truly lit up his face.
And revealed he was more than a little tipsy.
“It’s not even evening yet,” Ada hissed, likely coming to the exact same conclusion.
“Ada, my love,” he drawled and propped one elbow on the high table, “you wouldn’t have come looking for me here, at the very best sowhl stand our lovely Nysa can offer, if it were otherwise, now would you?”
Ada scowled at him, but Eriyan’s attention was already elsewhere, his eyes turning a shade warmer as he took me in.
“Though if I’d known you were bringing company, I would have at least bothered to brush my hair.” He held out his hand. “Eriyan. The bane of Ada’s existence.”
“Ember.” I clasped his hand. “Possible contender for your title.”
The sound that left Ada’s lips was somewhere between a laugh and a snort. Eriyan seemed thrilled.
“A challenger.” He sized me up. “May the largest thorn in Ada’s side win.”
Somberly, we both dipped our chins, then grinned. I snatched my pitcher, drank a little, then passed it over to him before realizing I was adding fuel to the fire.
Maybe our little contest would be decided faster than I thought.
I mouthed “sorry” to Ada as Eriyan gulped down the rest of the sowhl, but she merely rolled her eyes and shook her head, as if my actions didn’t make much of a difference. If Eriyan wanted his drink, he’d get it.
“Are you done?” she asked when he slammed the thick glass down on the iron tabletop.
“I received your flame,” he said, gaze flickering my way briefly before he turned around, though I caught the glee resting on his features morph into something a touch more serious. “I suppose it has to do with your friend…”
“I need that fragment, Eri,” she whispered. Eriyan’s body went perfectly still.
The easiness, the humor… It was gone, erased as if it had never been there at all.
He bowed his head, just the barest of movement, but I could see his concession clearly enough. The hint of disbelief as well.
“You’re serious, aren’t you?” His composure came together piece by piece, wrapping his carefree demeanor around him like armor. “At least now I know why you were scowling instead of bringing us another round of drinks.”
“Go to the Whispers, Eriyan, and burn the sowhl from your blood. We’ll meet you there.” Ada’s gaze settled on me. “We just have one more stop to make.”
Although I had braced myself for it, curbed some of my hunger on the way from the sowhl stand, it was impossible not to stare at all the illusions. To enjoy their thrumming, as diverse as voices, reverberate through my skin.
Some, I recognized from yesterday, but there were more, so many more to behold.
Dresses of crushed ice, lightning that did not harm, but undulated like ribbons in the wind around the bearer…
I felt as if I lost a part of me every time the connection broke off when Ada had to drag me forward as my steps faltered. And whenever we veered away from the stalls, my gaze drifted relentlessly towards those night-tinted tents at the far end of the city with their white peaks drawing me in like beacons.
“What’s in them?” I asked once we entered an alley fairly devoid of people, but with the view cutting off just at the right angle to capture those illustrious capped tips.
When she shot me a questioning look, I nudged my chin towards the tents. Her gaze followed.
“Those are the Magicians’ domain,” she said, then scanned the street to our left before strolling down its cobblestones with a purpose that didn’t make her look like the thief she had been yesterday. “A few of them keep to the stalls, tricking your body into believing it's colder than it truly is so that you would consume more sowhl or buy a nice coat, maybe even a shawl. But in the tents…
“You can experience the sun—or at least how we think it feels.” She glanced at me, a half-smile resting on her lips. “Probably not all that tempting for someone who’d lived under it her whole life.”
“How—how do they make you feel that?”
Ada stopped beneath an archway connecting the two streets, the darkest place there was under the blue light that still shone above, and quickly scanned our surroundings. I did the same, then turned my attention to her when I couldn’t spot any visible threat.
A trickle of blood was flowing down her index fingers and I—
I felt hot.
My skin seemed to come alive under an invisible force, my whole body warming, growing full with that pleasant laziness that set itself deep in my limbs whenever I lingered out on the grounds, lying with my back on the grass and a book in my hands. And yet I sensed there was something different.
The brush of heat didn’t filter through my pores from the outside.
It came from within.
I looked at Ada, understanding dawning in my mind. “The Magicians don’t merely create illusions. They actually influence the body, don’t they?”
The essence of the sun died down as quickly as it surfaced, and Ada wiped that last drop of blood against her black clothes. She nodded, then motioned me to follow her farther down the road.
“The principle is the same,” she explained. “Much like the eyes believe what they’re seeing, the body believes the sensations. And reacts accordingly.”
Brilliant. Their power was positively brilliant. My admiration must have shown on my face because a smile broke across Ada’s lips. She chuckled lightly.
I thought of the sensation that had filled me only moments earlier, then glanced up at the azure dome.
“What?” Ada inquired softly.
Brow furrowed, I nibbled on my lower lip, but didn’t respond until the threads and possible explanations rushing through my mind gained form. “Magic is how you grow your food, isn’t it?”
For a moment, she looked at me as if I’d said something absurd. But when she nodded, I realized I’d only surprised her.
“The tents are a Winter Solstice exception. The rest of the time”—her voice gained a darker undertone—“the magic they display in there is reserved for crops and greenhouses.”
I recognized the silent warning that this was a sensitive subject for her. Only I couldn’t just let it go, not with so many pieces that didn’t fit—though I sensed why that might be… We walked past more stone buildings, the windowsills devoid of flowers just as Somraque’s landscape was devoid of life.
“There aren’t any gardens…”
“No.” Ada’s jaw clenched. “There aren’t.”
Even if they couldn’t maintain a field of magic indefinitely, a few hours of simulated sunlight should be more than enough to sustain the sturdier plants.
I waited until the group of men lingering before a small tavern was out of earshot, then asked, “Is it because of him?”
Ada’s entire frame went tense. “Yes.”
We carried on in silence, but as we slipped through another alley, more residential than the others, Ada surprised me by saying, “We could do so much if we were free.”
The longing in her voice stirred a hollow ache somewhere deep in my chest.
“The greater the magic, the less we’re allowed to use it,” she went on. “And always only under his control.”
She trained her gaze on the tents that were once again visible in the distance. But when I studied her face, the hard edges I’d thought I’d find there were softer.
“I envy them sometimes, you know,” she whispered before she turned another corner. The bustle from the avenue grew louder to our left. “The Mages, we think ourselves as superior. At least we’re raised with that belief. We have both powers at our disposal, and yes, it’s an advantage, but… We could never create something as perfect as the Illusionists and Magicians do. Their magic is pure, a single blade that can shape reality into the exact vision or sensation they hold in their minds.”
“But I saw you make us invisible, Ada, control those guards…”
If anyone’s magic was to be considered as lesser, it was my people’s.
Affecting time and space sounded intriguing—and before I came here, it was also something I craved to possess. Yet in light of the abilities the Somraquians had, touching objects of power and willing them to perform their little stints seemed… Well, it seemed trivial. Laughable, even.
There was no finesse to it, no imagination. One simply had to slice a sword through the air, think of the location they wanted a shortcut to and, if they were lucky, there it was. A rip in reality, sometimes fit to accommodate a person, at others a crack barely large enough to push a letter through.
Even the rarer objects pertaining to time, like my pendant, or the cufflinks I saw High Master Elaris wear that enabled him to replay an echo of an earlier conversation in case he missed anything, were utterly straightforward.
I scrunched up my nose. No, there was no need to think about my world right now. I would see it soon enough if Ada’s preposterous plan actually worked. If I indeed was the savior and her theory that touching the fragment would spark up these hidden powers proved to be true.
When I realized Ada had said all she would on the subject of their magic, I asked, “Who’s the girl we’re meeting? Zaphine?”
“She…ah… We were together,” Ada rumbled. I was fairly certain the tightness in her lips had little to do with the current cluster of people at the mouth of the alley we were trying to skirt around.
“Didn’t end all that well?”
For a few long seconds, I thought she wouldn’t answer. Then her voice reached me past the music and laughter, nothing more than a quiet, “No.”
“At least your parents didn’t run her out of town,” I said matter-of-factly.
Ada turned to me, mortified. She opened her mouth, then closed it again. Finally, she shook her head and groaned. “No, I did all the pushing away myself. No help needed.”
I wasn’t above prying for more information, but Ada’s attention drifted towards a lovely boutique, its windows filled with gorgeous, intricate gowns. Zaphine’s shop.
There was nothing that could make this any easier, so I simply squeezed her hand, then followed her across the street for a face-to-face with her own demons.