MELANIE
Eighteen months previous
She worked for months at Gatwood’s laboratory—sweeping, running errands, holding the hands of skittish clients as they underwent magical mind probes. None of it was as fulfilling as her brief attempts at medicine. Dawn-Lyn had told her this knowledge was a gift from the gods and that it was to be cherished. As time went on, Melanie almost started to believe that, too.
The longer she had the magic, the more she realized she wanted it. Wanted to keep it.
Why should she have to give it up?
There was a future here, within her grasp. One that contained Sebastian, and her mother, and healing, and freedom.
She wanted the freedom so badly it made her shiver. Made her hands clasp and unclasp as she mentally reached for it.
But if she was going to have that future, she couldn’t stay with Gatwood. Couldn’t stay and obediently acquiesce to his mundane instructions in the day and his probing directions in the night.
The enchanter’s focus on her was intense. He tried—he tried so hard. To do as she asked. Find a cure. Clear her conscience and her body.
But the more they studied and tested, the surer she became. She didn’t want it gone. Her body wasn’t ready to release the magic, and now, neither was her heart.
If she’d never come to him, she might not have realized. The very thought of being enchanted had sent her into a panicked state in the early days. She’d woken up in the middle of the night on countless occasions, sweating, anxious, sure the Watch or Regulators or the Marchonian Guard, even, were on her doorstep, ready to take her away.
But with each failed solution, the coil of anxiety loosened. Now, she’d almost shrugged it off completely.
She wouldn’t have come to terms with this if it hadn’t been for Gatwood. She’d always be grateful for that.
But she couldn’t stay. Couldn’t be his assistant or learn his trade.
She had to move on.
In secret, Melanie auditioned for several mastrex healers. She wasn’t sure why she didn’t tell Gatwood. At first, she simply didn’t know how to broach the subject of leaving. But as time went on and she failed to mention it, her lack of acknowledgment morphed into active withholding.
He looked so hopeful every time he tried a new approach.
He’d taken to giving her potions now. Between his understanding of magics and her understanding of medicine, she wasn’t worried about being poisoned, but it seemed an empty exercise. Futile.
But the hope. She wasn’t ready to take that away, just yet. Didn’t want him to think himself a failure.
Her many interviews with healers went well—mostly—and she had her pick of the lot for apprenticeships. They were all eager to add to her repertoire, but most asked too many questions. They wanted to know who her former mastrex was—for of course she knew too much to be a novice—and why she’d left their service. The first time she was asked, she did her best to answer, to try to convince the healer that she’d simply “picked up a few things” while acting as caregiver to her parents. He’d understandably found the answer difficult to swallow.
But Clive LeMar wasn’t like that. He hadn’t poked and prodded at her like a specimen for dissection. He simply asked her to perform, and when she did, noted the results.
“You are very good,” he’d said after their first meeting, and that was all. She’d checked that her pendant was well situated—then a new quirk and not yet a habit—and left his home filled with confidence.
He was a private healer, and Melanie wasn’t sure she wanted to work for just one family. A hospital seemed more to her liking, where there were many tasks—many equations that needed balancing. But she realized a hospital or surgery position would be easy to acquire after studying under someone like LeMar. All she had to do was endure the usual six to eight years of apprenticeship at the Iyendars’, and she would have her pick of jobs.
She wanted him to be her master. He wasn’t overly kind, but he was direct, honest. She could do with an extra dose of honesty in her life.
When he’d agreed to mentor her, she felt like she could fly. Finally, finally her life was starting. After years of devotion to her family, to her small little corner of Arkensyre, she was going to join the world and make something of herself.
Both Dawn-Lyn and Sebastian offered to help Melanie break the news to Gatwood, but she insisted she could do it on her own. She owed him that much.
The next day, after the last client left and Gatwood began to spread out his experimental instruments, she stopped him. “You know I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, don’t you?”
“Of course. How could I miss it, what with you saying so every other session? You aren’t exactly shy with your thanks, Little Splinter.”
“Well, good, I’m glad you know. Because … because I think we’ve gone as far as we can go. I think I will just have to live with it. With the magic.”
“Oh, come now. I know it’s been difficult, but don’t give up! We will save you yet.”
“No—no, please listen. I’m sorry,” she said firmly, moving to his side. Her palms were stained blue and yellow from making paints all day, and she let one slide over the roughness of his knuckles to still him, putting her hand over his just as he twisted his wrist to uncork a tincture. “You misunderstand. I’m not simply resigned. I’m choosing it. I will keep it.”
He blinked owlishly at her. “Why?”
“Because it is mine.”
“No,” he said harshly, setting the bottle down with an excess of force. “It is mine.”
His face had gone hard, the lines of it now deeply furrowed. He looked at her with a darkness in his eyes she’d never seen before.
Startled, she put up her hand, backed away. “What?”
“This magic isn’t yours,” he spat. “It doesn’t come from you. You didn’t forge it. You didn’t even earn it. I did that. I did all of it—I created this enchantment for another. And then you stole it.”
“That’s not—you know that’s not true. It was an accident, and I’m sorry—”
“You did the right thing in bringing it back to me. And I will reclaim it.”
“No.” She clenched her fists and stamped her foot. “It is not a thing to be reclaimed. It is a part of me now, and you will not tear it away.”
“Go sit,” he ordered, turning back to his bottle, reaching for a stone mortar filled with pale green herbs for his new concoction. “This is nonsense. You’re simply frustrated. We both are. I’m … I’m sorry for my outburst. Your doubt will pass.” He poured in the tincture and began to grind the ingredients. The smell of rosemary filled the workshop.
“This isn’t a sudden whim,” she insisted. “I’ve already found an apprenticeship elsewhere.”
He dropped the pestle with a clatter. “With another enchanter?” he asked, incredulous.
“No, of course not. With a healer. Master Clive LeMar, actually. He’s one of the most well-respected—”
“Why do you want to run off and tie yourself to someone like that? With your skill?”
“No one’s going to seek out a healer with no training,” she said.
“You have a position, already. Here. I gave you employment, a safe haven. You’ll just be wasting your talent, your time—”
“I’ve no talents of use to you. I do not belong in your world.”
“Oh, Little Splinter,” he cooed, looking up from his work. “Call it an accident, divine intervention, what have you—but it ensured you belong to my world. It tied us together, made me understand things I’d—” Gatwood paused, a shaky breath on his lips. “There were possibilities I’d written off until I met you.”
Melanie shivered—his words were a distorted echo of Sebastian’s.
“If you stay with me, we can uncover the greatest secrets. Perhaps—perhaps this is the Unknown’s gift, had you thought of that? The ability to put magic inside people. And wouldn’t it be … Wouldn’t it be a wonder to give such gifts to others?”
He stared at her with earnest intensity, a mad glint making his eyes shine.
His meaning slowly dawned on her, made her lungs hitch and her heart leap into her throat. “You want to re-create what happened to me? To do this to someone else?”
He shrugged, but his gaze did not falter. “I want time, is all. To find out how this happened. How the magic has taken root. What we do with that discovery can come later. If you pledge yourself to another master, that opportunity will be lost.”
“Perhaps it’s best left alone,” she said firmly. “We’ve already danced at the edge of Knowledge’s penalty—”
“I assure you we have fallen over that edge.”
“And now you want to do it again? To who? Who would you even try to enchant? You can’t simply experiment on people.”
“And why not? It wouldn’t be difficult. Plenty of people come to me to take their knowledge out. It would stand to reason that I could perform an exchange. Give them something in return.”
“No one would agree to—”
“Oh, I think you’ll find there’s much people will agree to if you tell them it will make them better. Smarter. Stronger. More powerful.” He turned back to his experiment. The contents of the bowl had gone from a faded green to bright red. “Do not underestimate even the common person’s greed for power. Over others, over events, over themself.”
“I will not help you experiment on others. I didn’t want to be experimented on myself. I’m going to become Master LeMar’s apprentice. I’ve already made up my mind.”
Gatwood let out a heavy, overwrought sigh—as though he was simply dealing with a fussy child throwing a tantrum. “You’ve become too comfortable too quickly. Have found too many safe harbors too readily. The rest of the world will not look on you as kindly as I have. If your trespasses are uncovered, there will be consequences.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“Can you?” he asked harshly, gaze darting sideways at her. “All it takes is one cockup. Perhaps your mother says the wrong thing to a neighbor. Or a guest overhears you conversing with Sebastian at the inn. Your circlet slips—” He made a flicking motion through the air, as though he were knocking the ferronnière from her head. “—and then the jig is up. Here, I can protect you.”
“You don’t want to protect me,” she scoffed, realizing something she should have weeks ago. She should have realized what his intensity meant, his pinpoint focus. “You want to possess me. I’m just a vessel to you, nothing more.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes, it is.”
He put down his tools, threw up his hands. “Fine. If you want to go, go. Go to LeMar, go to whatever hospital or noble house he serves. Go seek the normal life of a healer and see how long it lasts. How many lies do you think you’ll have to tell on a daily basis, hm? How often are you going to have to play dumb for your new master, lest he figure out you come by your skill unnaturally?”
“Better a million lies than to stay here and help you do this to someone else.”
“You are ungrateful,” he spat.
“No, I’m not. But I think it’s time I left. Now.”
“If you leave now, do not come back.”
“I won’t,” she assured him.
Melanie took an uncertain step backward, toward the lab’s side entrance. This conversation wasn’t supposed to go this way. She knew he’d be upset that she was leaving, but she thought he’d at least be happy for her. She’d thought they liked each other. She’d thought they were friends.
But to him, she’d been a little splinter of his magic. Nothing more.