Berret Park, Old Rose Harbor
Tom moved forward in front of her, taking the lead for reasons of his own - reasons Niccolette didn't particularly understand, not that she paid it much mind. Niccolette had noticed it before, marked it in some corner of her mind: how quiet he was against the dimly lit streets – like a shadow himself, for all his size. Niccolette let him get a few steps ahead then followed, her boots soft but clicking steadily against the cobblestones. Let them know she was coming, she thought. They would not know to fear, for how could they? But soon they would know regret.
The wooden deck outside was a disgrace, and the room inside not much better. Niccolette ignored it all; she didn’t flinch at the faint scurrying sounds of rats and cockroaches against the walls and floor nor the echoes of opium smoke that still seemed to hang in the hair. She followed Tom deeper into the pathetic excuse for an inn, her gaze sweeping over the three men: the one who knew this was not the place for him, the one with the knife, and the one with the glamour.
Niccolette ignored the banter; they would tear this place apart, if need be. If Breda’s brother fled again, like the coward he was, than they would track him through the city – she would rip the Rose apart and scatter its petals to the wind, if that was what it took.
Niccolette listened to the beginnings of the wick’s spell, grimacing faintly. It was almost painful to listen to them cast, but she understood the gist of it almost immediately despite the spell's ugly inelegance. A sleep spell, a powerful one to gauge from what he was asking the mona: to sink them deep into a slumber from which even the touch of his companion’s knife would not awaken them.
Niccolette began to cast herself as well, whispering to the mona, a complex prayer, building in two spells at once. It was a careful operation, slow and delicate, even if neither spell on its own was more than a student could cast. Niccolette didn't want to push the mona too hard, didn't want to draw on power that she knew might well not be there. But she had all her technical skill still, even without her usual raw strength, and she wove the two spells together with an ease that no beginning castor could hope to achieve, tempering the two spells to mesh together.
There might well have been an easier way. She could, Niccolette knew, cast quickly and force the wick to brail - but that was a risk. If he was powerful enough for a true sleep spell, than even his glamour might be enough to disturb the mona if his spell went awry – and, so, better to let him finish his cast.
And yet, Niccolette thought, she had no intent of laying down to sleep, nor of letting anyone open her throat.
They would both feel the air grow thick and heavy around them, visible energy flowing out from the wick and hanging in a heavy cloud around the two of them. The feeling wasn’t like exhaustion; the spell didn’t demand sleep in that way. It was subtler, much subtler; it called to them, beckoning like a cup of soothing tea and a warm wrapped blanket, promising that the world would be better if they closed their eyes – slow and seductive. A heaviness crawled over them, thickening their limbs. Niccolette felt her shoulders slump; felt her legs soft. She couldn’t hold the weight anymore; she dropped to her knees, hands catching on the filthy ground.
But Niccolette never stopped casting.
The monite of her spell built and flowed; Niccolette managed the dual homing with flawless ease. Energy flowed from her field as well, a faint stream dispering into the air around her and Tom, a second crawling from her field, flooding towards the wick – streaming between his open lips to fill his mouth.
The wick stopped speaking – the air hung heavy around them, and for a moment Niccolette even felt her eyes close – but then her spell finished too. At once, both she and Tom would feel a bright, sharp rush of wakefulness, physically painful, as if someone had pinched all their skin at once. It hurt – it hurt much worse than the soft welcoming sleep spell – but it would banish the feelings of sleepiness instantly, jolting them both back to being fully awake.
Niccolette lurched back to her feet, looking at the wick and leaving the knife-wielder for Tom. Blood dribbled from both corners of his mouth, a faint stream of it, and Niccolette grinned. It wasn’t as powerful as she’d hoped for – not nearly – but let him try to cast with a cut tongue.