his work was familiar enough, even if the place, and the company, were beyond strange. For a long time it was quiet; there was nothing but the work. The whisk, whisk, whisk of the coarse broom ada’na had found against the rough floorboards. The cool, wet rag in his hand, wiping away the dust and muck in one bowl at a time, making the smooth wood gleam dark. The sounds and smells that drifted in from the kitchen and elsewhere.
Tom knew what it was he was about to do. It wasn’t a porven anymore, but he knew his field; he knew its tenuous, feather-light wildness, like the first full breaths after sobbing. He knew Nkemi understood some of what she might be getting herself into, and the steadfast warmth of her caprise was reassuring. Whatever she thought It was, it hung between them unspoken.
And Tom was content. He grew steadier with each moment, cleaning up and preparing together in the quiet, dark, cluttered storage room. He was used to this ritual being solitary; he’d only ever cast with Ezre, and never like this.
It was a comfortable unfamiliarity, and one to which he found himself acclimating quickly and warmly.
Tom might’ve liked to wash the floors, but not with this water, and there wasn’t enough time. As he turned and surveyed the floor, he thought it’d have to do. Detta’d given them half a house, which was barely enough time to cast, much less learn a whole spell.
Nkemi must’ve known, too, what she was asking of him; he hoped he was up to it. They crouched together in the dark, and every chalk mark ada’na made was luminous against it. Sucking at a tooth and frowning, one fist braced against the floor, he studied her map. He let the words sink in. When he looked back up, ada’na Nkemi was grinning at him again, and there was a spot of white chalk on the tip of her nose.
He grinned back. In spite of his aching hip, he got to his feet at the same time, in the same motion, as she did. He held onto the composure he’d earned with the quiet synchronicity of their cleaning; he held the chalk the prefect had given him in a steady hand.
But that was only the first step.
Drawing a plot was like speaking monite – like fighting a kov – there was a whole hell of a lot to keep track of, and second-guessing yourself would lead to broken, shaky lines. There was more to keep track of, now. He let himself feel the uncertainty as he stood with Nkemi, washing through him like cold water.
The outermost strokes were broad. He watched her move among the hanging herbs, stirring them with her passage. The oil lamp cast her shadow long and thin on the walls, on the floor, and played in the shifting folds of her sweater. It glanced over her her face, set with concentration. It glinted in her eyes, there and then gone, echoed more warm colors than he could name in her dark skin.
The shape and expression on her face changed with each motion; all the shadows played. He shadowed her, never more than a few seconds after she drew a line.
Broad, wide-armed strokes; curves like the necks of the birds that used to settle over the Drought. She pushed, he pushed; she pulled, and tilted, and he followed. The motions got more complex: a swirl here, an intersecting line there. They folded over, began detailing the pale white draft they’d made on either side.
Tom couldn’t’ve known how to fight with this body. The weight, the reach, was all wrong; the momentum would’ve carried him too far, not far enough. He would’ve pushed back against unfamiliar pains.
But he trusted these hands, this thin, aching body, for this qalqa. The flick of his wrist, of his long-fingered, lined hand, looked - felt - at home; he knew the way his shoulder would ache as he leaned to draw a line.
Unthinking, he felt graceful.
The rough floor proved hard for some of the more intricate linework. He didn’t think whether the lines opposite ada’na’s were exact. He looked at her more than he looked at the lines; it was her he followed. It was her he’d cast with.
It wasn’t just her motions he echoed. While they drew, she coached him best she could without invoking. Tom knew one half of the spell well enough; ley channels weren’t, on the whole, too different to make, once you had your witness.
But Nkemi had to explain to him how to offer his bruises to the mona as a thing which’d been made by the witness’ hands, and the pitfalls of diction and syntax and interpretation that a sorcerer could fall into.
All the other sounds melted away. They creaked on the floorboards; the chalk scraped quietly. Two soft voices, one high, the other very deep, laced with pauses.
Then, silence, as they took their places opposite each other in the middle of the sprawling oval of symmetrical patterns. Tom kept the line of the water even as he set the bowl on the floor; his hands were fair steady, and it barely rippled, much less sloshed or spilt.
By now, he took deep, even breaths. He sat very straight, despite the faint pain in his lower back, and set his jaw. He loosened his necktie, then, and took it off, and opened his collar, carefully undoing the first two buttons. The chill air stung the bruises, but he didn’t wince; a muscle twitched in his cheek, but he showed nothing else of the pain.
He let himself feel it, because he would bring that to the mona, too, when he asked them. It was no small part of what the witness had made.
Across from him, ada’na sat with her back to the lamp. Her face was in shadow, but the light streamed in around her, stippling the edges of her hair.
He readied himself. Their fields had mingled deeply, comfortably, since the start of the drafting. He shut his eyes, but he reached out with his hand, laying it palm-up on the floor beside the bowls, midway between.
He smiled softly into the dark.