𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐜

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

As Ever always said after a trying day, "The old ways are best."

Fi tucked her braid into the folds of her cloak lest it come apart in the whipping wind and stepped off the rock she'd appeared on. Brittle frost crunched under the heel of her boots. Fi set off at a brisk pace, robes flapping around her slight frame, the satchel bouncing against her thigh. A few too many weeks spent idle behind a desk had her out of breath before Fi had climbed the first set of foothills. She turned once to survey the crumbled remains of the village below and released a single, tired sigh.

"If you don't get a move on, we won't be there until next month."

"Sometimes, Ever, I swear-."

"You swear what, girl? You could kill me?" Ever adopted a fake falsetto. "Oh, no. Anything but that."

Fi groaned and-with a careful twist of her hand and a moment of thought-set the skull to levitate near her shoulder, freeing her hands for the climb. "I swear I could send you to the bottom of the ocean and not feel an ounce of guilt."

"Bet there's more intelligent life down there than there is on this mountain."

Fi couldn't help but laugh, failing to remain stern. "I just had the lovely image in my head of you screaming at a school of angler fish."

"You have the oddest mind, Delphinia."

The following hours were spent in companionable silence as the liminal light of a lingering sunset finally caved to the pressure of night and Fi threw a magelight into the air with Ever. Wards fizzled and snapped as Fi crossed their lines, and she paused to suss out the sigils buried in heather and new snow. Many were etched on the underbellies of stones, and she pricked her finger to refuel each rune with a drop of blood and a gentle word. The rocks rolled back into place with grumbles and grunts-but the wards sung again, quiet but satisfied.

"What was that one?" Ever asked as they passed another ward and Fi licked her sore fingertip.

"Which one?"

"That ward. I don't recognize the resonance, though the runes...something about Muggles?"

"Oh," Fi commented as she found a dilapidated set of stone stairs and started along them, heading for the tor's crooked peak. "I put it up last year, don't you recall? A new one I've developed for those flying Muggle contraptions." The hedge witch drew her hand through the air in mimicry of a plane. "Don't want them landing near here, so the ward diverts their electric things. Radio waves and sonar and what have you."

Ever's voice went cold. "Muggles."

"Right?"

Another set of minutes passed before Fi-sweating profusely and out of breath-came to the end of the steps and faced a seemingly blank face of solid stone. She approached the natural wall, ignoring the grasping bracken about her ankles, and plunged headfirst into the rock. The illusion rippled and permitted the witch entry.

A dozen or so voices drew quiet when Fi tripped in the sudden dark and cursed under her breath. Ever and the magelight sunk through the illusion next and joined the hedge witch, dispelling the heavy shadows to reveal the inside of a crudely formed passage. Fi clutched the satchel close as she set off, relieved to be out of the harsher weather and relieved to see nothing had changed in the year since her last visit. The passage narrowed and she hopped across a few rounded boulders that hadn't been removed from the earth. Ever followed, silent and floating, ghoulish with the light next to her bare bones.