The Demon in the Pastry Shop

69: Welcome, Truer Desire

Once Kit knew for sure that Silus had simply fallen asleep after the house battle and all the rush of the travel, she let herself relax. Not too much. She rushed over to where Mavah and Shasnah did their best to work medicine magic over Ravitavah.

Their movements made little sense. It looked like play-pretend. Mavah mimed a bowl and Shasnah pulled a an invisible cork off of a bottle she showed she was holding in her hand by circling her grip around air. She poured nothing thickly into Mavah's bowl and Mavah drew it to the side and added a dash of nothing and then a sprinkle of nothing before using a non-existent pestle to grind the apparently too large granules of nothing into a fine fake powder.

Kit shook the confusion out of her head and wrote what she needed Mavah to read. She stepped past Jude, who watched on the edge of the table. He looked over at her and gave her shoulder a light squeeze with his injured hand, then pulled it back to his chest to massage the pain out.

"They're making a tincture for him. If they can make it correctly, then Ravitavah will recover for sure," he explained to her. Then he tossed a look over his shoulder and winced, rubbing the kinks out of his neck, "what about Silus? Will he be okay?"

On the corner of the page, Kit interrupted her main message to write for him, "think he's weaker than he lets on, but I don't think his sculptor can help."

Jude seemed to run over the facts in his head and in a moment, he nodded along with her words, "I don't think Lovell would've left this sculptor anywhere Silus could get to him if he intended to break him apart. It could be the sculptor has been killed. I wouldn't put the Terrorling past it."

This set Kit's jaw resolutely clamped shut and reaffirmed her feelings. Silus needed help from Mavah. She would make sure he got it.

When the majority of the work began to fall on Shasnah and Mavah stood watching Ravitavah anxiously, Kit stepped up to him and handed him her notepad. He ran a hand over his hair to smooth it and received the paper with his other.

"My mothers are enchanted onto a quilt, but Jude told me you could reverse this?"

Mavah nodded, "yes, I can break the curse. Especially now that Lovell's magic is wearing off from his distance."

She thought this was the case. Kit flipped to the page underneath, "does that count as a wish?"

"I should think not. It was good of you to bring Ravitavah here and there is a way to reverse their curse without wish magic," Mavah supposed.

Kit hadn't been totally sure of that, but she had written the message underneath just in case.

"Last time, you said I wouldn't know what to do with a wish. I don't know that I deserve one, but if I could have one, I would certainly know what to do with it now. Please, sir -your majesty- I wish for Silus to be restored to health. His cracks are breaking him apart and I'm scared his sculptor can't fix it. Would you grant my wish?"

At this, Mavah laughed at her. Kit frowned severely and she even deigned to whack the Ace of Wishes on the arm. If he thought Silus' weakness and pain was something to be made light of, she would not be polite. Her grimace deepened as Mavah composed himself again.

"You're always trying to wish for things you don't need," he told her softly -paternally. She was reminded then that he was an old, old cat shapeshifter. When her expression didn't warm up, Mavah leaned down toward her and explained, "don't worry about Silus' cracks. As luck would have it, Eltikan arrived at the castle with Shasnah and he seemed to have all of his tools."