Loyal Magic by Jenny Schwartz

Author:Jenny Schwartz [Schwartz, Jenny]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-05-26T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

The trouble with traveling via translocation is that it happens too fast. There’s no time to think. There’s certainly no time to get over whatever mood you’re in.

Dorotta landed on the roof of the magistrate hall in Justice.

I unbuckled my harness and slid down.

“I’ll carry your belongings in,” she said as soon as my booted feet hit the roof. It was flat, solid, a marvel of engineering—and of magic. Istvan had used magic to construct the hall and the foundations for the entire town.

Justice was a magistrate town. The hall occupied the center of it. Here, the Faerene residents treated me with courtesy. I was Istvan’s familiar. But outside of Justice… I stared south, at the horizon. Out there were threats that Istvan, for all of his power, couldn’t protect me from.

My pulse thundered overly loud and fast in my ears. I wasn’t used to prejudice. Certainly not to being the focus of it. I’d grown up sheltered by wealth. How did I fit my head around the knowledge that when the Faerene saw me it wasn’t as a person, but as a thing?

Post-apocalypse, humans were lesser beings on Earth. That was the real message of the Fae Council’s edict.

I managed a muttered “thank you” in Dorotta’s direction before running down the stairs. It wasn’t as if I could fight her for my belongings. She’d stowed my satchels and books in her larger satchel, strapped to her chest.

My bedroom with its private bathroom was next door to Istvan’s. With him absent, I’d be alone on the floor. Right now, being alone sounded good. I needed to calm down and think.

By descending from the roof rather than entering from the street, I managed to avoid everyone in my race for sanctuary. The second of the double doors to my room escaped my grasp and slammed shut. I bolted it and rested for a moment with my palms flat against the wood. Pushing away, I crossed to my desk.

Pencil. Paper. Get my thoughts straight. Neither a temper tantrum nor tears would help me.

Piros had called me a lightning rod.

I sat down and sketched a stick figure in the center of the page. If that was meant to be me, I needed to eat more.

Instead of smiling at my joke, I drew in Istvan. He resembled a chicken with four legs. Art had never been my thing. I drew an arrow between his figure and mine, and scrawled “human familiar” along it. My bond with Istvan was the main reason I was attracting attention.

I pushed away thoughts of what form that attention could take. I was in danger, but I needed to understand why and where from before I could devise a strategy to counter it.

“Magic.” I sketched a star around the word and linked it to both Istvan and me on the page.

A square got labelled “Fae Council”. Then I surrounded it with question marks. I didn’t know what the Fae Council wanted with me, or feared about me, but I also didn’t know it individually.

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