Illuminations by T. Kingfisher

Author:T. Kingfisher
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: T. Kingfisher

TWENTY-ONE

“…huh?” said Rosa, but Serena was already dragging her into the bedroom.

Serena’s bedroom was in shambles. It was never terribly neat, even at the best of times, but it looked as if someone had torn it apart. The sheets were piled in the middle of the bed, the drawers were hanging open and everything on top of the dressers had been swept onto the floor.

“Whoa,” said Rosa, standing in the middle of the wreckage. “What happened?”

“What?” Serena looked at her, then around the room. “Oh! That. I did that. I was trying to find it!”

“Find what?” asked Rosa, who was starting to get a sinking feeling in her stomach.

“Whatever’s drawing all over my stuff!” said Serena, and shoved a jar into Rosa’s hands. “Look! It’s like the thing that happened at your house!”

Rosa looked down at the jar. It had a gryphon painted carefully on the lid. She recognized the gryphon immediately—it was the sort that Serena usually drew, the way that Rosa drew radishes—but she had to admit that Serena had done a very good job on it. It was clearly an illumination, though it wasn’t very powerful. Rosa could feel the magic against her fingers. Serena’s magic felt like faint, fuzzy velvet. When her friend grew into her power, Rosa thought, her magic would feel like thick, soft fur.

Unfortunately the gryphon now had a mustache and glasses drawn on it and there was a long flappy tongue sticking out of its beak.

“Someone did this at your studio too, right?” said Serena. “I saw the drawing on the door when I came for white paint!”

Rosa shook her head slowly, not because Serena was wrong but because she didn’t know what to say. This was worrying. More than that, it was weird.

The Scarling was still at the Studio Mandolini, or at least close by it. It was still leaving drawings everywhere. Surely it couldn’t have come all the way here? How long did it take a mandrake root to walk anywhere, anyway?

“When did this start?” asked Rosa.

“Night before last,” said Serena. “I didn’t know what to think. But whoever it is only got two of them, but then last night they came and drew on some of the others! I had the jars that weren’t ruined hidden and they didn’t move them but they drew all over them! And I was asleep in here the whole time!”

It has to be a scribbling. It must have gotten here somehow. Maybe it rode over when Serena picked up the paint. This was a much better thought than that the scribblings were traveling multiple blocks on their own. “There’s…um…something going on at the studio, yeah. Drawings on stuff.” She ran her finger around the edge of the jar. “The illumination still works,” she said with relief. “It’s still magic.” If it had been the Scarling, the gryphon wouldn’t have been anything but a painting. Probably. Unless Serena had started cleaning it before the drawing had a chance to work.

“Well, yeah,” said Serena. “I painted it! And a bunch more like it.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.