Cold Magic

I saw no trace of my husband anywhere. Besides the grass, a ring of tumbled boulders patched with lichen was the only feature on the broad swell of the hill’s crest. At the lower limit of the stone ring partway down the steeper northern slope stood a proud oak that had not been visible from the fire circle. A tingling like the buzzing of bees trembled in the air as if an unseen presence did indeed reside here.



“There stood here once a shrine to Cernunnos the Hunter. In later years, it served also as an altar to Esus-at-the-Crossing, the Respected One, and another besides, whose name I cannot tell you. Yet now it sits neglected.”



The eru had walked up beside me. In daylight, her appearance as a perfectly ordinary—if quite tall—woman of Afric origins was so strong that I wondered how I had ever mistaken her for a man. I wondered if I had also mistaken the third eye seen in the mirror, or the sparks of her magic, or the storm she had raised. Yet it seemed unlikely that the Houses, with their strict adherence to tradition, would allow a woman to perform work they would consider fitted for men.



“I see only the one track. How can this be a crossroads?”



“Can that truly be all you see here?” As familiar as a family member, she rested a hand on my forearm.



The knife of sight cut through the foggy veil obscuring the pinewoods below. Another land lay beyond, smoky within the mist, a summer woodland vista of stately oak and proud ash in full leaf. The trees grew along a shallow valley marked particularly by a small lake heady with reed beds on the shore and a grassy hummock jutting up from the glittering waters. Andevai, or a cloudy apparition very like him, stood on the lake’s bank. His right arm moved as if he were releasing something. A bright object flashed in the sun—where had sun come from?—and splashed as it struck the surface of the waters. Then it was swallowed beneath.



The footman removed her hand from my sleeve, and all I saw was fog rising in thickening streamers within the black pine.



“What was that place?” I demanded, out of breath, my heart thudding in my chest as heat flushed my cheeks.



“What do you think it was?”



“Was that the spirit world? Are you really an eru? How else could you see from our world into the spirit world?”



“Is that what you think?” she asked with a smile that annoyed me.



“Why did you call me ‘cousin’?” I asked.



“Why do you think I did?”



“My mother’s people are the Belgae. They live in the far north, in the Barrens. My father wrote that you can see the ice from their villages. The Romans fought them. The mage Houses civilized them. So maybe her forebears had congress with those who live on the ice.” Certainly my mother had known there was something a little different about me. She’d warned me to keep quiet about it, as if she thought I had something that must be hidden. “Although as far as I know, my mother was perfectly human.”



“That seems likely, looking at you.”



I laughed, exhilarated, because I felt I was dueling with forces I did not understand. I could not understand it, but I did not fear her, not at all. “And I am the eldest Hassi Barahal daughter. My father’s lineage came out of Qart Hadast in the north of Africa. His people are Kena’ani sea traders, who in ancient days battled the Romans to a standstill. So that explains nothing. How are we cousins?”



“How are we not?”



“That’s not an answer! Isn’t it said the servants of the night court answer questions with questions?”



“Do you believe the courts exist?”



“How would I know? I know a lot of village tales about a day court and a night court that rule in the spirit world. I heard a distinguished lecturer once say that the courts are a metaphor, in the Greek style. That they’re simply a way for people to explain the cycle of winter and summer. Or that they’re a story about the natural reversals of fortune people experience over the course of their lives.”



“That is a story,” she agreed.



“Do you believe the day court and the night court exist?”



“Do you think I can answer that question?”



“I do think so, but I think you won’t. Scholars say the reason they have not been able to explain magic through scientific principles is because those who handle magic are so secretive.”



“To which I would answer, trust what your eyes see.” She wore no coat, only a flared jacket over loose trousers, all clean and neat and evidently without any susceptibility to the chill air that had now begun to seep even through the wool coat and into my bones because I was standing still.