Tom's Study, Vauquelin House
Nkemi knelt forward again, and began to trace symbols of monite between the two lines which, together, marked the edge of the spell circle. She wrote, solemnly, lips moving silently in time with the words, well-practiced at drawing the runes with chalk; she had space enough, even in the small study, to repeat the same phrase over and over, again and again: two as one.
Nkemi eased back and rose, carefully. It was a circular plot, with smaller circles inside, swirled through – some whole, some open, other tangled together like linked chains. The largest link was at the center, and Nkemi stepped to it, and crouched into the center. Carefully, she wiped away the chalk at the center of the links, sweeping it into the small dustbin Anetol had handed her with his little brush, so that the linked chains were open – together.
Nkemi rose, and carried the brush and the dustbin out of the circle, setting them aside. She grinned at Anetol, heedless of the brush of chalk across the edge of her jaw, and the bits of it scattered over her fingers and arms. “Now you have seen Ugoulo’s connection,” Nkemi named the plot, cheerfully, looking back down at it.
She had drawn Ada’na Ugoulo’s plot many times; students studying clairvoyance at Thul’Amat began their practice in prodigiums made of wood marks, of stone or marble laid into the ground, or oscillators, where long centuries of use guaranteed a lack of mistakes. But no one graduated even the most basic classes without learning to draw, painstakingly, at least a few such prodigiums, and Ada’na Ugoulo’s had been part of the curriculum for many centures. Nkemi had drawn this same spell circle in chalk on pale stone ground swept clean of sand, and traced it with a stick into packed earth; she had marked it out in prefect offices, too, on more serious occasions.
Never, however, had Nkemi drawn it onto the wooden floor of a man’s study. She had not known where she and Anetol would meet for their practice; she had not, quite, expected that it would be the study where he had read poetry to her, perched on the arm of a comfortable chair before a warm, crackling fire.
Today, at least, had been sunny; there had been few enough clouds in the sky, and little wind to speak of either. With the clear sun had come a bitter cold, which had lingered, and what little warmth the sun had offered in the afternoon had gone, instantly, with nightfall. Anetol’s firelight and the lamp on his desk gleamed in the window; there was no trace of the distant dark city outside. The light caught all the dark leatherbound colors of his many books, and, too, lit his curly red hair and the curious little frown which pinched his face.
“Now we sit,” Nkemi said, cheerfully. She had left her heavy coat downstairs; she wore her warmest brown sweater, her orange scarf wrapped around her head, and a bright yellow one tucked comfortably around her neck. She grinned at Anetol; carefully, as she had explained to him, Nkemi took a seat on one side of the open link, her back facing the center of the plot.
It had not been like the last time they had cast together. Nkemi had written the spell out for Anetol in careful, precise monite; she had sketched the plot too, roughly, and drawn little x’s for him to show where they had sit. She had explained that he would start, first; his espial would reach into her vestibule, carefully defined. Nkemi would show him the feel of it, what it felt like when another caster tried to push you out.
That had been enough to start with; Nkemi had seen the shakiness in Anetol’s hands. She had seen too, and not known how to understand, something like hunger in his large gray eyes, although he had been polite, and had been clear to her that she did not need to do this. She was not sure how to tell him that she did; she was not sure how to tell him that his insistence otherwise only left her more sure.
Nkemi took a deep breath; her legs were crossed, red sock-clad feet tucked beneath her knees. She closed her eyes, and settled her hands onto her knees, one on each side. She had her own cast to do, her own quiet chanting to weave beneath his; it was not a true spell, but rather the quiet repetition of an invocation, again and again, to tie her to the mona and strengthen her mind for the spell. It was how she had learned; it was how she had, after much consideration, decided to teach.
“I am ready.” Nkemi promised, quietly, straight-backed and upright in the lantern’s glow, surrounded by circles and swirls and runes. She grinned, all the same, white teeth gleaming in the light. “And you?”