Heroes Return (23 page)

I had the feeling that reaction would be getting really annoying really fast.

“Good day,” I said, struggling for decorum. “I understand you make and sell dyes.”

“I do,” she said with a smirk. “Dye for what?”

What did she think? She was going to make me say it? “For my hair.” And I didn’t have the slightest snap in my tone. I was pleased.

“Please come in.” She stood aside.

Did I have to? It was sure to smell even worse. I stepped through the door, and yes, it definitely did. How did she bear it?

“My apologies for the disorder, my dear,” the woman said. “I’m making indigo. That’s always aromatic.”

“Aromatic” was a cruel understatement. The stench was as brutal as a weapon, sending edges of steel scraping out the back of my nose and clogging my throat. It was vicious. “Ah,” I said.

“Let’s see it, then.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Your hair.”

Blunt people made me insane. “Is that really necessary?”

“I have to know what you’ve done before I can know if I can fix it.”

I supposed that could be true, though I suspected it was more a matter of her wanting to entertain herself. Reluctantly, I unpinned and unfolded the pillowcase from my hair. She started laughing before my hair was fully free.

“If you’re quite done,” I said.

And she laughed a few moments more before calming down and saying, “You didn’t dye your hair that color.”

“I certainly wasn’t born with it.”

“I mean you didn’t dye it to get it that color.”

“No, I wanted it to be black.”

She looked frustrated and I didn’t blame her, for yes, I was deliberately misunderstanding her. Her enjoyment of my embarrassment annoyed me. “How did your hair come to turn green?” she demanded.

I wasn’t going to tell her that. Casting was illegal. Or pretending to cast was. Certainly, possessing the tools of casting was illegal. I didn’t want this woman running to the Imperial Guards.

She took the choice out of my hands. “You tried some kind of spell, didn’t you?”

“I most certainly did not.”

“There’s no dye that can get a color that solid, that thorough. That’s a spell.”

“No, it wasn’t.” I should just shut my mouth. The more I spoke, the less convincing I sounded, even to my own ears.

“I can’t help you,” Rounder told me. “Nothing I make can do anything about that.”

She couldn’t help me. Really? My hair was going to stay green? For how long? Until it grew out? That would take years. And in the meantime, I would have to shave myself bald. Because regardless of what I’d told Taro, I wasn’t prepared to walk around with green hair.

“You need to see Healer Browne,” she told me.

“I’m neither sick nor injured.”

“You need to see Healer Browne,” she repeated with greater emphasis on the words.

“Do I?” Was she saying Browne knew something about casting? Did Browne cast herself?

“She can help you if anyone can.”

“Thank you.” My hope renewed, I gladly left the malodorous cottage and hoped I didn’t carry the stench with me.

If the grimace on Browne’s face when she opened the door was any indication, I did indeed stink. “I was just at the dye maker’s,” I said quickly.

“Why does that mean you have to come here?” she demanded.

“Dyer Rounder suggested I come here.”

“Why?”

I pulled the pillowcase off my head.

Predictably, Browne laughed. For a long time. “I guess I don’t have to hide from you the fact that I cast spells. Did you follow the spell exactly?”

“No.”

“You didn’t?”

“Not precisely.”

“That was fairly stupid, don’t you think?”

“It’s a spell. It’s not supposed to work.”

“So why were you doing it?”

My idiocy laid bare, I shrugged.

“I’m not sure,” she said, “but I imagine it’s meant to be only temporary. Your hair will probably change back in time.”

That was a relief, sort of. “How much time?”

“Didn’t the instructions say?”

“No.” I was pretty sure they hadn’t.

“And yet you tried it anyway?”

“I really hadn’t expected it to work at all.”

Browne snickered.

“Can you do anything for me?” Or not, I wanted to ask as well, but that seemed too obnoxious.

“I can brew you a cup of tea and listen while you tell me exactly what you did. Maybe there is a way to fix this.”

I didn’t want to linger. I wanted to be told how to end the spell and to run back to the manor to hide. But she was filling a kettle and I felt obligated to stay, so I did, sitting at a table that was piled high with chopped greenery and vegetables. I wondered whether they were ingredients for healing, casting, or breakfast.

Having given up on trying to be discreet about my behavior, I was brutally honest with Browne about the steps that I had skipped or adjusted, and in each case Browne tsked in disapproval. “These things are written as they are for a reason,” she chided.

“To make them appear more impressive.” It wouldn’t create much awe if there weren’t a series of tests to meet first, would it?

“Why do you dabble in things for which you have no respect? That is the worst sort of person.”

Really? The worst sort of person? Worse than murderers and tax collectors?

Though I could understand, a little, what she was getting at. I shouldn’t be interfering in things I wasn’t prepared to take seriously. I knew the power of casting was real. I had seen spells, performed poorly, do a great deal of damage. I had been stupid.

But here was the thing. I had cast a spell. That reality was taking a while to seep into my brain, but that was the truth. People all over the world had believed in casting for years. More and more people were coming to think that casting was real. A spell had been cast on my person. And now I had cast a spell, though I had made a hash of it. It was remarkable. “So you are an expert in the use of spells?”

“I wouldn’t say I’m an expert. I know certain things. And I can cast spells and have them work.”

“But it appears not everyone can. Why is that?”

“There are a number of reasons. For some, reading isn’t easy. Casting a spell needs a strong will and sharp focus. Those can be improved upon with training and practice, but not everyone has those qualities, while some have them in abundance. Like everything else, there are those who will take to it easily and those who will never be able to do it at all. And then, of course, spells won’t work at all unless they’re performed in a place of power.”

“Place of power? The book didn’t mention that.”

“Are you sure? There was no mention in the chapter at the beginning that told you how to prepare yourself?”

That would have been the chapter I’d skipped as unnecessary. Because I’d learned about preparation in other books I’d read while still in High Scape, and now that I thought of it, I obviously hadn’t remembered enough about it. Because I remembered now reading about places of power, namely, where the three rivers met. People had been anxious to have control over that area. “Not that I recall.”

“Hmph,” said Browne, and I had a feeling she didn’t believe me. “It is said that only certain places foster the ability in people to cast spells. There are few such places now, but they are growing in number.”

“Really.”

“My grandmother would tell stories of when she was a girl, that that was when the power started coming to Flown Raven. It was weak at first, and grew stronger over her lifetime.”

“Do you think it’s as strong as it’s going to get?”

“Not at all.”

That was a horrible thing to hear. Because if this thing was growing, and more people were going to be using it, there would be chaos. I just didn’t trust people to use this properly.

Shortly after Taro and I had been bonded, a bitter rogue Source named Stevan Creol had abducted Taro. Creol had discovered how to create disasters and had been using that ability to attack High Scape. Taro, the most able Source in High Scape, had been able to stop Creol’s attacks. And so Creol had had him kidnapped.

Witnessing Creol’s behavior had enabled Taro to imitate it. He could create disasters and, like Creol, could cause small areas of soil to shift. Off his own bat, he had the limited ability to heal.

None of these was a traditional Source ability.

Just as my ability to tamper with the weather was not a traditional skill of a Shield.

Was it all connected? Reid sort of suggested it could be. “What do you think I should do?” I asked.

“Wait a few days to see if your natural color returns. If it doesn’t, try for black again using the proper steps. A properly cast spell should allow your hair to change back to its natural color in time.”

“I don’t know how to get lark’s lard,” I protested.

“Send word to me. I’ll get you all the proper ingredients.”

“Really?” That was generous of her.

“And sometime, when I need help, you can do me a favor.”

Ah. See, that was the problem. She was required to give me what I asked for.

Except I wasn’t asking for healing. I was asking for supplies for spells which, as far as I knew, weren’t part of her trade. A Shield couldn’t just go around demanding the personal possessions of people. Especially when said possessions were sort of illegal.

But a Shield wasn’t supposed to be beholden to anyone.

“Is there a problem?” Browne asked in the face of my indecision.

This wasn’t just about my hair. People were using spells, and I had the ability to understand what they did. It was important that I know what casting meant. “No, none at all.” I would deal with the repercussions when I had to.

“Do we have an agreement?”

“We do.” I would just hope my hair changed back naturally. And if it didn’t, well, I’d figure something out.

I left Browne’s cottage soon after that. Unfortunately, I passed three people on the way back to the manor. All three of them stared at the pillowcase I’d had difficulty repinning to my head, and then grimaced and cut me a wide berth. This made it brutally clear that I carried the stench of the dyer’s cottage with me. What would they think of me?

Then I entered the manor, and found Bailey blocking my path. “Something wrong, Bailey?”

“My apologies, Shield Mallorough,” he said, and from the way his hand lifted from his side I fancied he was an instant away from holding his nose. “Though it may cost me my position, I can’t let you in. The smell will get into everything.”

“I don’t want you fired, Bailey,” I grumbled. “But how am I to rectify the situation if I can’t bathe?”

“Please go around to the back near the kitchen,” he said. “Maybe I can arrange something.”

All right, this was getting ridiculous. If he wanted to smell something bad, he should go to the dyer’s cottage. And the healer seemed to have endured my scent without real difficulty. But I traipsed to the back of the manor, where a bathtub had already been carried out and a stand placed beside it. Three roasting irons had been plunged into the ground, forming a triangle around the tub. Two maids were engaged in suspending sheets from the irons in order to, I assumed, provide me with some privacy while I sat in the tub.

Bathing outside. Just lovely.

One maid grimaced, presumably at the smell I carried. The other slapped the first maid’s arm in rebuke. “We’re boiling water for you now, ma’am,” the second maid said. “And we’ve got women guarding all the windows, so none of the men get a peek.”

I hadn’t even considered the possibility of men watching through the upper windows, and I would have preferred to remain ignorant. It was embarrassing enough that the whole household was involved in giving me a bath because I stank so badly they couldn’t let me in the manor.

Oh, but the embarrassment didn’t end there, for once the tub had been filled with steaming water, the maids collected from me everything I wore, for the purposes of burning it. That included the pillowcase on my head. There was nothing for it. I took out the pins and revealed my grassy green hair.

The maids stared at it, openmouthed. “How did you get it that color, ma’am?” the first one asked.

“I’m not prepared to say.”

“But why is it—” The second maid slapped her again, to shut her up.

What a perfect day.

I got in the tub and scrubbed until my skin was pink. Once the water cooled, the tub was emptied and filled again, for the smell was still strong. The upper maids, the housekeeper, the kitchen staff, all the women of the household stopped by to recoil at my scent and offer me bizarre methods of getting rid of it.

Oh, but the best moment had to be when my sophisticated, beautiful, never-a-hair-out-of-place Source arrived and looked over the barricade of sheets. “They taught me about Shields at the Academy,” he said. “I was told Shields were sober people, cautious in thought and deed, temperate of mind and mood.”

Oh, shut up.

“Where were all those Shields at my Matching?”

If I had had something to throw at him, I would have.

“Surely I deserved such a worthy creature.”

I had all sorts of ideas about what he deserved.

“That figure of grace and discipline who never—”

“Do you want me to cut off all your hair while you sleep?” I asked him. “Because you’re riding to it.”

He grinned and then winked, the prat.

I spent several hours bathing, scrubbing until the skin around my nails began to bleed and it was deemed unsafe for me to continue scrubbing. My curiosity as to whether the smell I thought was still clinging to me might be only in my mind was determined for me when Taro forced me to sleep on the settee in our sitting room. He was laughing as he did it.

On a more positive note, when I woke the next day my hair had resumed its natural hue.