The Wizard's Daughters: Twin Magic: Book 1 (7 page)

Erich took the other knives over to the leatherworker’s shop. He found that the man had already begun the scabbards he had requested, and only needed the knives for a final fitting. That took no more than the hour the smith had requested. The leatherworker had made six scabbards for him: one for each forearm, a double scabbard for the back of his swordbelt, and another double for the upper back of his corselet, which was not quite finished but that the man assured him would be done in another day or so. The last two knives were for his new boots, which he then went to check on. The cobbler promised them the next morning and was true to his word.

By midweek, Erich was finally back to where he preferred to be when it came to armaments. If his brother sent another band of killers after him when they got to Köln, he would at least be able to defend himself properly.

♦ ♦

On the fifth morning after being hired by Walther, Erich was sitting on his doorstep sharpening the throwing knives. The knives were well forged, but it appeared the smith had left the sharpening to his apprentices, and Erich was particular enough about these things to want to finish the job himself.

He had honed six of the eight knives into near invisibility when he noticed Hans Bergdahl lingering in the shadows of the house across the street, watching him. Hans started when he saw Erich meet his gaze, then froze.

Erich waved him over. After a few moments, Hans stepped forward.

“What do you want, boy?”

“Sir, I do not mean to intrude . . .”

“Yet you are doing so after I warned you and your friends not to.”

Hans was a thin, reedy youth with a high voice, but he did not strike Erich as a bad sort. Flow aside, he might have made a decent husband for one of the girls. Probably Astrid, who would have been able to manage him. He was not sure what Hans would have done with Ariel.

“I cannot help it. I love them so much.”

“Yet you cannot tell them apart, by your own admission.”

“I would take either of them.”

Erich shook his head.

“Boy, let me ask you something. Would you rather have a pretty wife or an ugly one?”

“Sir, a pretty one, most certainly.”

“Of course. But would you rather have an ugly wife who loved you or a pretty one who did not?”

“I . . . I . . . I would rather have a pretty wife who loved me.”

“Yes, wouldn’t we all? Let’s try something else. Suppose you had a pot of gold and it were sitting in the middle of the street. How you would defend it?”

“With my sword. I am well trained.”

Erich doubted that very much, but went on. “In your sleep? What would you do then?”

“I would take the pot of gold and shut it up in my house.”

“What if the pot of gold wanted to go out? What if it wanted to throw parties and be gay?”

“I—I do not understand.”

“What if every man in the town envied you that pot of gold, and schemed to take it away from you? Would you rather it was smaller, or perhaps filled with silver, or copper?”

A light dawned in Hans’ eyes.

“Perhaps silver.”

“From what I have seen, Ariel and Astrid are the prettiest girls in this town. Would you agree?”

“Yes, sir, most certainly.”

“Do you think you have more to offer them than any other man here?”

“I . . .” His face fell. “No.”

“A pretty wife is like that pot of gold. The prettier she is, the larger the pot. The larger the pot, the more you have to defend. Beautiful women know they are valued. If you want to keep them, you need to be able to protect them, defend them, make them feel valued and special, more valued and special than they would be with any other man. That is not an easy task.”

“No. I see that.”

“Women are different from men. It is not that they do not care if their husbands are handsome, but they need a great deal more than that. I would advise you to either lower your eye to a more reasonable match, or raise your worth.”

“Do you think I could one day be worthy of Ariel or Astrid?”

Erich rolled his eyes.

“A girl as pretty as they are? Perhaps. But these two are meant for other things. No amount of money or love will change that.”

Hans looked down sadly.

“I will take your advice. Thank you, sir.”

12.

Walther had disappeared into his workshop for the last five days to work on Fortitude, stopping only to doze briefly in the corner of the room or to consume something one or the other of his daughters brought in and insisted he eat before he expired.

They had all been through this routine many times before, and Ariel and Astrid had learned to check on him periodically, otherwise he would work until he fainted from exhaustion or lack of food. More than once after their mother (who had long since resigned herself to her husband’s obsessions and learned to accommodate them) passed away, they had come into the workshop to find him out cold on the floor. Since then, they knew not to leave him alone for more than half a day or so. Assuming he had eaten recently, when they found him asleep, they would place a blanket over him and leave him alone.

He had begun the project by completely disassembling Temperance, making his already cluttered workshop an absolute riot of brass. The parts he did not need or did not care to repair immediately went into a heap on the back workbench, a heap that rapidly spilled onto the floor. The parts he thought he could use went into another pile, while those he knew he needed were carefully (by his standards, at least) arranged on the center table.

Fortitude was a vastly different design from Temperance, which he had built to assist him around the house. This one was built to defend it. Temperance had been encased in a thin shell of brass; Fortitude was armored in steel. That was the main reason the automaton had taken so long to finish. Walther could work brass, but he needed the smith to create many of Fortitude’s key components. Not just its exterior but also its internal frame. Not all of the parts came back the way he wanted, and the smith had to redo them. (Walther paid him well, so he did not complain.)

The most difficult tasks had been complete for a while, but the project had taken so long and required so much effort that Walther had found it difficult to return to it and finish, at least until Temperance had self-destructed and Erich had shown up. Most of what remained was the internal wiring and controls, and finishing that really only required a few days of uninterrupted, albeit round-the-clock, work.

When Ariel came in with his dinner that night, Walther was staring at the maze of cables, gears, and pulleys in Fortitude’s torso, wondering if this thing was really going to work the way he wanted and feeling for the first time in nearly a week how tired he was.

“Father?”

Walther looked back at her, meeting her eyes for the first time in several days.

“Yes?”

“How are things going? Are you almost done?”

Walther sighed.

“Yes, I think so. I am tired. I am getting old.”

“You should sleep. You have not slept in days. Come over here and eat.”

Walther rose, and Ariel set his dinner down on the side table next to the chair in the corner, where he sat to think when he was working. He followed her over and sat down.

“How have things been? I’m sorry I have been so busy. What have you been doing?”

“Erich has been a good husband. Astrid’s baby is due any day now.”

Walther was so tired it took Ariel’s words several long moments to sink in.

“What did you say?”

Ariel smiled. “I am teasing, Father. Everything is fine. Please rest.”

Walther took a few bites of his dinner and stretched out in his chair. All right, he would rest for a bit. But not long; there was more to do, and he was almost done.

When Ariel left, he was snoring loudly, dinner forgotten.

♦ ♦

Ariel hated herself for it, but her promise to Erich survived only a few days. After getting her father to rest and getting the house in order that night, she finally spilled the news to her sister. It was just too interesting a secret to keep to herself.

“He really
is
a nobleman?” Astrid asked when she was done.

“Well, not anymore. He was disowned, like I said.”

“Do you really believe his story?”

“Yes. It did not seem like he was inventing any of it. He did not even want to tell me.”

Astrid was quiet a moment. “So why did he?”

“We were trading secrets. I told him about the freckle.”

Astrid’s eyes widened. “Not even Father knows about the freckle. At least I think he doesn't. Why would you tell him that?”

“I don’t know. He’s interesting. And I told him about how we must marry.”

Her sister was pensive. “I don’t suppose that matters. All the mages in Köln will know that soon.”

Ariel sighed. “I should so dearly like to marry someone like Erich. What if we must marry someone like Father, who only wants to sit in his workshop until he faints? I shall die of boredom if we do.”

“I don’t think there are mages like Erich.”

Ariel had a sudden thought. “What if he’s a mage and doesn’t know it?”

“How could he not know?”

“He said his father only let him learn about swordplay. He could have a talent that he’s never had a chance to develop.”

“That doesn’t happen.”

“It could.”

“It doesn’t,” Astrid shot back. “When you have a talent, you know. Father always said that. Even when we couldn’t do anything, before
deuolhud
, we still knew. No one becomes a mage at his age.”

♦ ♦

But Ariel could not get the idea out of her head. She lay awake long after they turned out the little automaton-lights on their nightstands, wondering.

Was there a way to know? Astrid had said several times there was something odd about Erich, and Ariel knew what she meant. Even after she had learned the truth about his past, she had felt there was something else there, maybe something Erich wasn’t even aware of himself.

It could be a talent. Erich could be their match, after all. She was surprised to realize how much the possibility thrilled her. He was handsome. He was interesting. He knew things and had done things, exciting things. She was sure that being his wife—while it might be unpredictable and occasionally frightening—would never, ever, be boring. He was old enough that she could feel she would respect him, but not so much older that she would feel like his child.

She had to know. But she could think of no way of telling. She did not dare breathe a word of this to Father, who probably did know a way, or would be able to invent a way of knowing, the same way he had invented the resonance cube.

There was a shot down her back like a bolt of lightning.

The resonance cube.
Of course!

Just as it had shown how she and Astrid shared the same flow, could it show her Erich was their match? Surely? If her flow, and Erich’s, were compatible, wouldn’t the cube be able to show her?

Whatever chance of sleep she had that night had now fled.

She hoped Erich was still awake, because she was going to have to wake him for this.

Rising as quietly as she could, so as not to wake Astrid, she left her bed and slipped out of their room. As she descended the stairs to the first floor, she could hear Father snoring away. That was good. She needed to get in there and find the resonance cube.

Tip-toeing down the hallway, she approached Father’s workshop. He had not moved since she left. If she knew him—and she had been through this too many times—he would sleep until tomorrow afternoon, if not later. She just needed to avoid waking him.

Where was it? The workshop looked as if Temperance had exploded in here rather than the entry hall. Father kept the resonance cube in the far corner, but that was now buried under brass bits of this and that. As carefully as she could, she moved things aside, looking for the familiar outlines of the cube. After several tense moments during which the whole pile threatened to collapse in a crescendo of brass, she decided it was no longer here.

Ariel stepped back, looking around. She was not certain now she would be able to spot the thing under the current mess if it was somewhere else. Fuming in frustration, she wondered if perhaps if was no longer even in the workshop. Father valued the resonance cube, unlike some of his other inventions. Would he risk ruining it by letting it get tangled up with Temperance’s broken innards?

In a flash of insight, she left the workshop and went across the hall to his sitting room. Along one wall there was a sideboard where he often stored things he was done building, but no longer needed.

Behind the third door, she found the resonance cube.

Fighting the thrill of success, she lifted it out and set it on the table between the two upholstered chairs. Now she was lacking only one thing: Erich.

As she approached his room beyond the kitchen, it suddenly occurred to her that she wore nothing but a thin nightdress. No man, other than Father—who paid it no mind—had ever seen her in such a state of undress. Her breasts were quite apparent, and the rest of her was only a little more concealed.

She paused, gathering her courage. No matter, she thought—he would be her husband soon, and she could let him see everything then.

There was a light in his room. She stepped up to it and tapped softly.

There was no response, and she tapped again, more firmly.

“Yes?”

She pushed the door open. He was lying on his bed, dressed only in his smallclothes, reading a book. His eyes widened when he saw her, and even more so when he got a better look at her.

Seeing in him wearing so little made her body suddenly hot all over. He was not quite as large as Stefan, but he had none of Stefan’s baker’s-boy softness. She could see nearly every muscle in his body.

“Ariel?”

“Yes.” She knew he would know it was her, somehow.

“What do you need?”

“Can you come with me?”

“Where?”

“Just come. I’ll explain.”

He rose from his bed, though warily, pausing to pull on his breeches. He followed her, and she led him back to the study. His face wrinkled in confusion when he saw the resonance cube.