“We're on the porch,” Seph called back.
A moment later, Jack joined them. “Hey, Nick. Hey, Seph. I think I aced my government exam, even though I didn't get to study.” He sprawled into one of the Adirondack chairs, seeming to fill up the porch with his raw physical presence.
“Hey,” Jack said. “Did you hear there was some kind of Satanic sacrifice on the commons?”
They filled Jack in on the news. “So Will's Uncle Ross thinks you're a practitioner of the Old Religion?”
“Old Religion?” Seph looked from one to the other for explanation. “Is that like Old Magic?”
“No. This is a kind of blood magic that predates wizardry,” Nick explained. “It goes back to the polytheism that existed before the Anglo Saxons came to Britain. Their ceremonies focused on animal sacrifice, sometimes human sacrifice.” Seph shuddered, and the old man smiled reassuringly. “Don't worry, Seph. Like the other gifts of the Weir, wizardry is not a religion. It's a gift, and a talent and a calling. It's compatible with Catholicism, or any other faith. You would be surprised how many well-known defenders of the faith have been Weir.”
Maybe. But when Seph thought of the display on the commons, it reminded him of the ritual at the amphitheater at the Havens, Trevor's neck chain in the ashes.
It didn't help when Ross Childers brought Linda home in late afternoon to report that the BMW was a total loss.
“I've never seen anything like it,” he said, shaking his head, watching Seph for a reaction. “They slashed the seats to ribbons and then they set the thing on fire. How they got it to burn, I have no idea. It burned so hot the tires were melted to four puddles on the asphalt. It would've been hard to even tell what make it was, but they wrote your name on the pavement, just like they did at the fountain.” He whistled, like he was glad it wasn't him. “You got any enemies Seph?”
Once school ended, Jack and Ellen and their friends Will Childers and Harmon Fitch were in and out of the house all day long. Fitch was tall and lanky, with bleached-blond hair, glasses, and an uncanny ability to speak to computers in their own language. He spent several days helping Seph build a new computer system to replace the one he'd left at the Havens.
Fitch had his own computer consulting and Web page development business, counting among his customers the school board, Trinity College, the town government, and chamber of commerce. He also had several major corporate customers in Cleveland.
Seph began working for Fitch part time, writing basic HTML code, taking digital photos for the sites, and calling on clients, since Fitch's edgy thrift-shop attire freaked some of the corporate customers.
They worked for several weeks installing the hardware for the first citywide wireless network. Fitch danced on rooftops like some kind of manic digital maestro in a Wi-Fi headset, waving his arms and crying, “More power! Need more power!”
Fitch rented space on the second floor of Blaise's shop, since his four younger brothers and sisters made it impossible to work at home. The room was lined with servers and flat screens. On Monday nights he hosted a Multimedia Monday Monster Movie Megafest (5M).
While Fitch wasn't a member of any of the magical guilds, Seph was reminded that there are many kinds of gifts. Fitch had the ability to turn out the lights on the entire county or change any grade at Trinity High School.
Seph also worked part time for Harold Fry down at the docks, helping in the charter office and filling in dockside. He found he enjoyed the physical labor at the harbor. His skin resisted the sun, as always, but his body filled out, morphing from gaunt to lean and muscular.
One night, Jack and Ellen invited Seph to something called a plaisance at heavily wooded Perry Park. Jack parked the Subaru in a secluded spot, and he and Ellen retrieved their swords from the trunk. The three of them hiked more than a mile through the woods to a hidden meadow. Jack paced the perimeter, throwing up a kind of magical barrier with quick, impatient gestures, while Seph trailed behind, making mental notes on the charms he used.
Ellen stood, relaxed, waiting at the center of the field, the late-day sun glinting off her blade. When Jack was finished, he strode toward her, stopping a short distance away, facing her. They both inclined their heads, grinning like they were about to be married. Seph had his instructions, and when he saw they were ready, he said, “Go to.”
It was the remarkable dance of two gifted athletes, evenly matched. They covered the meadow, moving furiously forward and back, thrust and parry, attack and then retreat, calling challenges to each other, trading insults and promises. The forest rang with the clash of their blades, and flames spun and sparkled among the trees. Seph called time every fifteen minutes, and they battled to a draw after four bouts.
Although the heat of the day had gone, they were both soaked in sweat, practically steaming. Ellen drank long and deep from her water bottle and wiped her mouth with her gauntleted arm. “Are you feeling all right, Jack? Your play's flat, all in all. I was hoping to give Seph more of a show.”
Jack tested the edge of his blade with his thumb. “Actually, Ellen, I wondered if you were coming down with something. You were downright lethargic. I nearly dozed off once or twice.”
“Well, that explains it. You looked like you were asleep.”
With that, they threw down their weapons and it dissolved into a wrestling match. In the end they were kissing each other.
It was certainly a different kind of courtship, but there was a chemistry, an understanding, a kinship between Jack and Ellen that Seph envied.
The Weir colony of Jefferson Street embraced him, and he made the most of the opportunity, marshaling weapons for a battle that might never take place.
Mercedes Foster, weaver and sorcerer, invited him into her garden, being careful to warn him away from the poisonous plants that grew there. In the kitchen of her cottage, she made dyes and love potions and memory cures. Soon Seph was helping her with potions and extractions, scanning through her recipes for poisons and hypnotics, committing them to memory. He asked questions about talismans like the dyrne sefa and borrowed her books on the subject.
She was less cooperative when he asked about Flame, the drug Alicia had used on him in Toronto. They were in her kitchen, drying trays of plants in her oven.
“I hear sorcerers make it for the trade,” Seph said. “It's also called Mind-Burner.”
Mercedes fixed him with her sharp, birdlike gaze and put her hands on her bony hips. “I don't know how to make it, and I wouldn't tell you if I did. I don't believe in trading away your future for a little extra power in the present.”
She wouldn't say anything more about it, but he found several recipes for it in old texts, written in Latin.
Blaise Highbourne, seer and silversmith, demonstrated the art of lost wax casting and showed Seph how to make silver wire jewelry. He also explained the irony of prophecy: the fact that it is always true, but often misleading. Iris Bolingame, wizard and glass artist, showed him how to capture space with blown glass, to wrap bits of glass with copper foil, and solder them together. She also shared charms and incantations from her own Weirbook. While Nick carefully edited the information he shared with Seph, Iris did not.
It wasn't long before a walk down Jefferson Street was like running a gauntlet. Mercedes had a new plant to show him, or berries to send back to Becka. Blaise wanted to share a book with him, and Iris had another trick of wizardry for him to try. He couldn't make a move out of the house without reports flowing back to Becka and Linda.
“Welcome to life in a small town,” Jack said dryly. “Where everybody makes it their business to put their noses in yours.”
The perpetrators of the sacrifice on the commons were never apprehended. Ross Childers dropped by occasionally to update Linda and Seph about it, but the investigation went nowhere. Seph saw no more signs of the alumni.
Seph joined St. Catherine's, the Catholic church by the university. He usually attended on Friday nights, when the masses were in Latin.
Though Jack had said that Linda never lingered very long in Trinity, she seemed in no hurry to leave. Seph helped Nick finish wallpapering the room upstairs, and Jack helped him pick out a new sound system.
Linda still refused to allow Seph to leave the sanctuary. When Becka invited Seph to go to Niagara on the Lake with her and Jack for the Shaw festival, Linda kept Seph in Trinity with her.
He argued with her to let him go to Canada. “Don't you think it's safe now? I can't stay locked up in here forever.” It had been more than a month since their encounter with the alumni, and there was no sign of invasion of the sanctuary. But Linda was unmoved.
When he wasn't working, Seph spent long days at the public beach with Jack and his friends once the weather turned hot. It was lorded over by cliffs, with clear, cold water and pebbled sand that sparkled with quartz when the water retreated. Jack taught Seph to windsurf, and he found he had a talent for keeping the frail board upright and driving forward in long slaloms, parallel to the shore.
Best of all, after his long dry season at the Havens, there were girls.
“Anaweir women can't resist wizards,” Jason had said. Once, the notion had made Seph feel uneasy. Now he flexed his wizard muscles in every way he could.
He flirted with the year-round residents and summer girls, ate their chocolate-chip cookies and fruit salad, and smoothed sunblock into their sun-warmed skin. He danced with them at the beach pavilion on Friday and Saturday nights and stole kisses under the pier. He stayed out late, since Linda was unaccustomed to enforcing curfews.
Despite his late hours, most mornings he rose early and walked to the lake, grappling with memories that kept him from sleep. Jason, Jason's father, and Trevor were dead, but Gregory Leicester still lived, spinning his intrigues, effectively imprisoning Seph within the Sanctuary. Seph was building his arsenal of magic, but he had no way to use it against his enemy—and no way to connect with the Dragon, who might be able to use the information Seph had.
When he walked in the mornings, he often saw the same girl sitting on the rocks at the water's edge, her fair head bent over her sketchbook, one knee up, the other straight, her bare feet braced against stone. Her hand danced over the page, laying down shape and color. She frowned as she concentrated, her lower lip caught behind her teeth. Sometimes she swiped at her face with the back of her hand, leaving a smear of color.