Chapter 17: Analysis

Marisol Aldaba inspected her wife under the Saturday sun as they lay by the pool. “I don't see any cottage cheese. I think you’re just fishing for compliments.”

“I’m serious. I can feel the cellulite gathering.” Wren took her upper thigh in her hands and made it jiggle. “This used to be firm, fit. Look at it now.”

Marisol rolled to her side and propped herself up on her elbow. “I’ve always loved your thick, warm thighs, sweetie. Now, they’re warmer and softer, and I still love them.” She reached over and gently stroked the thigh in question.

Wren enjoyed the delicious sensuality of her wife’s caress. Marisol’s eyes, huge and beautifully brown, stared deeply into her own. Rolling to her side to face her spouse, Wren bit her lip and tried to match the smoldering gaze she recieved. Desire gave her hand a will of its own as it reached to fondle—

“Hey, Mom!”

Both women flopped onto their backs and sighed.

“Hey, Mom, I can’t find my other shoe!” Freddy’s adolescent irresponsibility beckoned from inside. “Mom?”

“He hasn’t spotted us yet,” said Mari. “Maybe if we lay low, he’ll just go away?”

“Our son may not be able to find his shoes—”

“Or his belt, or his phone, or his house key, or his school assignments, or his—”

“Yeah, yeah. He can’t find any of that stuff, but—and you know it’s true—he has an infallible homing radar when it comes to jamming us up.”

“Mom? Are you outside? Is my shoe out there?”

Mari stood abruptly, then leaned down to kiss Wren. “I’ve got this,” she said. “You just try to remember what we were doing before we were interrupted.”

Wren’s amused grunt spoke volumes. Finding Freddy’s shoe might turn into an all-afternoon expedition into the uncharted chaos of the twelve-year-old’s room. She picked up her phone and checked the messages she had managed to ignore for an entire blissful morning by the pool with her wife.

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There had, of course, been an urgent message. She had tried to return the call, but no one picked up. She had told Mari she was needed at work and her wife had smiled a wistful smile and said, “That’s just our luck.” Mari’s graciousness, her understanding, made Wren feel as guilty as hell.

Now, she parked along the curb in front of Marci’s bungalow on Witzend St. Exiting the car, she was struck, as she was every time she visited, by the awe-inspiring mystical defenses Marci had erected around the entire block. Her second sight showed her enormous pillars of light that seemed to stretch from the core of the earth, through infinity, seemingly out beyond the ends of the known universe. The assorted interwoven wards and enchantments were present in such multitudes that it was difficult to discern the houses they protected until she shifted her vision out of the second sight. Wren marveled at the glorious unsubtlety of it all. The brazen obviousness of Marci’s defenses practically shouted, “Come and try it!” to any would-be challengers. As she strode up the front walk, she wondered what surprises might lay in wait for anyone stupid enough to attempt to break through and was glad it was not going to be her.

The front door opened as she mounted the porch. Marci’s voice came from within, “Tea?”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Yes, please,” Wren responded, stepping across the threshold and closing the door behind herself.

Marci stepped out of the kitchen, a glass of iced tea in her outstretched hand, a saucer balancing a cup of hot tea in the other.

Wren smiled and accepted the glass, taking a sip. It was just the way she liked it—or at least it had been the way she had liked it before Marisol had gotten her used to iced tea sweetened with stevia—too strong and almost sickeningly sweet. She sometimes missed the clean flavor of the sugar, but she did not miss the calories.

“Thanks,” Wren said, smiling to make sure Marci noted her appreciation. Long experience had taught her the older woman did not always pick up on emotional cues and she had learned in her time as Marci’s student to make sure her reactions were both obvious and unambiguous.

“Oh, not at all, dear,” Marci demurred. “It’s been too long since you’ve been over. I know you’ve been doing hush-hush, on-the-side things for Addie, acting as her ‘secret detective,’ ever since you so conspicuously left your apprenticeship. But it hasn’t been the same not having you here, sparring with Patty, or talking about sports.”

Wren took another sip of the tooth-achingly sweet tea. “Oh, Marci, you know I’ve missed the two of you, but I had to make things look like a clean break. It was the only way to try to have a normal family life—”

“—and to still be useful to Addie,” Marci finished for her. “No, Wren, no one blames you for following your heart. I do hold onto some small regrets regarding the loss of such a promising young student, but knowing you have been happy has provided a great deal of consolation. Shall we go down?”

The abrupt shift of their conversation threw Wren, momentarily. She had almost forgotten the abruptness with which her former teacher jumped from topic to topic, but she nodded. “The pantry?” she asked.

Marci nodded, and the two women proceeded into the kitchen, through the pantry, and down into the improbably large underground workspace the older woman used for her studies. Wren followed her to the four massive worktables in the center of the space. An array of lights on various types of arms and extensors loomed over each of these, but all remained unlit. Instead, the surfaces of three of these tables seemed to glow with their own illumination, revealing the details of what lay atop.

Wren followed Marci to one of the glowing tables. “This,” said the older woman, “is what remains of the trap that entangled you.”

Studying the fragments of the spellwork, Wren gave an involuntary shudder at the memory of being almost tied into a knot by the relentless pressure it had exerted upon the protective enchantments in her jewelry. When she looked up from it, she discovered Marci had moved to stand between the other two glowing tables.

“These,” said Marci, “are the two intact specimens of what you described as the ‘magical landmines’ that had been set around the club. Note that the tables nullify the auras of concealment that would ordinarily keep these hidden from most forms of the second sight, like the ‘flashlight’ you employ.”

As she drew closer and examined the thing on the table, Wren quickly concluded that her withdrawal from magical study posed a definite handicap to her chances of understanding what she was seeing. The fiendish complexity she had noted upon first encountering it made no sense at all, the illogic woven among the logical structures. “Any chance you’d explain these bits, here and here?” She gestured at what seemed the most blatant anomalies.

“At a guess, I’d say they were eighth-level bindings.” Marci adjusted her glasses meaningfully.

Wren absorbed the pronouncement for a moment. “Umm, it’s been a while since I’ve studied this kind of thing,” she admitted, “but the last I recall, the Binders only had five levels of bindings. Care to explain?”

Marci cleared her throat and pointed at what resembled a wavy rubber band composed of speckled light. “That is a sixth-level binding. We discovered the Binding had developed them a few years after you’d left your studies. I’ve never seen or heard of a seventh-level binding, but these,” she indicated the largest, strangest bits of spellcraft in the structure, “appear to be at least two orders of complexity beyond the sixth level.”

Sighing, Wren shook her head, then gestured to take in the entirety of the magical trap. “This doesn’t look like anything I’ve ever seen or even heard of coming out of the Binding. The parts of it that I understand have a precision, an intricacy that bunch isn’t known for. What’s your take?”

“The arrangements of the individual elements, the logic of it all, lead me to believe this was a joint effort between the Binders and someone trained by the Mothers, the Weavers, or even the Guild,” she said. “You and Addie will have to figure out the politics of it all.”

“Oh, joy,” Wren responded in a voice entirely devoid of that emotion.

“Quite,” agreed Marci.