My morning routine was disrupted somewhat by my alarm jolting me awake at my desk. I blearily inspected my desk, noting that I had seemingly finished my calculations and fallen asleep while trying to identify the interdictions.
“I have not betrayed you yet.” I wiped a bit of drool from my mouth as I spoke.
I knew from experience that trying to reverse engineer my work right after waking up was a fool’s errand, so I simply gathered all the papers and put them into my backpack.
I estimated I’d gotten about five hours of sleep, which wasn’t great but would hardly be an issue.
As I stood at the door, some distant thread told me I was missing a step, but it was quieted once I transformed from Claire the Girl to Claire the Witch.
“I have not betrayed you yet,” I said as I stepped out the door.
I could see Margaret in her workshop, which was already a surprise.
“Get up here and recharge the wards,” she called over her shoulder.
Accepting that my morning routine was thoroughly worthless, I climbed the stairs and pressed my hand against the anchor point on the wall. I staggered from backlash, surprised by whatever new ritual she’d included in the house wards.
Margaret might have just tried to kill me. Giving me too much backlash would be a good way to do it deniably. She didn’t gain anything from not warning me about it other than spite. Being prepared for backlash would let me reorganize my thoughts faster, which made me more useful to her.
I looked around the workshop, noting that I could no longer find Margaret. Since her assassination attempt had failed, she’d used her spell to hide again. What was the move from here? If I went downstairs to have breakfast, what message would that send? I wasn’t sure.
Instead, I turned and inspected the anchor point. It was a small black circle on the wall, hollow inside, with a drawn line running up it into the ceiling. The purpose of anchors like this was to allow a person to touch the ritual from farther away than the actual glyphs.
The wall was just as much loose wood as everything else in the house, an infuriating aesthetic. Parts of it even looked rotten. It was definitely too weak to be climbed. So how did Margaret get to wherever the glyphs were? Did she have to rearrange the house, like she somehow did to the first floor?
It had to be difficult, otherwise her assassination attempt would have worked. It was child’s play to construct a ritual that would drive its user insane. Picking glyphs and inner lines at random would produce one more often than not. Though that came with the risk of killing far more people than you wanted it to. It was a small miracle that no particularly reckless witch had destroyed an entire zip code yet.
Actually, maybe they had. What percentage of terrorist attacks globally were a cover for witchcraft gone wrong? That might indicate something about how much influence the Inquisition had within governments broadly. It couldn’t be easy to cover up something on that scale, but maybe people accepted it because they couldn’t imagine what else it could be.
Finally, mercifully, I gathered enough of my mind to remember the far more obvious solution to what I should do next.
“I have not betrayed you yet,” I told the air. Margaret reappeared in an instant, breathing heavily.
“Finally,” she said. Her one real eye glared at me harshly. “Another minute and I’d have killed you.”
It said something that I was allowed to see Margaret in this state of exhaustion. She normally went far out of her way to seem as though she had no limits.
“Have you identified the hedge witch yet?” Margaret asked. Her tone was insistent, demanding. What had changed overnight that made her care now?
“No,” I answered, picking my words carefully. “I have only been able to identify one of the glyphs so far.”
“Bah,” Margaret shook her head. “You aren’t going to find the hedge witch from the symbols they used. There are many, but not enough to make them a signature. Why did you not divine the author from their connection to the ritual itself?”
“Because I didn’t think of it.” That was a brilliant idea. You couldn’t make a ritual that complicated without leaving an impression. It might be enough to get something if I accepted the heavy backlash.
“Then you are a foolish girl,” Margaret said bluntly, before flicking her wrist. I was shocked to find yet another book animated into my hands. I just barely caught it and it still landed with enough force to knock the wind out of me.
I looked down at Threads That Bind by Lilian Rivers. Holy shit, Lilian Rivers.
“Leave the house, now,” Margaret ordered. I hesitated, trying to discern what her angle was. What the fuck was going on, giving me not one but two books? And then telling me to leave with them?
My uncertainty was met with a frozen pain in my chest.
“NOW!”
That was all the convincing I needed.
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I stifled a yawn just outside the Reston library. I went through my list of priorities once more.
1. Identify the bindings placed upon the spider. Determine if I can alter the spider ritual to change the targeting method. Do not think about why this is priority 1.
2. Obtain as much information from Crossplane Summonings and Threads That Bind as possible by the end of the day. This is an incredible opportunity that should not be missed.
3. Find Madison. Delegate to Lily?
4. Determine a method to identify the designer of the spider ritual. Divination: author/script connection? Retro-clairvoyance?
5. Dyer research. Subsidiary to priority 1.
6. Teach Lily to see unraveling/other breaks in continuity.
7. Find a better way to carry my ritual supplies.
8. Figure out what a GM is.
The list was growing quite rapidly. I’d need a better way to organize them soon.
I walked into the library, nodding at Rachael. She gave me an odd look for a few seconds before she spoke.
“Good morning Claire. I didn’t expect to see you at the supernatural studies club yesterday.” I paused, deciding on a whim to engage. “What made you decide to come?”
It took a second to compose an honest answer that wouldn’t prompt difficult questions.
“Lily wanted to go,” I said. Rachael gave me that same knowing grin she had when Lily and I left two days ago.
“So Lily’s her name this time, oh?” Rachael paused. “Wait, shouldn’t it be-”
“There are red lilies,” I cut her off, not wanting to lose this thread. “Has she been here before under a different name?”
Rachael shook her head.
“No, that’s not what I mean. You have quite a reputation among the library staff. They said you were taking a break, but clearly you’re back at it Casanova.” She sounded excited like it was gossip. Which I guess it was. “Everyone who has been here more than a year talks about it. It’s been so many girls for years at this point.”
It hadn’t, which was why it took me a moment to understand. Felicity’s glamour meant that when different people saw me with her and compared notes, they would see me with several other girls. The same people might even see differences if she shifted her glamour.
Oh god, what kind of reputation did I have? I’d basically grown up in this library with Felicity. Especially during the time she and I were dating…
“Um…” I floundered, not sure how to process this new information.
“I guess the roguish charm thing is in right now. Any chance you could tell me why you started again?” A possibility seemed to occur to her. “Oh! Did you get your heart broken and then suddenly a new girl reignited feelings you didn’t think you had any more?”
I blinked.
“Actually yes,” I said slowly. “That’s basically what happened.”
“I thought so. How romantic!”
Rachael seemed satisfied by that, so I left to find a study room to contemplate where my life went wrong.
----------------------------------------
I had identified the second interdiction from the spider ritual when Felicity called to ask which study room I was in. Just like she used to, she preferred calling to texting, even for quick things. She sounded startled when I answered the call, which was fair.
Felicity walked into the study room a few minutes later, finding me with notes and diagrams scattered across the table, just as always.
Her glamour had chosen the same outfit it did last evening, with the plaid shirt, blue sleeveless vest, and a long skirt. Other details, like the lack of lipstick, matched as well.
Maybe she didn’t want to make a scene in the library, though she could only do so much to suppress the inherent beauty of the glamour.
“Good morning,” she said as she found a seat. It was just to my right, like she used to.
Normally we didn’t talk much while I was researching, but the conversation with Rachael had prompted a question I thought I might get away with now.
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“Say, why does your glamour always look like the same person to me?” I knew for certain her appearance could change almost completely for other people, but I always got the same face. Her blond hair barely even changed color.
Felicity gave me a surprised look.
“Haven’t I told you that already?”
“You gave me a joke answer,” I shook my head. “I don’t remember what it was.”
Felicity tutted at me, the pouting extremely amusing.
“It wasn’t a joke,” she insisted. “I promised you I would stop changing when we first met. It’s been quite difficult to change anything but the details for you since.”
I read a note of hurt in her tone. Calculated, of course.
“That’s odd,” I said. I kept my hands busy, to seem less focused on the conversation than I was. “Do promises usually change your magic?”
Felicity shook her head.
“I doubt it would’ve done for almost anyone but you. Perhaps my mother.” Felicity never talked about her family. It was bait, a thread begging to be pulled, but I had to take it.
“I don’t see the common thread there,” I said. “Are you and your mother close?”
Felicity paused, green eyes searching my expression for something. She’d told me she was a runaway who became a hedge witch, but in hindsight the story was too implausible to be true. Felicity wasn’t a good enough witch to learn glamour so young without real training.
“I was. Not anymore though.” I thought that was it, but after a moment she continued hesitantly. “She and I have some disagreements that soured the relationship beyond repair. I wasn’t supposed to… never mind.”
There were several more threads to grasp at, but I let them fall. She seemed to regret what she’d told me already. Had I found a rare moment of vulnerability or was it another layer of ruse? It quickly became exhausting to talk to Felicity.
“Another question then.” I turned to her fully, letting my hands rest. This topic deserved my full attention. “Nathan.”
Felicity nodded, clearly expecting this question.
“No, he did not attempt anything untoward. We had not even kissed before I had the blade to his throat.”
“Then why did you do that?” I asked.
Felicity seemed somewhat embarrassed, pointedly staring at a spot on the table.
“I did not want you to assume that I had… done anything with him.”
I nodded. Of course she would have picked up on my jealousy, reading me was practically her job. Even I was surprised by the degree to which that jealousy had manifested. Still, it was reckless.
“Please don’t do stupid things like that for me. If he hadn’t turned out to be a hedge witch, we might have had to kill him anyway just to keep him from going to the police. It creates additional risk for all of us.” I wasn’t sure how far into mundane crimes Margaret’s protection from the police extended and I had no desire to test it. Felicity nodded solemnly and I decided to throw her a bone. “Aside from that, you did an excellent job yesterday. I didn’t miss that you checked the hotel room for anyone hiding before examining the ritual. And you got Nathan isolated without raising anyone’s suspicions.”
I returned to my research without looking to see her reaction, but I could practically feel the smile emanating from her. I tried to tell myself I had done that as part of stringing her along to keep her useful as a bodyguard. I knew I wouldn’t be able to say it out loud.
I was trying to find the third glyph, which I suspected of being a kill switch. The targeting glyph had been an interesting discovery, but I wanted to wait for Lily to talk about it.
I couldn’t believe I’d just said ‘the morning’ instead of giving an actual time. It was stupid and meant I’d probably be here until at least noon before I gave up hope.
----------------------------------------
At 10:12 am, my phone buzzed. I tried not to overreact to the sound, but from the amused look on Felicity’s face, I figured I had failed.
Lily: which study room?
Claire: 1C
A few minutes later, Lily stepped into the study room.
The first thing I noticed, with some amusement, was that her hairstyle had changed yet again. This time it was a straight, tight ponytail resting over her right shoulder. How long until she reused a hairstyle? It might be worth tracking.
She wore a gray graphic T-shirt with a logo I couldn’t recognize and denim shorts. Altogether, this was a far more casual version of Lily, though still just as beautiful.
Lily stopped in the doorway, inspecting me as I inspected her. Her brow furrowed and her gaze lingered a slightly embarrassing amount of time on my chest before moving on.
“She gets like this whenever she has a breakthrough,” Felicity explained. She seemed to have some context that I didn’t. “She probably fell asleep at her desk.”
“I’ve identified the bindings,” I told Lily. She stepped into the room and sat across from me while I found my papers. “So, the first one I was right about. Non-interaction, though an aggressive form. This one prohibits violence against anyone not marked as a target, even in self-defense.”
“Would you have used this one?” Lily asked. Her body language was tight and controlled like she’d been with Margaret. Was she scared of me after Nathan?
I gave the problem a minute’s thought, letting the puzzle disguise my worry.
“It depends on what the spider is for. If this is an assassin for one person like I think it is-” Lily’s eyebrows shot up, “-I’ll get there, I promise. So if it’s an assassin for one person, then probably. If you know the environment of your target is one that it can infiltrate, there’s no reason to kill more people than necessary. That’s assuming the people surrounding your target aren’t people you want dead anyway. But if this was a multi-purpose murder spider then no. This level of restriction forces it to use hit-and-run tactics and puts it in a lot of danger in situations where there are multiple war witches, like a coven.”
“Covens are very rare in this region. Margaret has spent a lot of effort stamping them out,” Felicity pointed out. I conceded to this with a nod.
“Now, the second glyph.” I found the appropriate paper after a few seconds of digging. “This is why I think it’s an assassin. The target is chosen once at the time of activation- mentally chosen. No way to know who that is, since this is applied to the spider itself. It takes a lot of work to put your thoughts into a format the gods can understand, so I bet whoever made this is a diviner or similar tradition.”
“But then how’d Nathan-” Lily stumbled over the name, which was worrying, “-how did he mark Professor Lansberg?”
“It’s really stupid,” I warned her. “When he cast the interdiction he didn’t even cast it right because he wasn’t a witch.” That was just guesswork, but it seemed likely. There was no way that boy had learned spellcraft in three days. “So the pseudo-spell did nothing but the summoning ritual still read the command to put a binding on the professor. And this version of non-interaction doesn’t affect marked targets.”
“So the spider attacks anyone with a binding on them?” Felicity asked, surprised.
“Yes- well sorta. The existence of a binding makes that person exempt from non-interaction, so the spider is free to hunt them down. Which it clearly enjoys. At least, it wasn’t being forced to kill you, which is probably why it waited for you to go to sleep.” I ran a hand through my hair in frustration. “Like I said, it’s stupid. This is the wrong non-interaction glyph to use for a preselected target. This version is used when your targeting mechanism is a binding of some sort, but since it wasn’t set up properly it excludes any binding. You’d have to be a horrible summoner to miss that, but everything else about this ritual would require you to be a great one. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“So Amy’s death was... an accident?” Lily said slowly.
“Probably,” I confirmed. “Well, maybe. She was the first one to die, so Madison might not have known for certain it would work or even what it would do. At a minimum, some amount is unintentional thanks to the idiot who built this ritual-”
“The third glyph?” Felicity prompted. Ah, we’d gotten sidetracked. I shuffled my papers until I found it.
“Yes, this one is interesting. It’s the one I was both the most right about and the most wrong. It is a kill switch but it isn’t- it doesn’t work like one. It automatically makes the spider kill itself once it has confirmed the target, the one set by the second glyph, is dead.”
I watched them both digest this information.
“So we cannot stop it,” Felicity spoke first. “We must hide any books with such a glyph until the assassin finishes its task.”
“We can’t just leave the primary target to die,” Lily objected. “Or the spider to suffer until it can kill... actually, why isn’t the primary target dead yet? Who could it not get to?”
“That is too many witches to name,” Felicity said. “We tend to keep secret how we protect ourselves, for obvious reasons. We cannot discern the primary target from the mere fact of their survival.”
“Primary target, that’s a good term...” I mused. I got strange looks from both of them. “Er, regardless, Felicity is right. We need to focus on containing this. I think I have all the books from the library with the glyph,” Felicity was almost as good a book gopher as Lily, “but I know we’re missing one that’s probably checked out. The staff know me, so I’ll see if they’ll tell me who has it.”
Felicity nodded.
“That very well could be Madison’s book. Either way, we need to recover it.”
Lily didn’t seem happy about the course of action we were deciding on, but she didn’t argue.
“Can you track Madison with magic?” she asked me. “I doubt she left the book behind if she ran.”
I nodded. I hadn’t been able to stop myself from going through what I knew of tracking divination last night.
“Probably, within a degree of certainty. Precision drops off over distance, so- well if she took a flight we probably won’t be able to tell more than the state even under ideal conditions. We have your interpersonal bond and if she marked you with interdiction, that’s magical entanglement. It’s the strongest type of connection since it’s already in a form the gods can understand. It’d be better if we hadn’t removed it, but- well obviously that wouldn’t have been worth it.”
“Would you and I have magical entanglement?” Lily asked curiously. That was a good sign she wasn’t too upset, so I jumped at the opportunity.
“Oh yeah, we have a ton by now. It’s part of why communication is the first spell every Witch of Weaving learns. Each lie I hear is a separate magical entanglement to the liar. Also, I used two rituals on you to remove the binding.”
“Would I have many entanglements or none?” Felicity asked. I hesitated. The truth was that I didn’t know, since I’d never divined her, though her glamour’s interference with communication implied that other divinations would face issues. But it could be dangerous to tell her how protected against me she was. Felicity, seeing my plight, retreated gracefully. “It was merely a passing curiosity. Pay it no mind.”
There was a pause as no one seemed sure how to continue the conversation. Lily broke the silence first.
“Felicity, does Jessie work today?”
“She does not,” Felicity shook her head. “However, I could tell her that the store needs someone for an emergency shift. If I offer her enough, it ought to get her out of the room for us.”
“Bring me back a hair,” I said. “Blood would be even better. Also grab something she values, if you know what that’d be. The more distinct forms of connection we have the better we can track her.”
They looked at me with surprise. Oh, they’d assumed I’d be coming with them.
“I do not wish to leave you here alone,” Felicity said. Lily seemed uncertain, but I couldn’t tell from what.
“When would someone have put a binding on me?” I pointed out. “Besides, I need to finish this research and the two of you can’t contribute anything more to that than carrying books.” I paused, reading the room. “Which you’re both great at, by the way.”
Lily rolled her eyes but Felicity stood up and curtsied.
“Thank you, your highness. I am but a humble book steward.”
I was thankfully too tired to be embarrassed by that.
As they left, I wondered if it was a mistake to leave Felicity alone with Lily. Felicity had already threatened her, so her return today might inspire further action. But the truth was I would be wasted out there. My calculations last night had confirmed that the spider was summoned by the Weaving and I couldn’t stop until I knew what that meant.