Spliced

“Back already?” Wolf asked in surprise as he looked up from his work to see Amanda standing back in his cabin. No Lily behind her this time.

She waved a hand. “I needed a ride, and another horse needed the exercise. I also wanted to talk to you without Lily present.”

“Why’d you bring her before then?” Wolf continued moving things about. It looked like he was in the middle of another spell.

Amanda didn’t reply but Wolf glanced at her and read the answer in her expression. “You thought she might turn.” There was a sense of superiority in his tone, something that sounded a little too close to ‘I told you so.’

“I wasn’t sure,” Amanda corrected firmly.

Wolf didn’t press the issue.

“What are you working on?”

The table was smeared in charcoal, chamomile flowers, and blood.

Wolf frowned. “Another dreamwalking spell. So far they’re all variations of useless.”

“You should get Cat to help.”

“She did for a bit the other day but then she got bored.” Wolf spoke those last two words in a slightly higher pitch. The tone was a tad mocking.

Amanda smiled and watched him work for a bit.

Eventually he gave her a sideways glance. “If you’re here to talk about Lily again, I’m not really in the mood.”

She gestured at his spell. “Well I also wanted to ask how the hunt for the dreamweaver was going but you’ve answered that question.”

Wolf raised and lowered his eyebrows in acknowledgement.

Amanda could sense frustration and she hesitated a moment. She did want to talk about Lily some more but perhaps that was better to wait. There was still the other reason she had come. “Katrina’s awake, and up and about.”

Wolf paused in his spell-crafting to look up and Amanda could see his expression relax slightly.

“She say where she got the vase?”

Amanda nodded. “I suspect the same place Coal got his.”

Wolf’s eyebrows knotted in confusion.

“Coal has one just like it,” she continued.

“What?” It took a few moments for her words to sink in. “How do you know?”

“Only his is in red. Katrina saw it at his house.” She waved away his next question and continued. “Apparently she got this one from the Milton house. One of the artifacts they pulled out of it. I took her and Gemma with me when I went to see how Coal’s people were getting along with emptying that house.”

And just like that Wolf’s expression changed from one of confusion to one of realisation.

He grabbed the box the blue vase still lay in and tilted it toward her. “Does that look like an urn to you?” he asked.

Amanda studied it. “I suppose it does now that you mention it.”

Wolf nodded as if suddenly everything made sense.

“Does that mean something to you?” Amanda asked.

He nodded. “Necromancy magic likely, and if it’s from the Milton Estate... you remember what I said about Mrs Milton sacrificing her family members for youth, well I was kind of joking but it was based in some truth too. The reason I brought it up was because I found an old book which mentioned her family.”

He left his half finished spell on the table and jumped up to go and retrieve another book. He laid it out on the table for her. “See in the pictures, same face, different names. Note here years apart. And here see this one, this woman, Anya Kenton, her granddaughter apparently vanished in 1820 only to turn up a few years later exactly the same day her grandma died. Looks a little different though doesn’t she.”

Amanda stared down at the photos. It was hard to tell if it was the same girl or not. There was definitely a resemblance though. “She’s grown up a bit...”

“Mmm.” Wolf smiled. “Uncanny how much she looks like her grandma isn’t it?”

“But that would mean she de-aged herself. I mean regaining and keeping youth is one thing, that’s just really good healing, but to actually regress to a child state. That’s not possible. There’s no magic that can do that.”

Wolf considered it. “There’s illusions.”

“Then why not look more like the girl? And can you imagine the energy maintaining something like that?”

Wolf frowned.

Amanda glanced toward the urn. “You think that’s what she used?”

“Maybe.”

“You think it could help Lily?”

Wolf’s frown deepened considerably. “We don’t even know what it is and I have no doubt that this is some nasty blood magic. It won’t come free.”

“Maybe we could find someone who deserves it.” She spoke slowly, uncertainly.

Wolf narrowed his eyes. “I believe that’s exactly what Lily’s father had in mind when he tried to kill us. A lot of those names Indi turned up were criminals. Even we aren’t exactly an exception. Cat has a record, petty theft, grand larceny, aiding and abetting. Sirius is known to smuggle things of questionable origin and purpose-”

“Nothing too bad,” Amanda objected.

Wolf continued. “And Kass. I don’t know exactly what she’s done but I know it’s enough for several lives worth of penance even in the most forgiving society-”

“And Indi?”

Wolf hesitated. He looked sad for a moment. “She’s the exception, and Falco, and Zeph I suppose.”

“Not me?” Amanda gave him an amused smirk.

“You’re harbouring a zombie.”

“And you’re aiding and abetting. Technically you all are.”

“You’re making my point for me.”

Amanda crossed her arms. “Well, maybe I don’t think he was so wrong to do what he did.”

“He nearly killed us.”

“A mistake. He didn’t know who we were. He didn’t know we’re...” The word ‘good’ died on her lips.

“Did you see the numbers? How many lives he had to end.”

Amanda was quiet a moment as she considered that. “Why didn’t his spell work, if he had that many sacrifices?”

“Because it’s not just about the blood,” Wolf answered, partially glad to have gotten the chance to clarify the assumption she’d made earlier in the day. “There’s more to it. Either his method was shit or his magic was basic or both.”

“Maybe if I did it,” Amanda wondered aloud.

“Don’t be so arrogant,” Wolf spat back and gave her a full stare.

She didn’t flinch.

For a full five seconds they matched glares.

Amanda turned away first but it wasn’t a look of concession. “She thought we were going to shoot her.” The tone she used was sad.

Wolf narrowed his eyes. He had little doubt that the tone was intentional, a ploy to persuade him. He wouldn’t fall for it.

She met his gaze again. Gave him a pleading look. “I had to shoot Cinna, one of our horses last night. He’d broken his leg. Bobby tried to heal him but...” she shook her head. “It wasn’t his fault. Leg was too smashed anyway.”

Wolf listened patiently all the while keeping the same stubborn expression on his face.

“Lily saw us shoot this horse. She thought that’s what we were going to do to her.”

Wolf ignored the sad look she gave him and went straight for the jugular. “That’s what you should do to her.”

Amanda’s face contorted into a look of horrified rage.

“You owe her that.”

“I owe her that?” Amanda’s indignation was barely suppressed by her confusion.

“The same respect. A decent death. You’ll give it to a horse but you won’t give it to her?”

“Respect has nothing to do with it. If I had the money I’d keep every horse alive until I fixed whatever was wrong. They deserve that and I can’t give it to them.” Her voice cracked slightly.

“You’d let them suffer?”

“If it meant they lived a happier life in the long run.”

Wolf was silent for a moment. He tried to reestablish his resolve. Softly he replied, “You killed that unicorn...”

Amanda turned to face the window. No longer looking at Wolf. “I don’t think Lily’s father was wrong,” she admitted. “If it were one of my kids I’d burn the whole continent to the ground before I’d let them go. I value the horses and the unicorns but the kids are worth more. People are always worth more. Lily is worth more.”

“Nepotism was always humanity’s greatest weakness.” He spoke with a sad note, as if he had hoped witches could have done better and as if for the moment he didn’t really consider himself as belonging to either.

Amanda turned to face him. “Are you telling me you would kill your kids if it benefited the world in some way?”

Wolf knew she didn’t necessarily mean killing, not directly, but to Amanda it was all the same. If you had the chance to save someone and you didn’t then you might as well have wielded the blade yourself. She would always hold herself responsible for things which she could not possibly hope to change. Wolf didn’t bother arguing against it. He shook his head and responded with his own truth. “The world doesn’t deserve saving and nor do my kids deserve anything more than anyone else does.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.”

“What? You think they deserve more? Just because they’re mine?”

“No. I think that the world deserves saving. It’s just that I intend to do both.”

“You’ll do neither in the process.”

“We’ll see.” She crossed her arms.

He sighed. “Amanda. Necromancy can not be done twice. It’s the golden rule when it comes to reviving the dead.”

“Rules are meant to be broken.” She spoke as if the decision had already been made.

“And the road to hell is paved with good intentions,” Wolf mumbled. He was losing the energy to argue.

“Hell doesn’t exist,” she said simply.

“I’m sure that’s what Mrs Milton thinks when she casts her spells.” He gave her a meaningful look.

Their tones of voice had lowered. They were at an impasse. Both were silent a moment, stewing in their own thoughts, letting the storm calm.

Eventually Amanda sighed and nodded at the urn. “So what do we do with that? We could give it to the archeologists? Tell them about Coal’s one. It might void whatever deal he has with them.”

“More likely Coal would just end up with this one given they work for him.”

She shook her head. “They’re honour bound. They have their own code and they abide by it. They won’t step over it just because he offers them money or threatens them. They have a long history of keeping dangerous artifacts out of the hands of the rich and powerful. Their reputation for honesty is so strong that aristocrats and sorcerers both hire them as go-betweens when dealing with one another. They hate each other but they trust these guys. Back in 95’ a couple of their number were caught trading retrieved goods to a particular aristocrat under the table. They were magically bound and sentenced to hard labour for several years while the entire aristocracy was blacklisted for a month.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Because I just spent half the morning listening to Gemma harping on about them. She wants to go and study with them. They do a fair amount of tomb exploration apparently, places where no man has stepped since long before the splice.”

“This world isn’t that old.”

Amanda shrugged. “We don’t know what existed before, what’s a reflection or a deviation or what’s brand new. Hell, we don’t even have a map of the old world as it currently is.”

“That’s not true. There are maps.”

“Not of it’s entirety. Not of every rock and cave or trench under the sea.”

“I think you’re being picky... or pedantic.” Wolf frowned and started working on his dreamwalking spell again, shifting things around.

“I’m just saying, even the human world still has it’s mysteries and we know even less about ours then they do about theirs and for some people figuring them out is far more important than riches or safety. They’re a well-known and well-backed organisation.”

“If they’re so well known then why haven’t I heard of them before?” Wolf asked.

“But you have, just under a different name. The people emptying that house are branch of the organisation known as The Librarians.”

Wolf paused and looked up at her, obviously checking her expression.

Amanda smiled at him, taking some pleasure in being able to share this tidbit. Wolf prided himself in being the keeper of knowledge. And given how all high and mighty he was being this morning she was only too glad to knock him down a peg or two. Let him question what he knew and he would be less likely to question her.

And for a moment he did look confused. Then his expression shifted through a range of emotions. She watched his mouth start to form the start to several different questions. She waited patiently for him to settle on one.

“How do you know that?” he finally asked.

“Something Gemma said reminded me of something so I looked them up on the internet before coming back here.”

Wolf scoffed slightly. “They’re on the internet?”

Amanda nodded. “It’s modern times Wolfy.” Only she could get away with calling him that and after their earlier row she felt a bit like pushing his buttons. She kept her tone playful though. A little banter was also what they needed. A muscle in his jaw twitched. She caught the start of his subtle smile.

He raised an eyebrow. “Says the woman who still uses cds.” It was reference to a complaint Indi regularly made whenever they travelled in Amanda’s car.

Amanda snorted. “Says the guy who still listens to vinyl.” She gestured to where she knew he kept his records.

“It has a better sound.”

Amanda snorted again but didn’t reply.

Wolf glanced down at his half done dreamwalking runes. “I should probably switch to working on an identifying spell of some kind. I just wanted to think about it first, but if Coal has one...” He gaze shifted toward the blue urn.

Amanda widened her eyes. “Borrower spell? Do you know one?”

Wolf shook his head. “No, but it’s a common enough infusement, despite being one of the hardest ones to make. I have a couple. All tightly wound though, you don’t get much play.”

“Expensive?”

Wolf tilted his head from side to side in a yes-no kind of reply and he looked thoughtfully at the urn. “Coal will probably be looking for it. We should know what it is. The ones I have are a bit cheaper but they take several hours to work so I’ll probably make a spell just to activate it and so I don’t have to feed it myself while standing there for 12 hours.”

“You’re sure that will work?”

“Being tightly wound, the item should work as is. All I’m doing with the spell part is changing the interface slightly?”

“That won’t affect the way the item works?”

It technically wasn’t a straight binary system, more a sliding scale, but in general infusements could be categorised into one of two categories.

Tightly wound infusements were items made by extremely good sorcerers, usually for use by those with less aptitude for spell-making and magic outside their own raw abilities, i.e. most people who weren’t sorcerers. They were designed to be used in very specific ways with inbuilt safety catches and heavy limitations. They were commonly sold openly, with little restriction, but being hard to make did not come cheap. They tended to be used almost exclusively by those with a lot of money, particularly aristocrats.

Loosely wound infusements were more often used as components by spellcrafters; warlocks, mages, sorcerers. They were easier to make by amateur infusers and thus a lot cheaper but also much harder to find from an honest seller as the sale of said items were not approved by the sorcerer’s council for general public use. The council’s reach only extended so far though and the rules varied considerably by region, so those in the know, like Wolf, typically had no trouble finding what they needed. One exception however, was infusements from powers which interacted directly with other magics, powers like infusing, borrowing, and binding. These powers were difficult for amateur infusers to attach to an item and as such, when these powers could be acquired in infusement form they tended to be made by good sorcerers who would always made sure they were very tightly wound.

Wolf shrugged and sighed. He was tired. “What’s the worst that can happen?”