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"I want to apologize," Naji said. He slid off the bed, the charm resting in the palm of his hand. "I didn't want to bring ack'mora into this–"
"What's ack'mora?"
He looked down at the charm. "What you would call blood magic. I didn't want to use it, but without the swamp yirrus…" His voice trailed off. He shoved the charm at me. "This is for you. Please wear it at all times."
He sounded more formal than usual, like he was nervous. Weird that he should be more nervous than me. But I took the charm from him anyway and ripped a strip of fabric off one of my scarves so I could tie it around my neck. The sense of protection that wrapped around me was warm and thick, like blood.
"I've never seen anyone mix 'em up like that," I said. Naji had walked back over to the bed and was cleaning off the space. He looked over at me when I spoke. His face was pale, drawn, in a way it hadn't been a few minutes ago.
"Mix them up?" he said.
"Yeah, dirt magic and blood magic. Uh, ack'mora."
"Yes," he said. "I do combine them sometimes. I learned some – what did you call it? Dirt magic? – from my mother."
"You have a mother!" I didn't mean to blurt it out like that, but the idea of him coming from somewhere was too bizarre.
"Of course I had a mother." He scowled and yanked the uman flower out of the bag.
It took me a minute to realize he'd switched into the past tense. "I'm sorry," I said, and I really did feel bad about it. "It's just – you're an assassin, and I didn't think–"
"I had a mother before I went to the Order," he said stiffly. He obviously didn't want to talk about it. "I thought you'd prefer a charm born of the earth and not me, but, well, I had to make do."
I thought that a weird way for him to say it, a charm born of me, like he'd hacked off part of himself and handed it over.
"Thank you," I said.
"You're welcome," he said, and he actually bowed at me a little. Not a full bow, just a tilt of the head, but I got real warm and looked down at my hands. I was very much aware of that charm pressing against my skin, soft as a lover's touch.
"This next spell is a bit more involved, I'm afraid." He was laying out the rest of the stuff I'd bought for him, the powders and the uman flower. "I'll be stepping out of myself for some time. I have questions that need answering." A long pause, like he expected me to say something. "You really don't have to stay. It's… Well, I'm doing something very rare, full ack'mora – I wouldn't expect…" He straightened up, ran one hand through his tangled-up hair. "Though I ask that you stay in the hotel. My… oath. I'm not sure what would happen to me if you got caught up in danger while I'm away."
All that talking, and the only thing I could say in response was, "Away?"
He nodded.
"The Mists?"
"Curses, no." He shook his head. "We call it Kajjil – there's no translation."
"But it's a place?"
He stopped messing with the powder vials on the bed and looked me hard in the eye. "I'm not allowed to discuss it with outsiders," he said, and I understood that well enough, being a daughter of the Pirates' Confederation and all.
I used the language of pirates to tell him I understood, which was a joke, because I knew there wasn't no way for him to know what it meant. But he kind of half-smiled at me, not with his mouth but with the skin around his eyes, and got to work.
This one was a lot weirder to watch, cause it wasn't nothing like the bits of magic I'd dabbled in before. Most of it centered on the uman flower. He spent awhile mixing up pinches and shakes of the powders I'd brought him, in some big clay bowl that looked like it'd come from the i
He said some words and then he sung some words and then he stepped inside the circle, and everything got real screwy.
The room fell dark, first off, even though the lamp was still flickering over in the corner. It just didn't cast no light. Neither did Naji's tattoos, which had taken to glowing as well. It was like the darkness was so thick it swallowed up any kind of brightness.
So all I could see of Naji were the swirls of blue on his arms, and the two blue dots of his eyes. And his singing got louder, and I smelled blood again, so strong it was like I had it ru
Then the uman flower lit up, too, and it started writhing around, and another voice added itself to Naji's, one that was not human. Raspy and animalistic, more like. And the uman flower kept swaying and twisting, dancing like Princess Luni in that old story, the one where she dances herself to death.
Things stayed like that for a while. The singing and the uman flower and Naji's bright eyes. But despite all of it, I wasn't too fearful, even though I knew that made me a damn-right fool. I figured the charm was working, and that's where my complacency came from.
I couldn't say how long Naji was away. It couldn't have been too long because I hardly moved one bit and neither of my legs cramped up. When Naji did come back, it happened all at once. The singing stopped and the uman flower stopped dancing and the light came back into the room. Naji slumped forward onto the floor, knocking the uman flower aside, out of the circle. It skittered up to me and I jumped away from it, not so much out of fear but revulsion. Naji still hadn't moved.
I crawled over to him, stopping just outside the circle, and poked him in the shoulder. He groaned. I poked harder, and then I shook him. The part of my arm in the circle tingled. The smell of his magic was so overpowering, I could taste it in the back of my throat. But at least nothing in the room seemed to be shifting and changing from the magic-sickness.
Naji jerked up, so fast it startled me. He blinked a few times. His eyes were dark again. When he spotted me crouching by the circle he rubbed his head and said, "Don't cross the line."
"I know, I ain't an idiot." I frowned at him. "You alright?"