Abducted [W&W Book 3]

Chapter 34

Dredil's tonic. Ildri could not help but feel an unpleasant sense that she was coming full circle at the sight and smell of the hated hair tonic.

She mixed up the physical potion, a task that she could have easily done in her sleep. She knew that it was right by the familiar scent. Dread pooled in the pit of her stomach and she wanted to do nothing less than to try to work magic on the potion and she wanted to do nothing more than run away.

"Go ahead," Maxine said gently. "Use your magic the way you did with the feather. You need to feel for the magic that is in your ingredients, and then pull them together."

Ildri shut her eyes. She'd managed to learn to do all of Allan's practice exercises, surely she could do this. She just had to be positive. She would do it, and she would do it perfectly well.

She knew that she was lying to herself, but she really wanted it to work.

Please.

Ildri reached out with thin threads of her own magic, and she could feel the magic of the various ingredients. She pulled them together and...

Ildri opened her eyes. Murky green. The potion looked very much the same as it had before she had tried. Nothing had changed.

Ildri felt like crying. "I quit," she said.

"Ildri!" Maxine said.

Ildri ignored her and pushed out of the work shed. She should have known by now not to get her hopes up about anything. Life should have taught her that. No matter how hard she had tried to stay positive, everything went wrong. Ildri should have stayed in her place, where she belonged, all along and she would have avoided all the crushing disappointment.

"Ildri!" Maxine's voice sounded behind her.

Ildri ignored her.

"Ildri! What is the matter with you?"

Ildri spun around. "I'm useless! I give up! I should know that I just can't do anything!"

"What are you talking about? Ildri, you did it!"

"The potion didn't change, Maxine. I know it was supposed to look different."

"Not a lot, no. You didn't draw out all the magic. Yet. But you pulled out some. And that is the hardest part. With practice you'll get it all, and you'll see the difference. Don't quit now, you've come so far."

Ildri looked at Maxine's face. She looked earnest and honest. Ildri had managed to do it? At least sort of? Ildri burst into relieved tears and hid her face. She did not know what had happened to her. She had never used to cry so much.

"Ildri. You've done very well, why don't you take the rest of the night off?"

Ildri watched as Abigail hopped up to Maxine and Ildri smiled with relief that at least something had finally happened.

* * * * *

Ildri and Maxine baked raspberry pie that evening. It was relaxing to not be forcing and straining to use her stubborn magic and to just do a task that she was good at.

When the pies were complete, Ildri sat with Allan and Maxine in front of the fire. Each of them ate a piece and drank a cool glass of water. Allan and Maxine chatted amiably. The change in them was most remarkable. Ildri felt happy for them as she listened passively.

"Any day now Lord Viersen's clerk will come to collect my taxes. It's usually a man named Notte, so if he comes you need not be suspicious of him," Maxine told Allan.