A Practical Guide to Sorcery (Books 1 & 2)

Chapter 33 - Temporary Inversion of Income vs. Expenses (Part 2)

When they neared Liza's house, Sebastien ducked into another alley and returned to her form as Siobhan. Liza only knew the dark-haired woman, and she didn't want to associate Sebastien with a criminal.

She let Oliver use the animated lion door-knocker, taking deep breaths to steady herself as they waited.

They hurried into the house when the door opened, and Siobhan took a sweeping glance of the street as she closed the door behind them. She saw nothing suspicious, and hoped that was because no one was watching them, and not because their possible enemy was skilled enough to evade notice.

Liza came out of the attached room already scowling, the dark bags under her eyes only seeming to deepen as her gaze swept over the two of them. "The planes-damned sun has barely risen, Oliver. What fresh hell have you brought to my doorstep today?"

Oliver looked to Siobhan, but she was slow to answer, so with a concerned frown, he spoke. "We were in an altercation last night. Part of this involved a mostly harmless skirmish with the coppers, and we believe they obtained a small amount of Siobhan's blood. They tried to scry her."

Liza's face twisted angrily. "And you brought them straight to me?" Her arms fell to her sides and her fingers spread as if she meant to claw the air.

"No," Siobhan said, shaking her head somewhat frantically as she felt the tightening of the air that signified the waking of a powerful Will. "I have—had—a warding medallion. The scrying failed, but my Conduit broke, and I need your help. The house is warded, right? I wouldn't have come here otherwise. I just need your help to make another anti-scrying artifact, and th—" Her tongue seemed to stumble over itself, and she reached out to brace herself on the wall as the room tilted slowly.

Oliver grasped her arm. "Siobhan, are you alright?"

Liza "tched" loudly. "Will-strain. Her Conduit broke?"

Oliver nodded. "Yes. How bad is it, can you tell?"

Siobhan straightened. She'd come close to Will-strain a couple of times in her life, but this time she seemed to have tipped over the edge. "Not bad, I think. I have a headache and I feel dizzy and dis...disoriented." She paused, then continued, enunciating carefully. "But I'm not seeing or hearing anything strange, and I can remember everything that has happened since my Conduit broke until now."

Liza waved an impatient hand at them. "Well, hurry and follow me, then. We had best get inside the stronger wards below. The girl will need rest."

Oliver kept a hand around Siobhan's arm as they followed, which she acknowledged the need for as the room spun, this time more violently.

"How desperately do they want to find you?" Liza asked once they were down below.

"Quite desperately, I would imagine," Oliver said quietly.

Liza grunted, leading them past the room they had cast the messenger spell in the last time and to a door made of iron bars, like a jail cell. A quick touch of her hand to the lock opened it, and she waved to the spartan cot within.

'What type of guest does she normally keep in this room, to require a door made of bars that can only be opened from the outside?' Siobhan sat down on the cot, closing her eyes to avoid seeing the vaguely shimmering lines and glyphs covering the walls at the edges of her vision. Leaning back against the wall, she allowed her muscles to relax slightly. "My medallion uses heat to power its defenses," she said, pulling the metal disk out of her pocket and holding it out to Liza. "I tossed it into the fire and used an impromptu spell to force heat into it, but it was still barely enough."

Liza examined the medallion, pulling a convex lens out of a pocket and peering through it at the artifact. She was silent for a long while, then said, "Wait here," and walked out of the room.