A Practical Guide to Sorcery (Books 1 & 2)

Chapter 86 - The Consolations of Philosophy (Part 2)

He was struggling against the forced tranquility. "Have mercy, save them," he gasped out, just before his lungs became visible from the inside of his chest cavity.

As she stepped around him toward the women and children, they huddled back away from her, and she realized it probably seemed quite sinister for her to have her hands in a Circle in front of her chest and be humming the same deep note as the strings. She couldn't stop to explain, but hoped they understood her intentions from the way she pushed the strings back from them and gestured with her head for them to move through the path she'd created.

It was too late to save the grandfather. The strings had bored through and around the edge of his shield, and as soon as they touched him it was over. He fairly exploded into flesh-strings, splashing against the wall and into his own shield.

A couple of the children screamed, and Siobhan had to move quickly to block the strings drawn by the noise. The one positive of the rogue magic sirens was that the strings were less aware of individual small noises, less likely to hone in on the subtle sounds of movement.

There were windows on this floor, barely large enough for the adults to crawl out of, but no way to get safely down to the ground. A jump from this high would break bones, at the least, and the bricks of the outer wall wouldn't provide nearly enough purchase to climb down.

Siobhan led them all to a bedroom at the far end of the upper floor where none of the strings had broken through yet, finally dropping the calming spell so she could speak. There was a window, and if they could get someone to bring a ladder, or create some sort of cushion against the ground, they could escape through it. And if not, they could take their chances with broken bones.

Chief began to explain the situation to the family members in hushed tones just loud enough to be heard over the combined sirens and Aberrant humming.

Looking through the window, Siobhan could see a line of bright lights being set up about a block away, facing the building but barely able to illuminate it through the thick, obscuring fog. "They're setting up a quarantine cordon," she murmured. "They want to be able to see anything that tries to escape."

Tanya moved to stand beside her, looking out with a hint of alarm. "Reinforcement coppers, probably. The Red Guard should be here soon, and they'll...handle things."

One of the women was crying silently, her hand held over her son's mouth to muffle his sobs, too.

Sniffles handed her the red Morrow handkerchief he'd had tied around his arm, but she threw it back in his face, which shocked him and brought a few more tears to his own eyes.

Siobhan drew Sniffles to the window, opening it as far as it would go and making him hold out the lamp he'd brought from downstairs. "Keep waving it. Someone should notice it, and they might be able to help you get down."

"You're not coming with us?" Tanya asked, then answered her own question. "Of course not. They would try to arrest you on sight."

Siobhan nodded silently. She had hoped to escape from the upper floor, but there was another problem she had to deal with. 'I left evidence downstairs. My bag, which is full of supplies, including a spare set of male clothing and the bracelets I gave Newton. The ones he never broke to ask for help. Even if I could afford to replace everything, who knows what the Red Guard could do with all that? They have magic the common person couldn't even imagine.'

She wasn't sure if it was out of compassion, or her completely missing sense of urgency, but she took a couple of minutes to teach Tanya the esoteric calming spell, in case the other woman needed to block strings trying to enter the room. It took time and practice to get really good at a spell like that, but hopefully it would make some small difference.

Tanya seemed almost afraid to cast it, but picked up the mechanics quickly. She was a fourth-term University student, after all.

Satisfied that she'd done all she could, Siobhan took back the wand that still had two charges of the stunning spell and turned to leave the room.

Tanya reached out, grabbing hold of Siobhan's elbow to stop her. "I never meant..." She swallowed. "I never meant to make an enemy of you. Any offense I caused you by working with the Morrows, or the University, I apologize."

Siobhan's thoughts were too sluggish to work out the best way to respond to that. In the end, she only nodded silently, then left the room, turning back toward the stairway.

Strings were crawling along the walls and through the air from the lower floor. She tucked the wand between her teeth. With a deep breath, she brought her hands back to her chest, began to hum, and faced the stairway.

She tried to move, but her feet refused.

Not because she was incapacitated, but because she desperately, wretchedly wanted to do anything else but face the Aberrant head on. If it were possible, she would go to truly extraordinary lengths to avoid the thing.

But that could mean being forced to leave the University or being caught by the coppers. Neither of those were acceptable alternatives.

With only one road before her, she started to force her way down through the drifting strings, back toward the vibrating shadows and the origin of it all.