"What is it?" Yara asked.
"I could cast a love spell on some of the missing furniture, so that it would fall madly in love with you at the slightest glimpse, or the sound of your voice. I was thinking that if I did that, and you were to walk along Wizard Street calling out for it, it would follow you home."
"What if it's not on Wizard Street?"
"Then you'd have to keep looking," Kilisha said. "But it's the best I can do with the magic I have."
"Couldn't we hire someone else? Pay someone for a divination?"
"Well, I suppose," Kilisha admitted. "But that would be expensive, and it would be rather embarrassing for the master, don't you think? I think we should try to fix things ourselves first. We can always hire someone later."
Yara looked unhappy and uncertain.
"It's pretty late to be hiring anyone tonight, in any ease," Kilisha said quickly. "Why don't we try it my way? And if it doesn't work, in the morning you can hire someone."
"All right," Yara said, frowning. "But right now your supper's ready."
Kilisha blinked at her, then realized that yes, she was hungry. She had been so distracted that she might as well have had an enchanted bloodstone in her pocket, but now that Yara mentioned it…
"After we eat, then," Kilisha said, hopping off the stool.
Chapter Ten
Yara insisted on putting the children to bed before trying any magic. While Kilisha gathered the ingredients for Cauthen's Remarkable Love Spell and began the preparations, Yara was upstairs, telling the three little ones the next installment in the ongoing and highly unlikely adventures of Valder of the Magic Sword, talking steadily while she brushed out their hair. As Kilisha worked she could sometimes hear Yara's voice, very faintly, through the ceiling.
Ithanalin's bottle of mare's sweat was almost empty, its contents slightly congealed and amazingly malodorous, but Kilisha thought it would be sufficient. The stallion's tail hair came from a bundle of a dozen or so wrapped in blue tissue. The red wine came from Yara's pantry, rather than the wizard's workshop, and the water from the courtyard well out back.
And the faded blue thread came from the floor of the front room, of course.
When the story finally reached a good stopping point Yara tucked the children under the blankets, kissed them good night, and came downstairs and into the workshop, to find Kilisha well into the incantation. The liquid mixture had begun to glow faintly, and Kilisha could feel the magic shimmering in the air. It felt right, just the way she remembered it, and one of the things that made her a promising wizard was her instinctive feel for the flow and shape of wizardry. That was one of the Guild's secrets; most people believed that wizardry was an entirely mechanical process of assembling ingredients, reciting words, and making gestures, and that this somehow tapped into the chaos beneath the surface of the World and forced it into a specific action, but actually the process was a good deal more dynamic than that. A talented wizard could feel when the magic was working properly and when it wasn't, and could sense when a gesture needed to be altered, an incantation slowed or hurried, without any conscious understanding of why the change was necessary. A really good wizard could even sense whether other ingredients could be substituted, other words spoken, or the very nature of the spell somehow altered-that was how new spells were discovered.
Such wizards, wizards who could safely change spells as they went, were very rare. The ones who were able to devise multiple useful spells were little short of miraculous. Someone like Cauthen or Thrindle, let alone a one-of-a-kind genius like Fendel the Great, would be remembered for generations through the spells he created. During the Great War the military rulers had tried to force wizards who did not have this incredibly precious natural ability to develop new spells through trial and error, and had wound up with dozens of dead wizards and a good deal of damage to the surrounding landscape-but legend said Fendel could casually invent a new curse or transformation on the spot, and have it work almost every time.
Kilisha doubted she would ever reach anything near that level, but she could feel when a spell was going well, and she knew this potion was going to work exactly as intended.
Yara knew better than to interrupt a wizard in the middle of a spell, so she settled onto one of the stools by the workbench and watched as Kilisha chanted and wove a pattern of magical energy in the air with her athame.
That pattern wrapped itself around the vial that held the potion and gradually shrank inward, until at last it passed through the glass and into the liquid within. As Kilisha spoke the final word of the spell, a triumphant "Ahmwor!," she raised her dagger high, and the potion flashed pale blue.
Before the flash the liquid had been murky and dull red; after the flash it was sparkling pink.
The magic in the air was gone. Kilisha's athame felt like any other knife in her hand, and holding it over her head felt slightly ridiculous. She dropped her arm and sheathed the blade, then turned to Yara.
"It's ready," she said.
"Should I drink it now, or later?" Yara asked uncertainly.
"It doesn't matter," Kilisha said, picking up the vial. "It won't spoil, and once you drink it, it will take effect whenever the rug next sees you or smells you or hears your voice, whether that's five minutes from now, or five years."
"So this will make the rug fall in love with me, and want to come back home?"
"That's the theory, yes." She held the vial out.
Yara didn't take it. "What if the rug can't find its way home?"
"Well, then the theory won't work," Kilisha said, lowering the potion.
"But if it does work, then once the rug's back here, you'll break the spell?"
"Dm…" Kilisha frowned. "Well, actually, I can't. Not for a rug. The cure is to drink virgin's blood, and a rug can't drink anything. But I can break the spell once Ithanalin's restored." She hesitated, then admitted, "It takes four days, though, one drink of blood per day."
"I don't want a rug in love with me, Kilisha. I had enough trouble with that spoon,"
"It's not the same thing," Kilisha protested. "The spoon was lustful; this spell will make the rug devoted. It's a good love spell, it's not like the Spell of Aroused Lust or Fendel's Infatuous Love Spell."
Yara still hesitated.
"Mistress, I learned this spell by testing it on my own brother and his girlfriend!"
"Your brother isn't a rug. And I doubt his girlfriend kept him out of her bed while the spell was in effect."
"She probably didn't-but honestly, she could have if she wanted to, just by asking him to sleep elsewhere. Ithanalin already loves you, probably just as much as this spell would make him love you, it's just that it all wound up in the spoon or somewhere instead of spread through all the furniture!"
"I don't know… " Yara said.
Kilisha was sure that the longer Yara waited, the more reasons she would find to not drink the potion. "Mistress," she said, "I thought you'd want to be the one to drink this, but you don't need to. I could drink it-"
She didn't have a chance to finish the sentence, "Give me the vial," Yara said.
Kilisha obeyed, and Yara drank it down in a single gulp, then blinked in surprise.
"It's sweet," she said. "I thought it would taste foul."
"Love is sweet," Kilisha said. "At least, that's what the master told Klurea," she added hastily. "I wouldn't know, myself."
Yara swallowed again, licked her lips thoughtfully, then asked, "Now what?"