My father took the place of honor. “Nobody at home knows about this weaving business.”
“Not even Mom?” I was aghast. “Dad, you’ve got to tell her.”
“Oh, she knows. But I didn’t have to tell her. I showed her.” My father’s fingers curled and released in an instinctive gesture of command.
The world lit up in shades of blue, gray, lavender, and green as he plucked at all the hidden watery threads in the room: the willow branches in a jug by the window, the silver candlestick that Goody Alsop used for her spells, the fish that was waiting to be roasted for supper. Everyone and everything in the room was cast into those same watery hues. Bennu took flight, his silver-tipped wings stirring the air into waves. Goody Alsop’s fetch was blown this way and that in the currents, her shape shifting into a long-stemmed lily, then returning to human form and sprouting wings. It was as if the two familiars were playing. At the prospect of recreation, my firedrake flicked her tail and beat her wings against my ribs.
“Not now,” I told her tightly, gripping at my bodice. The last thing we needed was a cavorting firedrake. My control over the past might have slipped, but I knew better than to let go of a dragon in Elizabethan London.
“Let her out, Diana,” my father urged. “Ben will take care of her.”
But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. My father called to Bennu, who faded into his shoulders. The watery magic around me faded, too.
“Why are you so afraid?” my father asked quietly.
“I’m afraid because of this!” I waved my cords in the air. “And this!” I hit my ribs, jostling my firedrake. She belched in response. My hand slid down to where our child was growing. “And this. It’s too much. I don’t need to use showy elemental magic the way you just did. I’m happy as I am.”
“You can weave spells, command a firedrake, and bend the rules that govern life and death. You’re as volatile as creation itself, Diana. These are powers any self-respecting witch would kill for.”
I looked at him in horror. He’d brought the one thing I couldn’t face into the room: Witches had already killed for these powers. They’d killed my father, and my mother, too.
“Putting your magic into neat little boxes and keeping it separate from your craft isn’t going to keep Mom and me from our fates,” my father continued sadly.
“That’s not what I’m trying to do.”
“Really?” His eyebrows lifted. “You want to try that again, Diana?”
“Sarah says elemental magic and the craft are separate. She says—”
“Forget what Sarah says!” My father took me by the shoulders. “You aren’t Sarah. You aren’t like any other witch who has ever lived. And you don’t have to choose between spells and the power that’s right at your fingertips. We’re weavers, right?”
I nodded.
“Then think of elemental magic as the warp—the strong fibers that make up the world—and spells as the weft. They’re both part of a single tapestry. It’s all one big system, honey. And you can master it, if you set aside your fear.”
I could see the possibilities shimmering around me in webs of color and shadow, yet the fear remained.
“Wait. I have a connection to fire, like Mom does. We don’t know how the water and fire will react. I haven’t had those lessons yet.” Because of Prague, I thought. Because we got distracted by the hunt for Ashmole 782 and forgot to focus on the future and getting back to it.
“So you’re a switch-hitter—a witchy secret weapon.” He laughed. He laughed.
“This is serious, Dad.”
“It doesn’t have to be.” My father let that sink in, then crooked his finger, catching a single gray-green thread on the end of it.
“What are you doing?” I asked suspiciously.
“Watch,” he said in a whisper like waves against the shore. He drew his finger toward him and pursed his lips as if he were holding an invisible bubble wand. When he blew out, a ball of water formed. He flicked his fingers in the direction of the water bucket near the hearth, and the ball turned to ice, floated over, and dropped into it with a splash. “Bull’s-eye.”
Elizabeth giggled, releasing a stream of water bubbles that popped in the air, each one sending out a tiny shower of water.
“You don’t like the unknown, Diana, but sometimes you’ve got to embrace it. You were terrified when I put you on a tricycle the first time. And you threw your blocks at the wall when you couldn’t get them all to fit back in their box. We made it through those crises. I’m sure we can handle this.” My father held his hand out.
“But it’s so . . .”
“Messy? So is life. Stop trying to be perfect. Try being real for a change.” My father’s arm swept through the air, revealing all the threads that were normally hidden from view. “The whole world is in this room. Take your time and get to know it.”
I studied the patterns, saw the clumps of color around the witches that indicated their particular strengths and weaknesses. Threads of fire and water surrounded me in a mess of conflicting shades. My panic returned.
“Call the fire,” my father said, as if it were as simple as ordering a pizza.
After a moment of hesitation, I crooked my finger and wished for the fire to come to me. An orange-red thread caught on the tip, and when I let my breath out through pursed lips, dozens of tiny bubbles of light and heat flew into the air like fireflies.
“Lovely, Diana!” Catherine cried out, clapping her hands.
Between the clapping and the fire, my firedrake wanted to be released. Bennu cried out from my father’s shoulders, and the firedrake answered. “No,” I said, gritting my teeth.
“Don’t be such a spoilsport. She’s a dragon—not a goldfish. Why are you always trying to pretend that the magical is ordinary? Let her fly!”
I relaxed just a fraction, and my ribs softened, opening away from my spine like the leaves of a book. My firedrake escaped the bony confines at the first opportunity, flapping her wings as they metamorphosed from gray and insubstantial to iridescent and gleaming. Her tail curled up in a loose knot, and she soared around the room. The firedrake caught the tiny balls of light in her teeth, swallowing them down like candy. She then turned her attention to my father’s water bubbles as if they were fine champagne. When she was through with her treats, the firedrake hovered in the air before me, her tail flicking at the floor. She cocked her head as if waiting for me to ask her something.
“What are you?” I asked, wondering how she managed to absorb all the conflicting powers of water and fire.
“You, but not you.” The firedrake blinked, her glassy eyes studying me. A swirling ball of energy balanced at the end of her spade-shaped tail. The firedrake gave her tail a flick, tipping the ball of energy into my cupped hands. It looked just like the one I had given Matthew back in Madison.
“What is your name?” I whispered.
“You may call me Corra,” she said in a language of smoke and mist. Corra bobbed her head in farewell, melted into a gray shadow, and disappeared. Her weight thudded into my center, her wings curved around my back, and there was stillness. I took a deep breath.
“That was great, honey.” My father squeezed me tight. “You were thinking like fire. Empathy is the secret to most things in life—including magic. Look how bright the threads are now!”
All around us the world gleamed with possibility. And, in the corners, the steadily brightening indigo and amber weave warned that time was growing impatient.
Chapter Thirty Eight
"My two weeks are up. It’s time for me to go.”
My father’s words weren’t unexpected, but they felt like a blow nevertheless. My eyelids dropped to cover my reaction.
“Your mother will think I’ve taken up with an orange seller if I don’t show up soon.”