“They did not feel like illusions.”
She grunted. “Very well. I believe I can build a Portal spell that can let you cross into the Binding, though it shall take some time to set up. Will that satisfy you?”
“A spell? Are you not worried I shall break that as well?”
“As to that, I have an idea. You’ll simply have to trust me.”
I nodded. “Will the Circle know we have touched the spell?”
“If anyone is paying attention. But members of the Circle touch the Binding spell all the time, to refresh the wards on it and strengthen the barriers. I doubt it shall be marked. And I shall take steps to ensure no one is watching us.”
Our talk turned to idle pleasantries. I finished my tea, and Lady Berri stood, shaking crumbs from her capacious lap. She put her arms around me, and I stiffened for a moment before relaxing into her softness. She was comforting in a way my mother had never been. “You’re a good girl, Anna. Don’t be afraid. I shall call for you tomorrow evening.”
I did not sleep much that night. My dreams were threaded through with nightmares. Images from my past: the golden-eyed man at Sárvár with the burning touch, the pale strangeness of Herr Steinberg’s hands when he threatened to kill me if I tampered with the Binding. Worse still, nightmares of my future: a city overrun with creatures thirsting for blood, as Herr Steinberg warned; a world scoured bare by a sudden onrush of magic; the pain in Gábor’s eyes when he realized I had disregarded his warnings.
I woke panting. Had I made a mistake? No, not yet. I would do nothing until I had been inside the spell, until I knew unleashing the magic from the Binding would do no harm—or at least, less harm than good.
In the morning, a letter arrived from James. It was only a handful of lines wrapped around a new novel, Jane Eyre by Currer Bell, but I hugged the letter to me. I have not much time to write as I am busy studying. I am determined to be first in Latin and history. And I must say, that magic bauble you sent me is top-notch. The other boys are impressed that my spells are beginning to hold, though my tutor is puzzled at how I accomplish them. Still, I think I can keep him suitably flummoxed till the term is over. Yours, James.
I wondered what James would think if he knew my evening plans might lead me to entirely remake the magic he studied at school. Then I shuddered, and pushed the thought away from me. If I overthought what I was to do, I would lose my nerve.
I watched globes of lamplight spin past me as Lady Berri and I followed one of the main arterial roads away from the city. Pest was full of the thin darkness of early evening, the sun only a remembrance of light above the Buda hills. A pale-eyed man stood beneath one of the lamps, watching our carriage as it rattled past.
The lamps fell away abruptly. We passed a ring of factories, windows lit red by the fires within, smoke still rising from chimneys. Then the city was gone, swallowed into a maw of darkness, and the countryside spread out before us.
“I shall open a portal for you when we arrive,” Lady Berri explained. “Not your typical Portal spell, from one known location to another, but more of a gate.”
“And how shall I get out again?” I was only beginning to realize the enormity of what I’d committed to—entering an unknown spell, with no real security I’d return. Lady Berri seemed unworried, so I clung to her confidence.
“The portal will remain open. Just don’t get lost—I’m not certain I can hold the gate open if I come in after you.”
We pulled up at last, and Lady Berri climbed out, her flickering fingers summoning a Lumen light. In the pale blue glow, a hill rose gently before us. “Attila’s Hill,” Lady Berri explained. “A ley line crosses near here; the ground has historically been sensitive to magic. My spell should be stronger here.”
She began climbing the hill, and I followed, alternately lacing my gloved fingers together and releasing them. When we reached the crest, I glanced back at the carriage, gleaming faintly in the starlight.
Lady Berri paced a circle around the top of the hill, muttering under her breath and waving her arms in the intricate pattern of a master spell-binder. Something shifted, the quiet air around us taking on an almost sentient quality. I shivered and rubbed my arms. The night was not particularly cold, as the day had been gloriously warm, one of those fall acts of defiance against encroaching winter. But there was something in the air that made me think of cold things: of midnight gusts of wind, ice in my washbasin on January mornings, snowfall at New Year’s.
When she had finished, she beckoned to me, pulling a small flask from a pocket in her gown. “Drink this.”
“What is it?”
“A bit of wine, laced with laudanum. It should calm your nerves enough for you to enter the gate without breaking it.”
I swallowed, choking a little on the bitterness of the drug. Within a few moments, a curious sense of well-being settled over me like a wool blanket on a cool night.
A tiny smile curled across Lady Berri’s mouth. She handed me a thin knife and directed me to stand in the center of the roughly trod sphere.
“Go on, child. The spell won’t hurt you.”
I thought, a bit fuzzily, that I ought to be worried by the implication that the spell could hurt someone else, but nothing seemed to dent the calm spreading through my blood. I lifted my chin and stepped into the center of Lady Berri’s spell.
The night swung around me, as if the earth itself was moving. I dropped to my knees, wondering if Lady Berri had miscalculated the dosage of laudanum. But instead of coming up against dried grass and hard-packed earth, my hands and knees encountered a fragile resistance that tore away almost immediately. I plunged through the flimsy barrier.
I fell down into darkness. Stars tumbled, burning across the sky, and then winked out. In my veins, fire blazed up and then froze.
I screamed—and hit the ground. When my stunned vision cleared, I found it was daylight. My fingers, closing around the earth beneath me, found a light, springy substance, and when I lifted my hands, they were full of violets, their tiny, imp-dark faces winking at me.
I sat up. Flowers carpeted the earth around me. With a growing sense of wonder, I pushed myself to my feet. Violets spun out in a circle, reaching to the edge of the mound where I stood before giving way to impossibly green grass speckled with daisies and bleeding hearts and chrysanthemums, with cheerful disregard for seasonal rules.