That drew a real smile from Neko. “I’m glad. Call us if you need us!”
As we went upstairs, Audrey asked him, “So they’re your … are they both sweet on you, or have you been making up to both of them?”
Caleb blushed. “Audrey!” I said. She flinched a little, but seemed to have mostly gotten over seeing me as an unapproachable priestess. Opening the door to Trumbull’s study distracted her nicely.
“Wow. This is just … wow.” She peered closely at the diagrams on the walls and craned her neck to read titles on Trumbull’s bookshelf. She leaned over the half-built machine, but sensibly pulled back before I could warn her not to touch it.
Caleb stood by the door until I pulled him inside.
“Audrey,” I asked, “do you want to help me draw the diagram for the Inner Sea?” I’d told her what to expect during our previous session, but had given her little preparatory reading. I knew I was rushing her. When we finished in Arkham—however that happened—she might be able to gain access to Miskatonic’s stacks, but would no longer have teachers with practical experience.
And if I sated her desire for wonders swiftly, I could send her downstairs with one of the easier books so that Charlie and Caleb and I could practice more advanced and urgent arts.
I drew out the lines slowly and carefully, explaining their logic as best I could. Caleb knelt across from us. When I offered him the chalk, he drew one tentative sigil from memory before handing it back. My face heated, and I corrected his effort with as little fuss as I could manage. Audrey surprised me with a couple of accurate guesses and a fine hand—she had apparently picked up something amid the dross of her friends’ studies.
“This is the simplest of spells, and foundation to all others. Magic seeks to better understand, and eventually to build on, the connection between minds and bodies. Even to calm a storm, you treat the wind and rain as if they were alive and corporeal. That is why blood is part of the spell, along with words and symbols.”
“So that we may better know that even the cosmos, vast and seemingly eternal, is in truth a mortal form,” said Caleb. “I remember that.”
“Yes,” I said. “All things fade and die. Magic makes their momentary glory tangible—but it also makes it impossible to hide how small and temporary they are. How temporary we are.” I would not insult Caleb by asking—mortality was one lesson he had well learned—but I asked Audrey: “Do you still wish to go on?”
“Of course I do.”
“All right, then. Today we’ll look more closely at our own bodies. You’ll only be able to see briefly, at first—when you come back to ordinary awareness, just wait for the rest of us. Don’t try to touch anyone else.” I’d forgotten that last instruction when I first tried this with Charlie, and remembered belatedly the effect of physical contact. He’d been too pleased with his first taste of magic to properly interpret the difference between my blood and his, but I didn’t want to take the chance with Audrey.
For this ritual, I did play at priestess—and Charlie at priest, for we were the only two who knew the necessary chant by heart. I washed the blade, pricked fingers, and we each let our blood into the bowl. My confidence grew with the rhythm of my words. Even as I settled on my heels to let the spell take hold, I found my awareness stretched as it had never been with Charlie alone.
There was my own blood: my river, swift and sure and wild. But beyond that—even without physical contact—Charlie’s familiar trickle and the aching love I felt whenever I touched it. I knew its courses, and knew too how to read the unwelcome signs they carried of my friend’s mortality.
But then there were other waters. Caleb’s torrent ran twin to mine, so similar that it took a moment even to see it. I wanted to dive in, to revel in the truth of another like myself. It was ridiculous, for I’d been beside him a week now, but I did not fight the absurdity.
Audrey, by contrast, showed what Charlie must have been only scant years ago. Her stream ran slow and silty and rich, muddy banks not yet sliding in to choke it. The loamy, fertile scent of swamp water rose in my mind.
I could feel the others reaching as well, more tentative but eager. In the throes of the ritual I saw no reason to resist their pull. We explored the tangle of rivers, of roots and channels shaped by the lives we had lived.
Time passed, and at last the connection began to slip. I let go easily, certain that we could find it again when we wished.
And came back to the study with a gasp of indrawn air. The others looked at me, and at each other, with wide eyes.
“I recall now,” I said, a little unsteadily, “that a group of people who practice together is called a confluence. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather find a teacher who remembers that type of thing before it comes up?”
“Not a chance,” breathed Audrey.
We stood—except for Charlie—stretched, moved our newly familiar bodies. I found myself hyperaware of the others, coordinated as if in some well-practiced dance. Caleb touched my elbow, and his eyes were bright.
“You’re different, the two of you,” said Audrey.
I froze, caught between imperatives. I had warned her against touching us precisely to avoid this, and Charlie had seen my blood for months with no such recognition. I found myself impressed anew by Audrey’s perceptiveness. Newfound intimacy, and the desire to nurture her clever instincts rather than quash them, argued against the entirely logical decision I’d come to earlier.
“We’re family,” I said at last.
Her eyes narrowed, but her voice was mild. “What kind?” Before I could answer, she added, “I have heard the other rumors about Innsmouth.”
Caleb bristled, and the newfound comfort drained from his stance. “You shouldn’t believe everything you hear.”
Charlie leaned forward. “I think we’ve just done something precious. And terrifying. And I don’t think it’s something we can undo.”
So he thought I should tell her, too. I took a breath, dry with winter air and tinged with the salt of our mingled sweat. “What have you heard?”