Spellbound Resonance

Chapter 5

I thought of all those working facets of the body that Tanner had mentioned, specifically the ones the Artisans were responsible for: architecture, engineering, innovation, design, beauty. How could such things exist if there was not a mind to think them up? There was more to this world than what could be achieved through blunt manual labor. I had heard about the plight of the “honest man’s work” enough times to recognize the same pinched expression, the same hateful tone, even if it was borrowed. Which meant I had already heard every version of what Patrick Colson might say next: that the Artisan government was a corrupt one that undervalued the Crafters, that the pay was blatant robbery, the conditions downright deadly, the sway of wealth completely one-sided.

It wasn’t that I disagreed. I was just tired of hearing it said and seeing nothing done. I found it difficult to sympathize with those who seemed to take twisted pleasure in their own misery. Ma used to say it was one thing to be down, and quite another to dig yourself a grave.

“I sewed this skirt myself,” I told Patrick Colson. “Made it too big. Do you know why?”

Patrick stared at me dumbly. Waited.

I lifted my hand to my tailbone and pulled the pin out. I let the skirt fall over my hips, revealing trousers beneath. Hardier fabric, cuffed up to my knees. Then I gathered the skirt and unfastened the back, sweeping it over my shoulders and putting my arms through the pocket holes until the inbuilt sleeves turned inside out. Finally, I stuck the pin in my hair. So there.

Patrick gulped, his cheeks pinkening slightly. I would have bet my last penny that he didn’t have any sisters, and he’d never seen a girl drop her skirt before.

“I’m not goin’ back on that train, whether I’m Artisan or not,” I told him outright. “I’ve got plenty of my own complaints about what it’s like out in the brink. I just don’t see the use in whinin’. I’d rather think up grand ideas and create things. And if I can’t be an Artisan, then I’ll use the mind I’ve got.” I raised my eyebrows at him pointedly. “I won’t be goin’ home.”

Patrick stared at me without blinking. He watched as I slowly dragged the makeshift coat from my arms and constructed it back into a skirt around my waist. Lord, but it was heavy. Heavy enough for cold nights out in the open. Heavy with everything I was able to stitch into the hem.

He shook himself from his reverie. “Well,” he said. “That fuckin’ showed me, didn’t it?”

Patrick Colson liked to say f**k a lot.

A Smith.”

“Why would you want to be a Smith and not a Mason? Or a Charmer?”

“One fuckin’ word, Nina Harrow,” Patrick said, arms stretched wide. “Gold.”

Nina flattened her lips in that way girls did when they thought you stupid. “I think you’ll find that diamond is more valuable than gold.”

“Is not.”

“Sure it is.”

“Oh yeah?” he remarked, flicking a pebble at her. She barely flinched. “How would you know, Scurry girl?”

“Because I read,” she said simply, and she had him there. Patrick could barely read more than the newspaper headlines. The schoolroom bored him.

She was smart, that much was clear. Not smarter than Patrick, he was sure. But a different kind. A blistering kind. “What do you want to be, then, since you have all the answers?”

“Somethin’ that matters,” she said, pulling her knees up to her chest.

He raised one eyebrow. “You mean terranium?”

Her flat expression told him he was right. She surprised him once more. It was true that many of their peers probably hoped to be a famed terranium Alchemist. After all, what could be more vital to the continent then the careful extraction of idium—a job only a medium of terranium could do. And rumor had it the number of terranium Alchemists was dwindling quickly—few knew how many were left. But still, Nina didn’t seem to Patrick like a person vying for fame or glory.

She seemed like a person who was running away.

“Hmm,” Patrick murmured. “I thought you might say a Scribbler.”

She gave him a look of disbelief. “The lowliest of Artisans?”

He shrugged. “Seems more excitin’ than drawin’ blood from a stone. Scribblers travel all over.” It was true. There was a Scribbler in every town and parish of the Trench, sending and receiving missives from the capital and collecting payment from anyone who could afford to send notes to a distant loved one.

Nina shook her head. “If I’m gonna be an Artisan, I don’t want to sit around all day sendin’ notes with my mind. I want to do something more important.”

“And you want terranium to be your medium?”

“I want anythin’ but pen and paper to be my medium.”

“And yet, you’ve got a bindin’ of parchment shoved down the waist of your trousers,” he grinned. “Saw it when you dropped your skirt.”

Her cheeks pinkened, a small victory. He chucked his chin at the place near her hip. “Can I see what you wrote?”

“No,” she said immediately. Patrick thought of animals with their legs caught in traps and decided it was best not to press her. He rolled his eyes and didn’t ask again.

Around them, conversations of similar nature were happening simultaneously. Boys and girls sitting or standing and waiting as the crowds thinned. Waiting for the name of their birthplace to be called through the crackling microphone. In the meantime, they debated the hierarchy of the Artisans.

Mediums known as the lesser arts: painting, drawing, writing, composing, were the pastimes of swanks. Most Artisans excelled at doing one or more of these. Some showed aptitude in all. And then there were the more highly ranked classifications…

A Scribbler’s medium was, quite simply, ink. They could make it appear from half a world away.

Cutters specialized in precious stones: diamond, quartz, amethyst, and the like. They were the pretty decorators, the designers of finer things. Cutters could mold gems into any shape a rich mistress pleased. Patrick thought them rather useless.

Smiths molded copper, iron, nickel, gold, and silver. Patrick admitted the intricacies of their work could be admired.

Masons were a higher order of Artisan. Wood and stone were vital resources in a world made from little else.

Alchemy was most important, of course. Only an Alchemist could crack open a lump of terranium. Without them, there was no idium. No siphoning ceremonies. No Artisans. There was only one other order that might match the class of an Alchemist.

“What if you were a Charmer?” Patrick asked her now, this girl who wasn’t going home.

Her answer was instant, as were all her answers, as though she’d already thought of every question the world might demand and banked her thoughts on the matter. “Earth,” she said.

“Why not fire or water?” Patrick liked quizzing her. Liked hearing the sureness in her voice.

“Not hard to guess why.”

“I suppose it’s the glory?” he guessed. “You’d be the only earth Charmer in a hundred years or more.”

She frowned, reproaching him. “More earth Charmers means fewer mine collapses,” she explained, rather like she were teaching a bug to count. “Imagine if each mine had a Charmer to keep the tunnels from folding in.”