Spellbound Resonance

Chapter 4

I had never seen a thing so beautiful.

Amid the exclamations, Tanner replaced his stone with a vial of dark liquid. Idium. The purported blood of Idia, siphoned from stone.

“Today, children, you have the very great privilege of learning what God plans for you, whether it be pursuits of the mind, or that of the limbs. When you welcome Idia into your bloodstream today, you become an important part of Belavere’s body, and you will begin to aid in its many necessary functions.” His tiny teeth flashed in a smile. “So welcome once more to all of you. Today, you have arrived on the threshold of adulthood, and you will leave knowing your purpose.”

There was short applause, and I led it. It was tempered with nervous anticipation for that gleaming vial of inky blood—the precious substance we were all about to consume.

Lord Tanner stepped away from the microphone with a politician’s wave and disappeared back into the building, and the crowd broke into a violent, frenzied chatter.

I did not join in the conversation. Emblazoned in my mind was that piece of granite transforming into ideas, again and again, and a smile crept in.

I looked skyward to the highest story of the House, where Tanner’s office likely was. I would wager it was the size of my entire home back in Scurry. Bigger, even. Filled with oil paintings and sculptures and busts and ornately carved furniture from the finest everything, and I longed to be in the presence of it all.

Would the Artisan School be like this? Austere and bright and towering?

The double doors opened out to the courtyard again, and a dark-haired woman with narrow features and heeled shoes approached the microphone and said, “Residents of Belavere City and Baymouth will queue first for siphoning. Five lines at the door, please. No fighting.” And that was that.

While the summoned twelve-year-olds moved forward to queue before those double doors, the rest of us hung back. Some moved to find friends. Some tried to find a place to sit while they waited. I, however, was too filled with absolution to sit. Too evangelized to chat. I simply stood there, beaming from the inside out, filled to the brim with that same light that had impregnated the lump of idium.

I suddenly felt sure, though I couldn’t explain why, that I would be deemed an Artisan this day.

A person destined to the pursuits of the mind—that was me.

Inside the waist of my skirt was the parchment I’d saved, but back in Scurry was the pile I’d discarded, strewn with sketches and landscapes and dried flowers and all my thoughts painted into shapes. I’d always had “natural aptitude.” I was made for bigger places, meant to be surrounded by creation spun from the loom of one’s mind.

I relinquished a smile.

“There’s a pin stickin’ out of your arse,” said a voice.

I turned to find the spitter frowning, arms crossed, staring at the waist of my skirt. When he saw my obvious disgust, he merely shrugged. “Just thought you should know.”

I adjusted the pin at the small of my back, poking it securely into the folds of my skirt. “Keep your eyes elsewhere,” I bit out.

He frowned. “I think if I were likely to sit on a pin in the near future, I’d want someone to tell me.”

“Weren’t goin’ to sit on it,” I muttered, hoping he’d say no more.

Instead, the boy stuck his hands in his pockets. He rose his sun-bleached eyebrows. “What’s your name?”

I didn’t answer, didn’t want the spitter to know me, but the pig ploughed on. “Mine is Patrick Colson. Patty, if you like.”

I continued to glare.

“I’m from Kenton Hill.” He persevered. “Reckon I’m headed back there, too. Where’re you from?”

“Scurry” came the answer. It flew past my lips without my permission. I clamped my mouth shut.

Patrick nodded knowingly. “By the river.”

I hesitated, then nodded. I was surprised, perhaps by the idea that anyone outside of Scurry knew of its existence, perhaps that this boy knew anything at all.

“I’ll call you Scurry girl, then,” he said, expression suddenly serious. “Why’s there a pin in your arse, Scurry girl?”

My nose wrinkled. “Don’t call me that.”

“Gotta call you somethin’. I don’t know your name.”

“It’s Nina.” I sighed, annoyed. “And the pin is keepin’ this skirt from fallin’ round my ankles.”

He gave a low whistle. “That’d ruin the occasion, eh?”

I rolled my eyes and turned away again, looking for somewhere, anywhere to escape to.

“I, on the other hand, would love to see this whole fuckin’ ceremony ruined.” He said it in a voice made of razors.

I couldn’t help but turn back to peer at him again, to watch the gentleness in his features harden. “I’d gathered,” I said. “You spit like a miner.”

“Ah,” his eyes sparked, as though I’d revealed something important. “So, your daddy’s a miner, then?”

“And just as bitter.”

“Not much to be pleased about when you’re stuck in a hole all day.”

“Then it should please you to be here, shouldn’t it? Maybe you’ll be destined for a different line of work.” I didn’t quite know why I bothered arguing. The woman at the microphone called for the children of Brimshire and Bunderly to queue next, and there was more shifting of bodies, more space as children went in through those double doors and didn’t return, and yet Patrick Colson and I stood in place, steadfast and immovable amid the tide.

I could only assert that his face was hugely annoying, that his tone was superior, and that I very much wanted to prove him wrong.

He also reeked of the same hatred that frothed from the mouths of men in Scurry, and it rankled to hear it here in the city, so far from the soot.

“Nah,” Patrick said nonchalantly. “Not me. Son of Craftsman who was the son of Craftsman and so on. I’ll be back on that train by nightfall, just you watch.” His smile waned a little, as though he was suddenly not so sure. “And if the idium does take, then I’ll refuse to ever take another dose. They’ll have to send me home eventually.” He seemed comforted by the idea. I nearly envied him that.

Then I remembered those bigger things I was meant for.

“What about you?” he continued. “You’re prayin’ to be at that swank school, I take it?”

I didn’t like the way he said it, like it was a myth only gullible kids still believed in. I lifted my chin. “Why wouldn’t I?”

He grinned knowingly. “You look like the type. Bow in your hair. Pin up your arse. No interest in an honest day’s work.” They sounded like someone else’s words. Words he’d learned by heart.

It was common vitriol in towns like ours. My father thought Artisans lazy, indulgent. He commented on their houses and decor and running water and woodless stoves and lamented them, that they would let their bodies waste away while their minds did all the labor. Weak men. Brittle women. An entire class afraid of dirty hands and exertion. All this he said as he dabbed bluff into the abrasions on his skin, then plundered his gut with liquor.