Chapter 4
Oisin sat at the table and stared at the mortar in front of him without seeing it. The spell book was open to a spell titled For Delayed Birth. He’d felt a little shock the first time he’d seen it and had flipped past it without reading it. But he’d created all the spells he could reasonably test on himself and had begun considering how to perfect and test the rest, and the book had practically fallen open to this particular page.
Delayed birth.
That was more or less what had killed his mother. It had nearly taken him as well. He had been backwards in the womb, and she had labored long, exhausting herself, and then torn badly pushing him out. She had never delivered the afterbirth either, and had died soon after despite all the midwife could do.
He felt himself near tears thi
