A Spell for Heartsickness (The Rune Tithe #1)

CHAPTER 2

B riar woke to Vatii squawking in time with his phone. It snarled across his bedside cabinet, vibrating to his alarm. It took several flailing attempts to untangle from the blankets and grope the phone off his bed-side. He caught it before it plummeted to the floor.

With magic at their disposal, human technology might not have been strictly necessary, but some inventions performed better than ravens and soothsaying in ponds. His old flip phone had a penchant for amassing messages, notifying him of them all at once. But he couldn’t afford a new one, and snapping it shut appealed to his sense of drama. Plus, it was purple and had lots of dangly star charms.

He flipped it open to dismiss the alarm. Several texts from Celyn awaited him.

what the hell Briar?

everyone’s asking what happened with us now

the whole night is ruined

u know i didn’t mean it the way u took it. did u have to go that far?

srsly ur just going to ghost me? no apology?

fuck u I’m not drunk enough for this

Scowling, Briar typed out a solitary reply.

Should I post the fancy underwear through your letterbox, or was the thong you left behind a bit of charity for the lowly pleb who sucked your dick for two years?

He snapped the phone shut, ignoring the barrage of angry vibrations that followed. Vatii’s claws tickled his head as she landed in his messy hair.

“No time to mope. You should be getting ready,”

Vatii said. Briar shot up. “The Rede!”

With less than an hour to get dressed and go, Vatii flapped about his wardrobe, tugging fresh clothes off their hooks, while Briar went to shower.

Upon his return, the voicemail light on his phone blinked violet.

“Here’s your monthly reminder that you’re due a refill on Briar Wyngrave’s prescription for milk thistle elixir from Odell’s Alchemical Solutions. Thank you for shopping Odell’s and have a pleasant day!”

Briar groaned. The apothecary closed at noon. If he wanted to pick up his prescription, he had to go now.

He jumped into the clothes and cloak from the night before, grabbed his broom, and pelted out the door. Vatii winged after him as he hurtled into Wishbrooke’s streets, heading for the apothecary as quickly as his broom could take him.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t very quickly. According to his mother, the branch of elmwood had once been nippy, switching direction with the acuity of a bat on the wing. But it had been years since the branch bore the tiniest sprig of a leaf, and it sagged through the air, requiring a good kick and more prayers to get to Odell’s. Vatii’s talons dug into Briar’s shoulder in her efforts to keep balance.

It started raining.

Not a drizzle, but a downpour that soaked him through in seconds. Walking into Odell’s, he looked as though he’d swum there.

A bell tinkled to announce his arrival. The apothecary’s shelves of desiccated herbs and mummified animal bits made a grisly quilt of the walls. Common tithes, like clover and snake skins, filled jars in the aisles. Rare tithes were displayed behind the counter—powdered bat bones, claws from a nearly extinct hare. Briar had never liked the shop’s atmosphere, not only because it served as a reminder of his condition, but because everything here felt like taxidermy, toeing the line between alive and dead.

“Briar,” Odell said. “Wait outside, you’re dripping everywhere. Oh, never mind.”

With a long-suffering sigh, Odell crushed a holly berry in his fist. The spell wicked moisture out of Briar’s clothes and off the floor in shiny pearls, which turned to mist then vanished altogether. Odell’s badger familiar, curled up in a cat bed on the counter, opened a single eye to watch.

“You’re here for your milk thistle elixir,” Odell said.

“Yes, sir, and if you could—”

“How are you faring? Hopefully better, now the weather’s warmer.”

Briar never knew how to answer this question. Honesty made people uncomfortable; the polite response was a lie.

Briar was cursed.

A wasting illness had killed his mother before passing to him. It had spent the last two years devouring his magic, his health, and his future. He avoided speaking of it because it changed the way people behaved with him, acting as if he’d already died and they were communing with a ghost.

He said, “I’m well.”

Odell’s fingers walked the drawers where he kept each prescription. He stopped at N. “Hmm, isn’t the Witch’s Rede today?”

“Yes,” Briar said. “I’ve got a date with destiny, so I’m in a bit of a rush.”

“Which were your top picks, then? Bellgrave? Bit of a serious place for a boy like you, but it’s superb if you’re ambitious.”

“Pentawynn,” Briar said. “It’s been Pentawynn since I was five. Can we please hurry? If I don’t get back soon, I won’t have time to get ready, and I’d like to look fabulous on the first day of the rest of my life.”

Odell had the audacity to tut. “With such dramatics, you’d fit in well there, though it wouldn’t be my first choice.”

Briar refrained from telling Odell what he thought of Bellgrave. He’d heard a necromancer had accidentally raised up all the rats that had ever died there. Given Bellgrave had suffered a bout of plague in the fourteenth century, the place was overrun. Rumor had it they were still exorcising spectral vermin to this day.

At twenty-one, witches who wished to become certified tradesmen of their chosen discipline had to serve a four-year apprenticeship under a master. Cities like Wishbrooke were central to such apprenticeships, with many masters offering tutelage while unpaid apprentices got hands-on experience in their shops. Afterward, they were rewarded at the Witch’s Rede. A witch’s services were highly sought after, so cities offered newly Reded witches free lodging for a year while they started their business or joined an established one. City councils requested witches based on their talents or recommendations from their masters.

Four years of magical training, then they were thrown in the deep end with nary a class on filing taxes. Nevertheless, Briar had looked forward to it since his magical talents first appeared—an alarming moment for his mother, who’d had to peel Briar off the ceiling. He’d never replicated the trick and needed a broom to fly now, but that moment set the stage for all his hopes and sky’s-the-limit dreams.

Those dreams centered on Pentawynn, the glittering metropolis of modern witchcraft.

Odell placed a box of potion vials on the counter. “That will be one hundred and fifty copper.”

Briar’s heart sank. “That’s ten more than last time.”

“The way with inflation, I’m afraid.”

Briar counted out coins from the velvet pouch at his waist. Vatii shuffled closer to nibble his blond plait. Briar brushed her away, though she only tried to comfort him. He came up short, his pouch empty. “I can bring more tomorrow.”

“Hmm. You could leave me that pendant.” Odell pointed at the blue teardrop hanging from Briar’s earring.

“Pillock,” said Vatii. To Odell, the magpie’s language was only a croaking caw, but other familiars could understand. Odell’s badger cut her a dark look.

“It’s my mother’s,” Briar argued.

“Then your broom.”

“It’s also hers.” Nearly all of Briar’s possessions once were. “And a broom is worth a lot more.”

“I’m not running a charity. What about your cloak, then?”

He hesitated. His fingers still ached from all the stitching. Though fashioned for the party, he’d wanted to wear it daily in place of a casual one. He’d worked too hard to only wear it on special occasions.

But he had nothing else of value on his person.

He untied the laces. Vatii hopped onto his head to avoid being pulled off with it. Odell took the cloak and coins, then handed Briar the box of potion vials. It weighed significantly less than the copper.

“I’ll come back for the cloak later, with the money.”

“Yes, good. Why don’t you wait until the rain stops before you—”

“I’m going to be late.”

With less than half an hour until the Witch’s Rede, they had just enough time to get back to his flat to dry off. Briar took off on his broom. The rain poured in sheets, now accompanied by blistering wind. Vatii sheltered under his bowed torso, clinging to the broom handle. The thought of dry clothes and a warm cup of tea pushed him on, and he urged his broom with a few kicks.

They were about halfway home when the broom kicked back. Briar nearly fell face first into the handle. As he scrambled to regain his balance, the broom gave another dangerous buck. Vatii took wing in alarm.

“What’d you do that for?”

“It’s not me!” Briar protested.

The broom juddered and banked while Briar fought to get it under control. With a coughing motion, it listed sideways and descended steeply, heading for the street below. Gravity reclaimed him. He fell, picking up speed, his insides twisting like taffy. Vatii clutched a clawful of his shirt and flapped in a frantic attempt to slow their descent.

Briar reached for a piece of charcoal, only to recall he’d left it in the pocket of his cloak. Panic seized him. All spells required a tithe, but he had nothing with him to sacrifice. He only realized he’d clamped his eyes shut when he felt talons against his neck. Vatii’s beak appeared in his periphery, clutching one ebony feather. With a burst of desperation, Briar took it and pressed magic through it.

He stopped abruptly in midair. Vatii clawed up his sleeve, flapping and swearing. The spell stopped him from falling, but not his broom. It sailed down and splintered against the cobblestones, scattering the people milling below. They all looked up. Briar looked down. A little girl pointed and laughed. A wave of dizziness broke over him, but he couldn’t tell if that was from the curse exacting a toll for the spell or from beholding his mother’s snapped broom tumbling along the street.

It felt as though his heart tumbled with it.

By the time a passing witch cast the spell to bring Briar down to earth, he was late.

He picked up the two halves of his broom with a pang and sprinted the rest of the way. On foot, the trip took longer. He had no tithes for speed. Vatii’s feather had been a stroke of luck, but it wouldn’t make him faster.

The Rede took place on Gallows Hill at an old hanging tree. It stood at a crossroads on a grassy knoll, surrounded by the shopfronts of Wishbrooke high street. The twisting boughs of the old beech looked incongruous, haunted, a piece of grim history preserved amongst the traffic of modern society. Someone had erected a barrier to protect against the rain. Briar arrived to find the crowds of witches and their family members dispersing. His legs shook too much to get up the hill at more than a jog. At the outpouring of people, his hopes gave out before his legs.

He’d missed it.

The implications didn’t register. Inexplicably, he hoped Celyn wasn’t near to see him soaked in sweat and rain and dismay.

He staggered through the crowd. He had to catch the head seer—she announced everyone’s placement. He’d wallow in disappointment that he missed this rite of passage later.

Under the hanging tree, which was bedecked in emerald banners traditional for the Rede, stood the council of master witches. Briar couldn’t spot the pointed green hat of the head seer. Fighting hopelessness, he raced the rest of the way and skidded to a stop before the council.

“Where has the head seer gone?”

The masters startled, looking at him, perplexed.

“I beg your pardon?”

The words came tumbling out. “I missed the Rede. I’m sorry, but it was an emergency. I had to get a prescription, and the apothecary closes early Sundays, and my broom broke on the way back, so I missed it, and I don’t know where I’ve been placed.”

The witches all looked at one another like chickens, clucking and bobbing their heads in confusion. Perhaps no witch had ever missed such an important rite before.

Derringer, Master of Enchantments, cleared his throat.

Briar’s encounters with Derringer were numerous and unpleasant. Numerous because, given Briar’s aptitude for spellcraft, he’d worked under Derringer more than any other master. Unpleasant because Derringer had an aura like a funeral dirge. Briar had first met him on initiation day, when all apprentices were paired with masters. Despite Briar’s talent, Derringer always found fault in his achievements. When Derringer caught him doing work on behalf of the other apprentices for quick cash, he’d threatened to drop Briar as an apprentice if he was caught again.

It narrowed his dwindling earning potential. Living in Wishbrooke wasn’t free, and his apprenticeship ate the hours he could work a paid job, so he needed the money however he could come by it. Every encounter with Derringer felt like a misstep, and this was no different.

“Seer Niamh left on pilgrimage to recover her strength after the Rede,” Derringer said.

Briar persisted. “Then did any of you hear where my placement is?”

“Unfortunately, Niamh divined a placement for you. A special circumstance. We weren’t privy to the details.”

Though the word “special” sparked Briar’s hopes, Derringer’s obstinacy chafed. “What’s the use in that? Why are we deciding my future by divine tea leaves and loose teeth? What was the point of working hard as an apprentice if my destiny is chosen by a doddering old—”

“That’s enough, Mr. Wyngrave!”

“—woman who can’t be bothered to ensure I get my placement before she portals off?”

Derringer bristled with all the unprofessional things he’d likely say if his colleagues weren’t watching. Briar didn’t care. He’d put every penny he earned into this. He’d missed social events, holidays, and plenty of meals in order to fit his work in between magical study and the odd job to keep him afloat. He’d paid for it in debt and stress and sleepless nights.

His mother’s dying wish had been that he follow his dreams.

He needed this placement.

The master of potions raised a placating hand. Briar had worked under her only briefly, and though he had no special talent for potions, she’d always been kind to him. “It’s possible you could get in touch with Seer Niamh personally.”

“What’s her number?” he asked.

She looked pitying. “Niamh does not have a phone. You’ll have to reach her by SoothSight.”

“I don’t have any—”

“I have ghost orchid pollen I can lend you. If the other masters approve?”

Most nodded their agreement, but Derringer took his time answering. Briar had met his ilk before. From shop managers to teachers, there was a sort of person who enjoyed lording their power over those from whom they stood to lose nothing by helping.

At length, he said, “Fine.”

The master of potions led Briar to her shop down the street. Pinching a measured portion of ghost orchid pollen into Briar’s cupped hands, she instructed him to take it straight to any stagnant water. Despite his anger and earlier outburst, he felt selfish. The tiny teaspoon of powder cost a great deal. If he’d been at the Rede on time, there’d be no need. It grated against his independence, but he had little alternative.

He thanked her and carefully carried the pinch of pollen back to his smelly flat.

He sat on a stool in his bathroom, filling the sink and washing every grain from the creases in his palms. It turned the water a metallic blue, rippling as if struck by sound waves. His reflection stared back from it. Still dripping wet, his hair a tangled mess. He’d looked better.

Vatii shuffled along the rim of the sink. “Call her.”

Briar pictured Niamh’s face. She’d visited apprentices to check on their progress plenty of times and had encouraged him to build upon his aura-reading ability. He didn’t often tell people about it, but she’d known.

“A rare gift,” she’d said. “Fortune smiles on you.”

“If it were a gift that could make me a fortune, I’d have more to smile about,” he’d said.

Niamh’s aura smelled like tobacco smoke in an old pub but pricked like the torn edge on an aluminum tin. She had dropped the facade of a wise seer and spoke plainly with him, which had been a blessing and a curse. At least twice, she’d called him an idiot.

Briar waited with his feet pulled up on the stool, cheek resting against his knees, looking out the door at his flat. It was so small that the kitchen, living room, and bedroom were all one and the same. He’d covered a crack in the wall with his vision board, filled with garment sketches and magazine clippings of Linden’s face. Despite the disappointing day, his heart managed an excited plonk at the sight of his postcards depicting Pentawynn’s glass spires. Though he’d never been there himself, his friends had brought him souvenirs.

This wasn’t as exciting as sharing the Witch’s Rede with his peers, but he’d still discover whether he’d be traveling to the city of his dreams. He could plan his future.

Vatii sensed his excitement. “I know you’ve got your hopes set on Pentawynn, but if you get a different placement, you’ll still be a great witch.”

“It’s Pentawynn or death for me, Vatii.”

A flash of refracted light off the mirror drew his attention back to the sink. The water’s ripples moved faster, until droplets vibrated on its surface. Niamh’s scratchy voice came through in fits and starts.

“Who’s—connection’s dog shite. Hello?”

Her image shone through as the ripples vanished, leaving the water’s surface glassy and smooth. Niamh’s countenance peered at him. She wore black and the same expression most professors did when dealing with Briar—a pinched look of long-suffering patience, frayed to the point of breaking.

“Briar, the state of you. Why weren’t you at the Rede?”

He leaned forward, nearly tipping his stool over. He spoke fast, the words all blurring together, recounting in unnecessary detail the catastrophe of his day.

Until Niamh appeared to look away from him at something or someone in her environment. “Hmm? No, no bother. One of my apprentices missed the Rede. He’s called me through my pint.”

Briar ignored the implication that he was talking to Niamh from the surface of her beer. “Are you even listening?”

A woman with gray-streaked hair appeared next to Niamh and spoke with the same musical accent. “Who’s that?”

“Wind your neck in, Maebh.”

Maebh rolled her eyes and vanished out of view.

Niamh said, “I suppose you’ll be wanting to know where you’re being sent, then?”

“Yes!”

“An unusual circumstance, yours. A vision came to me. It gave the impression a specific placement is of supreme importance.”

“Where?” he prompted.

Niamh paused to answer. The prospect of finally knowing clattered around in his chest like a spool on a sewing machine. He’d awaited this day for years. He hadn’t expected to find out while crouched, gargoyle-like, over his bathroom sink, but that no longer mattered.

His desire for Pentawynn was tied deeply to the curse eroding his health. If his mother’s decline was a measure of the norm, he had six to eight years to live.

It wasn’t long. He wanted, more than anything, to leave a mark upon the world with whatever time he had. To leave it better than he’d found it. To be beloved and remembered. He wanted to tell the world who he was, and that he owed it all to the brilliant woman who raised him. Perhaps it wasn’t the immortality imagined by alchemists, but it was the only hope Briar had that he and his mother’s time on earth, however brief, had not been meaningless.

Witches with dreams like that, they all found their fame in Pentawynn.

“The fate I saw for you,” Niamh said, “brings you to Coill Darragh.”

Briar froze.

He waited for her to laugh. Tell him it was a joke. She didn’t. Instead, she brought the pint to her lips, giving Briar an inelegant view of her nostrils. When she set the pint down again, it sank in. She’d meant what she’d said.

“Where?”

“Coill Darragh.”

“Where’s that?”

“Island, up north and west across the channel, like.”

“You’re joking. I’ve never heard of it.”

“Lovely place,” she said with a sly look that made Briar suspicious. “Full of history.”

He tapped frantically at his phone to pull up a search on the name. He misspelled it, getting the “did you mean Coill Darragh?” option. “You’re sending me to a tiny town of a few hundred people in the middle of the ocean five hundred miles away from here?”

“Yes.”

“In the middle of nowhere, with no one?”

“There’ll be another witch. There are two every year.”

“Niamh. You’re ruining my life.”

“You’ll be grand.”

“There must be some mistake.”

“No mistake.” She nodded sagely. “I’ve seen your destiny in Coill Darragh.”

“Tell me what you saw, then,” he said. “Am I rich? Do men and women fawn over me in the streets? Do I eventually go to Pentawynn, where I meet Linden, and we fall madly in love and become the two most popular people on the planet?” Though he’d adopted a sarcastic tone, he hoped even a portion of that was true.

Seer Niamh rubbed her temples. “Do you know the price of a prophecy?”

A chill ran down the length of Briar’s spine.

In his eagerness to hear the details of his fate, he’d forgotten the price, though he knew it well. He’d had one prophetic reading before, at a traveling fairground in the tent of a young seer. Only a teenager, barely older than Briar at fourteen. With a belly full of soft-serve ice cream, he’d gone in hoping to hear about his high school crush. Instead, she’d flipped over the Tower from her tarot and foretold the slow, agonizing death of his mother.

He’d never told his mum why the news of her curse hadn’t surprised him.

A tithe old as time: you could learn your future, but you could never speak of it.

“The price is my silence,” he said.

“You do know, then.”

“I want to hear it.”

“You understand the price? You’re sure?”

A pang of grief reverberated through him. Vatii would know because she was a part of him. He wouldn’t be able to tell anyone else. But apart from her, who else could he tell?

“Yes.”

Niamh stood and took her pint somewhere private. The noises of the pub fell away. As she folded her bony hands, knobbed like tree branches, under her chin, Briar felt magic creep like ivy up his throat, binding his tongue so he couldn’t repeat what he was about to hear.

“I saw,” she began, “a man with a hole in his chest.”

“Gross,” said Briar.

Niamh’s voice took on a quality where the lilt in her accent and the rhythm of her words became poetry. “Everyone could see this man’s heart beat slow when he was calm, fast when he was scared, and skip when he was in love. He tried to build over the hole in his chest, but his heart was too full of feeling, and every material he used melted.”

Briar nodded along. Yes, that did sound like him. Passionate. Sensitive. Vulnerable.

“So,” Seer Niamh continued, “he fashioned a mask so terrible that no one noticed his bare heart. That worked for a time. People were too frightened to get close. But in the absence of love, his heart turned to stone. Known to all but known by none, he became a deified pillar of the people, stripped of humanity in the eyes of those who loved him from afar.”

Briar frowned. He supposed his gregarious nature could be seen as intimidating, but—

Niamh’s tone shifted. “Until an idiot showed up and was too stupid to be scared of the mask. With much time and patience, the man took off his mask and gave his heart to the stupid one—”

“Wait,” said Briar.

“To keep safe whenever he needed to take off the mask and breathe.”

“Just a sec—”

“And the stone heart will turn golden in the idiot’s hands. Together with his lover, he will leave a mark on every life he touches, reaching beyond the borders of his humble beginnings, finding prosperity and longevity beyond his own mortality. That is how you’ll meet your destiny,” Seer Niamh finished. Just as Briar demanded with all the weight of righteous indignation,

“Am I the stupid one?”

After speeding through the seven stages of grief, Briar realized two things.

The first, Niamh would not change her mind. (She claimed to be “a servant of Fate, not its master.” Bollocks , thought Briar.) The second, his congenial relationship with Niamh was clearly a lie, and she must loathe him.

Once she said goodbye and the liquid in his sink turned clear, he searched for information on Coill Darragh. The Magical Travel Bureau mentioned needing special permission to visit because the town was protected by powerful wards. A few sources touted the village as the site of a magical hotbed, the details of which were obfuscated. Otherwise, there was little information he could find.

Somewhere between bargaining and begging, Briar considered refusing the prophetic summons and going to Pentawynn anyway. An empty threat—he couldn’t afford lodging for one week, let alone a year.

He consoled himself by looking through Alakagram on his phone. There were plenty of photos of apprentices getting their placements at the Rede. One post recorded all the Reded witches alongside their placements, with congratulations. Briar’s name was omitted, which hurt far worse than the news he’d be going to Coill Darragh. It was like he’d ceased to exist already.

Still, Celyn was being sent to Bellgrave. Hopefully he liked exorcising rats. Briar took some comfort that his dreams weren’t the only ones broken today.

As if summoned by Briar’s thoughts, Celyn knocked on his door.

“Oh. You,” Briar said upon opening it. “What are you doing here?”

“I didn’t see you at the Rede.”

“I was late.”

“Oh. So you don’t know where you’re going?”

Celyn was the last person Briar wanted to talk to. With a sting of grief, he realized the only person he would’ve shared his disappointment with was his mother. She’d have known exactly what to say to comfort him. Instead, he had Celyn. His aura of spring rain and ice cream melting over fingers no longer appealed. Looking at him across his flat, Briar wished the conversation at the Raven’s Brew had gone any other way. It galled him to think he’d spent so much time with someone who thought of him as unimportant and shameful by association.

“Did you speak to the head seer—”

“What do you want, Celyn?” Briar said. “Aren’t you afraid someone might have seen you coming here? What will all your posh friends think?”

“Oh, don’t be like that. Really, where’s your placement, Briar? Is it in Pentawynn?”

Asked directly, Briar couldn’t avoid the truth. “No,” he said bitterly. “A place called Coill Darragh.”

“Well, that’s a shame.” Something in his tone rankled. Not bristling and eager for a fight, but calm. Smug.

“I heard you’ve been sent to Bellgrave,” Briar said.

“Yes, but my family’s pulled a few strings.”

“And you’re going to Pentawynn,” Briar concluded. Celyn hadn’t come to make amends. He’d come to gloat.

From his pocket, Celyn produced a train ticket with gold-embossed letters. The destination, in a curling font, was Pentawynn.

Briar willed his locked jaw to open. “The accommodation won’t be covered—” He cut himself short. “But I suppose your parents can help you there as well. Must be nice.”

It was a cheap shot to throw his mother’s death in Celyn’s face. They’d started sleeping together not long after she’d passed away. Celyn had known, but Briar didn’t speak about her often, nor about the curse that took her. He didn’t want to be bedded or befriended out of pity. Looking back, his desperate loneliness was obvious.

Celyn said, “It’s not as if I didn’t work hard to earn it.”

And just like that, Briar’s blood pounded. Sure, Celyn had worked hard. But while Briar filled his every hour in Wishbrooke working odd jobs to pay for rent, books, and tithes, Celyn went on beachside holidays. Even if Briar’s mother had been alive, she’d never have been able to rearrange Briar’s future to suit their whim. There was such indignity in his toil. Time wasted. He could have spent that time with his mother while she was alive. He’d lost her, the only one who’d believed in him. He’d fitted apprentice work and jobs in between outpourings of grief that threatened to drown him, in between missing her so bitterly that loneliness pushed him into the arms of a man who disdained him, though he’d been too blind and desperate to see it.

He pointed at the door. “Get out.”

“What? Why are you so angry? I only came to—”

“You came to lord it over me, and now you have. Well done. It must be so satisfying to have the power to bend everything to your will with some money and a few phone calls.”

“That’s hardly—”

Briar was shoving him toward the door. “Some of us don’t have that luxury. But do you know what? Sod it. I don’t need it. I don’t want it.”

Blustering, Celyn said, “Christ, you’re such a diva lately.”

“I’ll see you in Pentawynn, Celyn, but I’ll get there with actual hard work. I’ll earn it. And I’ll do it on my own .”

He slammed the door in Celyn’s face.