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Isabella doesn't really want to own as many things as a human. She likes the simple wardrobe, the one glorious vehicle that carries her under the stars, the rental house. Hair can do without shampoo as long as it's not accustomed to the stuff; no one really needs to own a copy of Monopoly; she sleeps comfortably in a hammock instead of having to come up with the hundreds of dollars for a mattress (let alone a frame).
She sometimes wishes she had her own computer.
She has a phone, which Charlie insists she carry with her, so that's all right and no one's going to call her unwitchly for indulging a beloved mortal. It will do simple web browsing. When she wants to do less simple web browsing, she goes to the library.
So here she is, in the Rockland Public Library, looking up alethiometers.
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"I know," says a smug voice from Kas's tummy region.
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Isabella resumes forward progress. "I'm better with verse magic than anything else, and because it works so much better when specific, I don't have a huge repertoire of spells that I can pull out on a whim. I'm more effective with a goal."
"'Do something fun' is a pretty good goal," Kas opines.
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"Sure, but it's not the right kind. I don't touch mind-affecting spells, so 'fun' isn't an effect I'm going to produce directly in the world by invoking a goddess or sacrificing a rabbit or drizzling honey onto the snow."
"So think of something fun, and then do that?"
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"I'm not accustomed to inventing things to do quite like that. Magic in general is fun. When I have downtime I fly or I read or I study alethiometer symbols and that's fun, too."
"What's flying like?" wonders Kas.
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Bell scoots forward on her pine. "Can you avoid falling off?" she asks.
"...Sure I can," he says, beaming, and climbs on behind her. (Petaal turns into a bee hummingbird.)
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The cloud-pine doesn't so much dip under the added weight. Unencumbered by the need to accommodate a walking conversational partner, Isabella takes them up over building-level and speeds up quite a bit. They reach Metis's house presently, and Metis (dressed in her silks, now) can be seen in the backyard, writing runes on a spot cleared of snow in some manner of powder.
Flying is, it turns out, really fucking cool.
Tiny Petaal nestles in the fur lining of his hood and joins him in laughing with glee.
Tiny Petaal nestles in the fur lining of his hood and joins him in laughing with glee.
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"If you want me to do anything fancy I'm going to want to land and tuck some bayleaves into your collar and come up with a verse," Isabella says, starting wide lazy circuits around the house.
"Why bayleaves?" he asks, grinning hugely. "I would love to go fancy flying with you, this is awesome."
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"Bayleaves are a protection herb and I know we have some," she says. "So if you fall off you won't break your neck. Even with those I don't think I'd dare go upside down at all with a human passenger unless I sat you in a circle of herbed runes and came up with a long poem. But I can go faster and vary my altitude more with the quick and easy version." She glides to a stop outside the backdoor, says a polite, "Hello, Teacher," and ducks inside for the bayleaves.
Kas beams. Petaal turns tiger again and stands on her hind legs to hug him.
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"So," says Metis, all her visible attention on her progressing circle, "she says she did not claim you at daggerpoint?"
Her daemon, a griffon vulture sitting on the ground near her, chuckles darkly to himself.
Her daemon, a griffon vulture sitting on the ground near her, chuckles darkly to himself.
"Nope!" he agrees, laughing and snuggling his cheek into Petaal's fur. "I showed her a good place to eat and she bought me lunch and we talked for a while, and she mentioned where she lived, so when I felt like leaving Quebec again I came here."
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"All right then. She's a decent apprentice. It would annoy me if she ran off this early on." Metis continues dusting precise, tidy clusters of symbols onto the ground.
Isabella reappears with a handful of bayleaves and a poem composed already. "Out of my way real quick, Petaal?" she says, holding the leaves up. "If I don't tuck them in place myself they're just leaves."
Isabella reappears with a handful of bayleaves and a poem composed already. "Out of my way real quick, Petaal?" she says, holding the leaves up. "If I don't tuck them in place myself they're just leaves."
"Sure," says Petaal, and she re-ermines and climbs into Kas's coat.
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Isabella reaches into Kas's hood and tucks six bayleaves into places where they look liable to stay put, and murmurs: "Leaves of bay, there you stay, keeping falling harms at bay." When she places the last leaf and utters the last syllable, she withdraws her hand and says, "Oddly enough, making puns can help."
"That's awesome," says Kas. His re-ermine re-emerges out the end of a sleeve, climbs up to observe the leaves, and then becomes a teeny hummingbird again.
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"Teacher, when do you think you'll be wanting them in the circle?" Isabella asks Metis.
"In another half hour or so," says Metis.
Isabella nods and perches on the end of her cloud-pine again. "Roller-coaster version?" she asks Kas.
"In another half hour or so," says Metis.
Isabella nods and perches on the end of her cloud-pine again. "Roller-coaster version?" she asks Kas.
"I fucking love roller-coasters," says Kas, and he perches behind her.
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Zoom!
Isabella can fly like a madwoman when she wants to. She does not, in fact, go upside-down on the sole strength of the bayleaves and two-line verse, as if he falls from a less precarious position he'll at least have a decent chance of landing on something nonessential, but she does swoop and dive and bank and go fast. Pathalan describes even more outrageous patterns in the sky, nearby.
Isabella can fly like a madwoman when she wants to. She does not, in fact, go upside-down on the sole strength of the bayleaves and two-line verse, as if he falls from a less precarious position he'll at least have a decent chance of landing on something nonessential, but she does swoop and dive and bank and go fast. Pathalan describes even more outrageous patterns in the sky, nearby.