Mircea nodded, before remembering that she couldn’t see it. “Yes. And now we’re both in desperate danger, but if you’re with Abramalin, you must be a witch. You can get us out of this!”
Sprawled among the fish, she looked up at him for a startled moment, her face blank. And then began laughing hysterically. Mircea went back to worrying for her sanity.
“I’m what’s known as a scrim,” she finally managed to gasp, as if that made things any clearer.
“What?”
“You know, like the curtains?”
Mircea scowled. “I’m not a mage! I don’t know what that means!”
“It refers to my kind being like curtains that block out the sun, leaving a room dark inside. Magicless.”
“Then you’re not a witch.”
“I’m a witch as much as any of them!” she snarled, probably because she’d just tried to get out of the boat, slipped on fish, and landed on her backside. “But I don’t make enough magic for anyone to detect it. My kind make good spies.”
“So you’re a spy?” Mircea said, because frankly she didn’t look like one.
“I’m an idiot,” she spat. “I came to Venice because I have one talent, one I hoped to turn into a fortune and spite them all, everyone who always told me how useless I was! But, instead, I listened to Abramalin, and his stupid stories about the future of the magical community—the same one that always despised me! And now look—”
Mircea cut her off. “What talent?”
“Glamourie.” She was thrashing about in fish guts, in what to her was probably total darkness, but that didn’t seem to have dampened her spirits any. “‘Go to Venice,’ they said. ‘The courtesans there live like queens,’ they said.” She slipped again, and ended up draped across the side of the craft, cursing. “If this is a queen, I’d rather be a commoner!”
“Glamourie,” Mircea repeated, hope dawning. “Then you can disguise us!”
“I could disguise myself,” she corrected. “I don’t have enough magic for two. And it doesn’t matter, anyway, when I can’t disguise my scent. Or don’t you think I’d have walked away before this?”
Mircea felt like battering his head against the boat, but he was hurt enough.
“Abramalin, the bastard, was supposed to send someone to get me,” the woman continued, ripping her skirts to get them free of a nail. “But the damned praetor changed locations, and I couldn’t get to the rendezvous for a week or so. She didn’t want anyone getting wise to her little scheme—”
“To kill the consul and take over,” Mircea said, as things finally made sense.
The woman nodded. “The weapons she was making from all those bones would give her the edge she needed when they dueled, and she wasn’t taking chances. I found out everything, but no one ever came to get me out! Just left me for dead. Who cares about a damned scrim? I should have known—”
She cut off when Mircea shook her. “Wait! You’re saying you can do magic, you just need more power?”
“I—yes. Something like that. Why?”
He looked behind him, up the little stretch of beach.
“I have an idea.”
* * *
—
“Oh God! Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God—”
“Be silent!” Mircea hissed.
“I’ve never done anything—oh God!” And then the witch grabbed him, her eyes reflecting the lightning above them. “I’m going to be sick,” she told him calmly.
And then she was.
All over him.