Magic's Memories

Chapter Thirty-nine

First, she went home. Not home to her mother and not home to the house Sedgewick had gotten. Feyla returned to her own small set of rooms in the city. She mounted the stairs to her door on the second floor and went inside. Her hand brushed the rune disc on her wall. The glow-lights dangling from her ceiling lit up and the disc flowed a faint orange-pink. Sedgewick had topped them off with his own magic last time he was here and despite her using them since, the color of his stronger magic still lingered. She should sleep. It was late now, so late, and she's been up since early this morning.

Feyla walked into her kitchen instead. She grabbed a coffee pot and pulled down on her crank to fill it with water. After that first tug, the motions became mindless repetition and soon the coffee was sitting on the stove, brewing.

An idea was growing in the back of her mind. A dangerous idea. She let it brew alongside the coffee and went into her bedroom. Feyla sat down at her vanity seat and stared at her reflection. The hair she'd carefully pulled back earlier now stuck out in various directions as strands escaped the confines of her bun. Her mother's voice tisked inside her head at her sloppy appearance. Feyla pulled it down. Pins clattered to the floor but she made no move to pick them up.

Blonde hair framed her heart-shaped face. She might have looked pretty but the effect was spoiled by how red her eyes still were. People used to say that she looked like her mother but truthfully all the women in her family shared a close resemblance. Feyla's hand came up and twirled a strand of her hair around her finger. Mother had always praised her hair. It was a trait they shared and Arilla had been voicing her opinion on how Feyla should wear it since her birth. Along with her opinions on her clothes. And her friends. And her occupation, her occasional use of makeup, who she should love, what she should want, and how she should act.

In fact, the only thing Arilla had never had any praise or criticism for were her eyes. The one good thing her father had given her.

She should pull her hair back up. Sedgewick and she might both prefer it down but what she would be doing—and she had decided to do it, as if there was ever a true debate—would require her hair to stay out of the way. She should pick up the pins she'd carelessly scattered and tie it back the way she'd been taught. Even a braid was too much of a risk given how long her hair was.

Feyla's eyes dragged toward the scissors resting on top of her vanity. Light glinted off of the smooth metal and revealed a distorted reflection of her face. She cast out all doubt and hesitation from her head and reached for them with her empty hand.

Shhhrip. The steel was good and sharp and the act ended seconds after it had begun. A weight grown over countless years fell from her shoulders. Feyla dropped the scissors and stared at her reflection, her eyes as wild as the Wildwood itself. The cut was jagged and uneven and rested above her shoulders now. It reminded her a bit of Sedgewick's poor attempts to trim his hair. On a different day, she would have cringed at the disorderly edges and boyish length, not at all like her usual careful oiling and styling. But now she smiled, and that wild light her mother never noticed glowed a bit brighter inside the eyes she never mentioned.

The coffee had finished brewing. Feyla drank it with two spoonfuls of sugar and no milk. Once finished, she undid her battle healer's kit from her waist and set it aside. That she would need. The white healer's uniform went the way of her hair. Feyla discarded it just as fast and flung the fabric into a dark corner, letting the white be absorbed by the shadows. She pulled out the clothes that she wore for her occasional visits to the palace training arena, but a different shirt caught her eye.

Folded neatly and sitting in the corner of her room was one of Sedgewick's shirts. Unlike the one that he'd been wearing earlier, this one she already had mended. She plucked it up and ran her finger across the tan stitching visible at the wrist. She hadn't had an exact thread match so the tan stood out against the orange-brown fabric. Slipping her arms through the holes, she then closed the hooks on the left side of the shirt. After grabbing her belt, Feyla looped it around her waist and tugged the shirt straight. She took a final look at her appearance in the mirror. The shirt hung past her bottom and the high collar covered her neck. It shouldn't have been surprising that Sedgewick's old, oversized shirt wasn't flattering on anyone.