Chapter 4

Four

"Beware the wild magic of women, saints, and gods." — Sorcery in the Age of Reason.

Like Mara, Augustus didn’t like surprises. He’d left the teashop two days beforehand, confused and curious in equal measure.

He’d locked himself in the house on Albert Street, wanting to put as many doors between himself and Mara Corvo’s black eyes as possible.

Augustus had thought his drunken mind had embellished their size and the way he felt exposed underneath them. Encountering them sober had been even worse.

Tell her his grief? Lord in Heaven, where would he start?

"Shut up, you don’t want to tell her anything," he told the fire burning in front of him, making it pop indignantly.

A saint whose miracle was purging grief was a saint he didn’t need in his life. He rolled over in his too-big oak bed and put a pillow over his head.

Saint Mara could keep her tea and her full bottom lip and her dangerous miracles to herself. He knew her game like he knew every other supernatural hustler’s in Melbourne.

She was someone who it wouldn’t be wise to forget about. She was dangerous. He didn’t buy her sweet ’I want to help people with their heartache’ act. She had been far too suspicious and annoyed that he remembered her.

The problem was now Mara was on to him and would know he was keeping an eye out to make sure she wasn’t swindling humans with her false promises.

If Mara thought that she’d cured him when she hadn’t, he’d still remember her, and she would be none the wiser.

For a sorcerer, Augustus Valentine Vance was a skeptic, and he didn’t believe for a single second that a cup of tea could cure all ails.

He would tell Mara a story, drink her tea, and know for sure if she was a fraud or not. Even if the miracle was true, Augustus was a sorcerer held together like a papier-mâché man, constructed of layers of guilt and grief, and not even a saint could heal all of it.

Underneath his pillow, Augustus created the perfect lie. He smiled and planned his next visit to the teashop of the brokenhearted.

* * *

The following day, Augustus put on his favorite red and gold scarf and went to see if the magical pull of the teashop would find him again.

He knew what story he would tell her. He’d crafted it carefully and made sure that he could say it with perfect sincerity. He didn’t like lying, but he liked the idea of forgetting Mara Corvo even less.

Augustus knew what to expect this time when he strolled the streets around Chinatown, searching for the shop with the red door.

He was ready and well-rested, and when he let his guard down just enough to allow the teashop’s magic to work on him, he realized he was a fool to be so confident.

It led him on a much longer walk this time, old pain rising to the surface like water from a shattered drainpipe. It was as if it was teaching him a lesson not to be so cocky.

If the teashop was unimpressed, it was nothing compared to its saint. Mara had her strange hair pinned up that day, so he had a full view of the bare neck that led up to her frowning face.

"You look disappointed to see me," Augustus said as he hung up his scarf and blazer on the stand by the door.

"After three days, I hoped that your memory had been wiped," Mara replied.

For some reason, the comment irked him. Women usually like Augustus, but Mara acted like he had offended her by merely existing.

He couldn’t wait to find out what the sorcerer had done to tangle with the Corvo women so severely that they held a generational grudge.

"Does this mean you don’t want to make me tea?"

"I had the feeling you wouldn’t be back. You don’t strike me as the type of person who would want my kind of services."

"Oh? And what type of person would that be?" Augustus asked as he sat down.

"Deceptive."

"Been listening to your cat, have you? From where I’m standing, you’ve done more harm to me than I’ve done to you. Come now, saint. You want to be rid of me, and according to you, it will only take a cup of tea to do it."

Mara looked away from his smile and said, "Will you excuse me for a minute? My last customer accidentally spilled their tea on me." She gestured to the stain on the hem of her shirt and pants.

"Of course, I’ll be right here waiting," Augustus replied. He was sure there hadn’t been anything on her clothes a moment beforehand.

"If you think to play your games with her, sorcerer, know that I’ll stop you," Athanasius said, leaping up in an armchair. Augustus sat down opposite him, crossing his long legs.

"Can’t a man be curious?"

"A man could be. Just not you."

"One day, you are going to tell me why you hate sorcerers so much. Did one really curse you?"

Athanasius’s yellow eyes narrowed. "Yes."

"Was it because you were this rude to him and pissed him off?"

"No. It was because I fell in love with a Corvo woman that he wanted."

That admission raised even more questions, but the door reopened, and Mara appeared. She’d changed her stained clothes for a deep red satin shirt and black jeans that made her coloring even more striking.

Now that he wasn’t agitated at the thought of her cursing him, he had the time to appreciate the way the dark flicks of her eyeliner made her black eyes even bigger and the silent, graceful way she moved. It really was a shame she hated sorcerers so much.

"Okay, I’ll try and do the miracle," Mara said, reaching for the pot. "Tell me your heartache, and I’ll make tea."

"Are you always this blunt with your customers? For a grief saint, you’re not very empathic."

"My customers usually forget me and never return," Mara replied, color staining her cheeks. She was flustered and defensive.

Good.

Then something shifted inside of Augustus, and he could no longer remember the lie he’d so carefully constructed.

His heart began to pound in his ears the longer she stared at him, waiting for a response. His mind and tongue were no longer cooperating with each other.

He opened his mouth and said, "There was an incident with a leopard..."

* * *

The year was 1880, and Augustus had traveled from London to Sri Lanka with his best friend, Timothy Highfell. Lord Highfell, Timothy’s father, had invested heavily in the growing and exportation of the Ceylon tea trade.

They were twenty years old, fresh graduates from the Academy, and both accomplished sorcerers.

Like most young men, they were adventurous, cocky, and reckless, so when an overseer had come to tell Lord Highfell of a leopard that was attacking their workers in one of their highland plantations, they both volunteered to take a handful of men and hunt the beast down.

Augustus would never forget how horrible that trip was. On their first night at the plantation, two workers had been killed and dragged from their beds without a sound.

The leopard had never been so arrogant, but the presence of the two white men had made it even angrier. Augustus and Timothy had loaded their packs and weapons, and with a group of five men, they began to track the beast through the jungle.

After three days, Augustus had seen the glimmer of a tail and felt strange magic linger. If they had thought they were tracking a natural animal, they were wrong.

He had tried to tell Timothy that they should return to the plantation, but he refused. They were closing in on the beast, and he’d kill it and take its skin back to his father.

Augustus’s father had died when he was only ten years old, so he didn’t understand the motivations that drove Timothy to impress Lord Highfell. Timothy begged him to stay, so Augustus did.

In the next week, the leopard slowly picked off their men one at a time until only Timothy and Augustus remained.

They were running out of food and water, and every time they were about to give up, the leopard would appear to taunt them, and they would keep going, letting it lure them deeper and deeper into the jungle. It was playing with them, and both men were slowly losing their minds from heat and dehydration.

Augustus finally cast the right spell to track the magic on the creature, and they followed it until they reached a small clearing.

The cat was twice the size of a regular leopard, and it sat outside of its cave, waiting for them.

In the sunlight, they could finally see that it was no leopard at all but a sorcerer, eyes wild with violence and madness.

The sorcerer asked them if they were ready to learn the greatest secret to life. Timothy had collapsed to his knees with exhaustion and said yes. The sorcerer had pounced, shifting into his leopard form, and tore Timothy’s chest to pieces.

Life is pain, and the life of a sorcerer is the most painful of all, the leopard shouted as Timothy screamed, and Augustus ran.

He didn’t know how long he tore his way through that thick, dark jungle. A second search party found him, dying and delirious, and carried him back to Lord Highfell.

Augustus was on the first boat back to England, and Timothy’s remains were never found.

* * *

Augustus didn’t realize he’d stopped talking until a warm hand brushed over his. Mara’s eyes hovered in front of him, and she silently pushed the cup of tea into his hand.

"T-Thank you," he managed to whisper, and she sat down on the chair with Athanasius. Augustus touched his cheeks, horrified to find them damp. "Christ, what did you do to me?"

"Drink your tea, Augustus," Mara replied. It was the first time she’d said his name, her deep voice sad and gentle.

He took a mouthful, and it was as if she’d given the memory a flavor. There were tastes he knew like warm cinnamon, cloves, orange, and Ceylon.

She poured him a second cup, and this time, it tasted of jungle heat, mango, and the musk of leopard fur.

She poured him a third cup, and he tasted blood and salt tears and madness.

She poured the fourth cup, and he hesitated to drink it. She waited until he summoned the courage, and he tasted the things he found the most comfort in after the incident: the sea breeze, old books, good scotch, and the heather that grew on the moors.

It was the fourth cup that broke him.

Augustus gave her back the cup and pulled on his blazer. His hand wrapped around the door handle, and he hesitated.

"If the magic works, and I forget you, it was a pleasure meeting you, Mara Corvo. You know where to find me, should you ever require a sorcerer."

Outside, the noise of the city rolled over him, and Augustus knew another true thing.

Miracles, unlike magic, were not something that could be tricked or tamed. It wasn’t the purpose of a miracle to give comfort or be understood.

He would never underestimate them again.