Nine

The way wasn't just more difficult, it was absolutely impossible, miserable, and awful.

Fucking torture is what it is. You can say it. Fucking torture.

"It is torture, that's for certain."

One day you're going to say a curse word and I will die of shock.

"Oh, be quiet."

Even those few words were almost too much for him, costing precious air that he needed to breathe as they hiked along a steep portion of the road. He'd even bought the walking sticks that locals in the foothills had recommended and still the going was rough.

At least the horses were holding up. He'd given up riding not long after they'd started, as it was easier for Strider if he didn't have to manage a rider and himself. Gods alone knew how they'd get back down, but that was a problem to be faced later. At present, he had his hands full.

There's a flat area after this rise, perfect for taking a break, Sinn said from where he was perched on a boulder at the top of the incline because he was a stupid mouse-eating bird who didn't have to deal with this gods-awful climb.

When he finally reached the plateau, he sat down on the nearest rock panting. "Why do they live all the way up here? Surely that cannot be convenient for literally anything."

I think if they were better received by people, and not consistently met with hostility, they would not need to live in a place that makes it difficult to attack them unawares.

"Fair enough," Ninos said quietly. "They shouldn't need to live under constant protection. Magic class does not make one evil. He laughed sourly. "Look at Kina. Aqua mages are accounted a protective class, but Kina has nothing of a protector in him."

How long would it take before he was shipped off to spend his life doing hard labor or faced execution? "His poor familiar."

Don't feel too sorry for him. Familiars fit their mage. Remember they are conjurings, a combination of soul and the ether that shapes us all. A blackened soul is a blackened soul. I call him a water rat, but he is more like a snake lurking in dark, muddy waters waiting for a moment to strike. His familiar reflected that. A highly venomous water snake that inhabits swamps and, like most snakes, hunts by way of camouflage, ambush, envenomation.

"So what's your mage like?" Ninos asked, refusing to waste any more time on Kina. "Smirking, acerbic, smug, full of mysterious knowledge and pleased with himself for it?"

My mage is a gentle-hearted but thorny speaker who likes poisonous plants and caramels.

Ninos's eyes abruptly stung, and he suddenly no longer felt like holding still. "I'm not your mage. I'm a mistake. That's why we're doing this, to get you where you belong."

And get you a familiar that you're happy with , Sinn replied coldly, snapping his wings out and launching into the sky.

"That's not it at all," Ninos choked out, tears escaping. He angrily wiped them away as he resumed walking, the horses dutifully following behind despite not being finished with the tasty thistles they'd been munching on. You know I'm happy, how can you not know that? But you were never meant for me, and what if right now the person you're intended for is absolutely miserable? What if you see them and go Oh, that's the one. That's the person. How can I deny you that?

Impossible.

You can't know that.

I do know that! I am right where I want to be, and trekking up this stupid mountain will change nothing. There is no other human waiting for me, and there is no familiar waiting for you!

It wasn't the words themselves that stopped Ninos short. It was the certainty of them, and the ringing silence that followed. "You can't know that," he whispered. "You can't possibly know that. How could you know that?"

Can we simply accept that I do and leave it alone? Leave this place and go somewhere else. To your village. To your house left you by your father. Anywhere but here.

Ninos wanted nothing more. "They're expecting me. I cannot simply vanish and leave people wondering where I am.

We can go by the academy on our way, we need to get your rose anyway. We can write letters.

"We came all this way, and at the very least I need fresh supplies. I'll never make it on what I have, and the nearest place I can buy them is too far away now. I'd rather just finish this properly."

Oh, we'll finish it all right, Sinn said bitterly. Have it your way then.

"Just tell me the truth!" Ninos bellowed, his words echoing across the mountain. Why do you know so much? Why do you know things that no familiar—

"You're not a familiar," he whispered. "You—all those weeks ago, I remember. Oh, my gods, I'm so stupid. You're not a familiar at all, you weren't conj—"

A cracking sound split the air, and beneath his feet the icy stretch of road gave away, and before he could move out of the way Ninos was falling, falling—

Stopping.

Pain tore through him like nothing he'd ever felt before. Everything was dark, and he didn't know if that was his environment or his vision or both. He could smell blood, probably his own.

He tried to move and screamed as pain ripped through him anew. Like he had broken everything. How far had he fallen? What happened? Sinn. Sinn, I need you.

I'm here, I'm here! He'd never heard Sinn so frantic and scared. I can't help enough. You have to bind me properly. Say it. Say you bind me. Please. I'm sorry. Just say it.

"I bind y—" He coughed blood.

That's enough.

Red light filled the small space.

By the sorrow that made me,

By the blood that has spilled,

By the heart full of mischief,

I bind thee to me, speaker,

until we are no more.

Warmth filled him, the finest, deepest warmth he'd ever felt. Around him, the red light brightened, shimmered, then gathered together before into the shape of a person—and as it faded, through hazy, blood and tear-soaked vision, he saw an achingly familiar face.

"You'll be all right now," Sinn whispered. "Just hold on, darling."

The warmth turned to heat, turned to painfully hot. Ninos screamed—and then, finally, passed out.

"—him, please! He needs help!"

"—you, demon!"

"I'm not—"

"We don't—likes of—"

"It's not about me! I'll do—you want, without—just help!"

Ninos tried to focus. Sinn was in distress. He was so hot, and so cold, all at once. Unfamiliar voices, angry and shouting.

Then movement, jostling, and he was moved to unfamiliar arms. "No! Sinn!" He tore his eyes open, or tried, but they were so heavy. All he saw was Sinn's face, ashen and devastated, before darkness took him under again.

When he woke again, it was to the smell of woodsmoke and incense. The ceiling was stone and bare rafters. Unfamiliar. Where was he?

Pushing the blankets back, heavy wool and a beautiful quilt, more things he didn't recognize, Ninos sat up. His body ached, like he'd walked and walked for days without rest, but…

Something had happened. He'd been in pain. Severe pain. I am going to die amounts of pain. "Sinn?"

No answer, his mind remained silent. What was going on? Where was he? "Sinn! Sinn, where are you?"

He swung his legs over the bed, but hadn't even managed to stand up when the door flew open and a tall, burly, gray-haired man with pasty white skin came striding in. "You're awake."

"Who are you? Where am I? Where is Sinn?"

"Sinn? Oh, you mean the spirit," the man said, so much contempt in his voice that Ninos recoiled. "Don't worry, we've got him locked up."

"Give him back!" Ninos howled. "He's mine! My familiar, my companion, my partner. He's mine, you have no business locking him up, how dare you!" He lunged out of bed—and promptly dropped, overcome by dizziness. "What's wrong with me?"

"That spirit dumped an excess of wild magic into you to save your life, I'll give it that. But your body is exhausted from healing and processing the wild magic, which is not meant for people. It's corrupt magic, unhinged and… well, wild."

Ninos pushed to his feet, slapping away the man's attempts to help. "I want Sinn. Where is he?"

The man heaved a great, put upon sigh. "Come on, let's get you food, and while you eat, I'll explain everything you don't understand."

"My belongings?" Ninos asked, forcing himself to be patient. Screaming and shouting wasn't getting him anywhere, so he'd play along for the time being. He reached up to push his hair from his face—and stopped, staring at his arm, relief sweeping through him to see his plants were all right.

"Your horses are being cared for, your clothes cleaned, and everything else is there in that trunk at the foot of the bed," the man said impatiently. "Now come along."

"I have a letter for the Seneschal, one moment." He walked-stumbled over to the trunk and fell more knelt in front of it. Getting the heavy lid open, he rifled around his belongings—which someone had, to be fair, meticulously stowed for him—and found the letter. Heaving himself up, ignoring the latest wave of dizziness as it wasn't as strong as the previous bouts, he finally followed the impatient man from the room. "I am at Shadowfell, right?"

"Yes," the man said. "I'm Gardi, second-in-command while the Seneschal it out. I can take the letter."

"No, Headmaster Wintry wrote it explicitly for the Seneschal and I won't hand it over to anyone else. I do not know you and have no reason to trust you since you've locked up Sinn, so I'll wait for the Seneschal to return."

"We've sent word to him of the little problem you've dragged into our keep, but he's dealing with a problem in Rastar Village so he could be a few days yet." Gardi led him down a long hallway and then down a set of wide, winding stairs. "It said your name is Nimos?"

"Ninos, and Sinn is he , please have some respect."

"I don't have to respect that—"

"Enough!" Ninos bellowed, startling Gardi and several other people as they entered what appeared to be a dining hall. It was mostly empty, thankfully, but a full hall wouldn't have stopped him. "I don't know what your problem is or why you are being so cruel, but Sinn is male, and you'll address him properly. He's done nothing to merit such disrespect. Be civil or leave me be and give me into the care of someone who is not a cretin."

"You're a feisty one," Gardi said. "Whatever. He is not to be trusted."

"He's my familiar, whatever else he is, and he has saved my life twice now," Ninos said. "Tell me what is going on."

Gardi gave another of those put upon sighs and led him to a table, where thankfully someone came up with a tray of food for him.

"Thank you," Ninos replied with a smile that the young woman returned, making him feel moderately better about everything. "What is this soup? It smells amazing."

That seemed to please her immensely. "Mushroom barley soup. A staple around here, no one is really impressed by it anymore."

Ninos laughed. "Well I haven't eaten it a thousand times yet, so I'm impressed. Back at the Academy it was split pea soup that we got supremely tired of."

Her face lit up anew. "You are an Academy student. That's so exciting! I learned blood magic when I was really young, not realizing until too late the Academy doesn't have dark magic studies, but luckily I was able to come here." She sat down next to him. "What brings you all the way here? Is it true you captured a wild spirit?"

"Katrana, go," Gardi said icily.

Looking hurt, Katrana nevertheless stood, pointedly bid only Ninos farewell, and stormed off.

"What is all this about a spirit?"

Gardi gave him a look. "How can you possibly not know?"

"I assume you mean Sinn is a wild spirit. You mentioned wild magic before, when he saved me. But he appeared during my conjuring ceremony." Between bites of soup and bread, he told Gardi all that had happened, even if he really didn't want to tell the man so much as the time of day.

"I see," Gardi said, seeming both horrified and impressed, which really was fair. "Well, whatever tampering was done by your, uh, former friend, it turned the conjuring into a summoning, or broke the conjuring enough that something else entirely was able to slip in, though gods know why. That thing—"

"His name is Sinn, and if you say one more disrespectful thing, I will upend this soup on your head," Ninos said.

Eventually, he was going to have to sit with himself and sort out where all this brazen behavior was coming from, because it wasn't like him at all. Then again, he had fought long and hard to make it here, and this journey had started with an attempted murder. Maybe everything with Kina had changed him even more than he'd realized, and only now that he was really back amongst people was it showing.

Or maybe he was scared to death of losing someone else and all his normal hesitations were simply switched off.

Whatever the case, the threat worked.

"Sinn, then, if you're going to be so stubborn about it," Gardi replied icily. "Sinn is a spirit of mischief. Surely you know what spirits are."

"The embodiment of emotions, ideas, and so forth given a real, conscious form, usually by way of a divine blessing or curse laid on a living being, most often human but not always. A god goes around and turns a dying person into the personification of joy, or rage, or whatever. Storybook nonsense."

"Not entirely," Gardi said. "The god part, yes. Spirits are very real, though. More than a human, less than a demon, able to wield powerful magic that does not hold to the rules that other magics do. Wild magic, dangerous and poisonous. Many of the spirits are known, a log of them meticulously maintained, rarely talked about for fear that people would do exactly the stupid thing you have done."

"All I did was a conjuring that I didn't know had been sabotaged."

Gardi gave him a contemptuous look. "Not that. When he brought you here, you'd been blood bound to it. Him. Whatever. That wasn't done at the conjuring."

Ninos dropped his spoon into his soup as the memory flooded him.

I can't help enough. You have to bind me properly. Say it. Say you bind me. Please. I'm sorry. Just say it.

By the sorrow that made me,

By the blood that has spilled,

By the heart full of mischief,

I bind thee to me, speaker,

until we are no more.

"He did it to save my life," Ninos said. "I fell. I thought I was walking on a solid path, but it was just ice that broke beneath the weight of me and the horses. I think I fell a very long way. I should have died. But he begged me to bind him so that he could help me. I don't think he could before that, though I don't know why. He's not malicious."

"He's a spirit of mischief. They are the definition of mean, cruel, always causing trouble for their own amusement."

"Mischief doesn't mean malicious," Ninos said quietly, staring at his food. "The poison is in the dose. All this time…"

A thousand things that Sinn had said, and not said, came back to him. Weeks of conversation, silly replies and evasions. The clues had been there right from the very beginning.

I had a sense of mischief.

I felt mischief, dormant but strong.

Sinn had been talking about him. He felt mischief in Ninos, had been drawn to him… and had remained with him throughout the journey. Had gone to the circus with him, played games and won him prizes and held him close.

Tears trailed slowly down his cheeks. "Where is he? I want Sinn."

"He's been locked away as he should be," Gardi said in that hateful, contemptuous tone that made Ninos want to commit violence in a way that scared him, or would, if his fear wasn't entirely for Sinn at the moment.

"I want to speak with him, please."

"No, we cannot trust that he hasn't bespelled you. Why else would bind yourself to him?"

"Because I was dying! Because he's my partner! He's been there for me when no one else has!" Ninos bellowed, slamming his hands down, upending the tray and sending soup and tea everywhere.

Gardi's lip curled, and he motioned to some nearby mages. "Take him to his room, lock him up. He's not to be let out for any reason."

"Yes, Master Gardi."

They dragged him off, and though he tried everything he could—twisting, stopping, pulling, and more—they were simply too heavy and too sure in their duty to let him get free. He was still screaming and begging as they threw him in his room and locked and barred the door.

"Damn it!" Ninos shouted, angrily wiping tears away. They couldn't do this, it wasn't fair. Sinn was his familiar, spirit or not, and neither of them had committed any crimes.

He beat his fists against the door, which accomplished exactly nothing except sore hands, but he felt moderately better anyway.

What was wrong with him? It was like he was losing con—

The bond. It was freshly made. New and raw. Then Sinn had been ripped away. The new bond was unstable, making him unstable.

He sat on the edge of his bed and took a deep breath. Losing control wouldn't help anyone, least of all Sinn. He couldn't find Sinn, and get him free, if he couldn't leave his room. Damn it, they had no right—

Stop, stop, stop.

A knock at the door made him jump, and he rushed to his feet as it swung open.

The girl from before filled the doorway, holding a tray of food. "You lost yours," she blurted. "I thought you might still be hungry, and Gardi is too busy ranting and being sanctimonious to notice I'm up here yet." Behind her, whoever was guarding the door poorly muffled a laugh. She cast a look over her shoulder, then turned back to Ninos. "I wanted to ask about those plants on your arm…"

"What about them?" It hadn't taken him long to remove the left sleeve from all his clothes, working by campfire and mage light after the day's work was done. He was already used to it, to the point it felt stranger when he had to cover the arm when the air was too cold or the wind too severe for the plants.

"How did you do that? I knew sylvan mages could do amazing things with plants, but I never heard of that."

"Neither have I," Ninos replied, gratefully accepting the new tray of food because he was starving despite having finished most of the first tray, and he would be willing to bet that Gardi would start withholding meals to keep him in his place. It was a common tactic of the Academy, or had been, before Wintry had been made Headmaster and ordered a lot of such punishments stopped. "Thank you."

The girl looked over her shoulder, frowning slightly. "So how did you do it?"

"I didn't do anything, actually." Ninos explained how the ivy made itself at home as he gulped down the tea despite it still being steaming hot, hoping it would wake him up a bit more, fight off the exhaustion trying to overtake him abruptly. He could heal and rest later. "I doubt I could do it on purpose if I wanted." It had been Sinn who'd placed the begonia, but he didn't feel like relating that bit. "Good luck, if you're going to try it."

"Nah, I work in bones. I was just curious. That ivy reminds me a bit of the stuff that grows all over the walls of this place." She stared pointedly at the window. "I think I need to go; I can hear Gardi winding down his ranting. I'll try to come back if I can with dinner in a few hours. Get some rest."

Then she was gone.

Ninos made himself finish the food first, because it was good and he didn't want to waste it, and he was starving, no matter how impatient he was to investigate the window now.

When he was done, he set the tray on the small catch-all table by the door, then finally ventured to the window.

It was larger than was typical for a window in a drafty keep, where it was so difficult to keep heat when it was cold. If he'd wanted, he could have climbed up to sit on it, or crawled through and escaped—though escape proved to be a significant drop and call him crazy but one long fall had been more than enough.

The important part, though, was that as the girl had said, there was ivy growing everywhere. His heart raced, remembering when an idle touch had compelled the trees to help him. Could the ivy help him now? Would it be willing?

Only one way to find out.

Twisting so he could reach it more easily with his left arm, hanging more precariously out the window than he liked but determined, he gently curled his fingers into the vibrant green and pink ivy and closed his eyes. Do you know where Sinn is? The spirit of mischief imprisoned here? My friend, my bonded. I need to find him, but I'm locked in this room. Could you help? Would you help me?

He nearly started crying when he got back an unmistakable feeling of yes we will help followed by we will search.

So the ivy didn't know, but it could look. He could wait. For Sinn, he would do whatever it took, even be patient.

Thank you.

Withdrawing, he stripped to his underclothes—trying not to think about someone undressing, cleaning, and redressing him—and climbed into bed. Whatever came next, he would need all his strength.