“But you don’t know?” I cast a sidelong glance at the moldering books.
“Another reason we can’t rely on the past.” Millie shakes her head. “The histories I have are incomplete. And what I’d be looking for probably wouldn’t have made it into the official record. Nasty business that it was.”
I raise my eyebrows at her while I take another sip of tea.
She laughs and it lights up her face, taking ten years off. “Blackmail is what I’m suggesting, dear. And of the worst sort. Not the silly fiddle-faddle of these days about someone sleeping with someone else they shouldn’t have. I’m talking about threats to one’s family. To one’s own well-being.”
As I add fiddle-faddle to my new dictionary of Millieisms, sadness creeps back into her eyes. “Enough speculation about the past. Let’s start with what we do know and what we must yet discover. When did you first gain your sight?”
I stare at her.
“I mean, when did you first sense curses?” Her question is patient.
“But haven’t I always been able to sense them?” I ask, frowning. “It was only yesterday that I figured out how to see them.”
She nods. “Of course, dear. What I’m referring to is what we call an awakening. Spellseekers are all born with a latent ability to do their work, but he or she doesn’t come into that power until the moment of awakening. It’s usually an event. A trigger, if you will.”
I’m still frowning, confused. “Then I guess it was yesterday.”
Now it’s Millie’s turn to frown. She hasn’t lost patience with me yet, but I can tell the conversation is frustrating her. “No, no. Yesterday you learned how to hone in on the curses and see them. That’s an ability that’s unique to you alone and is tied to your natural talent. What I’m talking about is when you first sensed the curses. It’s a shame you were alone because the shift would have affected the way you see the world, but you wouldn’t have known why or what was happening.”
“I’m sorry.” I crumble a cookie beneath my fingers, feeling stupid and helpless.
Fortunately Millie is a good teacher, one who doesn’t easily doubt or give up on her pupils. “Then tell me, what made you go out yesterday to look for the curses?”
“Oh!” I sit up straight. “It was my drawings.”
“You’re an artist?” Millie sounds surprised but pleased.
A hot blush paints my cheeks. “I . . . I want to be. I want to write and illustrate comics.”
“How interesting,” Millie says, though her face tells me she was hoping I was an artist of the more traditional variety. “So how did your drawings lead you to seek curses?”
“It was the story I’ve been working on.” I speak slowly, thinking about my words as I say them. “It’s The Shadowbound.”
Millie tilts her head, waiting for me to continue.
“And I realized that I’ve been drawing curses. Cursed people.”
“And when did you start working on this story?” she asks.
I have to put my teacup down because my hands are shaking. I know exactly when I started working on The Shadowbound. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t do anything. So I drew. I drew on recycling-bin-bound paper that the nurses scrounged up for me. I drew for hours while my brother lay unconscious in a shrine of beeping machines and twisting plastic tubes.
I’m staring into my half-empty cup. “My brother was attacked.”
Millie draws a sharp breath. “By a cursecaster?”
“No,” I say. “By people. Just people.”
When I force my eyes up to meet Millie’s, she offers me a sad smile. “It’s amazing what people can do to each other even without the aid of casters. Amazing and terrible.”
I nod, blinking hard so tears won’t escape my eyes.
Millie politely pretends not to notice. I am really starting to like her.
“I believe we can safely say that your brother’s misfortune awakened your ability,” she says. “The awakenings are more often the result of trauma or loss than a happy occurrence.”
“Yours was immediate,” I say quietly. “Because of your sister. You knew she was missing. You could sense the emptiness that she should have filled.”
She takes a deep breath that lifts and lowers her shoulders. “Always. So yes, my case was unique. I sensed curses from the beginning.”
I’m feeling unsteady, even a little sick. This is information I’m not certain I’m ready to process. Why do bad things happen to good people? So your superpower can be awakened?
Suddenly I don’t care what I might be or how training as a spellseeker could help anyone. What happened to Laurie was unforgivable. A silver lining to that horror is unacceptable. Every cell in my body recoils against that thought.
My reactions must be scrolling over me like a news ticker, because Millie stands up.
“Now, now.” She comes around the table to stand beside me, placing her hand over mine. “You mustn’t do that.”
I think for a moment she’s going to comment on my sallow skin again, but she simply squeezes my fingers within her slender bony ones.
“If it wasn’t what happened to your brother, it would have been something else,” she says. “Your natural talent is greater than any I’ve known. Its awakening was simply a matter of time.”
I manage to squeeze her fingers in return, though I still don’t like it. I have to admit that it makes sense. I’ve never experienced anything so visceral as that siege of emotions that battered me in the wake of Laurie’s attack. The world changed around me, becoming brighter, sharper, harder. Full of angles and shapes I’d never seen before.
I’d considered it my initiation into the jaded club, when it turns out I was simply seeing the lingering effects of magic, good and evil, for the first time.
“So we’ve pinpointed where it began.” Millie speaks softly, coaxing me back into the room and out of the dark corners of my past. “Would you like to discuss where it might lead you from here?”
“Yes.” I’m surprised by the strength in my voice.
“Let’s start simply.” She hesitates, withdrawing her hand from mine. “I’m afraid I’ll be learning too. It’s already obvious that your talent is greater than mine.”