Mr. Monticelli’s careful hands curled around one end of a large staff, expertly shaping a glowing ball of molten glass against a stone table. I stood there and watched as the shape of a cat began to emerge.
“You do it so perfectly,” I said. “Sometimes it takes me three or four tries to get a blanket right on my loom.”
He laughed. “I’ll tell you my secret: steady hands, eyes always on the art, mind always on the art. No matter how many times I’ve done it. Steady hands, careful focus. Remember that.”
I nodded, and Mr. Monticelli held up the small figurine for my inspection. There was still a faint pink glow at its core, but the edges had been pointed and darkened by ancient tools. A slant of light struck the glass figurines in the shop and set the whole place aglow.
“It’s not so different from weaving,” Mr. Monticelli said. I nodded. Focusing was so difficult when I wove; my hands knew exactly what to do, but my thoughts and emotions were usually somewhere else.
“Do you know any of the master weavers?” I asked. He took the cat back and held it up to the fire to examine it.
“Mr. Monticelli?” I said when he didn’t respond. His thick black eyebrows drew together with his frown.
“Thinking, thinking,” he said. “I am thinking.”
There must not have been many master weavers in Fairwell if he couldn’t think of even one. Maybe they had moved on to another, quieter city? I knew from experience that it was difficult to concentrate with the noise and bustle of the streets.
“Ah!” Mr. Monticelli slapped his hand down on the table. “We will go ask Colar!”
“Colar?” I repeated.
The glassblower lifted his heavy apron over his head and used it to wipe the sweat from his face.
“He is my sister’s husband,” he explained. “Bit of…how do you say…bit of air in the head. No, head in the air?”
I shrugged.
“Bah,” he said, taking my arm. “Let me tell you, where I come from, a man who does not use his hands for his job is no man at all. Books! Bah! My sister must have air in her head, too, to marry such a man.”
I looked down.
“No? Not even a smile for me?” he asked, studying my face.
“Not today, I’m afraid.”
He patted my head fondly, the way my father sometimes did, and the knot in my stomach became unbearable. The only thing keeping me from tears was the confusion and anger I felt toward North. About the way he had treated me, about what was plaguing him, about why he had taken me in the first place.
For a moment I was afraid we would be heading back out into the rain, which was still coming down hard enough to flood the deserted streets. Instead, Mr. Monticelli led me through the maze of shelves and cases in his dark shop to yet another door. This one, however, he kicked open, taking obvious pleasure in the way his brother-in-law jumped at the noise.
Connecting shops, I thought as I stepped through the doorway and into a different world. Where Mr. Monticelli’s shop had been dark and smoky, I had to squint my eyes against the sudden onslaught of brightness in Mr. Colar’s shop. Gone was the smell of fire, replaced by the familiar, comforting odor of old parchment and leather-bound volumes and bookshelves lining every wall. A bookshop and a glass shop were not an obvious pair—but, then, neither were their two owners.
Mr. Colar had his back to us as we walked to his front counter; I heard the pages of his book rustle.
“I see my wife inherited all the manners in the family,” he said loudly. We were standing right behind him when he finally turned around.
The resemblance kicked the air from my lungs. The similarly bent nose and square jaw, the light, receding hair—the man was a living double of my father.
“A refugee!” he said. “Well, come in!” he added, ushering me closer and ignoring Mr. Monticelli. “Terrible weather, isn’t it?”
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” I said. “It makes me miss the desert.”
“I’ve been trying to get home for hours, but I can’t coax my horse from his stable.” He laughed. “You say you’re from the desert? Not much of that in this country.”
“Cliffton,” I answered. “The very far west.”
“Of course, of course,” he said. “Terrible drought you’ve been having—do not touch that, Renaldo!”
Mr. Monticelli dropped the book back onto the counter with a noise that was halfway between a groan and a growl. “I see business has been slow.”
“No slower than yours, I assure you,” Mr. Colar said, turning back to face me. “Now what can I help you with?”
“This pretty young lady has asked about the master weavers,” Mr. Monticelli said.
“Ah,” Mr. Colar said again. “I’m very sorry to say you won’t find any of them here in Fairwell.”
“Why not?” I asked. “I thought Fairwell housed the guild?”
“Years ago,” he said. “Most left when the hedges tried to take the city. Only one, a Mr. Vicksmorro, stayed and suffered terribly for it.”
“I remember now!” Mr. Monticelli cut in. “They poisoned him like a common pig! This was before my sister and I came, you see.”
“I’ll tell the story, thank you,” Mr. Colar said irritably. “Vicksmorro and many of the other guild leaders soon found themselves with raging fevers, horrible spasms in their bodies. Worst of all, their hands shook so badly that they couldn’t practice their craft. Awful magic that was—and it was only rumored to be poison.”
Disappointment washed over me like the cold rain—sudden and surprisingly painful. But just as quickly, a thought struck me as Mr. Colar described the weaver’s hands. How many times had I seen North’s hands tremble and his body shake with unexplained pain? It might be random similarity, but there was a possibility, if only a slight one, that I had accidentally stumbled upon the answer to his mystery.
“Do you think this rumored poison could affect a wizard?”
“My.” Mr. Colar laughed. “What a question! I suppose we could look it up. I believe I remember how to spell the poison’s name.”
The water squelched out of my boots as I followed him through the labyrinth of shelves, running my fingertips lightly over the leather spines. There wasn’t a gap or cranny a book hadn’t been crammed into, red, brown, faded blue. They all looked like they were fighting to slip out from their constraints, to be open on a table or even the floor.