Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 99201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 496(@200wpm)___ 397(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 496(@200wpm)___ 397(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
What they’re doing here is sterile, and cold, and practical.
Maybe that’s why all us gods came out so evil?
They forgot to give us a part of their souls.
“All right,” she says. Because there’s been a silence now for several seconds. “I’ll mix it all up and you work on your poem.”
She starts messing with our accumulated paraphernalia on the table in front of her and I get back up and start pacing, trying to come up with a spelling that not only rips us out of one world and takes us into another, but pre-empts whatever sorcery that little witch, Pressia, has been cooking up over the millennia.
Normally, spelling comes pretty easy to me. Spellings are the only magic you can use that just comes right out of your mind. You don’t need herbs to make a spelling. You don’t need bottles, or ether, or books. You just need to pluck letters out, one at a time, and make them into words. Then you need to arrange those words into a rhythm that corresponds to your ask.
The celestial décima requires three things overall.
One. Ten lines of eight syllables.
Two. Open meter. Which is a good thing, in my opinion. Because it gives you more options for word choice because the total syllables and rhyming scheme are the only things that matter.
And three. Intention, which is specifically attached by invoking a god.
This part kinda sucks because I don’t have favor with any of them. It’s not like they can actually hear it. Like, when you pray to a god, they don’t hear messages in their head or anything like that. They don’t hear them all and then decide if the asker is worthy. That’s not how it works. They really don’t have anything to do with the workings of spellings. It’s the invocation and the intention that makes the magic. You align your ask with the god who represents that particular thing, and then you give it your best. Trying to wrangle up the forces required for change.
The good thing about this though, as far as I’m concerned, anyway, is that I’m the fuckin’ god of love and love is the most powerful magic in the whole universe. I’m gonna invoke myself in my spelling.
I go outside on the terrace, leaving Callistina to the particulars of alchemists, and start pacing. Blanking my mind of everything but the words.
They tumble through my head, falling into place, then rearranging themselves. I lean on the terrace wall, bracing myself with my elbows on the smooth sand-colored plaster, and allow my mind to be overcome with my intentions.
Get us some doors that take us to the hallway. Safely. Using the power of love.
As a bonus, thwart the magic of Pressia at the same time.
The celestial décima isn’t a fun, jaunty poem by any means. The constraints often make it feel disjointed and choppy. But it is one of the most powerful rhythms you can use in a spelling for these exact reasons. Every word must be counted and there is no room for sloppiness.
It is a very literal way of spelling and it’s only used in the most specific of circumstances.
I want to be very specific with this spell.
Hallway. Safety. Love.
This is what I come up with:
“There is a time and place for me
within the hallway boundary
the god of love, to thee we plea
through doors we travel, set us free
to be the people meant to be.
Two doors we seek, through yore and fate
the passage narrow, slim, and strait
it opens wide for our escape
and through we go, our fate replaced
hate is my soulmate, my soulmate is hate.”
I open my eyes, shaking my head. No.
No. That’s not it.
That last line isn’t even the right number of syllables. And anyway, it’s my curse. Part of it, at least. “Fuck,” I mutter, letting out a breath. Because I wasn’t thinking about that curse, so why did it come out in my spelling?
This is when I notice that the sun has set and it’s gone dark.
How long have I been out here on the terrace? It was afternoon when we got back from the market with our packages, not anywhere close to evening. Certainly not close to sunset.
So… hours and hours, it seems.
A scent wafts out of our room, making me turn. It’s… lovely. And it compels me to leave the terrace and go back inside and seek it out. The magiceuticals have been mixed and are cooking inside the quicksilver bottle, sans topper. This is when I recognize the scent that drew me inside. It’s Callistina’s bubble bath. Which is funny—as in weird—because Callistina has at least a dozen of those bottles all over the bathroom in Savage Falls, so I have been looking at them for two months now and I’m absolutely certain the label proclaims the scent to be rose hips and lavender, not acetic acid, sharptongue, and goldberry.