Spliced

Amanda clicked her tongue and stepped into the room, closing the door behind her. “What’s going on?”

Falco turned, still holding Indi as if he were afraid to lose her. “Wolf nearly got Indi killed.”

Indi frowned and nudged him gently. “I’m fine.”

Wolf scowled at Falco and then said, “Indi’s taking dreamskeep. It’s what messed up the spell. I’m sure of it.”

Falco looked toward Wolf with an angry expression on his face.

Amanda turned toward Indi and spoke before anyone else could. “You took dreamskeep?”

Falco, hearing the steeliness in her tone, turned on Amanda.

One brief glance at the expression on his face and she held up a finger to quell him.

He settled for a quiet glower.

“I... um.” Indi faltered under Amanda’s stern gaze. “No...”

Amanda raised her eyebrows. “Indi, don’t lie. This is serious.”

“Well, maybe, just like a smidgen.” She held up her thumb and forefinger to demonstrate the smallness of what she had taken then she rapidly tried to explain. “The witch at the store said if I wasn’t sure then I could just take the smallest little bit, like a pinch between tweezers, and it wouldn’t even need the antidote”—at Amanda’s increasingly raised eyebrows, Indi quickly clarified—“but I got the antidote anyway of course. And I only took like the teeniest tiniest bit. I didn’t even really notice any effect.”

Amanda spared a glance at Falco who immediately replied, “That doesn’t change the fact that Wolf put her in danger.”

Amanda gave a single nod of acknowledgement and then turned to Wolf. With pointed glance towards the table and half-cleaned blood rune she asked, “What did you cast?”

But it was Indi who explained. “It was just a bad dreams spell. We thought it might lure the dreamweaver here.”

Amanda’s expression darkened. She directed her question at Wolf again. “You were trying to lure it here?”

Wolf tried to avoid looking at Falco’s triumphant expression. “I had a plan to trap it. You were the one who suggested we keep looking for it.”

“I said to locate it, not lure it.”

“Nothing else was working.”

“You used Indi like bait!” Falco added in a raised voice.

“No,” Indi interrupted. “It was my idea. I persuaded Wolf. Anyway, I’m fine now. We can try again. I can take the antidote first this time.”

“No,” came the collective response of both Falco and Wolf.

“That is a terrible idea,” mumbled Zephyr at the same time.

“Definitely not,” agreed Amanda, almost simultaneously.

“But we learnt stuff. I can do better this time,” Indi protested.

“Take the antidote, no more than what you had earlier,” instructed Amanda. “Then give the vials to Wolf.”

Indi pouted then she sighed. “The same amount? But I used tweezers this morning.”

“Wolf?” Amanda asked.

Wolf sighed and got up from his seat. “Yeah, I’ve got some tweezers somewhere.”

While Wolf was retrieving tweezers, Arianna asked in a hesitant voice, “What is dreamskeep?”

Amanda explained to her. “It’s a powder that keeps you from sleeping. It counteracts dream magic.” She shot a curious and cursory glance at Zephyr before looking back to Arianna. Then she added, “It’s somewhat temperamental though, as well as highly addictive.” This time she spared a glance Indi’s way.

Indi bit her lip and managed to look guilty.

Zephyr frowned. “Hold on, I took way more than a tweezers pinch of that stuff back in the house and I still got pulled into the dreamworld.”

Amanda shrugged. “Maybe it’s more effective on Indi? I did say it was variable.” She gave another pointed glance between Arianna and Zephyr.

Zephyr got her message. “Oh, err, this is Arianna. Arianna, this is Amanda, Falco, Indi, and Wolf.”

There was a general exchange of pleasantries.

“Nice to meet you,” Falco told her. “Sorry for the barging in like I did before.”

“That’s alright,” Arianna replied.

“You’re a Milton?” Amanda asked.

“Well, I’m Arianna Grey, but related to Milton yes. My father took my mother’s maiden name. He wanted to distance himself a little from the Milton line. It has... history.”

“What sort of history?” Falco asked.

“Oh, all sorts of things but mostly that she was into quite a bit of blood magic and things... like that...” Arianna trailed off as her gaze slid toward the half-scrubbed blood rune on Wolf’s table. She bit her lip and gave a slight frown.

“It’s animal blood,” Wolf explained as he handed Indi some tweezers.

“Right...” Arianna replied but she still seemed a little unsettled by it.

“We were trying to catch a dreamweaver,” Indi added.

“I see.”

“So, you just cast the bad dreams spell?” Amanda inquired of Wolf, picking up her questioning again.

“That and the dreamwalking infusement,” he explained.

Amanda raised her eyebrows. “That’s a loose infusement you know?”

Wolf nodded. “I know.”

“And you had Indi doing it?”

“I didn’t expect her to teleport.”

Amanda frowned and turned toward Indi. “You teleported?”

She shrugged. “Apparently.”

Amanda looked questioningly back to Wolf.

He gave a similar shrug. “I don’t know. I couldn’t do it though. I needed to be able to cast the trap spell.” After a moment’s silence he added. “Cat couldn’t find it. I didn’t think I would be able to. Luring it here was the only thing left.”

While they argued, Arianna whispered something to Zephyr, who whispered something back and pointed toward the back of the cabin. A moment later she left through that door.

“She was just asking where the bathroom was,” Zephyr explained to the curious glances he got after the door closed behind Arianna.

Wolf turned to Amanda. “Maybe if you'd been the one dreamwalking we could have pulled it off.”

Indi pouted.

Amanda frowned at him. Then she shook her head. "I'm a shitty dreamwalker and there's no way I'd offer myself up as bait for a dreamweaver."

"It ate 3 more people this week," Indi told her.

Amanda looked to Wolf for confirmation and when he nodded she bit her lip. After a couple moments of thought she carefully replied, "Well, it's possible that it's already consumed enough to get back to regular feeding. They're only dangerous if they're starving or if they focus too much on one victim."

"I wouldn't count on it," Wolf replied.

"We could try once more," Indi suggested.

Wolf shook his head. "You're lucky you didn't teleport into a tree."

"I can't believe you teleported," Amanda added. "That's usually quite hard. I don't want anyone trying to lure a dreamweaver. If we can't locate it stealthily then we need to leave it be. Luring risks bringing it closer to town anyway. Let's just hope it's had its fill."

“Dreamwalking infusement’s out of juice anyway.” Wolf handed Amanda the charm back.

“Good.” Amanda turned toward Indi. “As for the dreamskeep...”

“I won’t take anymore,” Indi promised.

“Good, and I don’t think you should keep it, but that must have cost a bit...”

Indi shook her head. “It wasn’t so bad. Wolf can have it as a present.”

“And no more spellcraft.” Amanda looked from Indi to Wolf.

“Are you going to follow your own advice?” Wolf asked with a cocked eyebrow at Amanda.

Amanda just gave him a stern look back.

"I thought you guys did this stuff all the time as kids?" Indi complained. “How am I supposed to get better at it if I don’t practice.”

“Well, first off, if you’re going to practice anything that might involve teleportation I’d do it in an open and relatively flat area, not in the middle of a forest. Secondly, we were very stupid kids and extremely lucky. And thirdly...” Amanda glanced at the door where Arianna had gone, then in a much lower voice said, “The legality of blood magic is somewhat of a grey area, and not that widely accepted. At the very least we should be careful who we do this in front of.”

“They kind of just dropped in, magically,” Wolf explained. “As in they teleported onto my table.”

At Amanda’s confused expression, Zephyr clarified with a shrug, “A fynxara teleported us here.”

It didn’t clear anything up for her. With an even more confused expression Amanda said to Wolf, “A fynxara? I thought they were a myth?”

Wolf shook his head. “Oh no, very real, just very rare. And I had one, right here on my table.” He studied the spot where the fynxara had been earlier with a look of renewed disbelief.

“But the sorcerers do spellcraft all the time,” Indi complained.

“Yeah, and you can guarantee that they at least have a well-practiced healer and a necro within arm’s reach at all times. Even then, the survival rate for mages isn’t 100%,” Amanda explained.

Arianna returned to the room then holding in her hands a blue urn. “Where did you get this?” she asked.

As the colour drained from Wolf’s face, Amanda spun to see what had caused it.

Wolf was across the room faster than Amanda could react. Much to the confusion of the others in the room he snatched the vase from Arianna’s grasp.

“Don’t touch that!” he scolded. He set it gingerly on the table and backed away from it with a cautious glance down at his own hands.

When nothing happened he shot a questioning glance at Amanda who simply raised an eyebrow in question. Wolf then turned on Arianna. “Don’t you know better than touch random items being used in a spell.”

Arianna frowned indignantly at him. “Well, who just leaves spell components lying around where anyone might touch them? Anyway, it was just sitting out the back. It didn’t look like it was part of a spell.”

Wolf gestured to the entire room and then shot back, “It was under a draining deer!”

Zephyr took a step toward Arianna, placed a comforting hand on her back, and gave Wolf a warning look.

“I didn’t see any deer,” Arianna replied in a confused tone.

At this remark, Wolf left the room to go and confirm what she’d said. A moment later his voice could be heard from the back of the house exclaiming, “What the fuck!”

He returned shortly. “The deer’s gone,” he explained.

Amanda frowned and glanced toward the urn. “Maybe the spell on the urn ate it?” she suggested. “Maybe that’s what it’s for, to store a sacrifice? To keep in fresh?”

At those words Arianna’s expression darkened. She repeated her question. “Where did you get this?” When she got no immediate answer she added, “It’s from my grandma’s house isn’t it?”

Wolf gave the barest of nods.

Falco frowned and looked from Amanda to Wolf and back again. “You took something from the house?”

Indi held out a finger toward the vase as if she was going to poke it.

“Indi!” Wolf exclaimed with a growl. “Don’t touch that.”

“You and Arianna were just touching it,” Indi complained.

“We don’t know what it does,” Amanda explained.

“You took something from my grandma’s house and you don’t even know what it does,” Arianna gave them all an incredulous look.

“Katrina took it,” Amanda replied with a sigh.

“Katrina? Your daughter?” Falco asked. “When was she in the house?”

“She took it off the driveway when I went around to check how Coal’s extraction team was going.”

“You took your kids with you?” Falco inquired in a slightly accusatory tone.

Amanda shot him quite the glare in reply.

The question prompted Indi to check the time. After a glance at her wristwatch she looked to Falco, “Jewel and Bree will be home from school soon.”

He checked his own watch. “Mmm.” Then he gestured broadly at the table and urn. “I do not approve of any of this.”

Arianna nodded. “You should get rid of that thing. Drop it in the ocean or something.”

“Well, we don’t want to pollute the sea,” Indi complained studying the urn more closely. Her nose inches from its surface.

Wolf watched Indi closely while he spoke to Arianna in a curious tone. “How did you know it belonged to your grandma? Have you seen this before?”

She shook her head. “No but I’ve seen one like it. A yellow one.”

“There’s three of these things?!” Wolf exclaimed.

“Wait, what do you mean three?” Falco asked. “Where’s the third one?”

“Coal has one,” Amanda explained. “A red one. Which is why we wanted to know what this one does.”

“Well the bloody identify spell didn’t go as expected either,” Wolf grumbled. “Where did you see the yellow one?”

“Uhh... I don’t know. Maybe on her mantel years ago.” Arianna shrugged. “Or, it could have been... I’m not sure.”

“Well, whatever it is, I agree with her.” Falco pointed at Arianna. “You should get rid of that thing, and leave Coal to his own business. The house is taken care of, the dreamweaver’s untracable, and...” he trailed off as he remembered Arianna didn’t know about any of the rest. He settled for repeating his first statement. “... You should get rid of that thing.”

Wolf and Amanda shared a glance.

Finally Amanda nodded. “Fine.”

Zephyr narrowed his eyes at them, seemingly unconvinced by that assertion, but Falco and Arianna looked more appeased.

“Alright.” Falco nodded and sighed. To Indi he said, “We should get going then?”

She started to nod and then hesitated. With a glance at the bloody table she replied, “I should probably help clean this mess up.” She nodded at the blood on the table. “You could go and I’ll come later?”

Falco frowned then checked his own watch. “We’ve still got a little time. Jewel knows where the spare key is anyway.”

“Great!” Indi smiled. “Wolf suggested tea before too so maybe once we’ve cleaned this up, if the offer’s still open?” Indi glanced at Wolf.

Wolf nodded. “Sure.”

Amanda studied the table. “Is it just blood?” she asked.

“Blood and a paste.” Wolf handed her the spell book.

Amanda glanced at the ingredients, then placed her hand on the table a little way from the edge of the rune. There was a brief flash of fire and a moment later the table was as clean as it had been before they’d started the whole thing.

Arianna’s eyes widened. “Was that... was that fire?” she asked incredulously.

“Yep,” Amanda confirmed with barely a glance her way.

Arianna looked at Zephyr to confirm.

He nodded.

She looked back at Amanda, with the same amazed expression. “But you put it out? And the table’s not burnt at all?” Arianna reached out to touch the wood of the table. She frowned when she realised it was just normal wood and looked to Amanda again with a stunned expression.

Amanda shrugged, and ignoring Arianna’s continued stare, she looked to Wolf with a question in her eyes.

“I’ll find a box for the urn,” he replied, answering her unspoken question. “You staying for a cup of tea?”

She shook her head then replied, “I gotta get back.”

“Not even one cup,” Zephyr pressed.

Arianna still couldn’t take her eyes off Amanda.

Amanda hesitated.

As Wolf used gloves to place the urn in the box he’d prepared for the dreamweaver, he paused to raise an eyebrow at Amanda.

Amanda caved. “Fine, fine one cup.”

“Yay!” Indi exclaimed as she clapped her hands together.

As they took seat around Wolf’s table Arianna whispered to Zephyr, “She vapourised blood without even charring the wood. That’s like over 200 degrees Celsius. Nobody can do that? Not any firestarter, not even a sorcerer.” She gave Zephyr a puzzled look, not understanding why he wasn’t impressed.

He nodded and gave a sort of proud grin, even though it wasn’t him she was impressed by. “I know.”

Arianna finally closed her hanging jaw and looked at Amanda again with a renewed measure of respect. With a glance at the box containing the urn and then back to Zephyr she whispered, “So they’re actually good at this stuff then?”

Zephyr shrugged as Wolf handed out teacups.

Just as Wolf was about to place the last one in front of Amanda, the entire cup shattered in his hands.