The Spell of Rosette - Kim Falconer [28]
‘I never thought an eclipse on my nodes would bring such a thing.’
Nell chuckled. ‘Star charts aren’t about making things happen. You do that yourself. They are about authenticity and timing, the transits coinciding with events, inner and outer.’
‘I get that now,’ Rosette said, grooming her familiar with a soft brush. His purring filled the cottage.
Drayco grew fast, his orange eyes bright, all four legs sound. He learned her language quicker than she learned his, though she persevered with the strange vowels and consonants that formed his speech. With their minds linked, Rosette was filled with awe. Few humans shared the thoughts of a Dumarkian temple cat, now that the order had vanished. The remaining survivors were fiercely independent, most rejecting human contact and forming family structures with only their own kind.
She and Nell couldn’t figure out how he ended up alone and vulnerable that day. And no matter how many times she went over the events with Drayco, he couldn’t remember what had happened to his blood family. Rosette didn’t know why she had been blessed to be there at the exact moment he’d needed her, but she thanked the goddess of the woods every day of her life for it.
Four summers later, Drayco’s back came halfway up Rosette’s thigh when he brushed against her, his tail entwining her waist. She hadn’t been able to pick him up since he’d turned two.
‘He’s full-grown now,’ Nell said, looking across the table at Rosette. The girl had her head bent over a star chart, listing the angular relationships of each planet to the others. She mumbled as she made notations in the margins, her brow knitted.
‘Mars in Capricorn square Venus in Libra—no wonder Liam could never decide what girl he wanted. So much conflict of interest. Does he assert his will, or does he accommodate to the needs of others? It’s like being a self-sufficient recluse and a social-hungry people pleaser, all at once. How can someone with this aspect do both?’ She lifted her braids off the table, flipping them behind her back. ‘He has to find a way if he’s ever going to be happy.’
Rosette sighed. ‘I’d love to know Jarrod’s birth time. It’s such a pity that he was a foundling—I guess an estimate’s all I’ll ever have for him. He was never even sure of the day.’
She looked up to see Nell watching her.
‘I need more charts,’ she continued after staring back at her for a moment. ‘I’ve studied everything you have, cast the dates and times I can remember of those back home, but it’s not enough. If I’m really going to understand star-craft, I need more data to work with.’
‘And it seems you are too.’
‘Pardon?’
‘Both you and Drayco are adults now, Rosette. You turn twenty-one this summer—have you thought of what that means?’
Rosette put down her pen and capped the ink bottle. ‘A bit.’
‘And?’
‘I want to keep studying, Nell. If I could train at one of the temples I’d really make some progress. Would that be possible?’
‘Rosette!’ Nell pressed her lips together to keep from smiling. Nothing’s impossible, so anything and everything is always possible. We live in a universe of infinite possibilities.
Rosette blushed.
‘Do you have a different question?’ Nell asked.
Rosette hesitated for a second. ‘Where can I apprentice?’
‘That’s better.’
‘And the answer?’
‘What do you want?’ Nell asked.
‘You already know.’
‘Remind me.’
‘Star-craft,’ Rosette said, ‘and the bow.’
‘Anything else?’
‘I’d like to learn more about controlling my power, about boosting the magic without having, um, side effects.’ She looked at the north wall of the cottage where new cedar boards replaced the ones that she had burst into splinters last month while trying to heat a cup of tea with her thoughts. ‘Spells and shape-shifting…’
‘And what about the sword?’
Rosette started picking at a scab on her forearm. ‘I’ll never be good enough.’
‘Not if you keep saying that to yourself,