Flora Segunda: Being the Magickal Mishaps of a Girl of Spirit, Her Glass-Gazing Sidekick, Two Ominous Butlers (One Blue), a House with Eleven Thousand Rooms, and a Red Dog (Magic Carpet Books) by Ysabeau S. Wilce

bloodletting. The Recovery Sigil required actions too disgusting to even contemplate.
    But the Discernment Sigil, which helped you recognize what you were looking for when you saw it, seemed to fit the bill perfectly. It was short and sweet, required only two magickal Gestures, neither of which called for headstands or extra fingers, and it used only one very short and easy-to-pronounce Gramatica Word. No setting on fire and no bloodletting. It was not so much different from the Ignite Sigil, which I had done many times before. I was confident I could handle it.
    “You will do it right, Flora Segunda, won’t you?” Valefor said, worriedly. “If you do it wrong, your head could explode.”
    “If your head explodes, I am not cleaning it up,” Udo said. He had grabbed
The Eschata
and was now flipping through it. “What about the Recovery Sigil; it looks like fun—”
    “I’ve decided, Udo!”
    “Who am I? Boy Hansgen?” Udo protested. “Who dropped and made you the boss?”
    Boy Hansgen was Nini Mo’s sidekick. When she died, he took over the Ranger Corps, and fought hard against the Birdies during the War. Afterward, when Rangers were outlawed and the Corps disbanded, he disappeared and hasn’t been heard from since. He was a good ranger, but no Nini Mo.
    “You are not nearly tall enough to be Boy Hansgen,” I said. “Give me the book back, Udo. My head will not explode, I promise you. I know what I am doing.”
    Udo tossed the book to me, grinning at my awkward catch. “You are lucky I am so easy, Flora. If Valefor is the one who is supposed to be recognizing the fetish when he sees it, shouldn’t he be the one who does the sigil?”
    “He can’t. His only purpose is to act in regards to the House. He can’t act in any other capacity So I will charge the Word, activate it, and then pass it on to him, so that he’ll feel its effects. Then he should know the fetish when he sees it. I would have rather done the Recollection Sigil, but this is the best we can manage.”
    “And once we have the fetish, then what?” Udo asked. “We have to have the fetish first; then we’ll be able to figure out how to restore Valefor. We won’t know what Mamma did to disconnect them until we have the fetish.”
    “Well, let’s fall to,” Udo said. “I gotta be home by six, and I don’t want to be late and risk another lockdown.”
    I didn’t want to be late to meet Mamma, either; she frowns on tardiness as much as Sanctuary does, and after not seeing her in so long, I did not want to start out on the wrong foot.
    So, Valefor cleared the table of its mess of papers, Udo took off his hat, and I reread the Sigil, to make sure of the steps. Read it another time, just in case. Udo arranged himself to one side of me, and Valefor across. Between us, I lay
The Eschata,
open to the Sigil, just in case.
    My stomach was fluttering, in a very nonrangery way. I had never heard of anyone’s head exploding from a wrongly done Working, but there is always a risk that problems will arise.
The secret to having confidence is acting confident,
Nini Mo said. I wiped my sweaty hands on my kilt and shifted so that my stays were not cutting so harshly into my back.
    Strike hard, and with all your Will,
Nini Mo said.
    Closing my eyes, I rested my left hand on my knee and made the Invocative Gesture with my right. Pinching my left nostril closed with my thumb, I breathed in through my right nostril for four beats. Then I pinched my right nostril closed and exhaled through the left for four beats. Three times I did each side, and I started to feel the distant dizzy warmth that indicated the Current was building within me.
    The fourth breath, I drew in through the right nostril, and then, pinching both nostrils closed, held the breath in. At first it was hard to focus; I kept hearing Valefor’s cough, or the crunch of Udo’s satin kilt as he fidgeted. Then my lungs began to grow tight and the urge to breathe started to build. I swallowed,