The Theft of Sunlight, Intisar Khanani [best book club books for discussion txt] 📗

If it weren’t for the utter focus of her gaze, and that a ruby pendant glitters faintly in her other hand, there’d be no indication whatsoever that she is working.

But she is. I’ve seen her work this sort of magic on our sick animals before. If her compass used the concept of flow, healing magic is primarily about patterns. Such magic is never easy, and only the best of our mages become healers, if they so wish. Niya might never have attempted it had a faerie visitor not mentioned pattern magic as his parting word of advice to her.

A healer-mage might remind a body of the pattern of unruptured flesh, using their magic to return wounded flesh as close to that pattern as possible. Or, as Niya found while accompanying my mother to our community’s local births, the body knows the pattern for a healthy birth, even if it cannot achieve it. Magic gently introduced and carefully woven can turn a child from breech to anterior facing, can remind vessels to close, muscles to squeeze tight a rupture before a woman might bleed out. I remember the brightness in Niya’s eyes the first time she came home, knowing that the secret application of her magic saved the life of the woman she and Mama had gone to help, that one more family would remain together, one more child would keep her mother.

I settle across from her on the blanket, and watch as the dog’s skin slowly—so slowly—eases toward a healthier color beneath a dried, scaly layer of old skin. Niya is reminding the skin how to fight infection, how to push out what is unwanted, and while it will take days and possibly weeks for the dog to fully heal, eventually she will.

“There,” Niya says finally, setting aside the pendant. “That should help her. And Mama can have her pendant back, now that I’ve drained it.”

I smile. “She’ll be happy to hear it.”

A gemstone can be used to hold a reserve of magic, but the act of draining the magic alters its structure somehow, so it can only be used as an amulet once. Niya has slowly worked her way through our jewelry, storing what magic she doesn’t manage to use in her daily little spells around the house—kneading birdsong and a warm spring breeze into her bread, or spilling a bit of sunshine into the laundry. Every now and then she’s able to perform a big enough working that she uses the magic at her disposal and drains an amulet as well, and then we get our jewelry back. True mages, of course, have much larger gems than we do, and their amulets can become a source of great power. I don’t think Niya particularly cares about that, though. A small gem holds more than enough for her needs.

“Couldn’t sleep?” I ask her.

“I can’t stop thinking about Seri. I can help this dog—and I’m glad of it!—but I wish I could do something for her too.” She turns to me, gray eyes intent. “There has to be something we’re missing. Children can’t just disappear. Even dead bodies can be traced.”

“I know.”

“So what do we do?”

Nothing. If Niya does something to uncover the snatchers, not only does she risk being abducted herself, but her talent could be discovered and that would destroy her in a different way. She’d be made an amulet bearer, her magic constantly drained to an amulet to be used by the mage who becomes her master. I won’t let that happen.

“I don’t know,” I say. “But I might just go to the palace to see what I can learn. The king must be doing something; perhaps there’s someone among his staff who knows more.”

Niya stares at me. The dog wiggles her shoulders beneath Niya’s hand, asking for a petting, and she automatically starts scratching. “You’d do that?” Niya asks.

“Yes. And if no one’s doing anything, as you say, I’ll call you in and you can knock over some snatchers for me. Put your pattern and flow to good use.”

Niya laughs. “You’d never send for me. Just . . . if you really plan to learn about the snatchers, be careful, all right?”

I reach out to touch her arm. There is one truth, one future we have always promised each other: when Bean is married and leaves, and our parents are grown old, we will still always be there for each other. Niya because she can never dare to marry, given her secret, and me because I will never find anyone.

“Always,” I promise. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

Chapter

6

I bring up my decision to my parents the following morning after breakfast. “I don’t know that Melly really needs my company,” I admit. Far more likely, she’s happy to have an excuse to finally make me visit her. “But it would be nice to see her. And . . . I intend to ask her what’s being done about the snatchers, if something more can’t be done.”

Mama considers my words. “There’s no harm in that. Just be careful about who you speak to. And Rae, bear in mind that if it were easy, it would already be done.”

“I know.” I don’t expect it to be easy. But Niya’s counting on me to do what she can’t, and, like Ani, I can’t give up. I know I won’t find Seri in Tarinon, but this is still part of fighting for her.

“Is there anything else?” Mama asks as I continue to sit there.

Of course there is. If I go, I’ll be leaving my whole life behind. And that means my sisters as well. “I’m worried about Bean and Niya,” I confess. “About not being here for them. If anything should happen.” Unspoken but not unheard are the last of my fears: that if the snatchers should return, I might lose a sister while away at court. Or that Niya might be found out and taken from us, my parents punished for hiding her.

“Suppose I promise to watch them?” Mama says