Back To The Divide by Elizabeth Kay

too small. She borrowed a plain sludge green dress of Tansy's, but it didn't do a thing for her and she kept tripping over the hem. I know, she thought, I'll see if Agrimony will lend me something. She told Felix she wouldn't be long and that Socrates would keep him company for a bit. Then she climbed down the ladder, leaving out the last few rungs and jumping nimbly to the ground. Although Agrimony had been a bit of a pain at school she'd behaved rather well the previous year, and she had gone up in Betony's estimation. She'd been brave and
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    unselfish, and she'd even admitted there was more to life than dancing the star squirm or the dusk hop or placing first in toadstool tests. Betony was really looking forward to seeing her -- would the improvement have lasted or had it been just skin-deep?
    "Oh, hi, Betony," said Agrimony with a disbelieving glance at the dress.
    "I know," said Betony. "Can you lend me something? I left everything behind when I was running away from Harshak down a collapsing secret passage after heroically saving the library from an incendiary spell."
    "I don't think anything of mine will fit you."
    "I can't wear what I came in. Reciting a level thirteen spell makes you perspire like anything, and then I got some dust and some sinistrom blood on me as well."
    "I've grown more than you have," said Agrimony, flicking through her wardrobe. "Everything I've got has a bust these days."
    "They actually had a triple-head guarding the library, Agrimony. A real live triple-head. It was huge. It flew off when it saw Snakeweed drive past in an otherworld vehicle. A self-propelled thing."
    "Try this," said Agrimony, pulling out a slinky embroidered little number. "It's last year's style, I don't wear it anymore."
    "Thanks," said Betony flatly, putting it on.
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    "I have to think about my appearance," said Agrimony. "When I got back from Andria last year I became quite a hit at the storytelling sessions. It's not just having something exciting to tell, you know, it's the way you do it. I'm a natural, apparently. I'm going to be apprenticed to the chief storyteller."
    "Betony, darling!" screeched Agrimony's mother, Grisette, appearing in the doorway. "How lovely to see you!"
    "Thornbeak and I saved the library from an incendiary spell," said Betony.
    "That's nice," said Grisette, looking at Betony appraisingly, "but I think the bodice is a little full for you. I could put a couple of tucks in it."
    You can see where Agrimony gets it from, can't you? thought Betony.
    Felix lay back against the cushions and leafed through Moss, Molds, and Mistletoe -- an Herbal Primer. It was an old-fashioned schoolbook, handwritten by a scribe. Some of it was quite unpleasant: First, rot your toadstool until the smell makes you vomit. Scrape off the pink mold, mix it with an equal quantity of your own blood, and let it fester for two days. He put it back on the shelf and chose another: Fire-breathers: Structure and Function. It was fascinating; he hadn't realized that fire-breather dung was red-hot and was used to get an oven going. Nor had he known that elderly fire-breathers who had retired from commercial flying still worked part-time --
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    they stripped paint for decorators, operated kilns for potters, and ran beach barbecues in the summer. He put the book back and selected another. A Child's Book of Shadow-beasts and Scourges. He looked at the pictures of sinistroms and worrits, remembering his own encounters with them. The last section dealt with creatures that weren't shadow-beasts but could be big trouble nonetheless -- cutthroats and carrion-wings and brandees, things he hadn't even heard of. There was an anecdote about someone called Leona, who was half-lion and half-amberly (whatever that was).
    ... and the worrit found himself up against the best magical mind he'd ever encountered. Leona twisty-stripped him -- she reversed the worrit's own magical powers and told him jokes until he laughed himself to death.
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