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Night in the Naakiwan Downs is something that Coco is still getting used to. It's strange all over again now she's back from the undersea hush of the Great Hall: the wind scrapes against the flat landscape, rattling the atelier's loose shingles and whining at the doors and windows to be let in. Ash-mottled dragons and gravewatcher foxes call to each other in the dark.
Back home, Coco went to sleep listening for the breeze soughing through the trees, the squeaks of bitterbats hunting soft-glowing lanternflies, and the creak of her mother's steps just across the landing.
Professor Qifrey's atelier is built too sturdily for Coco to ever hear it if Agott gets up in the middle of the night. Last night she was exhausted and dropped off right away. But today, even after how tiring Kalhn was, she can't sleep.
It shouldn't bother her. It's a lovely bedroom, and she's lucky to have it, and anyway her brushbuddy's curled up on her blanket, sleeping and giving the occasional just-too-cute little sigh. Still. Coco can't sleep.
The stairs are cold under her bare feet. She doesn't stop in the workroom. Maybe she can get a drink of water in the kitchen and curl up on the sofa for a bit in the atelier's main room, full of soft things and good memories of shared lessons and meals.
Only when she gets down to the kitchen, someone's already there. Master Olly is slumped over the table, eyes half closed over a steaming bowl of tea. His hairy ankles stick out from the hem of his long nightgown, and his patterned shawl is half falling off his shoulders.
Coco hesitates on the stair. Maybe it would be better to go back to bed…? But she misses her chance, because Olruggio looks up and says, "Hm? Oh, Coco. You're up late."
"I can't sleep," she confesses. Her grip on the stone banister tightens. This isn't her kitchen, and it isn't her mother's teapot on the table.
"Me either," Master Olly says, and gives her a rumpled-looking smile. "Too many evening naps caught up with me, I think. Want some tea?"
It's hard to take the last step off the stairs. But once she does it's easier to move and take a seat across from Olruggio's bowl as he gets up to rattle in the cupboards, fetching a second.
The sight of the teapot is weirdly upsetting. It's a beautiful little silver thing Coco hasn't seen before, engraved with warmth spells and standing on three clawed feet. But it's not an old white teapot with a fading pattern of strawberries painted around its belly, the lid long broken and replaced with a yellow one that always rattled when you poured.
Coco startles when a hand comes into view and takes the teapot away, replacing it with a bowl.
"Here you go—glaive mint's a little harsh on its own, so I put some honey in yours."
"Thank you," Coco whispers, and cups her hands around its shallow sides. She shivers.
"Feeling cold?"
Coco nods into her tea. Something warm falls over her shoulders.
She lifts up its hem. "This is really nice work," she says—it's Master Olly's shawl, deep blue and woven thin enough Coco can see her hand through it. There's a gold sunburst worked into the center, right where it's meant to drape around your neck, and the gold thread is somehow not even a little scratchy.
"That's right, you'd know." Olruggio settles in at the table again. "I got in Nouihl some years back. The luxury market there's pretty big."
"Imported spinsilk and cobalt dye," Coco says automatically. "Traders had Nouihl work sometimes but Mommy said we wouldn't have anyone to sell it to."
Her breath catches in her throat. She fumbles for her tea. Drinking it lets her avoid Master Olruggio's gaze.
He pours himself the last of the pot. The moment passes, and Coco is grateful for it. They drink their tea.
It's sweet and hot and the mint washes the frustration from Coco's mouth. Propped up on one wrist, the shawl's hem curled between her fingers, Coco thinks she could fall asleep right here at the table, if only she knew Master Olly wouldn't leave.
She peeks over the rim of her tea. Olruggio's eyes are half closed, and he's sitting with his own tea cradled between his hands, letting the steam rise to his face. He sighs into it, and looks up to meet Coco's eyes.
"So, hey—" Master Olly gently turns his tea bowl, letting it rasp against the wooden tabletop. He smiles at her, sleepy and kind. "Got any feedback on the snugstones? I've already submitted the design for approval, but I'll take anything you got. Maybe make a second version."
Coco's face crumples. She puts her tea down so she won't drop it.
"What—oh no, Coco—"
"I thought Master Qifrey told you," she says. Her throat aches. "It's. Um. It's gone."
And she bursts into tears.
Olruggio's chair rattles as he pushes it back. He kneels at Coco's side. "It's okay, Coco, we all lose stuff."
It's not okay. Coco can't stop crying.
"We can make another if you want. Only if you want. Doesn't take a minute, you know?" Olruggio dabs at the tears on her face carefully as he speaks.
Coco nods. Then she sees the damp fabric in Olruggio's hands, deep blue and blooming darker with the wet.
"I'm sorry, your nice shawl," Coco says, voice wobbling all over again. She's supposed to be too big to ruin good fabric so carelessly.
"That's fine, that's what it's for." But it's not, nobody would ever make a handkerchief out of spinsilk, not even a noble—
Olruggio passes a hand over her hair, broad and warm and gentle, and Coco lurches forward to grab a handful of his nightgown and bury her face in his shoulder.
"I didn't lose my snugstone. I gave it away," she tells him first, because she wants him to know that she isn't always careless with her things. And then, voice hitching and forehead pressed into Olruggio's shoulder, Coco explains what happened down in the caves of Romonon.
Master Olly's hand stills in her hair, and he kneels there with her unmoving, and when she finishes and works up the courage to look, he's white as a sheet and doesn't look sleepy at all any more.
"I'm sorry, Coco," he says. "I'm going to tell you something now, and I need you to listen, alright? Here it is: this was not your fault."
"I gave it to them!"
"And if you give me a rock and I throw it through a window, is that your fault?"
Coco shakes her head. Her lower lip juts out.
"It's a hard lesson we have to learn. I'm sorry witches always seem to learn it so young. We're responsible for our power, but we're only human. We can't see the future. And it's arrogance to think that because we know a little more than other people, we must know everything."
"I only wanted to help," says Coco, and Olruggio smooths his hand over her hair again.
"I know," he says, heavily. "I know, kiddo. Those are always the worst ones."
Coco sniffles into his nightgown, and pulls away. Somewhere outside, a night-flying sparrowhawk calls.
Olruggio tugs his shawl into neater folds around Coco's shoulders. "You know, we really should go back to sleep, but we could go make that new snugstone for you instead. I've still got a bunch of geode slices ready to go. How about it, Coco?"
"I'd like that," she says quietly.
Olruggio holds out a hand. Coco takes it.
Master Olly's workshop is dark and full of strange shadows, but the floor lighting up under their feet is an immediate comfort. Olruggio leads her past shelves and workbenches up a rickety set of stairs hammered into the heavy stone walls to the loft. It's cozy once the lamps are lit; there's a cluttered worktable equipped with dozens and dozens of tiny drawers for components, and an armchair and a shelf spilling over with books next to the hanging bed piled high with cushions.
He pulls a box out from under a pile of wax-sealed scrolls, shoves a spot clear on the desk, and flips open the hinged wooden lid.
"Here," Olruggio tells Coco; "pick one you like."
Coco goes through the little box with care. The slices of rock and crystal are cool to the touch, clinking heavily against each other as she moves them out of the way. They're all polished till their faces feel like glass, circles and ovals and some funny uneven shapes that all look a little like someone did a really bad job cracking eggs into a frying pan.
The one she picks out at last is almost perfectly round, warm amber yellow at the center transitioning jaggedly into green so dark it looks black till she holds it up to the light.
"This one," she says. "It's the prettiest."
It also looks the most different from the first snugstone she had, a translucent purple. But Olruggio just says, "Nicely chosen, Coco," so maybe he doesn't notice that.
Coco watches Olruggio set up: rolling up his nightgown's sleeves to his elbows, tugging a heavy leather glove onto his left hand, laying out his wand, flipping through a small notebook till he lands on a page with a familiar seal.
"Searneedle wands get hot. Two steps back."
Coco jerks up from staring at the notebook.
"You, um. All the rings are closed in these seals," she says, but she shuffles back anyway till her shins hit a crate
"They are," Olruggio says, and turns the slice of crystal around under the light of his desk lamp. "Can you spot something else unusual about the spells there?"
Coco tips her head one way and then the other, hands clasped behind her back and hair falling in her face, trying not to block Olruggio's light. "Oh, they're all drawn with blue ink! Do you put dye in your conjuring ink, Master Olly?"
"Not unless the spell I'm working on at the time requires it."
He touches wand to stone for the first time, drawing most of a circle in one slow, careful swoop of his pen. Master Olly inspects it again, Coco can't tell for what, because it's so incredibly round it looks like he drew it with a compass.
At length, Olruggio adds, "That notebook is my work archive: I record the spell of every contraption I make with plain non-magical ink. Anything I don't need conjuring ink for, I use blue ink. Helps keep things straight—and this way I won't accidentally activate all my seals at once if I spill something and smear the ink."
His searneedle wand hisses faintly against the crystal as he draws a perfectly centered fire sigil. Coco's fingers twitch at her side, copying his motions in miniature.
"As you grow into your practice, you'll find systems that work for you." He turns the crystal around in his gloved hand as he draws the signs, always drawing at the top of the crystal before giving it another precise eighth of a turn, always keeping his fingertips carefully away from the end of the wand. "Keep an eye out for what you can learn from other people, and I don't just mean spells. I started keeping a record of all my spells after a barkeep back in the Great Hall showed me how she organized her brewing recipes."
"That's incredible," Coco whispers, and Olruggio laughs softly and turns the slice of crystal one last time to finish the spell's ring.
Light spills out of the snugstone as it activates, dazzling Coco for a moment.
Olruggio passes it to her. "Here, I'll find something to wrap it in."
He goes through all his wonderful little drawers while Coco turns the snugstone over in her hands, chilled fingers already warming up. It's a beautiful thing, and Master Olruggio made it just for Coco, filling it with the wish that she'll sleep well. She's determined not to think of Romonon when she uses it, and also maybe to never let this one leave her bedroom.
Master Olly drops a square of soft velvet into her hands. "I don't have any pouches left unless I steal one from the link rings, so I'll fix this up tomorrow, alright?"
"Oh, I can do that, I haven't sewed anything in ages," Coco says. It's a cheerful thought for a moment, and then all of a sudden it isn't again.
"Yeah? I'll bet you've got some tricks to teach the rest of us." Olruggio lowers himself back onto his work stool. Back at eye level with Coco, he gives her a small smile. "How are you feeling now? Ready for bed?"
"Can you. Um." Coco clenches a hand in Master Olly's shawl, still draped around her shoulders. "Can you keep telling me about your spells? Just for a little bit?"
Coco's bedroom is down a hall, then up and down the cold stone stairs, and there's nobody there but the brushbuddy who's probably stolen her pillow by now. Master Olly's workroom is new and full of weird shapes looming out of the dark, but he's here and so are all of his warm, comforting contraptions.
Olruggio peers at her carefully, then looks away to rearrange his sleeves. "Sure," he says at last. "Just for a little bit. I'll tell you about all the really boring stuff, you'll be ready to escape and go to sleep in no time."
He settles Coco upright in his hammock bed hanging from the workshop's curved walls, and takes the armchair next to it.
"Alright," says Master Olly, leaning back with his hands folded over his belly, and explains why regular stone doesn't conduct heat and light the same way crystal does, his voice a low, comforting rumble. It is interesting, Coco thinks, and it's interesting how much Master Olly knows about rocks for a flame witch, and that triggers the thought that what you do magic with is just as important as what the magic is, which makes her think of the puzzle of helping Coustas, which, Coco tells herself, she will definitely write down on the way back to bed…
When Coco wakes, she's tucked into the hammock with her new snugstone in one curled hand, quilts carefully drawn over her. And Master Olly's still in his armchair, heavy cloak slipping off his lap and his breath rattling in his nostrils as the morning sun crawls up his leg like a brushbuddy in search of something to eat.