Sitri starts forward, seemingly unaffected by her uninviting demeanor. “Are you sure she wants us here?” I whisper.
“Psh, don’t worry, she loves me,” he says, waving a hand dismissively.
“What exactly are we doing here?”
“I’m going to ask her to train you.”
I halt in my path. “What?”
“Come on.” He ushers me forward eagerly. “I know she’ll agree. Has to.”
“Wait, Sitri what if—what if I don’t want to be trained by her? I don’t even know this woman.”
“You’ll get to know her,” he says as he bounds up the wooden planked stairs that creak and groan with each step.
I linger at the bottom of the stairs, pointing a single finger up at the shabby house. “Does she know about me?”
He turns back, brows pinching guiltily. “She knows,” he confirms.
“You told her!?”
“Only her,” he says quickly. “She’s completely trustworthy, pet, I swear. I’d never put you in danger.” With that, he’s bounding up the steps again.
I clamber after him with a groan, clinging tightly to the wooden rail. There’s a lot of give to these steps, and I don’t completely trust them to hold. Sitri’s already rapping on the door by the time I’m halfway up the stairs. When no one answers, he pounds harder. “Baga, open up.”
I’ve only just conquered the stairs when the door opens a sliver. I can barely see the woman beyond outside of her large, murky brown eyes.
“No,” she says simply.
“Wait—wait—“ Sitri calls. She attempts to slam the door shut, but Sitri catches it and pries it open, forcing himself in. “Wait, Baga.”
He leaves the door hanging open behind him. I stand there awkwardly, not entirely sure if I really want to go in there or not. One of the branches of a nearby plant shivers and stretches out one of its leafy limbs in my direction, and I dash in after him.
A potent array of smells wafts over me a I step in. Some herby and some of them not so pleasant. My eyes flick this way and that around the tightly packed room. Three large fireplaces make up the entire right side wall. Rusted cauldrons gurgle amidst the flickering flames, presumably emitting some of the strange smells that envelop the room.
The opposite wall has an assortment of jars, vials, and tins, so many it makes Sitri’s collection look measly in comparison. Tapestries, charts, and maps clutter the walls. One wall has a host of odd insects pinned to a board. A source of the unpleasant smell reveals itself. I marvel at the cages stacked upon cages of birds, rabbits, mice, and some creatures I don’t recognize. The woman named Baga shuffles around, her back turned to us. “Baga,” Sitri repeats.
If the atmosphere weren’t so ominous, her ignoring him would almost be comical.
“I’m busy,” she says, voice thickly accented.
“You don’t even know what I’m going to ask.”
She turns around, finally revealing her face. Whatever weird jealousy that soured me this morning is quickly vanquished. She’s short, almost squat, silver bushy hair sticking out in every direction. Her skin has the texture of worn leather, her cheeks ruddy and sagging. “I know,” she says, large eyes landing on me. “I do not have time.” She waves a hand impatiently.
“She can help you,” Sitri offers.
I send him an incredulous look, but it lands on the side of his head.
“Pah!”
“She’s very smart.”
“She doesn’t know any magic,” Baga argues.
“You can teach her. She has a knack for potion-making. She brewed the leaf of moly three times without ever having brewed anything.”
Baga’s large eyes flicker over me again. She lets out another quiet hmph as she turns and clinks open the door of one of her rusted cages. The bird’s wings flutter frantically as she stills it under a firm grip and pulls it from the cage. “She is your firebrand, and she was desperate. People are capable of extraordinary things when they are desperate.”
