Excerpt

It was your final examination of entrapment. Hulor Mwe'ra stood by the gilded lectern in the chancel, nod, nod, nodding, as you walked into the chapel with your pick of fowl from the courtyard. He nodded, watching how you restrained the fowl's wings with a glance. You nuzzled it up to your neck and gently pushed it down on the blackwood bench.

The bird lay feet up, supine under your spell, heartless, because you had magicked out its heart that pounded by itself inside an invisible wall for seven days. That was what entrapment did. It put something alive inside a wall and, once mastered, you could work it on the Nga'phandileh, the malevolent beings of unreality. You could work together magic with the rest of the Guardians to make sure the Nga'phandileh stayed entrapped inside the Hogiiri Hile Halah.

What astonished both you and the Guardians is that you didn't need to keep chanting the prayer of Our Mother to maintain the entrapment spell. The fowl's heart still beat as you went about your chores, sweeping, scrubbing, stir-frying, weeding. Then on the seventh day you blinked from a distance and, without touching, released the heart from the invisible wall and installed it back into the fowl. The bird startled and crowed indignation. It made sure you understood its disgust in the wet squeeze of green and white poop on the altar, before it scattered and flew in a rage out of the window and all the way down to the courtyard.

Later, in the courtyard, you stood and watched the fowl. As if it had forgotten, or was still lured by some spell, it walked in your direction unbidden, pecking unabashed. You wondered what it had felt, where it'd gone, when it lay feet up on the striated bench under your sound magic. It let you pet it, even squatted under your touch. You pressed hands around its wings, without magic, and it gave a low rumbly sound. You cradled it to your chest, rubbed its belly and spoke softly to it, even as you wrung its neck.

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