In the twelfth chapter of Magic Steps, Sandry begins to set in motion the plan to capture the killers. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to read The Circle Opens.
Trigger Warning: For discussion of death/grief, depression, body horror.
This book is messing me up.
Joy
Pasco’s enthusiasm is infectious here, and yet, Pierce immediately reminds the reader through Sandry’s narration that this joy of his might me misplaced. There’s nothing wrong with Pasco being excited that Sandry and YazmÃn may have a way for him to do harrier work as a dance-mage. The problem is that Sandry is concerned that Pasco doesn’t understand the risk that he’s about to take. I appreciate that this is a worry of hers, though, and that it’s addressed so openly in the book as it is:
Do they really understand how serious this is? Sandry wondered as she set about creating a permanent warding on a room for Pasco and YazmÃn to work in. Do they understand that if he touches this net he can’t even see, the power of his dance combined with the net will eat him up? Should I talk to them about it some more?
This awareness is necessary at this point because the end result of the unmagic net could easily be death. In fact, the odds aren’t really in favor of Sandry and Pasco, are they? The very nature of unmagic stacks everything against them. And yet, throughout all of this, Pasco maintains a sense of eagerness to finally help out in a significant way. I couldn’t help but worry, too! This book has been so ruthless, so it’s not like it’s unbelievable to suggest things could end poorly for him or for Sandry.
WHY AM I THINKING OF THINGS LIKE THIS? We all know why.
Funeral
I just was not ready for Wulfric’s last rites, y’all. I do not feel better about his death, and I feel like I haven’t had any time at all to deal with it. This book’s pacing is so much quicker than I’m used to, and while that’s to its credit, it makes my heart hurt because… shit, y’all. Wulfric was just alive. How did this happen?
Sandry fought tears all through the ceremony. Tears would just make her weak, she thought, and she had to be strong for the work ahead. They came anyway, as the acolyte set Wulfric’s funeral pyre ablaze. Sandry hadn’t realized the duke and Baron Erdogun had come to stand with her until Vedris put his arm around her. She leaned against her great-uncle for a moment, then straightened, and blew her nose. Watching the flames rise around Wulfric’s body, Sandry made him a promise: she would snap the trap on the killers and their mage.
That might just be the saddest play on words in the universe.
Anxiety
It’s impossible to ignore how anxious this chapter feels. From Sandry’s disturbing unmagic dreams to the scenes where YazmÃn pushes Pasco to perfect his dance moves, this whole section of the book is nerve-wracking. It’s a brilliant use of tension and dread in the lead-up to the beginning of the final confrontation. I mean, that note from Lark about the tent being raised made a chill run down my spine because this was all real. There was no turning back at this point, you know?
To make matters worse, the climb to the Wehen Ridge sent me into a state, y’all. The duke’s accompaniment? Kwaben and Oama’s presence? These were indications of the severity of what was about to happen. And as worried as Sandry was about the duke’s health, I couldn’t help but see a mirror of her own actions in Vedris. Wasn’t he consumed by his anxiety over her fate? Wasn’t he just as stubborn and caring as she was?
And then Pierce has to go and invoke the Circle of Friendship and ruin me forever:
It’s not as if I’ve never been terrified out of my wits before, she thought as they began to climb up the road between Summersea and Winding Circle. Even before the year of disasters – earthquake, pirate attack, forest fires, and plague – that cemented her bond with her three friends, she had known trouble.
You know what this made me feel? An unbearable desire for the other three great mages to be here, assisting Sandry and Pasco. I know that it’s important to Sandry’s story that she go through this experience using her own power, but it doesn’t make me miss the others any less. There’s a loneliness to this book that is unmistakable to me because I know what it’s like to have to face something scary and terrible on your own. That’s not to say that Sandry has no support at all because she certainly does. But from what we see during the actual weaving, there’s an aspect to this that’s completely solitary, and I don’t think you can ignore that.
The Spinning
HOW DOES THIS BOOK KEEP GETTING MORE MESSED UP THAN IT WAS BEFORE?
He wrapped Sandry in a tight, warm embrace. “If you get yourself killed, I shall be very disappointed in you,†he said quietly, for her ears alone, and kissed her forehead.
Nothing like a little gallows humor to break my heart forever.
I suppose that prior to reading the spinning scene at the end of this chapter, both Lark and Pasco would be either nearby or in the same part of the tent as Sandry. But as I just said, the spinning sequence had to be a lonely one for it to be as effective as it was. I don’t mean that purely in a tonal sense, though that helps. But once Sandry began the process of spinning up the threads of unmagic, it was clear that its affect on her was one she would have to bear alone. Well, sort of alone. I nearly lost it when Sandry realized that Lark had set up the room in the tent to feel like Discipline. THEMATIC FRIENDSHIP.
Rosethorn, Briar, Tris, and Daja were all around her; Lark was in the tent and holding vigil outside with the duke. Winding Circle’s mages had done their best to shape this place for complex magics. In putting forth so much time, effort, and power, they had as much as told Sandry that they believed in her.
I expected the unmagic to try desperately to get inside of her. I did not, however, expect it to behave, more or less, like Sandry had depression. It was difficult for me to see anything else in the descriptions of its emotional toll on her. As someone who has had depression for most of his life, it wasn’t hard for me to recall feeling like “letting go, lying back, and resting without a thought for tomorrow.†While my depression doesn’t often manifest as apathy, that is still an aspect of it at times. However, all of the horrific imagery? The waking dreams? The tendency for Sandry’s mind to imagine the worst of everything around her? That is what my depression and anxiety does. That is how it feels.
Now, I don’t know if this was intentional or not, and I don’t want this to come off as some sort of posited theory that unmagic = depression. I wouldn’t go that far, and I don’t think it’s all that helpful to say that depression is nothing more than the absence of magic. There are real-world implications to metaphors like this. But it helped me understand the text; it allowed me to understand the emotional and mental state Sandry was in here by filtering it through my experience. Ultimately, that’s something that a lot of us do when we read. We imbue a text with our experiences, sometimes so much so that it’s difficult to separate the two. I personally enjoy when a text allows me to do something like that! As difficult as it was to read most of this because WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO ME, it’s part of Sandry’s story. Her connection to the people around her matters, and that’s what makes this so frightening. The unmagic uses that connection against her.
And in the end, she is able to shove it all away. She doesn’t let the unmagic beat her this way. At least for the moment, that is. The chapter ends right as she’s about to create the net that Pasco will dance, and it’s cruel. I NEED TO KNOW MORE.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bF1YqRMJo3E
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