In the same way, these glimpses of conspiracy and murder and family and ancient evils might tell a thousand different stories. Seven-and-forty years ago, a newborn male child wearing the device of an extinct Sabrian blood family had been abandoned on a knight’s doorstep. What did that mean? My left arm pained me worse by the moment, a reminder of the cost of probing deeper.
Sir Gavril’s kitchen girl might have
found
the shield bracelet and put it on her child for the same simple reason she chose to leave the babe with the good-hearted knight—to protect him from harm. Yet how likely was such an artifact to be lying about? The garnet eyes were intact and valuable. And shield bracelets were passed down in families,
northern
families. As in Delourre, where my father had been born and abandoned. In Delourre, where the Gautieri had built their collegia and their library, part of the Grande Demesne Gautier. And Kajetan’s guest had worn the colors of Delourre.
Papa’s mother must surely have been ignorant of the symbol’s meaning and the consequences of discovery. In the decades after the Blood Wars, a hint of Mondragon blood to a magistrate had you dead at the end of a spear. Unless the Camarilla got wind of it first. That death was worse.
Papa could not have known the meaning of the device, either, else he’d never have given the bracelet to Philippe and Eugenie for their child. Yet Cecile de Blasencourt had been asking questions about my father’s birth. She’d a hint from somewhere. She had surely seen the bracelet, kept in a silk bag identical to that holding the scrap from her armoire.
And what of Duplais? He didn’t know the older mark, either. What had he said to me about Mage Kajetan’s handmark? It was
not to be confused with either the scorpions of Mondragon or the three keys of Gautier.
Three keys! And so did another question resolve itself, while spawning ten more. On the morning she realized that death was inescapable, Lianelle had included a loop of three keys with her spellmaking particles. If the lock of hair aimed the death spell at herself, and Guerin’s note designated the person she wished to find her body, then what role did the symbol of Gautier play?
Revelations came tumbling. I had seen three keys in another place, too. In the Bastionne Camarilla, in the ruined chamber Dante insisted was my father’s laboratorium, the mage had shown me a topaz set in a triangle formed of three bronze keys. If a Mondragon survived two centuries after the Blood Wars, then it was possible that a Gautier had also survived. Was that what Lianelle was telling me? That the Aspirant was not a Mondragon, but a Gautier? Heaven’s creatures!
A tickling at the back of my neck and along my arms signaled another onslaught of tremors and nausea. I buried my face in my arms, trying to empty my head and scour away confusion and dread.
My friend! Gods and daemons, are you well? All morning I’ve felt these earthquakes in the aether. But when you close your mind, I cannot—I’ve not been able to reach you.
I’m well.
I nearly dissolved in laughter at the thought that my uneasy conscience had somehow opened the door between us and rousted him from his work.
Perfectly well.
You’re
not
, though. And if you believe so, then you’ve greater problems than you know.
What a priggish assessment!
You’ve no idea what my problems are.
My hands trembled as they felt the zahkri grind on bone. As I imagined Guerin and his shattered shoulder trying to survive in the streets of Merona. As molten iron stirred in my belly yet again. Foul and wicked. Poison.
I’ve intruded where I should not
, he said
. Forgive me.
His silent withdrawal struck me like an ice bath.
Wait . . . I’m sorry. Please . . .
He deserved better of me. How could I explain my state of mind without blurting out that my father’s blood—my own blood—might be so dangerous as to be unworthy of life, or that it might be the very seed sparking a revival of savagery? Or that my sister had murdered herself rather than allow someone else to do it, perhaps because of this very discovery? Or that I had spoken with a dead man, who was somehow seducing my queen and part of a plot to thrust the world into upheaval?
. . .
please don’t go . . .
My friend’s solid presence, his concern, gave me an anchor in the chaos of my thoughts. I could not bear to be left alone with all this yet again.
I’m in no immediate danger. It’s just been an awful day. I walked out on an errand this morning, and a brute assaulted me. No one I knew. But I . . . struck him. Cut him. His flesh ripped and his lifeblood spilled out on my hands . . .
The words spilled as if they were my own lifeblood. I had to let them flow, lest skull and heart burst.
. . .
and I know it was justified and I’m not sorry for what I did, but I feel filthy and wretched, and I keep seeing it over and over. I think I might possibly have used . . .
I curled into the corner of the balcony and buried my head in my arms, holding off a redoubled onslaught of sensory memory. As some great opticum whose lenses reveal those things hidden to the naked eye, the vile insinuation of the copper bracelet magnified the morning’s events. And with the closer scrutiny arrived the truth I had never wanted.
From childhood my Cazar relatives had told me I lacked the factor of the blood that sparked magic. No talent. It was a certainty as firm as Montclaire’s foundation. I had rejoiced that I would never need to experience the strangeness, the uncertainties, the sickness that accompanied any proximity to spellworking. As I grew older and scholarship—and pride—led me to worship at the altar of reason, the lack made it altogether simple to deny the truth of magic.
Yet as I had slashed at Guerin’s magical bindings, anger and hatred had raised this fiery torrent in my limbs. In a gnat’s heartbeat, the impervious cords had split. As if by magic. As if by foul, wicked Mondragon magic.
Great gods . . . Well, of course you used your talent to defend yourself. Magic is a gift you bring to any encounter. I, too, came late to magic, so I understand the confusions power can stir. But to deny it makes no more sense than the astronomer de Vouger choosing to be ignorant because his intellect might lead him to contradict the
Book of Creation
. Must a woman stop reading books or blind herself because some poor ignorant devil in Riverside cannot read? Must a tall man hunch his shoulders and never reach too high?
Certainly not.
His logic tamed my terror, but did not quench it.
It just felt—Some talent for sorcery is wicked, yes? The very nature of it . . . violence, hate, anger, a bent to evil.
My stomach spasmed again as the bowman’s warm blood dribbled through my fingers.
Magic
is not wicked. No more than oceans are wicked or learning or sight or weather. Certainly raw power, uncontrolled by the structure of a spell, can be dangerous, just as lightning is dangerous. And some people—some with talent; some without—have a warped, devilish spirit bent to violence. That’s why a practitioner must learn control from the first inkling of talent. Emotions that touch the innermost self can cause—
A spasm of outrage cut off his thought, rumbling in my soul as distant thunder rattles windows.
Did the brute injure you in such a—Is that the problem? Did
he
use magic to . . . gods . . . to
violate
you?
No, no, I’ve only a few cuts and bruises, some from a magical weapon, some not.
I found myself hastening to reassure him.
They ache and sting a bit. That’s all. The man didn’t get what he wanted. It’s the reliving sickens me.
The stretched moment eased.
Have the injuries seen to
, he said
. By someone who’s familiar with magical injuries. Many wounds seem simple but are not. A friend taught me that, and I recall it every time I sharpen a pen. Don’t cripple yourself. Promise me.
More and more I felt certain as to my friend’s identity. Indeed, Duplais bore the scars of magical wounding—burns from the ship fire that almost killed him and the king—and he had certainly come late to magic.
All right
, I said.
I’ll find someone to look at it.
And never feel guilty for defending yourself with whatever is at hand. If the incident has opened you to your own gifts, all the better.
Closing my eyes, I could almost see him, a shadowed form against a brilliant light. Thick walls surrounding him. Uncomfortable but safe. Solitary. Focused on this strange conversation as I was. Concerned about
me
.
I scrubbed my scalp as terror receded. I was still Anne. Plain, awkward Anne. I had been angry before without changing into a monster.
You’re very good at calming hysterical women
, I said, leaning my head against the damp balusters, letting the mist bathe my heated skin
. Tell me, friend
—
I hated the thought of returning to the empty world. I yet had some time.
—
do your studies progress? I know nothing of night-blooming plants. They’re rare, I know. Do you find them more beautiful than day bloomers? Or perhaps you just like working in the dark?
His hesitation was as clear as my hand in front of me. Perhaps I’d made some new faux pas.
If you’ve other business waiting or would rather not . . .
No, no. It’s just . . . in fact, I detest the dark. Light—
seeing
—that’s the finest pleasure the world offers. But, of course, some work has to be done in the dark . . . like studying night bloomers. Actually, there are a goodly number of them. Thornapple, of course, and daylilies and evening campion. There’s a rare type of vervain that bears white flowers that open in the dark. I can’t see they’re more attractive than other plants. It’s their response to the night that is their truly unique quality, though any aspect of their complex nature can be useful. Vervain is included in love potions and witch wards, while at the same time it serves as a wash for festering wounds, a remedy for gout and flux, and a hundred other medicinal tasks. The Cinnear used vervain to cleanse their temples of evil spirits. Any physical property can be useful in spellwork—a tree’s hardness or resistance to disease or an herb’s hairy stem or thick leaves—but you can also draw on the beliefs surrounding them. All these things make up the plant’s intrinsic nature, the power that it brings to magic. If you choose to pursue your talent, which you ought, you must study these things—see them for yourself. Magic is all about
seeing.
. . .
It was as if I had opened a door in a thick gray wall and stepped through into a feast of brilliant colors, of the smells of spices, wine, and ripe pears, of whirling dancers and sparkling conversation, of jewels, candles, rippling silks, and rustling taffetas. Not even Lianelle had spoken this way of nature and magic. I drank it in.
As he moved onto other unusual plants, those that root in air or die every summer or flower only when their leaves have withered, it struck me that my sister had described a scholar who had touched a kindred part of her soul with his talk of magic. Kajetan. No, no, no, he could not be. . . .
I could not but think of Guerin and his befuddlement at the objects Lianelle had brought to her spellwork. Uncanonical magic. Heresy. And I’d just revealed I’d worked magic unsanctioned. Foolish, incautious girl! This
friendship
could be a trap. How was I to know?
Gods, I’ve rattled on too long
, he said
. You needed to go.
You astonish me. I never understood that to work spells you would have to know so much about customs and culture, history and language, as well as the divine elements—five of them. Is that right?
My friend slammed the door between us with such finality, I was astounded, moments later, when he spoke again.
The Camarilla Magica teaches that all matter comprises five elements granted by the Creator.
Grave and quiet, all exuberance quenched. Precise. Clear.
Be warned. For a novice practitioner of magic to contradict or question Camarilla tenets is most unwise. Those who know little of the art must listen and learn. And weigh beliefs carefully and in private
. . .
as I do.
All true. The words were stripped of every accessory feeling save wariness and a trace of anxiety—for me? Perhaps he did not realize he felt such a thing.
I pushed.
What we say here is private between us. Yes?
Yes.
I could interpret nothing from this but truth.
It would mark me a lunatic to share any idea on a topic so unfamiliar, derived from a source I cannot explain
, I said.
Especially when the source might very well be a product of my own deranged mind or a Camarilla practitioner who might reside in Syanar or the Caurean Isles.
He didn’t respond to my attempt at humor.
I should get back to my studies instead of prattling about them
, he said
. You’ll see to your wounds? You mustn’t let them fester.
I will. And thank you for all this. You’ve given me a great deal to think about besides potential husbands or despicable ruffians.
Or terror of my own blood.