Chapter Fourteen
The Split Braid
‘A technique whereby the seamstress splits her own thread while working it, doubling it back upon its own path to create an intricate plaited effect.’
—An Exhaustive Compendium of Stitches
True to her word, Mieka managed to take the night shift, and it was she who stood outside my room when I creaked open the door in the middle of the night. I had not been able to sleep, but had lain awake waiting for the great house to descend into silence.
“You’ll have to let me nap in your room tomorrow,” she said, yawning.
“Of course.” I looked up and down the corridor. “Is anyone else around?”
“Not that I’ve heard or seen. It’s as safe as it’s going to get.”
“Right, come on.”
We walked as noiselessly as we could down the long, hushed halls until we came to the library.
It had a different nature, in the dark; the ranked books were gray and as evenly spaced as teeth.
I ran my hand over the shelves, searching for the hidden room I had found before.
After some trial and error, we found the very faint, almost imperceptible seam that marked where the opening was, exposing an alcove beyond—large enough to step into, but small enough that I had to duck my head to enter.
“What do you see?” Mieka hissed.
More books. Perhaps more valuable than the rest in the library?
They had the ornate, expertly bound and decorated covers of the Book Man’s most precious wares.
I ran my fingers along the spines, and it felt like I was trailing them across the vertebrae of a sleeping animal.
There was that same sense of life: present but dormant.
“Come in,” I whispered.
Mieka ducked her head as she entered the little room, looking about her with wonder. The dust made her sneeze, and it sounded like a donkey’s bray in the silence.
“Sorry, sorry! It got up my nose.” She rubbed her nose violently. “What are all these, then?”
I reached for a book and slid it from its place, dislodging a shower of dust. It had clearly not been moved in some time, and the pages crackled as I opened it.
I traced the shapes of the letters I could not read and saw that after a few pages of spellscript, there were illustrations, picked out in gold leaf.
Bones, labeled. And someone had written notes in a different color of ink next to the pictures.
I put that volume back and selected another.
This one was almost all illustrations—bones again, skeletons moving and dancing in strange postures.
“You tell me.” I passed her one of the books. “My guess would be bone magic, from the pictures.”
“Plague, yes.” She cast her eyes down the page. “I don’t understand all of it, but it’s bone magic all right.”
I passed her another. She opened it to a random page and started reading silently to herself, lips moving.
“Some of it is in another language,” she said. “But yes. More bones.”
I looked around at the volumes that lined the walls. “All of these spellbooks must be about bone magic.”
“Some of them aren’t even spellbooks,” she said. She had picked up another slim volume and opened it to show me. “This is all just notes, look, and little drawings. And here’s another, all in the same hand.”
“So someone was doing research.”
“Or keeping a diary, of sorts.”
Mieka began to read aloud from one of the notebooks.
“‘I grow tired and discouraged in my Great Work, but I press on. The most Powerful Magic of all is at my fingertips, and if I stop now, I will not only cheat myself of the glory of its resurrection, but cheat future generations of its …” She stopped and made a face. “Took himself a bit seriously, didn’t he?”
She leafed to a new page and read again.
“‘I have told my daughter that the seed of Magic may grow in ways unexpected and that we risk awakening something not easily put back to sleep. It might not suffer man’s control. It might rebel. I believe that what she calls an Inspiration would be an Experiment swiftly come to sorrow. Margotte is stubborn, however’—look, he underlined ‘stubborn’ three times—“and will not listen to the Wisdom of her Betters.’”
“Margotte was my mother,” I said. Stubborn. Well, she was that. Once Mother was set on a path, there was no diverting her from it.
“Why would anyone want to bring back bone magic, anyway?” said Mieka.
“Mother said the Plague wasn’t bone magic’s fault. Not exactly. That she thinks someone started using it wrong, and taking too much, and it sort of threw everything off-balance.”
“So I suppose if you used it properly …” Mieka shook her head. “This is dangerous, Netta. We have to be careful.”
“I know.”
The following day, I stitched and stitched the piece I had started the previous night, saying my mantra over and over.
Please come. Please, please come. My fingers were raw from it, but luckily I could conceal them with those cursed gloves when Milady called me to her chambers again.
Finally a good use for the awful things.
“Ah, there you are, my dear,” she said. “Your betrothed wants to spend some time with you—isn’t that nice?”
I stayed silent.
“I wish you would see my side of this, Netta,” she said. “I only want the best for you. You are my niece, after all.”
She still wanted to keep up this pretense of concern, of care? I watched her as she moved about the room.
“No one can argue with a marriage bond,” she said, as if partly to herself. “Both magic and religion recognize it as sacred. Once you are wed, your power belongs to him as surely as if it were his own.”
“It will be of no use to him,” I said coldly. “I don’t choose when or how to wield it. The most I can do is read to him from his books and let my Hair put on a show.”
“Oh, my dear.” She crossed the room to me and cupped my cheek in her hand in a mimicry of motherly affection.
“Did you not suspect? Ban Morin has a very particular skill, rare among mages. He is able to use another’s magic as his own, when he binds them to himself.
Isn’t that interesting? He may even give you a demonstration of those abilities tonight, if you are fortunate. ”
My skin crawled where she touched me.
“My maid will escort you to his rooms now,” she said. “And Netta? I suggest you submit. For your own sake.”
I knocked on the door of Ban Morin’s chambers. The hideous engagement ring winked maliciously from my finger when I raised my hand, and I felt a deep, visceral distaste for it, as if it were a stinging insect that had alighted there.
“Come in,” came his voice from inside.
I turned the handle reluctantly, my brain still racing to decipher a way out without resorting to accepting Patrick’s help and exchanging the frying pan for the fire.
Perhaps I could tell Ban Morin just enough to persuade him to let me go to Spire?
Or perhaps I could tell him nothing and suggest we take a ride together within the grounds to celebrate our betrothal, then gallop away at the first chance …
Not that I knew how to ride.
I entered the room slowly, forcing myself to move forward when all I wanted to do was run.
“Netta,” Ban Morin greeted me. He was even bigger and more threatening than I remembered now that I was alone with him.
“Ban Morin,” I said, trying to keep my voice from trembling.
He caught my hand in his and touched his unpleasantly wet lips to my knuckles, leaving a slimy gleam on my gloves when he straightened up. He seemed to be in a good mood.
“The ring …” I began.
“Striking, isn’t it? It’s a family heirloom.”
“I can’t take it off.”
“Why would you want to, my dear?” he said.
I knew I had to tread carefully. “There are some tasks … I would be worried about damaging it …”
“No chance of that. It is almost indestructible.”
“I do a lot of needlework,” I said in a sudden burst of inspiration. “The jewels are so grand, but they stand out from the setting—I think they will snag on the threads.”
“Needlework? My dear, you are made for more than squinting over your stitches. There will be servants aplenty to embroider anything you require. Better yet, purchase it all readymade.” A toothy smile. “There will be no shortage of pin money.”
I was out of arguments that I could make politely. He smiled widely at me, showing all his teeth.
“Now that we are betrothed,” he said, “I would like to take begin your instruction in the high art of magic.”
He turned away and opened a large case, inside which were several ornate volumes.
“Here.” He seemed breathless; excited. Indecently so. His hands trembled a little as he handed me a book.
“Be careful,” he warned. “It is priceless.”
I removed my gloves to handle it. The tome was bound with a leather so smooth that it felt slippery and cool beneath my fingers, as if I were handling an eel.
The cover was an unpleasant texture, and I fumbled the book a little, causing him to suck in a sharp breath—but I didn’t drop it.
Opening it, I saw the usual scramble of lines and symbols, the images seeming to slip away under my gaze.
“Has Milady told you …” I began haltingly, ready to admit my deficiency.
“Ah, yes.” He took the book back from me. “I confess, I wanted to see your face for myself when you opened the book.”
“Why?” I said in a small voice.
“Because I would know at once if you comprehended the words, with this book in particular, and I wanted to ensure I had not been deceived in you. But you are an innocent, my dear,” he said, as he had in the drawing room the night before.
“How charming. Your guardian spoke truly. For my purposes, I much prefer you to be ignorant of the spells you speak. What a rare prize you are.”
His lips stretched taut over his teeth in what I supposed was intended as a smile. I felt myself flush.
“I will read it to you first, of course,” he said. “Now, pay attention.”
He began to read, exaggeratedly slowly, as you would read to a very small child. I bit my lip to suppress the surge of irritation.
“Are you ready?” he asked when he had finished.