Sixteen - Isabel
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I hadn’t evenfinished breakfast by the time the node’s magic began whispering at me, pulling me toward an unknown goal. I continued eating, wondering if this would be like the time Felix had unintentionally summoned me to the archives or like last night. While I had read Demeret in the spire room, the power had briefly tightened, but the tug had disappeared before I made it down even a single flight of stairs.
The power didn’t fade. I swallowed my last sip of tea and left my sitting room. Removing just that single wingback chair had already made the space much more useable.
The power led down, so I made my way to the stairs. When I reached the ground floor, the pull leveled out. I knew exactly where it was taking me, because the magic flowed in the same direction as the nearest ley line. I headed into the great hall.
“It might actually be easier if you summoned me the way I did you,” I told Felix when I spotted him curled up on the seat of one of the two chairs. “That way, I don’t have to figure out where the magic is leading me.”
“Damn it.” The duke uncurled, arching his back and stretching. “I was going to wait until after you left your rooms before asking you to join me here. I didn’t mean to summon you.”
“Well, the node must have decided differently. Why did you want to see me?”
“A few reasons. First, I have two contracts I’d like you to sign. If you are willing, of course, but they are meant to make things easier for you, so if you have any objections, I’ll gladly alter them.”
I sat on the chair facing Felix. “What kind of contracts?”
He plucked at the air with a claw twice, and two pieces of paper fell onto my lap. I picked up the first one. It was an addendum to the contract my father had signed. “I thought you said we needed my father to change my contract, since he signed in his own name as well as mine.”
“To make changes, yes. But this isn’t a change so much as a clarification. And since the terms being defined only affect you and me, I think we can sign without your father and the node will recognize it.”
I read through the contract. The goal was obvious. Felix was trying to limit the hours I would be forced to work toward breaking his curse. Since the node currently allowed me to eat and sleep, it stood to reason that there was wiggle room in those terms.
Without thinking about it, I listened for a familiar strand of node magic, humming to match it. I envisioned the copy of the contract I had seen once before, and it materialized in my lap. I looked down at it and realized what I had done. “That is a very useful spell. And very easy to get accustomed to.”
“You summoned without the invocation.”
“I recognize which whisper of power goes with that enchantment. I told you it was a talent of mages to start enchantments without using the programmed triggers.”
His tail flicked. “I know, but it took me months to do that.”
I rolled my eyes. “You didn’t even know you were a mage.”
He sighed. “It is still annoying to see how quickly you mastered the skill. Though, I suppose I should be thankful, because the better you are at magic, the higher your chances of breaking my curse.”
I made a sound of agreement, most of my attention on the contract and addendum in my lap. Another hum provided me with a pen and ink. I began marking up Felix’s addendum.
He craned his neck, as if that would give him the ability to see the paper from where he was. “You don’t approve of my terms?”
“I’m trying to make sure the addendum works as intended. Given the original terms of the contract, some of your phrasings don’t make sense.”
“You summoned the original contract?”
“Just the copy Marc already showed me.” I paused. “Why didn’t you summon his copy of your contract before? You can’t summon the original, but you didn’t have to resort to physically digging through his desk.”
“I didn’t summon it because I wasn’t certain exactly where he had it stored. If I didn’t know where it came from, I couldn’t send it back. The enchantments on the castle won’t move it while it is in his desk, but if I left it out, who knows where it might have gotten filed?”
“Ah.” I read over the addendum once more, then signed my name on the bottom. I held it out. “Here, see if you have any problems with my changes, then you can sign and pass it through the node.”
Felix hopped off his chair. He looked up at where I had the inkwell balanced. “Ink please. I’ll sign this.”
“You haven’t even read it.”
“I doubt you could do much damage altering this addendum without encountering the issue of needing your father to sign before it could work. Even without reading, I trust that you improved my phrasings and nothing more.”
I placed the paper on the ground with the inkwell next to it. Did he truly trust me, or was he simply confident that I could cause no harm? Hadn’t he learned by now that even seemingly straightforward statements left plenty of room for interpretation? “The whole addendum is about defining terms of service and expectations. I could have attempted to slip in a clause about remuneration. That might have worked. Then you’d be stuck paying me half a gold for every week I’m here.”
Felix finished signing his name. “Read the other contract I gave you.”
He grabbed the corner of the paper between his teeth and leapt into the flames of the node. He moved before I realized what he intended, and I missed my chance to touch the node and read the truth of the words. It might have told me something about how much Felix genuinely regretted what he had done, and how much was just a ploy to win me over.
After a moment, the paper dissolved. A new scroll, bound by the magic of the node, had been added to the archives. The node could now only tug at me to break the curse during limited hours.
I picked up the second contract Felix had called in earlier. This was a fresh contract. While it related to the one that kept me trapped in Rose Castle, the terms were all independent of that original contract.
“A gold per week?” I dropped the paper, staring at Felix, who had jumped back to the floor. “You’re not serious, are you?”
“I’m serious. Do you have any idea how hard it is to write a contract when you are a cat? I didn’t go to that much effort just to mess with you.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You started messing with me at our very first meeting. You’d enjoy it even if it took considerable effort.”
His ear twitched. “I find arguing with you to be a pleasant diversion. That isn’t the same as literally scratching out a contract solely to tease you.”
“Changing only the amount wouldn’t be much effort. I find it hard to believe you mean to offer me a gold per week. When I suggested that I might have added a payment clause to the addendum, I thought I was being ridiculous by saying half a gold per week. I only make a single gold per month working for the constables.”
Felix cocked his head to the side. “Did you put that in the addendum, by the way? I figured a separate contract was safer, but you are right, it might have worked.”
“What would you do if I had? Shred this contract with your claws?”
“No. But it would be good to know how much I owe you, so I don’t accidentally short-change you. The node does not make things pleasant if someone tries to break the terms of their contracts.”
“You’d pay me a gold and a half per week without complaint?”
“It seems like you are the one who likes to argue for the pleasure of it.” He grabbed the paper from where it had fallen and leapt onto the arm of my chair, setting it in my lap. Then he leapt—or perhaps fell—back to the floor. “You can’t possibly object. I owe you more than gold. I can’t reverse my mistakes, and you are the one paying the price. Offering you a bit of gold in return is the least I can do.”
So that was his game.
A part of me wanted to rip up the contract. I’d shout that he couldn’t buy my forgiveness and storm off in righteous fury. Then I remembered that I might not have a job when I returned home. Felix should pay me for my time. Also, I probably wouldn’t be able to storm off in a huff because the node power would keep me here until Felix no longer needed me.
I signed the contract. Dropping it on the floor in front of the duke, I crossed my arms. “This doesn’t mean I forgive you.”
He dipped a claw in ink. “I wouldn’t dream otherwise.”
I waited until this contract, too, had faded away, the node’s power making it impossible to break. I glared at the duke. “Is that all?”
Felix laughed. “I didn’t expect you to forgive me, but are you really madder at me now than yesterday?”
No, I wasn’t. And that was what made me angry. I should hate Felix. Even if I sympathized with the horrible situation he had been in, that didn’t mean I approved of his choices. But the more time I spent with him, the more I saw that he wasn’t a bad person. He had faced the possibility of his actions leading to wars that could tear apart the world and done what he thought he needed to do.
I couldn’t bring myself to deny Felix’s claim, but the truth-telling enchantment wouldn’t let me confirm it, either. “You said you had a few reasons to summon me. What else, besides the contracts?”
Felix watched me for a moment, then shook his whole body and jumped back onto the chair. “I need your help to understand the colors I see when I truth-read.”
“You want to know how much I meant it when I signed that I would work reasonable hours and accept money for my efforts?”
“I want to understand what I sense. You can determine so much with your power, but I don’t even understand what the colors I see mean.”
“The colors are created by your mind interpreting the magic. I can’t tell you what the colors mean. You need to listen to your instincts.”
“All my instincts say is if a color is a good sign or not. I need more specifics.”
“And how am I supposed to help you? Even if I saw the truth as colors, they wouldn’t be the same as what you see.”
“No, but you already know how to interpret the sounds you hear. We can cross reference what I see with what you hear.” He swatted at the air, and a dozen pieces of paper landed in my lap. “I already wrote out several statements to test. You can hold them to the node and tell me what the sounds you hear mean, so I know what the colors I see mean.”
I looked at the first paper. “You don’t need me for this. You already know how true these statements are.”
“I don’t want to miss something. You hear more nuances of truth than I even knew existed. Plus, I really want to see a few colors in particular, but have no idea if any of these statements will work. I assume you will be better at coming up with what I missed if that proves to be the case.”
“Gold and flattery. This is turning out to be quite the morning for me.”
Felix snorted. “That was hardly flattery.”
“Oh? What would you call it?”
“The truth.”
This time I snorted. “All right, you’ve convinced me that I need to teach you the difference between truth and truth. Let’s get started.”
I stood up, gripping the papers tightly. I read the top one and raised a brow. “You are really working hard to get on my good side today, aren’t you? You realize this could backfire?”
Felix licked a paw and ran it over his whiskers. “It won’t.”
I held the first paper to the flames, hearing the harmonious yet complex chimes of an opinion masquerading as a truth. “See? The node doesn’t agree that I am beautiful.”
Felix continued to groom himself. “It didn’t disagree either. I saw a periwinkle shade. That is a shade of blue, not orange.”
“It is a shade of purple.”
“It is closer to blue. Therefore, it was closer to the truth. Or are my instincts about the color wrong? You said I should trust my instincts, didn’t you? Did you change your mind already?”
I rolled my eyes. “There’s a reason it wasn’t an actual shade of blue. An opinion, by nature, cannot be true or false. But because you wrote this, it is read as closer to truth than a lie.” Which meant that Felix believed it to be true, which surprised me, though he had said something similar before.
I knew what I looked like. I had an identical twin whom I had seen nearly every day of my life before coming to Rose Castle. We were, at best, cute. Though no one was foolish enough to call me that. Thank all the gods. But no one called me beautiful, either. I didn’t have the height or slender curves to pull off beautiful.
Perhaps from the vantage point of a cat, I looked different? I pushed the thought away. What did it matter if Felix thought I was beautiful? Knowing he did shouldn’t send a gentle warmth through my entire body.
Shaking my head, I plucked the next paper from the stack. I read the statement and frowned.
Isabel Cardh didn’t drink wine at breakfast.
I waved the paper at Felix. “Are you trying to determine if I’m a drunkard? Why, in Tsy’s name, is this one of your test statements?”
“Please, just hold it to the node. I need to see something specific.”
I shoved the paper into the flames, still glaring at Felix. “What could make you need to see the truth of this?”
Gold-green eyes focused on the flames, then he slumped.
I crossed my arms. The node rang out that he believed the statement to be true, and it upset him? “Explain.”
He sighed. “I needed a statement about someone else that I knew would be false even without witnessing it happen. But it was the same color as the last one.”
“Since you signed it, the node can only read it as an opinion. Here, I’ll show you the difference.” I tore the bottom of the paper and rewrote the statement, adding the words “I believe” in front. I let Felix sign it and held it to the flames.
This time I heard the trio of bells that signaled a pure truth. “See? Now the statement itself is about what you believe. It is true that this is your opinion, whether or not it is true that I didn’t drink wine at breakfast.”
“Damn it. That doesn’t help. I need to see the truth of a statement that isn’t an opinion, but also is a misdirection. Like when you wrote out that your father is amazing, but didn’t mean it as a compliment. Except the color was slightly different.”
“Misdirections are harder to sense in isolation. You could say the exact same thing at different times and I would hear different bells—if I could read you, that is. If you want to hear misdirections, it is easiest to do in response to questions.”
“Then I’ll ask you questions.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think that will work with the charm on the node. Each paper would still be read in isolation.”
“I won’t use the charm. I’ll truth-read your verbal responses.”
I gaped. “You aren’t a truth-reader. You . . . you can’t be. It is a passive power. There is no way you could have missed being a mage all these years. You’d have been reading everyone all the time.”
“I’m not a truth-reader,” Felix agreed. He looked over at the flames flickering back and forth. “But the node seems to have that power. I used it on Marc by accident last night.”
I shuffled over to my chair, suddenly needing to sit. “I suppose that explains my awareness of the node’s power. I thought it was just so damn powerful, and since it is tied to a truth magic, I had enough affinity to sense it. But if it is also tied to truth-reading, that makes more sense.”
Felix’s nose twitched. “That makes more sense to you? I’m still struggling with this discovery. A node can’t be locked to more than one power. Even if another of my ancestors with a blood-tie to the node had been a truth-reader, they wouldn’t have been able to infuse their power into the lock.”
“No. You’re right. Only one person can lock a node, and then its power is shaped.”
A passage from Demeret flashed into my memory. It had been a random anecdote I had stumbled across the night before. I had read the section several times, hoping there would be a detail that could confirm my theory that the first Duke of Truthhold had actually made the node itself into a truth-charm. The passage had centered on a Mriskan mage who needed to use both copper and rubies together to make his charms, a combination that would ruin most mage’s attempts to imbue power into the charm.
But while I had focused on the abnormal material, I had ignored the reason that the mage needed it.
“Dual power,” I whispered. “Duke Valois was a dual power mage.”
“That’s impossible.” Felix studied me, his tail twitching. “Isn’t it?”
“Rare is not the same as impossible. I read about a dual power mage in Demeret. He mentioned the fact that though both of the mage’s powers were inanimate, he somehow affected people with them. He theorized that the two powers amplified each other and created a new power, rather than just being distinct talents. Sounds a lot like what happens in Rose Castle, doesn’t it?”
How had I missed that? Truth magics were animate, yet the node sealed contracts and read written statements. It seemed so obvious now. Then again, if it were that obvious, Felix should have known. His family had been tied to the node for generations.
“How did you not know you could truth-read using the node before now?” I asked.