Twenty-Six - Felix
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Isa finished hermeal quickly, rolling her eyes at me as I lingered over my plate of chicken. It wasn’t until she stood up and I insisted we enjoy dessert first that I consciously understood what I was doing.
I was stalling.
Finding Cecily”s curse might not give us the answers we needed to break it, but it was by far the most promising lead we had. And I didn’t want to go into the archives and locate it, because if it led to a solution, Isa’s time at Rose Castle would end.
If I had to choose between staying a cat and losing Isa’s company, I suspected I’d choose to remain feline. Not that the ideal situation wasn’t enjoying Isa’s company while human once more, but I knew better than to expect such an outcome.
She didn’t hate me anymore, though. At least, I was fairly certain she didn’t. Perhaps if I had more time, I could get her to like me. I had moments of thinking she did, but I also knew that if the curse broke right this instant, she wouldn’t hesitate to return home. I wanted that hesitation. A chance to convince her to stay of her own free will.
When Isa rubbed at her sternum, I realized I had taken too long. The node was pulling at her, insisting she fulfill the terms of her contract even as I wished she wouldn’t.
I leapt from the table, now impatient to move and relieve her of that discomfort. “Let’s go.”
When we reached the archives, I paused. “We know the archives are arranged by trueness, but how does that help me find a particular scroll?”
“Look for the correct color. You can see the magic on the scrolls, can’t you?”
I shifted my focus to that odd state where I looked beyond the physical and studied the first row of shelves. Magic glinted everywhere, the power enough to make me dizzy if I studied it for too long. I blinked away my magical sight. “I can see magic, but it doesn’t look the same as when the flames change color. In fact, I didn’t see any colors at all.”
A crease formed between Isa’s brows. “Let’s try from deeper inside the archives.”
I let her lead the way, and when we stopped, I once more looked at the magic coating the scrolls. “It is all glittery and translucent. I feel like I’m seeing textures instead of colors.”
“Damn. I was hoping it would be different for you since you actually see magic. I don’t hear the same sort of bells as I do when truth-reading here, either. Probably because the scrolls are created by node magic. That takes over. But there are still differences from one scroll’s power to the next. We need to match what we can sense with the original truth-reading.”
“Why don’t we repeat your experiment from the library? We can take a few scrolls from different rows up to the node and see what it shows us.”
“Good idea.” Isa consulted the map she had referenced as we wandered deeper, pulling the pen I had enchanted for her out of her pocket. She grabbed a scroll, unrolled it just enough to read the signature, and made a mark on the map. I trailed behind her as she wandered the archives, stopping occasionally to pull out a scroll and mark the map. She piled a dozen scrolls in the crook of her arm before finding us a path out of the archives.
When we reached the great hall, we discovered she shouldn’t have bothered being so thorough. Nothing happened when she held the scrolls to the flames.
“Let me try.” I jumped into the brazier and awkwardly accepted a scroll from Isa, pulling it with me into the node. Nothing.
I let go of the scroll and stuck my head out of the flames so I could see Isa clearly. “You’d think that if the node reads a book as being signed by the author, it could also read a contract created through its own power.”
“It must be the same as why you can’t summon the scrolls. The magic interferes with other spells.”
“It was a good idea, at least. Too bad we can’t find the curse this way.”
“Not necessarily. We can still map out the archives and narrow the area we need to search.”
“How?”
“Even though I don’t hear bells when I listen to the magic on the scrolls, I still get a sense of how true they are. My interpretations might not be perfect, but if we both try, we can probably get a general sense of which sections are full of the most or least truthful scrolls. If we can also cross reference our guesses with any scrolls you’ve witnessed, we ought to be able to make a fairly accurate map.”
“Even assuming we can stumble across scrolls I passed through the node, do you honestly expect me to remember what colors I saw when I witnessed them?”
“You remember what color you saw when Cecily cursed you.”
“The curse sticks in my mind a little differently than routine contracts,” I said dryly.
“Well, we can still make a rough map.”
“I defer to your expertise.”
Isa gave me a look. She probably thought I was humoring her, but she was the expert. And while I couldn’t feign enthusiasm for the project, I didn’t mind that it would require spending a few hours wandering the archives with her.
“What do you think Marc is doing now?” I asked as we trekked back downstairs.
“He’s probably halfway to Haiwella. He seems like the type to want more than a provincial life.”
“Leort isn’t a small town.”
“But it is very isolated and offers limited opportunities for social advancement.”
“What makes you think Marc cares about that?”
She gave me another look, this one a mix of pity and incredulity.
I laughed. “I’m not saying I don’t agree, but I want to hear your reasoning.”
“Why?”
“Because the way your mind works fascinates me.”
“I’m not sure if that is supposed to be a compliment or not.”
“Take it how you will; it is the truth.”
She smiled. “Fine, I’ll tell you my impression of Marc if you, in turn, tell me what you saw in Lady Cecily.”
“You are making an assumption there.”
“It was just her physical appeal, then? There had to have been some reason for you to sleep with her.”
I sighed. “The physical was in her favor, but mostly it was because she was a temporary visitor. Sleeping with a member of my staff is asking for trouble, and very few unattached and interested women make their way through my doors. You read the heir’s contract; I can’t just leave the castle on a whim, either.”
“You could visit Leort without needing a proxy. A night in town is doable.”
“Yes, if there was anyone in town I wanted to spend that night with.” Perhaps, if we broke the curse, I would have that chance. Even if Isa slammed the door in my face before I got three words out, that would still be two words she would hear. Eventually, I might finish an entire sentence. Though, knowing Isa, she wouldn’t wait for me to even open my mouth if she didn’t want to hear what I had to say.
“Let’s start mapping,” Isa said abruptly. “What do you see in the first row?”