Thirty - Felix
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I trudged afterIsa, feeling wrung out. My emotions had gone through so many highs and lows today I wasn’t sure where I had landed. I wasn’t sure of anything at the moment.
After months of hiding in my castle, searching for a way to reverse the curse and protect the node, I now had less than a week before secrecy became a thing of the past. Isa was right that secrecy wasn’t as critical now that we knew how Cecily had accessed the node, but I still didn’t like the idea of the whole world knowing what had happened. Either people would assume the same as I, that the blood-lock had come undone, or I’d also have to share that anyone who slept with the Duke of Truthhold could gain a tie to the node themselves.
Not to mention I had to face everyone as a cat.
I sighed. Telling Isa’s constable friend would be good practice before I had to deal with the princess.
Outside, it had begun to rain. The steady drizzle didn’t deter Isa. She marched outside, past the ornamental rose bushes and beyond the gravel drive that gave way to the rougher track that led toward Leort. I darted after her, hissing as the rain slicked down my fur. It should have been easy to spot the constable if he still waited at the base of the hill, but everything had been reduced to gray blurs. I made the conscious effort to allow him back on castle grounds again, but since he hadn’t attempted to cross the boundary for over an hour, he wouldn’t notice the change. If he was still waiting.
Trailing after Isa, I studied the wisps of power floating over the hillside. Hadn’t she said there was a Truth that allowed me to control the weather? I didn’t know what limits that Truth might have, or the verbal invocation, but I could see strands of power that weren’t connected to the Truths I knew. Thinking of sunny skies, I pulled on several.
The clouds didn’t disappear, but the raindrops did. Isa didn’t notice, her attention turned away from the castle as she started a circuit around the base of the hillside. I hurried after her and discovered she hadn’t noticed because rain still fell in the area where she stood. Then our path swerved back over the artificial boundary that marked castle lands and the drops halted once more.
Isa glanced back at the sheet of rain just beyond her fingertips, then at me. “Can you extend the rain-shield a little farther?”
“No, it is following the border Duke Valois assigned.” A border that didn’t halt Isa’s crossings. I watched her walk back into the rain, studying the area for some sign of the absent constable. “You can leave.”
She stepped back into dryness and flipped a sodden strand of chestnut hair out of her eyes. “There’s a magical contract that says otherwise.”
“Each time you go into the rain, you are stepping off castle grounds. You aren’t bound here.”
“Well, no. Apart from the fact that my father had to send me to Truthhold once he reached home, nothing in the contract specifies that I am trapped here. But I still can’t leave. I can cross the boundary because I’m not trying to get away from fulfilling my end of the bargain.”
She wasn’t actively working on breaking my curse at the moment, either. I had agreed with her about going to look for the constable, which must have made the difference. If I agreed that an action might help me in the long run, then Isa could pursue it under the terms of the contract. Perhaps I could find a way to send her home. Searching for clues in Leort wasn’t that different from researching in my library or the archives. I knew that I didn’t need Isa to use the node.
Isa blew out a breath. “Frederic must have headed home. Can’t say as I blame him for not wanting to wait around in the rain for hours. Let’s go dry off. Maybe we can figure out what Marc is up to in Leort some other way. Do you think Berklay will send another messenger soon, since you didn’t respond?”
My butler might think I hadn’t gotten this first message, depending on what his brother told him. A second attempt to inform me of the princess’s visit was likely. But it would save everyone a lot of trouble if I could instead make Isa returning to Leort a part of fulfilling her contract. “I have a better idea.”
“It will be a little hard to tell Berklay about your idea until after he sends the next messenger.”
“That’s why my idea is better. He won’t have to send a messenger to me, because I’ll send you to him.”
“Didn’t we just decide that even though I can cross the boundary, it doesn’t mean I can leave?”
“No. You decided that.”
Isa opened the front door of the castle and stepped inside, looking down at me. “You disagree with my conclusion?”
I stepped out of the rain and attempted to shake off the damp, but my fur was too drenched. It was going to take forever to dry off. “I don’t disagree, exactly. I think you made a valid point when you said the node didn’t think you were trying to escape the terms of your contract, and that was what allowed you over the boundary. If I can summon you to the archives with an accidental thought, I ought to be able to send you to Leort on purpose.”
Calling in a towel and rubbing at her hair, Isa scoffed. “How does my return to Leort help? Remember, my contract isn’t just about following your orders, it is about doing everything I can to break the curse. With the way you worded it, you can’t even claim that sending me to Leort to delay Princess Charmina is fulfilling my terms, because helping you maintain secrecy isn’t related to breaking the curse.”
“No, but finding out what Marc is up to is related. You are just as likely to find information I need to break the curse in Leort as at Rose Castle.”
She frowned. “I’m not sure it will work like that.” She knelt down, holding out the towel so I could dry myself. “Especially if it isn’t your main reason for sending me to Leort.”
I wiggled free of the cloth. “Who says it isn’t the reason I’m sending you?”
Isa released the towel and straightened. “My magic. You are hiding something.”
I watched her expression change as the impossibility of what she had said came over her. She had truth-read me. My node-tie should make me immune to her power. Unless she had access to even more magic than the node itself. Like if she had her own tie to the node in addition to her innate gift.
Suddenly, her ability to truth-read me didn’t seem so impossible. What had the aspekts of binding scroll said? If the primary node-tie holder gave himself to another in heart or body. By thought or action.
And my thoughts had been all about Isa. When I first read Berklay’s message, I hadn’t worried about the princess’s arrival. I had worried that Isa’s reputation was being torn to shreds back in Leort. When I finally focused on the fact that all my efforts at secrecy were about to fall apart, my first concern hadn’t been that I’d soon be known as Duke Feline. No, I had lamented the fact that Isa would soon be on her way. Without Marc’s interference, a second attempt to send a revised contract to her father would surely succeed, and I couldn’t refuse to send that contract—no matter how much I wanted her to remain at Rose Castle.
I waited for Isa to figure it out. I worried how she would react when she realized I had conferred the aspekts of binding on her, but there was nothing I could do. I had fallen for Isa. Whether she wanted it or not, she had my heart.
But she didn’t figure it out.
“How can I truth-read you? You are immune.”
“No, I have the power of the node behind me.” I considered leaving it at that. But Isa would figure it out, eventually. Once she got over her shock and started thinking clearly again, she’d draw the correct conclusion. Better to see her reaction now. “You have your own power plus the node’s, it seems.”
She gasped. “The aspekts of binding. But how did I gain a node tie? We’re not married.” A bubble of nervous laughter burst out of her. “We certainly haven’t slept together.”
My resolve faltered. If it didn’t even occur to her that I might be in love with her, then I didn’t want to raise the issue. I certainly didn’t want to watch her make excuses and start avoiding me. “Technically, the Truth didn’t say sleeping together was a way to confer the node-tie. It said something along the lines of giving your body. I’ve let you hold and pet me. Perhaps that is enough.”
Isa frowned. “Perhaps.” After a moment, she shook her head as though trying to dislodge an unpleasant thought. “I’m going upstairs to change into dry clothes. I’ll meet you in your office afterward?”
“Let’s meet in my spire room, instead.”
Isa was already walking to the stairs, but she looked back long enough to nod at me. Her expression remained a fierce mix of confusion and determination.
I watched her go and wondered what she was thinking. Had she figured it out? Would she tell me if she did, or pretend she had no idea?