Thirty-Three - Isabel
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Felix and Iwatched Marc descend into the common room of the inn, then make his way to a private parlor. A woman waited for him inside.
“This is a waste of time,” she complained the moment Marc closed the door.
“Cecily,” Felix hissed.
I studied the woman closer. No wonder Felix had slept with her. She had golden blond hair—every strand pinned perfectly in place—a tiny waist, and delicate features. If that was what Felix was attracted to...
I cut the thought off. What was I doing worrying about what he found attractive?
After a pointed glare, Marc began speaking, and I gratefully focused on the conversation.
“It is not my fault,” the secretary snapped at Cecily. “If you hadn’t ruined our best chance, we wouldn’t be in this predicament.”
“He deserved to be cursed!”
“We had a plan, Cecily. If you had stuck to it, then you’d already be a duchess. Wouldn’t that have been a more fitting punishment?”
“You said I’ll still be the Duchess of Truthhold. Then you made me wait for months. When your letter arrived telling me to return to this backwoods town, I thought things were finally happening. But every day all I hear is ‘wait.’ I don’t want to wait anymore.”
“If you want this to work, then you have to do what I say this time, Cecily. And that means you wait. Her Highness will be here before the week is out.” Marc pivoted, not waiting for agreement, and stormed out of the room. He didn’t pause until he was out on the street. Then he took a deep breath and moved away from the polished central area of Leort towards a neighborhood like the one where he had met with my father.
Felix’s body vibrated under my hand. “In novels, the villain monologues are more explicit.”
“We still learned more than we knew before. Your curse wasn’t part of the plan, Lady Cecily expects to marry you, and the princess is critical.” I watched Marc walk down the streets of Leort and let my hand glide over Felix’s spine. “Did this help with your determination to send me to town?”
“I am determined, but I don’t think we learned anything that will make it any easier than before to convince the node. Let’s see what Marc says while he is out.”
We watched the mirror for hours. Felix called in simple foods we could eat without making a mess and we followed Marc from tavern to tavern until he finally retired for the night.
The contract binding him didn’t allow Marc to mention Felix’s curse or why everyone had been sent away from Rose Castle, but those were the only limits it placed on his tongue. He could lie and imply plenty. He could also tell the truth and confirm that I had gone to Truthhold. And though he was counting the days until Princess Charmina’s arrival, he was patient.
“He’s very good at this,” I said, putting the enchanted mirror aside. “He isn’t pushing too hard, making people second guess his motives, and he only says enough to get talk started, then lets everyone else speculate.”
Felix growled, and for a moment he wasn’t a ball of fluff in my lap, but a predator. Thankfully, I wasn’t his prey. “I’m going to be fuming over the things he did say all night. By morning, it should be easy for me to send you to Leort. Your presence will put an end to these rumors.”
“Ending the rumors isn’t the goal of my contract,” I reminded gently.
Felix leapt from my lap and stalked back and forth, his tail lashing. “The rumors are a critical component of Marc’s plan. Stopping them will stymie him.” He stopped and closed his eyes. His voice softened. “If you are in Leort, you can learn how Cecily plans to become my duchess. It would be hard for her to arrange a wedding if I am a cat, so transforming me back into a man must be part of the plan. I’ll focus on that tonight, and hopefully by morning I’ll have the node convinced.”
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I tried tolift my foot, but it was as if my limbs had turned to lead. I shook my head at Felix and turned away from the horse. Instantly, I could move with ease once more.
Felix’s eyes narrowed. “Isa, I need you to go to Leort and discover how to break the curse from Cecily.”
I didn’t feel the node power around me tighten at all, but I still spun around and tried to mount. Tried, and failed.
“I don’t think the node believed you,” I told him. “Or maybe I really can’t leave, and the fact that I can cross the boundary at the bottom of the hill means nothing, because the boundary has nothing to do with my contract.”
“I’m going to figure this out.” Felix insisted.
I sighed. “Then I’ll listen in on Marc with the mirror for a while.”
Without Felix’s magic augmenting my own, I couldn’t see anything in the mirror, but seeing Marc wasn’t as important as hearing what he had to say. Though based on the previous day, he wouldn’t do or say anything of note until evening.
It was going to be a long day.