13. WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE THE WORLD TO BE?
What do you believe the world to be?
Isobelle spent the morning on necessary personal maintenance with the girls – Hilde gave her a manicure in the exact shade of the banished sea monster – and in contemplation of her next steps.
She had woken worried about Gwen and the strange pouch in her pocket.
But when she’d poked her head into Gwen’s room, she found it empty, the bed neatly made, and no sign of her champion.
When they were at Darkhaven Castle, Gwen often slipped away in the mornings to train with Madame Dupont, and Isobelle was perfectly content to have those mornings to herself and the girls.
Now, though, a sinking feeling took up residence somewhere in her abdomen, like she’d swallowed a rock for breakfast.
She didn’t know what to do. And that was an intolerable state of affairs.
‘I do wish I knew where Gwen was, though,’ she said, holding still as Hilde inspected her nails.
‘She won’t have gone far,’ said Jane, appearing in the doorway with a tray of morning tea. ‘I was out in the stables just now, and Achilles is still there.’
‘What were you doing in the stables?’ Sylvie asked with a wrinkle of her nose. ‘Not a groom, Jane.’
‘What a dreadful snob you are,’ Jane chastised her. ‘But no, somebody was screaming and I thought I ought to check – it was only a man that Princess Buttercup was trying to bite.’
‘Should I …?’ Isobelle half rose, as Hilde clucked and pulled her back down.
‘She was only being assertive, and he got away all right,’ Jane replied. ‘Anyway, if you want my advice, you’ll give Gwen a little space. She slew a monster yesterday. It was only her second time. I expect she’s working out her feelings.’
And so Isobelle, reflecting that Jane was perhaps the wisest of her friends, stayed where she was and let Hilde braid her hair. It was another hour before she fortified herself with a small slice of cake and went in search of her knight.
As it happened, she found Sir Orson instead.
He was standing outside the tavern, leaning against the railing where the townsfolk hitched their horses, gazing out at the sparkling grey sea visible at the bottom of the hill.
Isobelle considered slipping away again, annoyed by the sudden jumble of feelings the sight of him brought. Her oldest friend in the world. Also, the guy who had betrayed Gwen to imprisonment and possible death in an effort to force Isobelle to marry him against her will.
With a sigh, Isobelle fetched up beside him and assumed a similar pose. ‘The beard quite suits you,’ she said. ‘You need a haircut, though.’
He cast her a sidelong glance, brows drawing together. ‘I should’ve left this town the minute they mentioned a sea monster. Of course you and Gwen would show up here.’
Isobelle would’ve been happier had they never encountered him, either. ‘Have you seen Gwen this morning?’
‘She’s in the smithy,’ replied Orson. ‘Just follow the admiring crowds.’
Isobelle pushed away from the railing, preparing to resume looking for Gwen.
‘Izzie, wait.’ Orson’s eyes were lowered, fixed on the featureless packed earth of the road. ‘I’m … I’m sorry.’
‘Sorry?’ Isobelle stopped short, turning to look back at him in astonishment. ‘Sorry?’ The rush of anger in her chest nearly staggered her, as surprising as it was intense. ‘They could’ve killed Gwen for impersonating a knight, and you betrayed her.’
‘I betrayed you, too,’ Orson pointed out glumly. ‘Do I seem like I’m proud of what I did? I made a mistake, one I’ve regretted every day since.’
‘You think moping around drinking in backwater taverns is atonement enough, and sorry will do?’ Isobelle caught her breath, trying to pull herself back together.
‘What else can I do but apologise?’ Orson retorted, his voice heating not with anger, but with frustration. ‘I’m asking honestly, Izzie … what can I do? Is there any act or word I could employ that would change how you feel?’
Isobelle wanted to shout back, but the anger swelling her chest deflated a little, and she rubbed her brow, which had begun to ache. ‘I don’t know.’
Orson was silent for a while, gathering his own composure again. ‘I’ll do it, whatever it is; name my penance. We were friends once. I—’ He muttered under his breath, and then said, ‘I miss you.’
Isobelle’s heart gave a little wrench of longing, wishing only in that moment to have her old friend back. But the magnitude of his sin against her, against Gwen, made forgiveness impossible.
But who decides whether an act is unforgivable?
Casting about for something, anything, with which to combat Orson’s plea, she spotted Tabitha returning from some errand in the town.
Tabitha, who had comforted Gwen, because Gwen had confided her nightmares in her, not Isobelle.
‘Tabitha!’ she heard herself call brightly.
‘I don’t think you’ve been properly introduced to Sir Orson.
’ A part of her felt ashamed; was she really jealous of Tabitha to the point where she’d shove her at the nearest handsome man to gauge her interest?
Especially one whose moral worth had quite recently been found lacking?
Orson made a soft sound of protest as Isobelle slipped neatly out of the tension between them.
But he straightened courteously, and Tabitha hurried over to offer a curtsy.
Her coppery hair was braided back and wound into a net, and she’d borrowed one of Sylvie’s dresses, a saffron gown that set off the earth tones in her skin.
Not that Orson would necessarily appreciate any of it, but Isobelle could tell Tabitha knew she was looking quite lovely today.
‘Sir Orson, this is Tabitha, who joined us on the journey here. Tabitha, this is Sir Orson, one of my oldest friends, though currently I’m very cross at him. Orson, Tabitha’s mother is from Galanty-Uponne-the-Sea.’
‘Indeed?’ Orson looked slightly more interested. ‘Perhaps you understand this place, then?’
‘Afraid not, my lord,’ Tabitha replied, raising her hands to indicate her helplessness. ‘I was raised elsewhere by my aunts – my mother died when I was small.’
Orson paused awkwardly upon hearing this news, and Isobelle took the opening, diving into the conversational gap. ‘There is something to understand, though, isn’t there? The way the people behave, when you try to talk about the past. There’s magic here.’
Orson cast her a sidelong glance. ‘Or, you know, the people are not fans of their new lord coming in and turning their generational tragedy into a travel destination.’
‘Maybe. Who could blame them? But there is magic here – someone’s trying to target Gwen.’
That got their attention, and Isobelle told them about Gwen’s inability to speak the night before, her freezing and dropping her sword mid-fight, and the bag of wretched spell ingredients that had been slipped into her pocket.
Perhaps Isobelle could have dismissed those first two clues as fallout from her continuing nightmares about the dragon, and whatever happened that night to frighten her so.
But the bag?
That was proof.
‘It sounds like a hex bag.’ Tabitha’s face was grave when Isobelle had finished her description. ‘Many witches steer clear of baneful work like that, but it does happen. Can I see what was in it?’
‘I stomped it into the ground,’ Isobelle admitted with a shudder. ‘I can show you, though.’
She glanced at Orson, who was no longer looking at her. ‘This way,’ she said finally, murmuring Orson’s name by way of farewell.
Tabitha followed her to the gap between the houses where Isobelle had opened the bag. Isobelle paced down the length of the little alley before realisation struck – there was no sign of anything amiss. No wax-sealed twine, no burlap. No dead spider or rusty nail or poisonous berries.
Isobelle felt a sudden stab of queasy alarm. ‘It was right here,’ she gasped, dropping to her knees in the dirt to check along the bases of the houses, thinking someone might have kicked the spell ingredients aside. ‘No … it was here, I’m not imagining things!’
The bag was her only proof that something real was happening to Gwen, her only clue towards how to stop it.
A hand came to rest on her shoulder. Tabitha had dropped into a crouch, her hazel eyes anxious but steady. ‘Isobelle, I believe you.’ Her voice was low and intent. ‘If you say someone is trying to hurt Gwen, then it’s up to us to help her.’
Isobelle could have sobbed from the sudden relief.
She drew a shuddering breath instead, smiling weakly back at Tabitha and feeling the tiniest bit ashamed of her earlier jealousy.
No wonder Gwen had confided in her – she had a way of projecting calm competence that Isobelle couldn’t help but admire.
‘How?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know much about curses,’ Tabitha said slowly.
‘This seems like something different from what may be affecting the town, for her to be so specifically targeted. But sometimes the answers are simple. Intention and belief are key. If this were the fairytale Lord Bingleton is making it out to be, then true love’s kiss might be enough to break the spell. ’
Isobelle eyed her askance. ‘That really works? It’s not just a thing from stories?’
Tabitha flashed Isobelle a wry smile. ‘People like to think magic is about combining the right herbs and crystals and saying the right words. And those things are important, sure, but it’s not the herbs or the crystals that create the magic.
They … put you in the right space. Magic has its own rules.
It follows the logic of stories, of fairytales.
Any child who ever heard the words “once upon a time” understands magic.
Spells are simply the stories we tell to reshape the world to our liking. ’
‘And the story changes the way things are?’ Isobelle asked.
‘It can,’ Tabitha replied. ‘Even I occasionally question whether magic is real – it’s easy to believe it’s all coincidence, imagination, suggestion.’
‘Sylvie calls it headology,’ Isobelle muttered.