Chapter Twenty-Seven
Professor Borges blinks, her eyes wide behind her spectacles. “Miss Sinclair?”
I try to speak, and it comes out as a cough and then a sob.
The professor tuts. “Dear, what happened?” she reaches down to help me to my feet, gently brushing me off and looking me over.
“It’s a long story.” I struggle to get the words loose. My head is pounding.
Her brow wrinkles as she inspects me, and then she glances down the hall behind me.
“As I’m sure you know, the castle is locked down.” Her lips pinch together as though she’s locked in indecision. “The kitchens aren’t far. Let’s get you cleaned up and find you a nice cup of tea.”
I’m too weak to form a coherent thought, and I slump against her as she loops her arm through my elbow and leads me down the hall.
My vision rocks, and the lights from the gas lamps are blurred as we pass them. The pain in my head is beginning to recede.
“Professor, where have you been?” I ask, nearly sobbing. “I’ve been looking everywhere—”
“I’m sure you have, dear. And I’m sorry. The truth is, I’ve been in hiding.”
“Hiding?”
“Yes. It’s more complicated than I can explain right now, and you’re in no state to absorb it anyway. Suffice it to say that I knew things were about to go sour. I fled.”
My head is fuzzy, and I resolve to not ask any more questions until the spots disappear from my vision.
“I don’t recognize this part of the castle,” I say weakly.
“Never mind that, dear. I’ll explain everything. Save your voice.”
She leads me through a door into a kitchen. It’s large enough for a team of cooks, and I wonder if this kitchen cooks for nobles, perhaps even the royal family.
Her bony hand still grips my elbow as she pulls me toward a long table and sets me down on a stool. She lights a candle and puts the kettle on the stove while I stare at the floor and gather my thoughts and stop the trembling in my limbs.
“Thank you,” I say, “for rescuing me. I don’t—”
I can’t finish the sentence. I’m not ready to put into words the doom that was going through my mind in the passage. Not yet.
“Just, thank you,” I finish.
She peers at me over her shoulder, her mouth set grimly. “You are very lucky I was close by. I heard a scream from the walls, and I was sure I was being haunted.” She chuckles to herself, like it’s an absurd thought. If she only knew.
“How did you break into the wall?” I ask. Professor Borges is skin and skeleton. I can’t imagine her being able to break through stone.
Her hands falter as she reaches for two teacups on a shelf. Her shoulders stiffen, and she keeps her back to me.
“Professor?”
She reaches into her pocket and draws out a small cloth bag. “I’ve taken to carrying my good tea leaves around in my pocket. One never knows when emergencies such as this one will arise, no?”
I simply stare at her, and after a moment she looks away, fiddling with the strings on her bag of tea leaves rather than looking at me.
“Professor,” I say with more force, “are you a meiga?”
It’s a theory I’ve kept private from Roze.
Maybe it was more a hope than a theory—that my mentor gave me a magic book because she’s like me.
It’s an incredibly risky thing to ask—but the manacles of fear shattered somewhere in the dark walls of the castle.
I’m not interested in easy lies; I want truth.
Her fingers go still. And then she slowly unties the bag of tea leaves. Her hand shakes as she starts spooning them into a diffuser.
“You should know better than to ask such questions, Viola. These are strange times.”
“Please,” I say, desperation edging my voice. “Professor, why did you give me that book? You knew it was magic, didn’t you?”
She says nothing as she pours the hot water into the teacups and drops a diffuser into each.
The cup and saucer rattle in her hand as she extends it to me.
I take it from her and see she’s given me a lovely little diffuser.
The orb is the shape of a small golden apple.
Amber liquid streams from the small diamond-shaped holes in its body, staining the water.
“What you’ve guessed is true,” she says.
My head snaps up to look at her. Pale moonlight, barely piercing the Mists outside the high windows, washes half her face in white. She looks so frightened.
“I promise I won’t tell anyone,” I whisper.
I hesitate before what I’m about to say.
My secrets are deadly and precious, but hasn’t she extended her trust in telling me her own?
And there is a small part of me that hopes that having another meiga to confide in will mean I’m not so alone with my power.
And I might even have found someone who can teach me to control it.
“I’m … Professor, I think you know what I am. ”
She grimaces, sympathy in the creases around her eyes. “Drink your tea, Viola.”
Perhaps now isn’t the right time to discuss such things. I nod and take a long sip.
Oh heavens.
It’s delightful. After the horrors of the passage in the wall, I’m sure there’s nothing that could have been better for my body or soul.
“There are two types of meigas—the light and the dark,” she begins.
“I am a light meiga. I have the ability to create, to divine, to reveal, and to unify. I can bring things into being that are not. When I imagine a thing, it becomes. I knew to hide before this recent chaos started because I saw it before it was.”
I gape at her. “That’s incredible.” I had no clue that such power could exist in a meiga. If only I could have had training. What would I be able to do with my shadows?
She doesn’t reply, and she won’t quite meet my eyes. Instead, she keeps her gaze on my teacup.
“Professor, I need to know—why did you give me the book?” I say, anticipation bubbling inside me. “What do the runes mean? What do they have to do with the King?”
I need to ask her about her possible connection to Castelle, but I don’t want to make an enemy out of her with that accusation. Not yet.
Her lips pinch, like she’s reluctantly amused. “So many questions. You’ve been through something harrowing, Miss Sinclair, and still, you cannot quiet your mind.”
I’m not sure if it’s a reproof or a compliment.
I take a deep sip from my cup, and I can feel the steaming liquid travel all the way down to my belly, its warmth soothing the rawness in my throat.
The spiced flavor reminds me achingly of Roze.
I take another deep sip, breathing in the steam as I do.
I’m not sure I’ve ever had a cup of tea this wonderful, but perhaps it’s just what I’ve been through, that this cup is offering the comfort I desperately need.
“Viola,” she says.
I blink, my eyes flying to my professor’s face.
She pushes her glasses up her nose. “Where is the book?”
My fingers feel oddly numb.
“Prince Roze has it,” I say. True enough. It’s in his room, but I’m not about to reveal the existence of Roze’s tower to anyone.
She nods. “Good.”
The professor is quiet for a moment, and I expect her to begin answering my questions about the book. Instead, she says, “Perhaps it’s time to surrender.”
“What?” I look up.
Her eyes are soft and sympathetic. “There may not be a way out of this. And if you don’t allow things to take their course—think of what will happen to the Prince.”
“But Professor … she’ll kill me.”
Professor Borges stares at me, giving no response. Her face is strangely calm, and I have trouble focusing on it.
But … I can’t say the thought hasn’t occurred to me.
Tomorrow at sundown, Roze will be out of time.
And I have no reason to think the book will even help.
Roze’s life is at stake because he’s protecting mine.
I could surrender to Belladonna, make things easy on Roze.
Maybe that’s the best gift I can give him for all he’s done for me … all he is to me.
But I remember that feeling I had in the walls of the castle when everything was so dark and hopeless. I want to live.
“Drink,” the professor says, nodding to my tea.
I obey greedily.
“I feel sorry for Roze,” I say. “I wish … He’s been through enough as it is. Now he has to choose between his life and mine.”
“Roze?”
I look up at her.
The professor’s look is chiding. “You know better than to drop his title, Viola. He may be your fiancé, but he is also a Prince of Aragoa.”
I blink. “He … let me … call him by … his name.” I feel breathless. The room is warm, and I feel so tired. I want to fall asleep and never wake up. The flame of the candle blurs strangely.
“How presumptuous of you to heed him on that matter,” she says, taking a sip of her own tea.
I squint at my professor. Her words aren’t making sense to me, and I can’t put my finger on why.
“Where is he?” she asks.
“I—what?” My thoughts are turning hazy.
“This is important, Viola. Focus. Where is Roze?”
I try to focus on the professor’s face. “Why aren’t you using his title?”
Numbness burns my lips and throat. My hands begin to tingle.
The professor doesn’t answer my question. Instead, a smile spreads on her lips. “Answer the question, Viola.”
I try. But I can’t remember how to speak.
My arm shakes as I try to lift my cup to my lips. It suddenly feels incredibly heavy.
It slips from my grip.
And shatters on the ground.
The world sways.
The tea—
The tea—
It’s—
It’s wrong
It’s delicious
It tastes
like winter
and hope
and
poison.
I slide from my stool, and the pain as my hip and shoulder collide with the ground is a distant echo. In my clouded vision, I see the little gold apple diffuser rolling in a splash of spilled tea. The professor’s feet step toward me.
“Your heart is your weakness, Viola. And I will have it, no matter what you’ve done to my son.”
The world vanishes.