Chapter 36
Loxerman jabbered on endlessly, her mind having grown weak in her solitude and Maeve’s constant memory work. The old Witch had plenty of secrets, some Maeve herself didn’t understand. Only one secret mattered to her though: the truth of her mother. The truth of the woman who bore her. The dark haired woman she’d seen in only glimpses of her father’s mind.
She never told him what she suspected, what she came to know.
Loxerman’s mind was more muddled each visit, making it difficult to work through. But finally, Maeve caught a glimpse of something interesting.
Loxerman herself was much younger in the snippet of a memory. Her hair was longer and full of life. Her clothes matched the style of what Clarissa wore in photographs from her childhood.
Loxerman whispered to a man in a mask. “The boy’s name is Antony Sinclair.”
“Gold upfront.”
“The Zaichosky’s have already paid you half, have they not?”
Maeve watched the decaying memory ten times before she pulled it from Loxerman’s mind and said. “Care to explain?”
Loxerman mumbled. The chains binding her to the floor clattered beneath her as she scooted to the opposite wall, seemingly having a conversation that didn’t include Maeve.
Maeve sighed, crossing her legs the opposite direction and letting a small burst of Magic slip from her. Loxerman startled as it hit her skin. She looked up at Maeve like she’d only just realized she was there.
“You paid to have my brother killed?”
Loxerman looked behind her warily. She turned back to Maeve and blinked rapidly.
Loxerman smiled. “I remember now. It was his birthday.”
Maeve's stomach rolled over.
“Happy birthday. . .” Loxerman sang and then bit her lip. “Can’t remember the name though.”
It was so tempting to just dispose of the mental woman before her and be done with it all. But hope remained for some semblance of her mother’s face. Some clue that could lead Maeve to understanding the circumstances of her existence.
Maeve dove back into Loxerman’s mind, pressing the memory further, bending Loxerman’s mind to bring forth more of it. The same small segment played again and again, each time becoming more fragmented and broken until it collapsed into nothing completely.
With a vocal cry of frustration, Maeve whipped from Loxerman’s mind, propelling herself back into the dark cell.
Loxerman’s head hung limp. Her spine hunched over as her mouth foamed. Her dead eyes stared at the opposite wall.
Maeve’s shoulders fell in defeat.
The gardens at Castle Morana were a hazy glow of dew and mist as Maeve walked the hydrangea lined paths. New blooms sprouted around them, flowers she couldn’t identify and had certainly never seen on Earth.
The Crown’s Quarters kept her awake. It may have been the most Magically protected room in the castle, but the ghosts of such an ancient place were loud. The albino woman with long white hair stood at the foot of her bed most nights until she forced herself from the chamber and wandered the castle in the quiet night.
Black vines snaked their way over one bush, suffocating and piercing its stems. Maeve pulled on the thorny weed forcing it to release the beautiful green bloom.
Magic trickled down her ring finger and down her spine where the Dread Ring and Locket sat. She looked over her shoulder as Mal appeared. He stood in a lingering, swirling shadow with watchful eyes.
The vine fell at her feet and turned to ash. She looked back at the blooms.
“Are you coming or going?” She asked softly.
“Going,” he answered, stepping towards her. “Do you have your parchment?’
Maeve hummed a reply. “And I have another name.”
Mal’s brows raised.
“The Zaichoskys,” she answered.
“All of them?” He asked without an ounce of judgment in his voice.
“They paid half of the hit on Antony,” she answered.
Mal nodded. “I figured as much if you were naming them. But that isn’t what I asked.”
Maeve looked up at him. “I have no way of knowing who among them was innocent.”
“Are you asking me to do it, so it doesn’t weigh on your conscience that you killed innocents?”
Maeve nodded.
“They are in The Palen Tower, outside The Beryl City. They’ll be dead before dawn.”
He smiled down at her. She did not return it.
They stood in silence until Mal spoke once more.
“It is not enough,” he said.
She looked up at him. His hair was growing long, she’d noticed he stopped cutting it. It framed his face nicely.
“What is not?” She asked quietly.
“Any of what I have to offer you.”
Maeve’s stomach sank. She stepped towards him, the moonlight shining on them both and shook her head.
“Mal,” she said, feeling that never ending heaviness in her chest lurking, “you have given me more than I ever dreamed for myself.”
His eyes were somber. “But I cannot bring him back.”
Maeve’s jaw tightened. Mal continued.
“I feel your mind. I see the reality you try to slip away to in your head. You cannot sleep for wanting it. You cannot focus in training for desiring to be there.”
Maeve didn’t mention the ghosts of her dreams to him. He’d only consume himself with ridding the castle of something so unexplainable.
“Is that so terrible a dream?”
He stepped towards her and took her face in his hands and said gently, “It is not real, Little Viper.”
She pressed towards him. “But what if I could make it real?”
“Even you are not capable of withstanding such a falsehood in your mind. Eventually it would snap.” His fingers brushed through her hair. “It’s a beautiful thought, darling girl. And if I could run away to a world where he lived, and you and I were together in easeful bliss, I would. There would be no more prophecy, no more darkness. . .I would lie with you each night and devour you each morning.”
Warmth soaked her cheeks as her vision went blurry. Mal pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her.
“It destroys me that I cannot give you that,” he continued, “and that our fates lie here, carving a place for ourselves in the world that has cast us aside.”
Mal pressed his lips to her temple, inhaling softly.
“You are too hard on yourself,” she said. “It’s not your burden to bear. You are performing miracles here. I am selfish, and sorry for it.”
“I handed him that goblet,” he replied. “I think about the consequences of such a seemingly inconsequential choice endlessly.”
Maeve couldn’t look up at him.
“You don’t have to hide from me,” said Mal. “I spent too many days longing to merely share the same air as you.”
“There is no one I want to view me as weak less than you,” she admitted tearfully.
Mal pulled from her, keeping her in his grip. His eyes glistened darkly as his lips parted. “Your father told me once, ‘fear is the absence of Magic’.”