Epilogue
There must be a position of weakness opposite exaltation. For if a magician is changed by love, they can also be changed by hate. But Roland insists I’m being far too negative.
—BIANCA MORTLAKE, DIARIES, UNDATED
At court, games were won. And just as quickly, another round began, another deck of cards was splayed on the table, and they were lost.
I should have known better than to sleep at night.
I felt the absence of his body before his mind. He never tossed and turned when he lay beside me. I had become so accustomed to his warmth wrapped around me these past months that I shivered as I rose from bed. A window was open, blowing cold, lashing wind into the bedchamber.
I nearly tripped over my own shift on the floor. Roland had not been too inclined to pick it up last night.
I called his name. No reply. I padded into his privy chamber where the coals shimmered in the hearth, one of his grooms asleep in an armchair.
When I returned to the bedchamber and held a candle aloft, I saw something I hadn’t noticed before lying on Roland’s pillow. An open book. There was a sealed note inside it, marking the page.
I ran my fingers over the binding. Faustus. The Legend of Oberon. I tossed the letter to the side and read:
Oberon despaired. In the realm of the dead, the shadows were vast, and every ghost sought to return to the light.
While the veil between the ghosts and the living had been punctured long ago, no magician could give specters true form or flesh.
That would require alchemy of a kind Oberon had never witnessed.
It was many days before Oberon rounded a bend in the river and found the sleeping king, resting his head on the bones of a leviathan. Yet to Oberon’s dismay, the king was not alone.
“Why have you come?” asked the long-dead queen.
Oberon confessed his terrible deed. He had bartered a soul for his king’s, and in exchange, he could carry one ghost from the realm of the dead, not two. All Saturn boundaries had their rules, and the limitations must be heeded. If he took both the king and queen with him, he would die himself.
I slammed the book shut. Snapped the seal on the envelope—a black scythe—and tore open the letter, not caring if it was a blood cipher, not caring about anything. Roland was gone, and I knew who had taken him.
What did I tell you became of powerful sorcerers?
You are now a threat, Bianca Mortlake, and I see your death.
Return Fulke Roet to me by the next full Moon or Roland Daymour will be lost forever to the mists of my realm.
And should you come looking for your ghosts instead, with the weakness I suspect in you when it comes to those you love, heed Oberon’s lesson.
When I was a little girl, my father told me stories of Oberon.
“Let me tell you a secret,” Prospero whispered.
“It is the magician who finds the king, Bianca. The boy Oberon chose had no noble blood. No claim. No muscle or wisdom. Armel was scrawny and poor. But Oberon could read the sky, and the planets foretold this ordinary boy would become extraordinary. They needed each other. The boy never would have been discovered in his small village had Oberon not seen what he could be. And when the armies clashed, Oberon knew his chosen king would win.”
“And he did win, Father,” I said, pointing to the book in my lap.
“Yes, he did. With Oberon’s help, the boy king Armel decimated the forces who opposed him, even though he was not yet twelve. Together, they ruled Alvion for many years, until Armel fell. When he rose again, they ruled for many more. This is a lesson for you. What does a magician need?”
I hummed and bit my lip. “A king to serve?”
Roland was eating a pomegranate in the corner.
Newly thirteen, so gangly his limbs still overwhelmed him.
He said he was too old for stories, but since it was Oberon, he’d decided to listen.
He licked his fingers and ran them through his hair, slicking it back. “No, not a king. A planet to bless us.”
“Wrong,” I muttered.
“Both of you are wrong,” said Prospero.
Roland threw a seed at me, and it bounced off my forehead.
“Do either of you want to know? A magician requires but one thing.” We waited, held taut, until Prospero’s blue eyes flashed. “A destiny to fulfill.”