Chapter 26
The princess worea spell in her hair. Melodie said nothing about it until Marchant disappeared with her into what she suspected were the holding cells.
She had seen a braiding spell like that before. She had had one woven into her own hair, although hers was for protection. This one was for something else. A dampening spell. Perhaps to hide the princess’s magic.
She rocked back on her heels.
She had been thinking Marchant was like her. That he could see spell work. But when they’d come face to face earlier, he hadn’t known whether the glow he’d seen from her was her own personal magic, or the compliance net. And also, perhaps, the paint set.
She wouldn’t have made that same mistake.
“I see spells,” she said.
Theo looked at her, frowning.
“I can see the glow of spell work, like a layer of light over whatever has been spelled.” She paused. “I think Marchant can see magic. He sees it the same way I see spells, but he can’t know if someone’s magic is because they are using a spell-worked item, or because they themselves are magical.”
“But because you only see spell work, you can’t see magic inside someone. Can’t see if they themselves are magical?” Theo spoke slowly.
“Exactly. I think the princess figured that out, or Marchant straight out told her. She wove a spell into her hair to make her magic seem much less than it is, is my guess, because I saw a dampening spell clearly as he took her back to the cells.”
“You saw a spell in her hair?” Theo’s eyes narrowed. “I just saw that she had clearly been hit in the face.” He paused. “But the spell would make her hair shine with magic, wouldn’t it?”
“It should have, because it was braided in, but the very nature of the spell itself was to hide magic. It might have been a gamble on Viviane’s part on whether he’d see the magic, or whether the spell’s function would work on his magical sight, but she had nothing to lose. And it looks like it might have worked.” She remembered gentle fingers braiding her own hair when she was little, on the road trip she had never forgotten, of her lifting her plait to see the protection against knives and other weapons clearly.
“That was definitely the princess?” she asked. Because the princess was the right age to be a daughter of the woman who’d saved her all those years ago, but that would make her . . .
“I’ve known her since she was born,” Theo said. “That is Viviane Franck.”
“And her mother is Queen Ava of Kassia and Cervantes?”
He nodded.
It was a long time ago, but she had always thought the woman who was clearly being held against her will by one of the travelers in their caravan, and who saved Melodie before she escaped, was called Sue. And she hadn’t been a queen. She had been from Grimwalt. She had apparently offered her father a place to stay in Grimwalt when they crossed the border, and every now and then, when times had gotten hard, her father would wonder out loud if he shouldn’t have taken her up on her offer.
“Why do you ask?” Theo had turned away from her, looking over at the building Marchant used as a prison.
“I knew someone when I was very young who could braid spells into hair, but it’s obviously possible more than one spell worker can do it.”
“He’s bringing out Genevieve.” Theo’s voice got lower.
Melodie watched Marchant pull a reluctant Genevieve along the gravel path. “She’s got the same dampening spell in her hair.”
Theo glanced at her. “That’s good, right? Marchant will think they’re both too weak magically to be interesting.”
Melodie nodded in agreement.
They watched Genevieve come out as quickly as Viviane had, and then the boys were marched across one by one. The fourth boy looked like he was in pain as he walked, and Marchant seemed rougher on him.
“Ric hurt him,” Theo murmured. “Even before I did. I’d forgotten about it, but one of the sticks at the camp had blood on it. I think Ric stabbed him with it. Marchant’s done something to him in retaliation.”
“He doesn’t like being hurt, and he’s almost paranoid about being overpowered or having the tables turned on him.” Melodie watched Marchant shove the boy into the workshop. “He ran in a panic when he saw the compliance net.”
“A true coward.” As Theo spoke, Marchant emerged again, and Ric, limping behind him, looked slightly gray, as if he had been further harmed in the workshop.
Melodie felt a surge of rage at the man. These were children, and he was a monster.
After he returned Ric, Marchant shuffled at an even slower pace to his house, and disappeared inside.
“Let’s go.” Theo stood. “I want to find out if the rest of the team are in there with the children.”
They ran across the grass, jumping over the path as soon as they could so that the prison and stables would block any view of them from the house. The trap Marchant had set on the path glowed faintly in the afternoon light, and Melodie could see it was overlayed over a handful of stones that had been sprinkled through the gravel.
She didn’t have time to see what it did.
They reached the prison, but the only window was near the entrance, which would expose them to the view of anyone leaving the house.
The window was closed.
“I need a rock.” Theo looked at the gravel path, but the stones were too small to break a window.
“I’ll draw one. And some twine and a pencil, so we can communicate.”
He had completely forgotten about the paint set, she realized. He blinked.
“And some rope, so we can pull the stone back up,” he said. “They might not be able to throw it back. They could be in chains.”
She shook her head. “It won’t last long enough.”
He swore. “I forgot how quickly it disappears.”
She moved to the far corner of the back wall, so Marchant wouldn’t see the glow of the paint set while she used it.
Theo stood guard as she drew the rock, the pencil, the twine. As soon as the pencil appeared, she handed it to Theo, along with a corner she’d torn from the sheet of paper.
He wrote a few words, wound the twine around the rock, the pencil and the paper, and ran around to the front.
Melodie followed him, peering around the corner to keep watch on the house.
Theo threw the rock at the window overarm, and it broke with a loud crack.
Theo ran back to her, crouching just around the corner.
“It sounded loud,” she said. She watched the door of the house, but it stayed closed.
With luck, Marchant was sleeping somewhere, or tending his wounds. Maybe he hadn’t heard the noise.
“He is so weak, and yet, I can’t risk taking him on with the magical tricks he seems to have up his sleeves.” Theo’s voice was infused with frustration. “They are right here. Right behind this wall.” He hit it lightly with his fist.
“We should check out his house,” Melodie said. “If we can take him unawares, using the net or the confusion dust I still have in my pocket, we could contain him.”
“I’d prefer to have the children safe before then,” Theo said. “But if that’s the only way, so be it.”