Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
WHEN THE CASTLE WAS QUIET, THE MOON HIGH OUTSIDE THIA’S window, she slipped from her bed.
Tiptoeing down the stairs, she turned left, away from the Great Hall.
She passed more stairs and other rooms that were locked, moving down dimly lit corridors until she was lost, until she cursed Archer for his vague directions.
Then, just as she was about to give up, she found it.
The library. The doors were open, revealing shelves upon shelves of books within.
She entered, marveling at the size. It was built from the same reddish wood as the Great Hall, but instead of high ceilings, it had multiple levels connected by a spiraling staircase at the center.
Candles burnt low in wall sconces, providing just enough light for her to meander in what she hoped was an eastward direction.
It smelled somehow both musty and dry, as only centuries-old paper and wood did.
She descended a smaller staircase, only four or five steps or so, onto a lower level.
The bookshelves were smaller here, so she could easily spot a number of desks nestled in alcoves between the aisles.
She was about to curse Archer again when she realized there was only one he could have meant.
It was in the back corner, its legs intricately carved with the same griffons that marked the entrance to the Great Hall.
She threaded her way through the shelves toward it, squinting as the light darkened.
There were no wall sconces in this section, but a table a few yards from her target bore a single candle, wax dripping into an iron bobèche. It fluttered as she walked by.
She reached her destination and crouched down.
The desk had four drawers on the left side; crammed in next to the wall, she had to pull the chair out of the way to reach the one second from the bottom.
The old wood squeaked as she wiggled it open, and she winced.
With the desk blocking most of the candlelight, she felt around the wood blindly and was surprised to find it empty.
No, not empty. There was a single piece of parchment at the very back, its texture rougher and thicker than the paper she was used to. She pulled it out, careful not to crumple it, and used the desk to push herself to her feet. Then she smoothed it out across the wood, heart hammering.
She could just make out a looping scrawl, but it was too dark to properly digest. She hastened to the table with the candle, nearly tripping on a stack of books left in a pile on the floor.
Was it her mother’s writing? The truth about her death? But as she held it up to the candlelight, she found that it was neither. She read:
Born to the daughter of Nowhere and Everywhere,
The Storm Crow shall come:
A harbinger of war before
The Tyrant’s reign undone.
In search of a Heart, a Soul, and a Mind
With powers he cannot contain,
The lost shall restore the Descendant of Lore,
The righteous again to reign.
The prophecy of the Storm Crow.
Wood creaked in the darkness. Thia froze, straining to see in the dim light. She held her breath, trying to make out any sound in the stillness that wasn’t her own.
She could see nothing unusual. Hear nothing. The creak of an old building perhaps.
She was about to examine the parchment again, when she caught a shimmer of color in her periphery. She glanced up at the wall on her left, and her breath caught.
Mom. The portrait Archer had mentioned. Immortalized in oil paint, Melina was frozen in her mid-twenties, suggesting the work was done just a few years before Thia’s birth.
Thia strode toward it, pausing at the table to exchange the parchment for the candle, which she held up to better see.
Whoever had done the work was a true talent.
Her mother looked just like she did in Thia’s photographs, her eyes that piercing green, her hair that glorious red Thia had always envied.
In the portrait, she was serene, seated in this very library, a book in one hand, light dancing from the tips of her fingers on the other.
Magic.
Confidence lined Melina’s shoulders and the tilt of her chin. Her full lips quirked with a hint of amusement, her hair in ringlets that rivaled Thia’s own, though she wore them much wilder than Thia did.
A stranger. That’s who this woman was, someone fierce and glorious and maybe even a touch feral. Nothing like the carefully contained facade her grammy had invented. Nothing like Thia.
“My Melina,” a voice said, and Thia nearly dropped the candle.
She spun. Lord Sagan stood just behind her, clad in a white nightgown, a navy robe atop it.
“Or perhaps I should say yours,” he amended.
Thia’s fingers clenched around the candlestick. “I never knew her. She’s more yours than mine.” She marched forward and scooped up the parchment, then presented it in the space between them. “What does this have to do with my mother?”
He took it and smoothed it out on the table, squinting. “Forgive me. My sight is not what it once was.” He beckoned for the candle and when she held it out between them, his breath hitched.
“Tell me.”
He searched her face. “It will only put you in danger.”
She set the candle down, its light flickering across the table. “I am already in danger.”
He traced the parchment’s looping scrawl with one knobby finger. “Your mother was executed over this.”
Executed. Not killed. Not a car crash.
“Please,” Thia said, feeling like the floor was slipping out from under her.
“You’re curious, like her.”
“I need to know.”
He stared at her for a long moment, then sighed. “I met Melina twenty-five years ago. She was barely into womanhood, but a true talent. A near endless well of power. I offered to train her immediately.”
A thought occurred to Thia. “Was my mother from here? From Eldris?”
The Magician looked at her with a touch of sadness. “You’re from Kansas?”
Thia nodded.
“So was your mother.”
She didn’t know if she was relieved or not.
“But she visited this realm frequently,” Lord Sagan continued. “Eventually with that husband of hers in tow. Jason.” His lips twitched into the barest smile. “What a pair they were. He had nothing of her talents, but he was one of kindest people I’ve met.”
Thia was afraid to move, afraid to speak. Was this why her grammy had lied? Had she…had she known? Not just about the portal. But where it led. Who had made it.
The fire in the attic—she’d thought it was too perfect a circle. Magic. It’s not like it’s real, she’d said. Her grammy hadn’t agreed. No, she’d struck Thia to keep her away from it.
Yes, Thia was certain. Her grammy knew everything.
She gripped the table, struggling to stay upright.
The Magician continued, oblivious to Thia’s internal spiraling.
“The last time your mother was here was a little more than sixteen years ago. She was distressed, frantic. She claimed the Mage King had taken Jason as leverage against her.” He breathed a deep sigh that shuddered his whole body.
“I didn’t understand, of course. What would the king want with her?
I’ll admit her power was fearsome. But the king, for all his faults, has never been an envious man, so long as he has obedience—Callista’s freedom is proof of that.
Then Melina revealed a secret she had long kept from me: she was not of this realm.
” He smoothed his long beard. “And that is how I came to learn of Kansas, and how I realized what the king suspected.”
She had come here on purpose, even knowing of the danger. These were not the actions of the grounded do-gooder Grandma Winnie had always described. They were the actions of someone reckless, someone selfish.
The Magician cleared his throat and glanced down at the parchment again.
“Who was the daughter of Nowhere and Everywhere, if not this woman who could appear on a whim from unknown lands? The king believed her to be carrying the Storm Crow, and so her life was forfeit. Yes,” he said, in response to Thia’s hum of confusion. “She was pregnant at the time.”
Thia forced herself to draw breath. Still clutching the table, she dug her nails harder into the wood. “I’m seventeen,” she blurted, and the Magician frowned. She swallowed. “You said this was sixteen years ago. But I’m seventeen.”
Lord Sagan’s thin mouth parted in surprise, his expression shifting to one of aching pity. “Then,” he said softly, “I am truly sorry.”
Thia didn’t understand. Nothing made sense, not his words, not the haunted way he watched her. “What?” she demanded.
“When I first learned you were Melina’s child,” he started, “I thought you could be that one. That you had somehow survived.”
Thia’s blood went cold.
“Survived what?”
The Magician took an unsteady breath. “When your mother was executed, the child was still in her womb.”
Buzzing sounded in Thia’s ears. She breathed through her nose and managed to grind out, “And my father?”
Lord Sagan rested a weathered hand over hers. She pulled away, and he sighed. “If what Melina said was true, and he was taken captive by the king, then he is almost certainly dead as well.”
It was the answer she was expecting, but it didn’t wound her any less. She sank into a chair and tugged the parchment toward her, mining it over and over for clues, anything that might keep her from tumbling off the edge of overwhelm. “Is there a chance it isn’t me?”
He took the chair across from her, sweeping his robes behind him. “Of course. Prophecies are never straightforward. But you might find it matters more what the king believes than what is real, when it comes to your survival.”
She inspected him, from the large nose, to the curved posture, to the veiny hands. “Why do you think it’s me?”
He startled. “You look just like Melina when you make that face.” He settled back against his chair. “I am a scholar first and foremost. I am hesitant to make assumptions.”
“Then don’t tell me what you know,” Thia said. “Tell me what you believe.”
He smiled slightly. “Ah. An important distinction.”