Chapter 38
THE TRAINING SHED, a tumble-down stone outbuilding behind the house, stood alongside a weedy patch that bore the scars of thousands of sparrings over the centuries.
Dirt had seeped in through a broken window, coating the tools arrayed on the walls and lying thick upon the workbench.
The busted pane had also allowed sparrows to nest inside.
Their splattered mess had built up over the years of grime and neglect.
Propping the wooden doors open, Magda pulled out an old form, swiping at the dust with a fallen branch from a nearby pine tree. She removed her armor and inspected it in the sunlight. The lacing that bound the plates together was worn down to little more than threads.
After some digging in the trunks, she found Pixie-cloth cord coiled under some spare plates. Pulling a stool from the shed out into the sunlight, she began the arduous process of repairing the lacing.
Sometime later, she moved on to polishing the plates. Luckily, the old polish kit she’d found under the workbench was serviceable. Soon, the bronze began to glow a warm saffron-hue in the afternoon light. She lost herself in the work of cleaning, buffing, and polishing.
“Magda.”
She flinched, almost dropping the buffing rag.
“Sorry,” Kaelan said, coming closer. “Mother would like to see you on the garden terrace.”
She stifled a laugh as she packed up the polish kit. “What have you and your mother been doing all afternoon?”
“Salvaging what’s left of the garden, attempting to scare off the spiders from the bedrooms, opening every window in this damned place, and recounting Cae’s entire life story from his conception to his tragic demise.
” He rubbed his temples. “I’m starting to think that bringing him back from the dead would be easier than attempting to assume his identity. ”
She left her armor where it was and strode up to him, wiping her hands clean on a rag. She patted his chest. “I’m sure you’ll be fine.”
She started back through the overgrown gnomeberry bushes towards the house.
“She wants to talk about your hair,” Kaelan said, trailing her.
She stopped and turned back, reaching up to touch the back of her head. “What about it?”
“She says it’s scandalous for a Rae to have short hair.”
“In the human world, they call this a pixie-cut,” she said, grinning. But he only gazed at her dully. Her grin faded.
“It’s not like I can grow it back . . . She doesn’t have a means of growing it back, does she?”
“No, she has a better idea,” he said, pushing aside the bushes, grinning almost as devilishly as Cae used to. “Just wait.”
Flor had laid out a bounty of food upon the pitted stone table situated in the middle of the paved terrace overlooking the lily-choked pond and overgrown gardens.
“Sit,” she ordered Magda, pointing to a wooden chair that appeared to have been brought out from the dining room.
Its cherry finish still gleamed under the dust of disuse.
“Eat.” She loaded Magda’s plate with huge slices of tomatoes and pears and apples.
“I apologize for not having any cheese or bread,” she said. “I did have, but it’s all gone over.”
Kaelan dropped into another chair, his eyes half-open.
Magda shoveled the food into her mouth, suddenly famished in a way that she hadn’t been in weeks.
“Good,” Flor said, leaning back in her chair. “I’m glad to see you have an appetite. Now about your hair.”
Magda swallowed down the slightly overripe tomato. “I like my hair.”
“I like it too,” Flor said.
A piece of apple lodged in Magda’s throat. She coughed it loose.
“You do?” Kaelan asked the question Magda couldn’t.
“Yes. Don’t you?” Flor snapped at him, arching an eyebrow in a manner that suggested his answer should be yes.
“You said it was scandalous,” he replied.
“It is. No Rae cuts her hair short,” Flor said. “It’s just not done.”
After a long drink of water, Magda’s throat cleared. She ran her hand over the soft scruff on the back of her scalp. It had grown shaggy.
“Well, I’m not going to take some potion to make it grow,” she said.
“I said, I like it,” Flor stated. “In fact, I want you to cut mine in the same style.”
Magda stared. “You’re not serious.”
Flor pulled a pair of silver scissors from her coat pocket and set them down on the table.
“I’m quite serious. It will be our statement.
Your return will be shocking enough. Add to that Caden and .
. .” Flor leaned forward, fixing Magda with her steely stare, sharper than the gleaming scissors.
“Perhaps you’ve forgotten how it is at the Spire, Magdalena.
But you are about to create one of the greatest upheavals in the history of the court.
Regardless of the outcome, what you’re setting out to do will be talked about for . . . centuries.”
Magda cracked open a walnut and tapped the meat out into her palm. The combined weight of Kaelan and Flor’s attention pressed heavy upon her.
“I can’t do it, Flor,” she said after a moment. “All of the parties and the visitations and the ass-kissing . . .”
“No, dear, of course not,” Flor said, leaning back again, folding her hands over her stomach.
“You’ve obviously become a savage in your exile and to put him in those situations”—she flicked her fingers towards Kaelan—“would surely give him away. So this is what’s going to happen.
That letter to my brother contained another letter, which he is to send to our family at the Spire. ”
“Do you think that’s wise?” Magda asked, pouring herself more water from a crystal decanter. “Won’t Lavana be there?”
“Yes, of course, she will. Do you take me for an imbecile? Do you think that Damion is the only one in the family who has wanted to bring you back to challenge Lavana? Even I knew of the talk, secluded as I’ve been.
The letter will be delivered discreetly to particular members of the family we know to be sympathetic.
They will begin the process. I will write another letter tonight.
If my brother followed my instructions, he should be sending some of his brownies to carry the letters.
By the time we arrive at the Spire, those who support us will be prepared for what is to come. ”
While Flor spoke, Magda ate and ate and ate. Kaelan picked at his food like a sullen child, watching Magda from the tops of his eyes.
“As prepared as they can be,” Magda said, shooting Kaelan an irritated look. His eyes fell, but then immediately rose up to her again.
“We will begin a campaign,” Flor went on.
“My brother’s granddaughter lives at court.
She is an attendant to the Crown’s own daughter.
If the stories my brother has told me lately are true, then she is the worst kind of insipid little breeder, flighty and flimsy and concerned with nothing more than gossiping and currying favor. She will be perfect.”
“Perfect for what?”
“For spreading your story. Honey told me about what you’ve done. How you endured torture and escaped an iron prison. How you defeated an empusa and dealt with an oracle and a dwarf lord who had the audacity to steal the Enneahedron. How you faced the manticores and, once-again, bested the witch.”
“That’s not exactly what—”
Flor’s hand smacked against her own thigh.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “The truth is not important. What is important is the story. The exiled Rae, daughter of one of the most storied and respected Radiants to have lived in recent memory, returned from the human world, determined to bring the Enneahedron before the Crown and reclaim her rightful place amongst her kind. That will be the story and the simpering court-watchers will devour it. You will be the fallen daughter risen up, who fought her way back from the iron wastes of the mortal realms. And you,” she said, pointing a finger with a nail in need of trimming at Kaelan, “will make the story irresistible. For not only did Magdalena fall, only to rise again, she also found my son, who had been lost in the mortal realm all of these years, waiting to be called home by his Rae, thought dead”—her chin trembled slightly—“but not dead. Change now.”
Kaelan pulled his gaze away from Magda, as though his eyes were leaden and unable to move. “What?”
“I’ve shown you his portraits and those of his father and all of our relatives. Let’s see what you can make of him.”
“Now?”
“Yes, now!” Flor banged her fist upon the stone table, rattling her tarnished cutlery. “Stand up.”
Kaelan rose, giving Magda one more long look. The green light in his eyes was at once brighter than ever and yet, somehow, hazy. Her face warmed under the intensity of his gaze and she curled back in on herself slightly.
Then he shut his eyes—thankfully.
The air shimmered around him. Slowly, his hair grew long and black and wavy. His face began to change, though his body remained much the same. When he opened his eyes, they were silver, but no less penetrating.
Magda shifted in her seat, chewing on another pear, not sure if she was uncomfortable because an older version of Cae was gazing down at her or because of the way he was gazing at her.
“No, that’s not quite right,” Flor said, pushing out of her chair to walk behind him, inspecting. “Magda?”
Magda took another drink of water, trying not to look too closely at Kaelan and, yet, needing to look.
“His mouth should be wider and his lips fuller,” she said, clearing her throat.
Kaelan closed his eyes again, changing slightly.
She nodded when he was done, rising from her chair as well. “And his nose . . . it had a slight width, right here.” She pinched the bridge of her nose, circling the table to come by Flor’s side.
Kaelan tracked her. “A bump?”
“But it didn’t rise up,” she said, “only out. You would only see it if you were looking at him straight on. And he had three moles, right here.” She pointed to her left cheek, just under the cheekbone. “And his jaw would be stronger. You have it too soft, like a child’s”
He changed again.
“And this ear,” Flor said, tapping the right one. “The lobe curled in at the top, more so than the other.”
They went on like this for some time, adjusting every minor detail they could think of, reshaping Kaelan into Cae.
Finally, Magda stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Flor, both of them facing Cae. Flor gripped Magda’s forearm, tears shimmering at the edges of her eyes. Magda’s skin prickled.
“It’s him,” Flor breathed.
Magda split open another walnut, popping the sweet, oily meat into her mouth.
“It’s him,” she agreed.
Flor hurried forward, picking up one of the silver trays that Magda had cleared of food. Though mostly tarnished, one gleaming bit of silver surface remained. Flor held it up for Kaelan to examine himself.
“Will you be able to remain like this?” Flor asked as Kaelan’s eyes finally left Magda, giving her a chance to breathe, and gazed down at his reflection.
“I think so,” he said.
“Good,” she said, taking the tray from him. “Don’t change back unless you have no other choice. It’s too risky. As soon as my brother sends his brownies, I’ll have them procure clothes suited to a Prince.”
And then she embraced Kaelan, tightly. He hung there, allowing it, but his eyes tracked back to Magda.
“I need to finish my armor,” she said, snatching the last bit of apple from the table.
“You need to bathe and change and rest,” Flor called after her. “And to cut my hair!”
“I’m sure Kaelan can do it,” she called over her shoulder, hurrying down the terrace steps, cramming the last of the apple into her mouth, jogging to the path that led back to the training shed.
All the way, the weight of Kaelan’s gaze pressed upon her.