Chapter 14 #2
“It seems the Order received this badly,” Finn continued. “They spent years on this petition and now it was denied. They will grow restless, especially since other countries have been more successful. Maybe Varian can give us insight, if we can pull it from him.”
Reagan nodded, already calculating how best to extract what he needed from his cousin.
“I suppose you were right,” Jane murmured, her gaze finding his.
“I usually am,” Reagan said. “What about, this time?”
“In Erisea,” she said, “you explained that as long as the principles of peace stood for all mageborn, the Order’s petition would never pass.”
The memory returned to him vividly. He hadn’t expected her to remember, considering what had happened to her right before he’d shared about the Scion Order.
But Jane listened when she didn’t need to, absorbed more than he thought she cared to.
Even then, when she believed she would return to human lands, she had wanted to understand. Or perhaps she had simply wanted more.
“It isn’t a good sign,” Barracus warned, drawing Reagan’s focus back to the table, “if these uprisings are being silenced. If we think they are involved with meddling with the curse, we need to keep an eye on them. We need to know what the Order is planning.”
“They’re probably licking their wounds,” Gwin said.
Reagan exhaled. “Or they’re plotting something worse. I’d wager my head on that.”
He had begun studying the man leading the Order but found it difficult to get information on Giddeon Madden.
Their agenda hadn’t concerned Reagan much in the past, but once they interfered with his curse and, more unforgivably, became a danger to those he loved, he made it his business to understand what drove them.
Each day, the reports grew more concerning. Publicly, the number of members in the Order grew. It seemed they were bolstered by noble families eager for promises of land and cheap labour. None of them admitted greed as their reason, of course.
But even more troubling were the reports filtering in from his patrollers and contacts in Erisea. They claimed that sightings of humans deep in mage territory was not as rare as they thought. Rarer still were the cases officially reported and verified, as he’d done when Jane appeared in Mountheim.
Reagan planned to take Finn and visit several cities in the human lands to uncover how many disappearances had gone unsolved. But this topic would have to wait for now.
“Anything on Mountheim’s curse?” Jane asked.
“Actually, yes,” Finn said, leaning over the table to reach for the juice pitcher near Joy.
She glanced up, then sighed and slid it toward him.
His brows flicked up faintly. “Thank you.”
She said nothing.
“I’ve been thinking about how the time-weaving theory fits with Reagan turning when the curse was supposed to break,” Finn continued. “If my theory is correct, the threads of Reagan’s fate were changed.”
“Changed?” Jane echoed, her brows creasing.
“Yes,” Finn said, eyes alight. “The whole logic of time weaving says time is woven from threads that represent the events in people’s lives.
To reweave a single thread is to change the order of events.
It’s all very intangible. But if Varian worked with someone capable of travelling back in time and rearranging those threads, they could have, essentially, changed the sequence of events leading up to the curse’s deadline. ”
Silence settled over the table, every pair of eyes glued to Finnegan.
“The person could have used one of Reagan’s own threads,” Finn went on, “and stitched it right before his curse broke. Imagine taking one of your past mistakes and weaving it into the present so it looked like you had just committed it. Reagan would have been triggered to shapeshift, like the curse demanded.” Finn paused before adding, “And the time weaver might have delayed the deadline. A deadline is a thread of time as well, and once it exists, a time weaver can manipulate it. But only after it happens. Time weavers cannot see the future. Only the threads of the past and the present.”
“This might be why they waited until the deadline was in the present,” Jane reasoned.
“It’s sophisticated enough that we’d never trace it,” Finn observed.
“If that’s true, at least we know it isn’t easily done,” Barracus said. “Even altering a single thread demands immense focus and mana. If that’s what they did, Malory’s list should help you narrow the culprit.”
“The pictures in her list should help Jane identify who she saw in that cabin,” Finn added. “Since apparently he is the time weaver.”
Reagan knew little of time weaving, but Finn’s theory struck him as both deranged and ingenious.
“My heartstone still found me worthy,” Reagan said, his chin resting on his prodded hand.
Finn tilted his head, considering, but Jane spoke before he could.
“Perhaps because a person’s essence wouldn’t change in that moment,” she mused, her gaze thoughtful. “Even if your past did. And when Malory called the end of your sentence, the entity allowed you to shift back.”
“So they could rewrite the past to make me guilty?” Gwin prodded, testing the idea.
“They probably can’t create threads,” Jane guessed, glancing at Finn, “or make you do something you didn’t.”
“Right,” Finn said. “A time weaver can only rearrange what already exists.”
“If I identify the person, how do we prove they messed with Reagan’s past?” Jane asked.
Finn met her eyes. “With someone who can also look into threads of time. Another time weave or…a diviner.”