Chapter 38 One Week Later #2
I scarcely noticed as I did that I toyed with the gold ring around my index finger. My eyes looked down at the cat face that hugged my skin, with its emerald eyes and detailed lines. The design reminded me of the art deco style on Earth.
Whatever it was called here, it was beautiful.
I hadn’t taken it off since Bones had given it to me.
“Will that be enough to tie Malefic to Dark Cathedral?” I asked.
Forsooth cleared his throat.
He didn’t answer for a second, then sighed.
“Nominally, yes,” he said reluctantly. “The Priest clearly acted as a primary mouthpiece of the movement. Will it identify him as one of Dark Cathedral’s architects and leaders, or even prove the existence of Dark Cathedral as a conspiracy against Magique?
Sadly, no. The Ethnarch and the King will examine the accusations of treason, but I strongly suspect they will decide not to convict on that charge. ”
He paused, gauging my eyes seriously.
“But it is still a victory, Leda,” he said, his voice faintly warning. “Far more of one than we could have hoped to accomplish, even a month ago. And Malefic Bones can do far less damage from inside a prison cell than he can in the Black Tower.”
I nodded to that, too.
I wanted to believe him. I did.
I wasn’t sure I did believe it, though.
I didn’t bother to tell him that, mostly because I couldn’t have explained it, even if I tried.
I didn’t know if it was intuition on my part, or something more nebulous in my magic, but whatever it was, those voices seemed stronger lately, and strangely more insistent since that morning in the tower, when my magic merged with Bones’s.
That same part of my magic seemed obsessed, above all, with protecting Bones.
That feeling of hyper-protectiveness hadn’t dissipated at all since that morning in the tower. Rather, it seemed to be growing steadily stronger, and more urgent, so much so, the feeling behind it felt suffocating at times.
Like now.
I wondered just how much Forsooth had already figured out.
Clearly he suspected something about Caelum and his magic, even if he didn’t know what it was, or what exactly was wrong with him.
Given I didn’t know those things, either, that put Forsooth and me roughly in the same camp, although I strongly suspected both of us had information the other one wanted.
I couldn’t help wondering, for example, what Forsooth would be able to deduce about Caelum’s magic if he knew his exact list of symptoms.
I guessed he’d know quite a lot.
Maybe he’d even know more than Caelum himself did.
A nudging, pressing, insistent part of my magic wanted me to test that theory. It wanted me to tell Forsooth exactly what I’d seen, exactly what I’d experienced, if only so he could tell us what it meant, and what I needed to do to keep him safe.
That same part of my magic told me Forsooth could help.
He might even know how to save Caelum, if I told him what Caelum was.
Of course, there was no way in the deepest pits of Hades I was doing that. The only way I would tell Forsooth anything at all was if Caelum asked me to, and I wasn’t going to hold my breath on that happening.
I would never tell anyone on my own.
I wouldn’t, and not only because I’d promised Caelum I wouldn’t.
I trusted Forsooth, but this was different, and I knew it was different.
I didn’t need Bones to tell me that. I could feel it, and that understanding went deep, in a way I also couldn’t explain.
I’d felt it on Bones, along with the intensity of his trust, and I’d sever my own arm before I’d do anything to break that.
Gods. Bones was coming here.
It was difficult to think about.
I admit, some part of me had wondered if I’d ever see him again.
I’d half-expected him to vanish with his mother, the instant his father got taken into custody, and Bones himself got cleared. Or maybe I thought he’d just vanish from school, lock himself up in the castle that would now likely fall to him, at least until his father’s fate got decided for real.
“You know Caelum’s father tied himself to his son’s magic?
” Forsooth asked, his voice gentler still.
“To prevent his son from ever using his magic against him? He used a very old ritual to do this. A blood ritual, which, in addition to being illegal, brings with it its own murder charges, as it requires living sacrifices to work.” He paused before adding, quieter, “It is also, I am sorry to say, irreversible.”
I swallowed and nodded, now wringing my hands in my lap.
“I saw it,” I said. “When Bones tried to stop him.”
Forsooth nodded. “Yes. Of course.” I saw him probing my eyes once more, his own sharper, but also verging on cautious. “Did you notice anything else that morning, Ms. Shadow? About Mr. Bones’s magic? Or about his father’s?”
I felt myself stiffen. “Anything like what?”
I could feel what Forsooth was asking me.
I remembered being at the bottom of the tower on the night of my birthday, the cold eyes staring at me through Bones’s gold irises.
But I also knew that trying to explain that would get us into why Bones’s father would want to steal his son’s body and magic in the first place, what it was about Bones that would be so valuable, and so dangerous, that he would do something like that to his own son.
Which brought me back to the same conundrum as before.
I could feel whispers of Bones around that.
I could feel him listening, even now, straining for every word.
If I was honest, I’d been feeling him for days. Possibly since the moment he first opened his eyes after his father’s rebound curse nearly killed him.
You can’t tell them, Leda, he whispered now, soft.
He felt so far away, yet so near, so very near.
He seemed to live inside my very skin.
I know, I whispered.
You can’t tell them, honey. You can’t. If you do, they’ll kill me.
It didn’t make any sense.
I knew he believed it. I also knew, with increasing certainty, that I believed it, too.
I won’t tell anyone, I thought back, softer. I promised you that. I never will.
I felt the grief around him intensify, the inevitability of it, despite the relief that washed over him from my words.
He still didn’t really believe he’d survive.
The intensity of that belief made it difficult for me to think at all when I really went into it.
I didn’t understand it, not logically, not with any part of my mind, but I felt the truth there, and it terrified me.
I wanted to believe it was just another fairytale his father told him, to keep him in line, to control him. Yet I knew, somehow, it wasn’t.
They would kill him if they knew what he was.
Moreover, he wouldn’t survive if we didn’t find some way to change that fate.
“…Anything unusual?” Forsooth was saying, answering my question while my mind hovered elsewhere. “Did you notice anything strange about either of them?”
My gaze returned to Forsooth’s face.
I looked him straight in the eyes, the only adult Magical of authority who’d ever truly been decent to me since the first day I’d arrived in Magique.
I looked right into that kind face, and I lied.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “No, Professor. I didn’t notice anything at all.”