Chapter 37 A Noble Secret
This was not like a relic from a monstrous Cryptic.
Rolan felt no surge of lightning in his veins, no swelling of Arcana in his limbs. He did not have to reach for it through the Hollow Path—instead, the strange magic reached for him.
He felt a whisper over his scalp. A slight chill on his skin, like the first breeze of winter.
Despite the coolness, inside his chest a warmth blossomed, as delicate as a flame curling on the edge of a leaf.
This warmth flowed through him, gentle and soothing, filling up every corner of him.
It pooled in the tips of his fingers and expanded in his belly.
It searched out the shadows of his heart and brightened them, like a very small person with a little lamp moving all through his body, climbing up and down the stairwells of his bones, leaving a soft glow behind them every place they went.
Like he was an old, abandoned house they were slowly bringing back to life.
It was all the best feelings he had ever experienced.
It was the glint of pride in Luc’s eye when he wrote his name for the first time.
It was the rich taste of Evaine’s leek and potato pie on his tongue.
It was Anaya’s smile and the bounce of her honey-dark curls.
It was the soft caress on his cheek by his mother’s hand, the mother he’d known for so short a time he couldn’t even picture her face.
But as the white moth’s Arcana flowed through him, he caught the faintest glimpse of her, her long dark hair, her blue eyes, her soft smile.
She formed in his memory the way clouds made shapes in the sky—there for a moment, then gone.
Rolan dragged in a breath, opening his eyes, a sudden jolt of urgency animating his limbs.
How long had he been standing there, soaking up all that magic for himself? What was he doing?
“Rolan,” Evaine said carefully. “You’re glowing.”
He lifted his arms to either side and saw she was right. A faint white aura hung around him, as if he were bathed in sunlight.
Moving past her, he went to Luc. He couldn’t tell if the man was still breathing or if his heart was beating. There was no way to know if he was too late.
But he had to try. He had the light of all that was noble and good burning inside him, and he had to do something.
He climbed onto the bed and knelt beside the Arcanist’s too-still form. Then with a deep breath, he placed his hands on Luc’s chest and slowly exhaled.
“I wish,” he whispered. “I wish.”
The faint white glow on his skin began to shift, growing dimmer everywhere but his hands, where the light grew more intense.
He stared unblinking as the noble Cryptic’s Arcana poured out of him, draining down his arms and tingling in the tips of his fingers.
It soaked into Luc and spread over his body, encasing him in the same bubble of light that had surrounded Rolan.
“What are you doing?” Evaine breathed.
“I don’t know,” he replied honestly.
He watched Luc’s face. He knew he wasn’t imagining all of it. The color was returning to the man’s cheeks. The rough hairs of his beard curled slightly. His eyelids fluttered but didn’t quite open.
Luc gave a soft sigh.
“Truth save us,” Evaine breathed.
Rolan remained fixed in place, not daring to break contact with Luc too soon. He wanted to pour every ounce of that warm light into him, every last drop.
“Come on,” he whispered. “Come back. Come back.”
Evaine pressed her fingers to her lips, as if she wanted to say something but couldn’t bring herself to. She watched Luc’s face too, a tear escaping the corner of her eye and tracing its way down her cheek.
Rolan felt his body go cold as the last of the white Cryptic’s Arcana drained from him.
The loss left him hollow and numb, as if he’d woken from a wonderful dream but couldn’t remember any of the details.
Then he slumped over, his eyes rolling back. He heard Evaine call his name before the now familiar murk of the world of secrets pulled him under.
I stand in my underwear, pinning wet clothes to a line.
It’s washing day, the sun at its blazing midsummer zenith.
Hot enough to fry bacon on the roof, my old master used to say.
I wonder if I gave him half as much trouble as my apprentice gives me.
Probably not. I took up the Arcanist’s apprenticeship as a grown man.
This boy, on the other hand, seems determined to put both me and himself into an early grave.
“Get down from there!” I snap. “What have I told you about dancing on the roof?”
“I’m not dancing!” Rolan shouts. “I’m being attacked by bees!”
“What?”
“BEES!”
“I heard what you said, what I meant was why—oh, goddess. Get down from there!”
“But—”
“NOW!”
With a groan I remember pointing out the bees’ nest in the rafters yesterday and offhandedly commenting that it must be ripe with honey by now.
I never expected the daft child to go climb up there and stick his hand in.
Then again, having gotten to know Rolan over the past few weeks, perhaps that is the first thing I should have expected.
He clambers down with catlike alacrity—really, his agility is impressive, not that I could ever tell him so. It would inflate his ego to even more dangerous heights.
“The pond!” I shout. “You must get in the pond!”
“What pond? I’ve been here weeks and you never showed me any blasted—yowch! They’re stinging me!”
“This way!”
I take off at a sprint over the grass, the boy screaming behind me, the goat screaming behind him. We must look like a procession of mad idiots, charging over the fields: screaming boy, screaming goat, and me in my underwear.
On the goddess, if the apothecary shows up now I’ll have to go into the woods and never come out again.
“There!” I roar, pointing. “The pond is there! But wait, don’t come close—”
Too late.
He runs right past me, slapping me on the arm with his honey-drenched hand. “Thanks!”
With a whoop he leaps off the short dock and drops like a stone into the water.
The cloud of bees that had been chasing him swirls in confusion, then catch a whiff of honey.
As in, the honey now smeared on my arm.
Next thing I know, I’m the one screaming and running to the dock and hurling myself into the water.
The goat, it seems, is immune to bee stings.
I surface near the boy, grimacing from the burn of stings down my back and… other places.
“What’s the matter?” the boy asks, spouting water from his mouth. “Is the big, scary Arcanist afraid of a few little bees? You can battle ferocious monsters, but not little insects?”
“Cryptics don’t tend to scurry into your drawers and sting you in places the sun never shines,” I mutter.
“Fair point.”
“The next time I tell you not to climb the house, Mylas—” I bite my tongue, my heart skipping a beat.
Time itself skipping a beat.
“Mylas?” Rolan scoffs. “Who’s Mylas? Your last apprentice? The one you chopped up and fed to the Cryptics?”
“Yes,” I growl. “And unless you want to go the same way, stay off the roof.”
“I might,” he replies airily. “But how else are we going to get that honey? I don’t suppose you have any better ideas?”
“We’ll get it the right way. With smoke to lull the bees and a long pole to gently remove the hive. No stinging, no screaming, no falling off the roof and breaking your reckless neck.”
Rolan tilts his head. “Oh. Huh. Yeah, that does sound like a better idea. Well done, old man!”
He splashes me, so I splash him back harder. Then he laughs and floats away on his back.
“I cannot believe you never told me about this pond!”
The bees are still circling the dock, waiting for us to venture out. I sigh, remembering the laundry I was hanging, but there’s nothing for it now but to wait out the swarm.
I called him Mylas.
Mylas, my son.
I close my eyes and remember my boy, but find the memory blurred.
His face is growing fainter by the day, despite the portrait of him I keep locked away.
He’s slipping away from me more and more.
When he died, I froze myself, wanting nothing to change, fearing if I let myself move on, I would forget.
I became ice.
When I open my eyes, Rolan’s in front of me, only his nose and eyes above the water.
Then he bursts up and spews a fountain of water directly into my face before flinging himself away, cackling like a maniac.
On the dock, the goat baas, as if in laughter.
Goddess take them both. I roar and order Rolan back to the house, to an evening mucking out the horse’s stall as punishment.
And that’s the moment I decide.
I won’t send him back. I can’t. I know I swore I wouldn’t do this, that to keep him would be wrong. To condemn any boy to this lonely, dangerous life of mine is nothing less than selfish.
But truth take me, I love him. I love him like I loved my own son. And I know deep down, I need him as much as he needs me. I will show him the truth about relics and secrets, and then I’ll give him a choice. If he chooses to stay, I’ll make him my apprentice in truth and protect him as best I can.
I’ve spent the last twelve years chasing the man who killed my family.
Twelve years wasted on cold vengeance and anger and grief.
So long that, despite my best efforts, I’ve forgotten the face of the son I was avenging.
So long that I’ve forgotten that I, too, once liked to climb onto the rooftops and steal honey from the bees.
Then came this wild, broken boy. He’s made me remember. He forced me to see how alone I was. How broken. He’s melted the ice I packed around my heart, and let the light and warmth back in.
I don’t want to freeze again.