Wildflower

Chapter Twenty-Three #2

The woman checks behind her again. “Alrick told us to contact them immediately if you’re seen. What did you do?”

“Nothing! I mean, I accidentally stabbed this darling princess here,” Will explains, “but as you can see, she’s fine. Well, she keeps insisting that she’s fine.”

I twitch my fingers in a wave.

“Um, hello,” I say.

“There are already guards posted along the border to Alrick, thanks to you, and this is a library, not a battleground,” Hanya says.

She shakes her head so her silver fringe dances side to side.

“In all my time here, I’ve never heard of a kingdom so suddenly interfering with the Library. You must have really crossed the line.”

“Hanya, come on, you’ve known me since I was a child. I’m harmless!”

She sighs at Will—something I get the feeling she’s done a lot over the years.

“Right…Well. Good luck on whatever nonsense you’re up to. Not that I said that. Do not get me involved.” She twirls a hand under her books again. “And when you’re done being a wanted criminal, I’d better see you back here in classes again. You never finished your alchemy assignment.”

Hanya shakes her head one last time and disappears into the misty shimmers.

Voices come from behind us. People we should avoid. People that might snitch on Will. Not all might be as friendly as Hanya.

“Come on,” I say.

We stride down the aisles, slightly faster than before, slightly more on edge. Soon enough, we stop at a wooden door nestled between bookshelves. The nameplate reads Keeper Einar.

“What’s a Keeper?” I ask. There’s so much about this place I don’t know, it’s overwhelming. I’m starting to feel like I’m caught in the same current that dragged Pigeon away.

“The Keeper is the highest position at the Library. It’s like a head teacher of sorts. If anyone knows about the flowers, it’s him.”

Our eyes meet as Will lifts his knuckles. After Hanya’s reaction, I can tell his belief in finding help here has been shaken. But we’ve come all this way. There’s no going back. He waits for me to take a deep breath, to nod. Then he knocks on the door.

“Enter,” a voice from within calls, and the door magically opens.

Will and I set foot in a square office lined with navy star-covered wallpaper that stretches over the ceiling.

The constellations float across it slowly as if moving in real time, but I don’t get much chance to study it because a stocky old man behind a cluttered rosewood desk springs to his feet.

It’s the professor I caught a glimpse of in Will’s memory—the one who told him he had such potential.

The man rushes around the desk to take Will’s shoulders in ink-stained hands.

His robes are similar to Hanya’s, with his own twist of long bell sleeves.

A curious bronze pin in the shape of an open book with a sword thrust down the spine rests over his heart.

“Willoh!” the old man says, eyes wrinkling.

“Hey, Prof. Bad time?” Will attempts a grin.

“For you, Willoh, never,” he says. “Please.”

Relief sweeps over both Will and me as the Keeper ushers us to two plush chairs in front of his desk. Once seated, the old man smiles at me.

“Hello, I’m Keeper Einar. Welcome to the Library of Heris.”

“Felicity,” I say. “Nice to meet you.”

Will crosses an ankle over his knee. “This isn’t a social visit unfortunately.”

“Nevertheless, I am glad to see you. How long has it been since I’ve had you in my office? It must be…?”

“Three years.”

Keeper Einar settles in his tall-backed chair opposite us and presses his fingertips together. His expression is a crestfallen wave.

“Willoh, I must admit, I received a rather alarming message from Alrick recently concerning you. It was supposed to be kept a secret between the professors, but you know how this place is—everyone knew before nightfall. However, I’m certain there is a reasonable explanation.

Is that why you came? To seek sanctuary? ”

“To seek answers,” Will says, and taps a finger on his leg. “The warrant you heard about is legit, but unimportant for now.”

“Unimportant? Willoh, they told us to hand you over, dead or alive. I’ve never heard such a request! Here of all places. As if we’d break a thousand years of neutrality.”

“I’m sure it’ll blow over. Fliss has questions,” he says, gesturing in my direction.

The Keeper looks at me, a piercing study that has me clutching my hands in my lap. “Questions, my dear?”

“I collected some rare flowers, and we want to know what they could be used for…” I trail off, nervous now that I’m here.

“Please, go on.”

“There are three—the Feiyan, Odyssa, and Lunarie. I collected them over the past month and a half and delivered them unknowingly to the queen of Alrick.” Now that I’ve started talking about flowers, my confidence blooms. “I’m familiar with the magic of flowers, but these three were the most powerful I’ve ever come across and there’s very little information about them available.

We have reason to believe that they’ll be used together at the prince of Alrick’s wedding ceremony tomorrow.

Is there anything you can tell us about them? ”

Keeper Einar hums thoughtfully.

“Those flowers certainly are rare…. How curious that they bloomed at the same time. Sometimes decades pass without so much as a bud, then the gods give life to all three at once.” He leans his wrinkled chin on his fingertips and studies me.

“You’re right that these particular flowers have incredibly potent magic, but what’s not widely known is that not just anyone can find them.

Yes, we have information about their locations in books here, but knowing is one thing.

Doing so is much different. In fact, even if one were to find them, it would be a trial for most to remove them from their soil.

You must have a strong affinity for botany, Felicity, to have found and retrieved them. ”

“They felt no harder to pick than any other flower for me,” I say. Sure, getting to their locations had been a near-impossible feat combined with luck and stubbornness, but actually removing them had been the easiest part.

The Keeper smiles.

“Only those with the deepest respect for the flowers, who do not wish to use their power for personal gain, are able to pick them. It sounds like you were most suited to do so.”

His words are meant as a compliment, but my heart sinks.

Morgana couldn’t have collected the flowers herself.

She’d said in the physician’s room that she’d been impressed I had found the Odyssa.

That most usually…perished. That I’d done what they needed me for.

Gods, they’d used me knowing I’d be betraying the thing I love most.

“So what do they do? Together? If you use them?” I ask, my head buzzing.

“Simply put,” Keeper Einar says, “the Feiyan, Odyssa, and Lunarie form a cycle. They’re a sequence, a rhythm that represents the movement of time—of the day.”

“I felt that,” I say. “The Feiyan is daytime, the sun. The Odyssa grew in a pair and felt like…like the in-between, like dawn and dusk, sunrise and sunset.”

The Keeper nods, and if I’m not wrong, purses his mouth, impressed.

“And the Lunarie?” he prompts.

“The night. The moon’s glow. The energy that lies in darkness.”

“That’s correct. Put together in order, the Feiyan in the north, Odyssa to the east and west, and Lunarie in the south, they create a forever moving circle, an unbreakable loop, just like the cycle of days.

Circles are often used in magic to amplify, as they’re an incredibly powerful conduit.

A spell with those ingredients certainly would be impressive, dangerous even.

You say they will be used at the prince’s wedding tomorrow? Hmm…”

He pauses, deep in thought.

“I wonder…The flowers and the ceremony…I suppose the queen has always been extremely perturbed about her son’s curse. Perhaps that is connected somehow…”

There’s a beat of silence where I think Will stops breathing.

I grip the arms of my chair.

“I’m sorry, did you just say Bash is cursed? Prince Bastion?” I ask.

Keeper Einar nods.

“Oh…” Will exhales.

He turns to me, pale, awash with shock.

“That’s what they meant,” he says. “My parents always said the wards around our house were so the queen couldn’t find it. It makes sense now—the queen wanted Mum to try and remove Bash’s curse, and after what happened when she tried to remove yours, Mum must have refused.”

“I thought you and the prince used to be friends, Willoh,” Keeper Einar says. “With your level of magic, couldn’t you feel it?”

Will slumps in his chair. He’s drawn out, a world away, eyes flickering like he’s scanning a library of memories. “I just…I didn’t think…”

“So, what is it? His curse?” I ask.

“The prince’s curse renders him unable to use magic of any kind, not even the most basic of hedge magic.

In Calla, even those who are born with a low level of magic ability can study and improve their skill if desired, so a complete absence of magic is highly unusual—near impossible, in fact.

When the prince was an infant, he failed to display the early signs of magic intuition often found within the royal line, so the queen sent for me.

Upon examination, I discovered a strong—and unremovable—curse blocking and repelling any use of magic, fixed in chains around his wrists.

I told the queen my results, but I fear my assessment of her son offended her.

Since then, communication between Alrick and the Library has diminished greatly.

Even when we sent inquiries about the situation developing in the kingdom’s northern forest, the queen prohibited any of our researchers from investigating. ”

I blink away the spots in my vision.

“The tree,” I say, recalling the flash of green I’d seen around Bash’s wrists in Will’s memory. “Bash tried to gain a boost of magic from the oak tree, and it backfired. It didn’t work because of his curse.”

Ruth’s words echo in my mind: Curses cannot be broken easily, least of all without significant sacrifice. Her bid to heal my curse damaged her eyesight.

For Bash, the north was the payment. The health of the forest and the livelihood of Pigeon’s family. That was the consequence of his failed attempt.

If the queen and Morgana plan to use the flowers to remove Bash’s curse at the ceremony tomorrow, what will be the price? What will be sacrificed this time?

“Now, I’m not personally familiar with any specific spells, especially not dark magic ones, that the flowers are used for,” Keeper Einar says.

“Lady Morgana is the expert on such subjects. Luckily for you, she got back from Berian yesterday, but she never stays long, so you’ll have to try and catch her before she leaves. ”

My blood runs cold. An ice bath of fear.

“S-Sorry,” I stammer. “Morgana is here? Now?”

“Oh, are you acquainted? She’s had a residency since she was a postgraduate student.

Not that I see her much—she’s forever off traveling around the kingdom for her research projects.

But she’s an expert on exotic flora and has written extremely detailed papers on dark curses, including those similar to the prince’s.

I recommend you speak with her. You can find her in the northwest tower.

Just knock on the door; she should be in. ”

“Hang on—she wrote about curses?” Will asks. “She submitted those papers to the archives?”

“Yes, I’ve read a few myself. They were very intriguing. Most of them center around a spoiled spell that corrupted over time into dark magic. Apparently it can manifest through generations. She certainly sees all sorts of things on her travels.”

I feel like I’ve been plunged into the ground.

She wrote about me.

“Oh, I’m sure,” Will says, his jaw taut with a rare anger. “Considering she was the one to cast it.”

Keeper Einar’s eyebrows disappear.

“Willoh. That…That is a very serious accusation. The use of dark magic is strictly forbidden to any who wish to stay here. I admit, Lady Morgana can sometimes be…vigorous in her approaches, but she’s supplied this library with keen research.”

“It’s the truth.” He spits it in such a way that I have to strain to keep my lips from wobbling. “Never mind. We don’t have time. Fliss, let’s go.”

I take Will’s hand and use him to find my balance.

The Keeper of the Library doesn’t know. He doesn’t know that Morgana cast her spell on my parents and passed it down to me.

The person with the highest possible position in the most knowledgeable place in all of Calla doesn’t know.

All this time, she’s been benefiting from research and academic papers about me.

My curse. My life. While I carried the weight of it.

“Sir, thank you for your help,” Will says politely, and grips the back of my coat.

Their further farewells sail past my ears as I follow Will blindly to the exit.

The queen and Morgana. Hand in hand, like Mum said.

Did the queen feed Morgana details about me?

Were those chats the queen and I had in her chambers another ground for Morgana to snoop, to dig for data?

I’ve long been the queen’s tool. Her snitch.

Now I find out that I’m also a test subject in an archived paper that anyone can read.

The door to the office closes behind us, and Will looks at me sharply. The marble at our feet swirls, waiting.

“Where to, Fliss? What do you want to do?”

She’s here. She’s caused too much harm already. She’s hidden in the shadows and laughed at our misfortune. We have to stop her. She can’t make it to the wedding. If we cut her off here, if we get the truth out of her now, we can avoid taking the fight to the citadel.

The silver marble sharpens toward our next destination: toward the northwest tower, toward Morgana, the sorcerer who cursed me.