Chapter Twenty-Four
The bookshelves and sparkles stop suddenly in front of an enclosed spiral staircase. Gray-stone steps lie ahead, illuminated by intricate black torches of magical firelight. The air is quiet and dry here, like it’s not permitted to breathe.
“Up we go,” Will says.
I follow him with growing anxiety as the homely mumbles of the library fade farther and farther away.
My entire life I’ve tried to shoulder the burden Morgana gave me, and sometimes, I managed.
Sometimes, there was a lull. I was able to blindly make it through the day without torment—days when I made bouquets and didn’t squabble with my mum, when Card and I took long walks in the countryside and I could unwind. I could relax. I could stay silent.
Then I’d turn a corner, hit a step, be dragged into a conversation, and the heaviness would slam me into submission.
No matter what, the truth was always needed.
People were always telling lies that needed my verification.
The queen was always calling me. I was constantly reminded that I’m trapped.
I’m cursed. That tight pinch in my throat will always be there.
And the person at fault is right up these stairs.
After passing a few other chambers, we stop at a mahogany door with black gemstones embossed in the surface. Will inspects a large gargoyle door handle beside a nameplate with Morgana’s name on it.
“Einar said to just…knock, right? I mean, should we go in with some kind of plan?” he asks.
My teeth have begun chattering so all I can do is nod for him to go ahead. I can barely hear my own thoughts, let alone scramble together a strategy. I’ve spent my life imagining Morgana as a clouded mystery. Whatever woman waits behind these doors is inconceivable.
Will raps against the wood.
There’s no call from the other side, no sign of life.
“Uh, okay. Maybe we just…?” He shapes his hands into a sphere like he’s preparing to use a spell. “If she’s not here, we could see if she’s left anything behind?”
“Trap?” I manage to say.
“Good point.”
Will flicks his fingers. With a glow of white magic, he traces the doorframe carefully, as if he’s checking for the thinnest of hairs, until he confidently takes the handle.
A spell flashes, and with a click, the door creaks open.
Almost at once, the sweetness of fresh flowers mixed with the sour, aged scent of soil wafts out.
“Nothing out of the ordinary,” he says. “Although, if she was hiding something, she wouldn’t want it to be obvious to the other residents.”
Will goes in first, his steps slow and quiet.
We find ourselves in a small antechamber with an open doorway on either side of the room.
In front of us is a tall stained-glass window of a castle under a full moon that casts colors on our feet as we move farther in.
It’s warm and humid, like the inside of my greenhouse.
Despite that, I hug my arms to myself while Will peeks his head into the room on the right.
“This looks like her bedroom. I don’t think she’s here,” Will says.
I go through the door on the left into a wide study adorned with purple drapes and unlit glass lanterns, each step a silent vigilance.
Anything here could be a hidden danger. To the right is another window, this one clear and facing northwest, with a view of the now setting sun.
On a clear day, I imagine you can see all the way to Alrick Citadel.
Not today. Before the window sits a work desk overflowing with books, vials, goblets, metal accessories, and various ornate instruments I’ve never seen before, while around the rest of the room, bookshelves hold roughly shoved-in scrolls of parchment and collections of plants—only some of which I recognize.
It seems Morgana doesn’t share Ruth’s organizational skills.
I tiptoe over to a hanging vine and restrain myself from caressing the leaf, unable to trust its safety.
Will heads toward the desk and flicks the corners of a few stacked documents.
“To be honest, Fliss, I don’t know what to look for,” he says.
“Let’s think about what we know,” I say, turning around the room. “Morgana was the one who found the spell Bash used on the tree. She knows he’s cursed, as does the queen.”
“Bash definitely doesn’t know,” Will says with a frown. “It’s like it’s…concealed magic. Like how I only felt your curse when I actively searched your throat.”
“Right. It could make sense that the queen asked Morgana to break Bash’s curse, just like she asked your mum, and after years of research, Morgana suggested using the oak tree.
I think it was just timing and coincidence that pushed Bash to try the spell by himself.
When that didn’t work, what would the queen do? ”
Will scans a bookshelf for anything amiss, a finger trailing a line of dust.
“Try something else?”
“I imagine spells that break curses are hard to come by. I wonder if that’s why Morgana travels so much—she could be searching all eight kingdoms for a cure,” I say, and sigh.
“But at the same time, I think it’s plausible to assume Morgana was the one who cursed Bash in the first place—who else would have?
So if that’s the case, why is she trying to undo it?
Why would she go to such great lengths for the queen but not my mother?
If it happened around the same time I was born, it would mean she placed two curses on two friends’ children in a very short time frame. ”
“I was thinking the same thing. It’s strange.”
I pause in the corner of the room where a portrait-sized mirror hangs on the wall.
Below it is a metal stool holding a thin box covered in a black velvet cloth, several goblets with dregs of wine and tea, and a pot containing a shriveled flytrap.
The spikes on the lobes may look spent, but I know better than to trust it.
Deceit, deception. Lies. That’s what the flytrap’s magic sings.
“It’s more than likely that the flowers are going to be used at the wedding to try and break Bash’s curse,” I say. “He’s complained so many times about his mother nagging him. He said that she seems to think he’s useless without magic, despite having other skills.”
Will hums in agreement. “Yeah, he’s said something along the same lines to me.”
“No wonder he gets so worked up about your magical abilities. You’re flaunting his biggest weakness.”
In the reflection of the mirror, Will tears his eyes away from the bookshelf he was inspecting to grin at me.
“And I have great fun doing so,” he says, then adds, “although I admit there have been too many broken windows and roofs for my conscience to be fully clear.”
“I just don’t understand why Bash not having magic is such a terrible thing? Card doesn’t care about magic and he’s one of the smartest people I know. Yes, he is; don’t give me that look.”
I glance down at the flytrap on the table. Morgana should water it more. My attention is pulled to the cloth-covered box beside it. The velvet hasn’t gathered any dust, so I assume it’s been moved recently to study the item underneath.
“I can feel something magical over here,” Will says, wandering over. “Found anything?”
“I think it’s this,” I say, pointing to the cloth.
He sends a flurry of wind to whisk away the black velvet, and my heart shoots to my throat. All at once, the air turns stale. An unsettling disturbance radiates around the room as an open book stares up at us, calling out to be read, wanting to be held. To be trusted.
It’s lying.
Will grabs my hand quickly.
“Don’t touch it,” he warns. He takes a breath like his chest is being crushed.
“Are you okay?”
There’s a flicker behind his eyes that throws me back to the dungeons. The way he flinched away from me, afraid of how much damage he could do. Afraid of himself.
“Fliss, this book. It’s dark magic,” Will says shakily. It’s not often I see him so unnerved, and it terrifies me. “Sometimes books like this…they’re more than words. They’re magic itself. They corrupt and enchant and whisper in your ear until you’re lost to madness.”
The late-afternoon sun hides behind a cloud and the study turns gray. The energy pouring from the book is an itch under my skin. But we have to know what it says. I’m already cursed. What more can it do to me?
I surrender to the call and eye the yellowed pages, dog-eared and wrinkled from age.
An inked illustration tempts me closer and sets my heart alight.
There, in carefully painted strokes, are my flowers: Feiyan at the peak, Odyssa on the left and right, and Lunarie at the bottom, linked with intertwining patterns and words in an unknown language.
It’s just as Keeper Einar said. It’s a cycle, a conduit.
“Will, I think this is it! I can’t read it, but Card probably knows this language. We should take it with us!”
He grimaces at the wall in refusal.
“We really shouldn’t touch it…” he says tightly, like he’s forcing himself to resist. “I…I shouldn’t read it. I…Oh, fuck you, Bash.”
Will crouches forward and scans the page. I hang on to his sleeve, teeth clenched painfully. The seconds stifle me like I’m deep underwater.
“Fliss,” Will says.
His expression cracks.
He takes a few steps away from the book, out of my grasp, out of reach.
“What is it? What did it say?”
He rubs the tips of his fingers over his forehead and shudders like he’s reeling from a punch.
“Will,” I plead.
Will turns to me with a smile that breaks my heart. He’s forcing it. He’s trying to be brave. His eyes are glossy and strained, his spine stiff.
“It’s…Fliss, it’s possible. It’s instructions on how to break a curse.”