Letter IV (C.D. to F.M.)

My Dear Foofri,

I have quite a lot to tell you, but first, allow me to congratulate you on improving Lady Lucinda’s hat. I’m sorry she didn’t appreciate your efforts, but bun-snigger outings are overrated anyway.

After a lot of trouble figuring out the stage of the moon, I at last succeeded in translating those detestable runes. (The letter was already mysterious! Did he really have to encrypt it? Boys and their spy games!) It reads as follows:

Magi Cordelimaera,

I apologize for contacting you in this clandestine way, but it is necessary that any communication between us be kept absolutely secret. The return of the Suldan Stones threatens to upset the balance of power in the council. You are the Stones’ legal owner and, if the legend is true, the only person actually able to wield their power. As such, you are now in grave danger. Although it has been a long time since we met, I hope that your memory of the summer we spent together will remind you that I have a debt to pay. What happened that night was my fault, and I ask for the chance to atone. It will be best if any communication between us happens through your cousin. Please send any response to this letter via her.

Sincerely,
Sean Valerian

At least he didn’t insist on making it an anonymous letter as well! I do have a vague memory of a pesky boy who trailed us one of the summers we spent at Grandmother’s, but I have no idea what he means by paying a debt. (I suspect most of this fogginess is due to the forgetting spell we used to bind the secret oath of our Sisters of the Midnight Moon pact.) I’m also less than convinced by his ominous suggestion that I am in “grave danger.” I may be the Stones’ owner, but I’m not able to so much as breathe on them without Lastra’s permission, and I’m certain the rumor that only a “true Demestheln” can wield their power is a piece of superstitious nonsense. I doubt that this letter will reach you before you keep your dawn rendezvous, but if it does, you may tell Mr. Valerian that if he sends me anymore obnoxious coded letters, I shall report him to council security.

Speaking of Master Lastra, he summoned me yesterday to explain my absence from the council. Fortunately, I’d had time to think through my strategy, and I had decided to tell him the truth. (A daring but necessary move.)

When I arrived at Lastra’s office, he didn’t even invite me to sit down, but left me standing on the carpet in front of his desk as if I were a lowly Academy first year. He glowered at me from under those enormous eyebrows of his and said, “Magi, you were aware that you were summoned to give testimony at the last council? Your absence caused a great deal of inconvenience. I trust you were detained by nothing less than an emergency.”

I smiled. “Oh no, Master, it wasn’t an emergency.” I plunged into the story of my broom closet escapade, dwelling upon the greasiness of the count’s mustache as my motivation.

Lastra remained perfectly expressionless while I spoke, and even after I finished, he just sat there staring at me, until I was nearly ready to fall to my knees and beg his pardon. From his expression, I was expecting at least some sort of suspension of my council privileges, but what he actually said was, “You don’t deserve it, but for your grandfather’s sake, I will make an exception. See that it doesn’t happen again.”

I was surprised and relieved, of course, even more so when he added, “Another full council will not convene for three months. We will let your testimony rest until then, but as Head Councilman, I must ask whether you have any information which will assist our investigation into the disappearance and return of the Stones?”

I shook my head, and he let me go. I’d feel extremely grateful, if I didn’t know very well that Lastra always has an angle. If he doesn’t want me testifying now, it’s for his own reasons.

To be honest, I think he guessed there was more to my non-appearance than a broom closet, and I think you must have too, although you’ve been too kind to prod. I could have gotten out of that broom closet, even if I had gotten caught (goodness knows I’ve done worse), but I couldn’t bear the thought of standing in front of the entire council, gossiping and petty as it can be, and being grilled on those last few days before Grandfather died.

It’s true that I don’t have any information that would aid the investigation, but I think that Grandfather tried to give me some. I didn’t really think it through at the time, but now that everyone is talking about the Stones, the Stones, and nothing but the Stones (and I don’t even know what they’re supposed to do, and I’m not just saying that because I’ve been sworn to state secrecy), I’ve seen his words in a different light.

You know that his mind was wandering with the fever those last two days (and I can never thank you enough for staying with me), but when the hour of his death drew close, he had a few minutes of clarity. He told me that he loved me, and then, because I was crying pretty hard, he said, “No tears, Cora. Always more trouble than they’re worth.” I thought he was telling me to stop crying, but he added, “I’d have given my life not to see them come back. And now they’re yours, poor child.” He began to slip away from me then, but as his eyes slid shut, he whispered, “He’ll tell you, when it’s time.”

I had thought he was wandering in his mind again, but now I can’t help but wonder if he was talking about the Stones. He’d been so ill, that I hadn’t thought he had even heard the news (I certainly hadn’t troubled him with it). But perhaps he was thinking of them and the trouble they’d cause, and he meant that since he wouldn’t be around to pass on the family secret, somebody else would have to do it. I suppose he meant Master Lastra, who is bound to know if anyone does.

Well, if that is what Grandfather meant, he was right. I’m feeling quite put out with my notorious relative. If Uncle Sedgwick had to disappear with the Stones and throw the whole family under suspicion of treason, you would think he would have the decency to make certain they never resurfaced to muddle the lives of his innocent descendants. If he had to be a thief, why couldn’t he have been a good one?

Write at once and tell me what fairy tale Sean Valerian has tried to feed you. (I’ll look in the attic for our SMM secret club papers. Mysterious young man or no, we probably shouldn’t be walking around with amateur memory spells in our heads.)

Affectionately,
Cordy

P.S. Congratulations on the success of your mirror experiment! I know you weren’t expecting a muse, but he might continue to be as useful as he has already been. I admit I feel much better about your early morning rendezvous with the dubious Sean Valerian knowing that you’ve mastered such a practical spell. (And yes, as I’ve long suspected, you do have a sense of humor.)