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

Dear Foofri,

I have not yet received your letter, but hope that Muse will not linger overlong at his family reunion. Too much has happened here to delay writing it down, now that I have a moment.

As soon as I had dispatched Muse with my last letter and your munches, I slipped back over the wall to Winterfast. Although I had planned to snatch at least a couple of hours of sleep, I found myself far too keyed up to lie down. So instead I got dressed, patted a little invisibility powder on the shadows under my eyes, and dashed off to the Justicum to register my new house security. I had to move back home as soon as possible, and since Damorin’s stipulation was that I reinvent my wards, I hoped that Muse and I had been able to do just that. I got there fifteen minutes before the Imperial City Magic Patents office opened. (And frankly, it’s ridiculous that I’m not allowed to alter my own property spells without registering it! Bureaucracy!)

I practically pounced on the little old clerk when she made her appearance (two minutes late). And then I stood by the counter trying not to drum my fingers while she hung up her hat and pulled out her spectacles.

She began to read through the plans, and pretty soon she started making little interested noises like “Hmmm,” and “My, my,” and once “Ooh!” I hoped this was good, and as it turned out, it was. When she had at last finished reading, she was positively flushed with excitement. “Such an inventive use of the allowed security permutations!” she enthused. “Just between us, my dear, it’s one of the best I’ve ever seen. One of the best!” She actually patted my cheek before toddling off to get my file and her official seal.

I admit, I’d worried a little bit about some of Muse’s more original flourishes, but clearly I needn’t have. When this adventure is over, perhaps you could get rid of him by encouraging him to set up his own security firm.

The clerk came back looking anxious. “Oh dear, Magi, I’m afraid there’s been a hold placed on your file. I’m not authorized to allow any changes to your property.”

“Magi Ardaya?” I asked in resignation.

She nodded. “I’m afraid you need his signature. After that, I’ll process you right through. Priority.”

She looked so apologetic that I couldn’t show my frustration. Instead I smiled hopefully. “I don’t suppose you know whether he’s in the Justicum?” I knew that the Patent office must have access to the Justicum Locating System. It’s only supposed to be for official business, but she brightened immediately.

“Just between us, I’ll check,” she twittered, and darted away. A minute later she was back and beaming. “He’s in his office!” she chirped.

“Thank you!” I called, already running out of the office. If Damorin left his office before I could get there, finding him quickly would be impossible.

Despite my hurry, I took a moment to gather my composure. As I’m sure you can imagine, I felt a bit nervous about meeting him so soon after what had happened the night before at the ball. But I needed his approval of my new security before I could move back home, unless I wanted Justicum guards barging in again. With my luck, they would show up just as I was on the verge of figuring out how to use the Stones, and then I really would be under arrest instead of protective custody.

Reminding myself not to sound overly urgent lest my sudden and immediate desire to move home raise suspicion, I knocked firmly on the door. There was no answer.

Cursing my luck, I contemplated my options. I could take my best guess and try chasing after Damorin. I could go back to the office and beg the clerk to take another peek at the JLS. Or I could see whether the temporary password Damorin had given me when I was his apprentice still worked and slip into his office to check his appointment book.

It really wasn’t much of a choice. I wrapped my hand around the doorknob and muttered the word. The lock clicked and the door swung open. Exhaling in relief, I stepped forward and froze. Damorin was there, and he was not alone. Ameliorene lifted her tear stained face from his chest and looked at me.

After a brief moment of shock (and I don’t know why I was so shocked), I overcame my first impulse to slam the door and run away and said brightly, “So sorry to interrupt, but if I could just get your signature, Master.” I waved my plans at them.

He gently pushed Ameliorene to one side as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. “How can I help you, Magi?” he asked, coming forward.

I was suddenly blazingly angry. “Sign here,” I snapped jabbing at the appropriate line.

Of course he took the plans and flipped back to page one, leaning against the doorframe as he read. After a minute, Ameliorene slipped past us. For the first time in my life, I felt sorry for her as I watched her go. I wouldn’t have thought Damorin even noticed her departure, except that he swung the door shut behind her.

When he’d finished reading through the security plans, he looked at me and simply asked, “Underwear?”

“It’s innovative and highly effective,” I said stiffly. Actually, I think that spell must be a staple of Muse’s. I did try to talk him out of running it as a trip wire around the property, but he pointed out that no one would be prepared to guard against it, so I had to give in.

“You didn’t write all this yourself,” he stated, rather than asked.

“No, I had help from a Muse.”

“Your Muse?”

“My cousin’s,” I said coolly.

“So that’s how you’ve been communicating.” We locked gazes, and then he smiled. “And Valerian swore up and down he could handle a single schoolgirl. I wish I could see his face when he finally notices the wool over his eyes.”

I thought about the Suldan Stones at home and the wool that was hopefully in place over a certain sparkly somebody’s eyes. “You’re not angry that we’ve been writing letters?” I asked cautiously.

“Why should I be?”

“Well, you’ve been upset over everything else I’ve done,” I said frankly.

His smile faded, and he regarded me with an expression I couldn’t quite identify. “Cordelimaera—”

“Are you going to sign that or not?” I demanded, fairly sure I didn’t want to hear whatever he was about to say.

He signed it without saying anything else. “Thank you,” I muttered, practically snatching it out of his hand, and then I hustled out the door and down the hall.

But I didn’t get very far. A door just in front of me was flung open, and I had to skid to a stop to avoid running into Ameliorene. At first I thought it was just an unhappy coincidence, that she’d ducked into an empty office to finish crying. But all traces of her tears had disappeared, and she looked as beautiful and composed as a marble statue. “May I have a word with you, Magi?”

There were about three billion things I would rather have done, but I wasn’t quite reckless enough (yet) to deliberately provoke a royal.

I followed her into the office and braced myself, but her first question was the last thing I would have expected. “Your mother died when you were very young, is that right?”

“Yes,” I said, momentarily bewildered.

“The reason I ask,” she began, turning from closing the door to face me, “is that there are things you should have learned from a woman’s guiding hand. Really, you’re hardly to blame.” She said it reassuringly, as though I’d come to her for advice.

“I don’t follow you,” I said, although I had a sudden suspicion about where she was taking this.

“When you throw yourself at a man, well, you only make yourself ridiculous.” Her voice was so sweet, that anyone not looking into her icy blue eyes would have thought she actually cared about me.

“You’re angry because Damorin kissed me last night,” I said. “Well I can tell you that it wasn’t my idea. If you don’t like it, take it up with him.” I tried to leave, but she wouldn’t step away from the door.

She’d lost her calm expression, though, and her voice shook a little as she accused, “You tricked him!”

“How?” I asked innocently. “Do you actually think he thought I was you?”

Her face went white, except for two blazing spots of color in her cheeks. “Stay away from him!”

This would have been a good point to tell her she was welcome to him. After all, why would I be interested in a man who comforted one woman in the privacy of his office less than twelve hours after passionately kissing another? But I was too blindingly furious to think straight. I sighed, affecting weariness. “If only he would let me.”

Her hand flew up, and I thought she was going to slap me. But she stopped it at the last second, and instead rested one finger on my cheek. I refused to flinch.

Her anger was gone, and she was simply cold as she said, “I want Damorin Ardaya. I will have him. And no disreputable little flirt is going to stand in my way.” She drew her finger suddenly down, and I felt her sharp nail slice my cheek.

I wish I could say the reason I didn’t punch her in the nose was because I refused to sink to her level. Actually, I happened to remember that assaulting a royal is grounds for banishment. “Excuse me,” I said with exaggerated politeness and stepped around her, then out the door.

After getting the official seal on my security plans, I took a taxi straight back to my house, not bothering to go to Winterfast to collect my things. I could have them sent over later. Right now, the only things that mattered were the Suldan Stones.

All alone in the house (I’d given the staff a holiday after I’d moved to Winterfast), I went into the workroom and pulled out the pouch that had been hanging around my neck, underneath my robes. Untying the drawstring, I took a deep breath and emptied the contents into a silver dish.

Five gray pebbles, just smaller than the tip of my little finger, rattled into the plate. I hadn’t had any definite picture in mind, but even after seeing the small size of the pouch, I couldn’t help expecting something more spectacular. I feared I’d fallen prey to another of the Masters’ decoys and that all the work (and accompanying drama) of the last twenty-four hours had been for naught.

I found I had absolutely no idea of what to do next. I’d been counting on the Stones themselves to give me a clue. Usually, a magical tool gives you a clue about what you’re supposed to do with it. You look into a magic mirror, you put a magic ring on your finger, you eat a magic mushroom. But what do you do with a handful of pebbles?

I picked one up and rolled it around in my palm. It looked and felt like an ordinary rock. “I wish Muse was here,” I muttered.

Suddenly, I smelled a hint of smoke. Alarmed, I replaced the Stone and turned to investigate, but the odor had disappeared completely. Feeling jumpy, I double checked the closest strands of my new security wards, but nothing had been disturbed.

I returned to the workroom and selected another of the Stones. If Muse were here, I thought ruefully, I would actually welcome his stream of endless information. Surely centuries of experience would have given him some ideas. And as if my wish had summoned him into being I heard his unmistakable voice say, “Not a position for publicity of course, but I still feel…” I spun around, still grasping the pebble but the room held no one but myself. “…brilliant young mind, she already holds a position of importance in the council,” Muse said, and I stared at the Stone in my hand with growing comprehension.

I reached into the basin and picked up the Stone I had held previously. Once again the smell smoke filled my nostrils, but this time it was chokingly thick and loaded with incense. A voice I did not know coughed and said irritably, “Where does Rasputin get off? That entrance was flashy
enough to set the room on fire!”

A third Stone was in my hand and I felt the tile beneath my feet fade to lushly piled carpet and my eyes began to water from invisible haze. With the fourth Stone your muse at last came into view, sipping from a long stemmed goblet and talking to another creature who might have been his twin if judged by noses. The unknown was glaring very hard at someone or
something across the decidedly foggy room. I picked up the last Stone and the tang of smoke and incense rested on my tongue.

Our muse’s voice once again made itself heard above the general hubbub of a room filled with his floating, eating, drinking, bragging relatives. “Magi Fofricianabelle has, of course, not yet finished her education, but she already exhibits amazing promise in talent, not to mention that she is practically engaged to one of the leading men in that magical revolution taking place in the Outskirts. And as far as personal charm goes, there’s really no comparison between the cousins. The younger is the most amiable and courteous…”

I laughed out loud, then froze, instinctively afraid I’d given my presence away, but no one so much as looked in my direction. Muse kept bragging about us to his bored looking relative, and I began to explore his family reunion.

It was like I was there, Foof! I couldn’t alter the appearance of anything, as I discovered after experimenting with a plate of honey tarts on the buffet, but I could lick them and enjoy the taste of the chocolate drizzle on the top. I could sink into a pile of luxurious cushions and appreciate their softness even though I made no indentation on their surface. (It was a bit awkward when one muse, so fat he found levitation a bother, sat right on top of me, but I wiggled out and he never knew the difference.)

I had been there perhaps ten minutes when I noticed the voices seemed to be getting shriller. Rapidly, before I quite realized what was happening, the room rushed in against my senses—I was blinded by the colors, drowning in the softness of the carpet, saturated in the sweetness of the smoke. I felt my mind expanding to take it all in, stretching unbearably. I was lost in a terrifying circus of awareness; I was becoming my sensations.

Somehow I knew that if I couldn’t stop this, I would never be myself again. In another moment I would lose my sanity. With a final defiance of will, the last particle of me that was still Cordelimaera, I remembered my own hand. Forcing open my fingers, I dropped the Stones.

I don’t know how much time passed before I regained consciousness. I couldn’t remember why I was lying on the floor or why my head hurt so much. I sat up and opened my eyes and immediately regretted it. The room swam sickeningly and I promptly passed out again.

I was lying chained hand and foot in the palace dungeon. Princess Ameliorene was repeatedly banging my head with a jar full of turquoise fireflies. Gradually I realized I was still lying on the floor of my workroom, somebody was knocking with great insistence on the front door and
the butler was on holiday. If I had been one whit more coherent I would have let whoever it was knock themselves into the Outskirts, but all I could think of was that I had to make that awful pounding stop. I had to answer the door.

The walls did their swirling act again as I staggered up, but steadied when I grasped the edge of the table. They remained still until I took a hesitant step toward the doorway. I made it as far as the hallway before the ripple of the floor grew to tossing waves, and I clutched the doorsill,
helpless to advance any further. The knocking, to my great relief, suddenly ceased. But it was only seconds before a violent snap and an acrid scent filled the air. I realized someone was breaking through the security spells, but stopping whoever-it-was was about as possible as walking in a straight line. Colorful swirls were dancing before my eyes when I heard the
final wards give way and slam the door open. I stood swaying and thought I heard a faint cry before I blacked out yet again.

This time when I came to, my surroundings were soft and warm. I opened my eyes and saw the well worn furnishings of Grandfather’s study lit by a comforting glow. I was lying on the broad sofa where Grandfather used to do his “deep thinking,” and a fire crackled cheerfully on the hearth. I lay quietly, until I remembered everything that had happened.

I was left with two impressions. In the first place I felt peeved that I’d wasted what might be my only chance with the Stones to watch the Muse and his obnoxious relatives. And second, I wondered just exactly how much trouble I was in and whether what I’d done actually qualified as a crime.

I wasn’t going to get any answers lying on the sofa. Moving carefully, I stood up and went to look for Damorin. (I could think of only two people who would break down my front door. The first was whoever was trying to kill me. Since I wasn’t dead, I supposed it had to be him.)

I found him in the kitchen, stirring a saucepan. I was leaning against the doorway, trying to catch my breath, when he saw me. “Cora!” With an expression of concern he crossed to take my arm. “You shouldn’t have gotten up.”

I leaned on him gratefully as we walked to the table. Although the floor was now steady (mostly) I felt very weak.

“How do you feel?”

“Awful but better,” I admitted.

He took my wrist and felt my pulse before going back to the stove. A minute or two later he set a bowl in front of me. “Here.”

With memories of a recently unfriendly stomach I eyed it doubtfully. “There are pieces of dead chicken floating in there.”

“Eat,” he ordered.

I forced down a few bites, and then it seemed to taste better and I realized I was hungry. “I didn’t know you could cook,” I said, when I had finished.

He smiled, a little wryly. “That’s the only thing I know how to make.”

“I almost flunked domestic magic,” I confessed. “I kept setting the kitchenette on fire.”

He laughed at that, and so did I. It was oddly serene moment, considering all that had happened.

“How are you feeling?” he asked again.

“Much better,” I declared, trying to sound cheerful.

“Tell me what happened.”

Too late, I wished I’d played up my lingering headache. “I picked up the Stones and—”

“From the beginning,” he interrupted. “Tell me how you got them out of the vault.”

“Foofri’s muse,” I sighed, and told him the whole story, beginning with my first trip to the vault to collect my jewelry and scan the catalogue. “And then I went back to the ball.” I stopped abruptly. He knew what had happened after that.

He had watched me intently during the recital, and now his gray gaze didn’t waver as he asked, “Before you met me, were you running away from someone?”

“Just Jamin,” I said hastily, relieved the question was no more awkward.

“Why?”

“Because … well …” It was harder to answer than I’d realized. “Because I didn’t want him to kiss me,” would have been the most truthful, but if I said that, then maybe Damorin would think his kiss had been a welcome exchange, which I wasn’t sure that I wanted him to think. But I wasn’t sure I didn’t want him to think it either. “Does it matter?” I temporized, avoiding his gaze.

To my relief, he didn’t pursue the issue, but took my empty bowl over to the sink. He didn’t return to his chair but stood by the window, looking out across the dark gardens. “What happened after I saw you this morning?”

“After I came home,” I began, censoring certain other events of that morning, “I took the Stones into the workroom. I emptied them out of their bag, and then … I didn’t know what to do. They were so utterly unlike anything I’d been expecting. I was wishing Muse—”

“The one who helped you steal them?”

“Who helped me borrow them,” I corrected. “And, well, that was all it took. It was incredible. I could see, hear, taste, smell, feel …” I trailed off, remembering the incredible vividness of the experience.

He was looking at me now, and not out the window. “How many of the Stones did you use?”

I shrugged. “All of them.”

He stared at me for a long moment, but it wasn’t until he spoke that I realized how angry he was. “You stupid girl, nobody is supposed to use all five at once.”

“I’m not stupid!” I flung back. “I let go of them as soon as I realized.” Well, that may have been a slight exaggeration, but in principle it was true.

“It’s a miracle you didn’t drive yourself mad.”

“I have a right to use the Stones.”

“You had no idea what you were doing!”

“And whose fault is that?” I demanded.

He ran both hands through his hair and took a deep breath, visibly forcing himself to calm down. “Stephanus made me promise not to tell you until I thought you were ready.”

I was too tired just then to realize the implications of that. “I am ready! I’ve been ready!”

“For Jalwa’s sake, Cora, you just lost your grandfather.”

I stood up too fast. “Don’t call me that! Nobody calls me that!” My words sounded too loud in my own ears, and the floor buckled beneath my feet. I vaguely remember grabbing the back of my chair and feeling it give way under my hand.

When I woke up it was morning. I lay in my own room on my own bed, feeling grubby in yesterday’s clothes. The first order of business was obviously a bath. As I carefully swung myself out of bed, the room remained blessedly stationary. I also seemed, with the exception of one side of my face, to have stopped aching.

As I passed my dressing table I caught sight of a note from Damorin propped against the
mirror. He said that he had had to go out, and for Jalwa’s sake, would I stay put until he got back. I looked up after I had finished reading, and was startled out of my miff by the vision in the
mirror. Quite aside from my braid which had frayed into a rat’s nest, the right half of my face sported an ugly black bruise from where I must have fallen against the worktable the first time I lost consciousness. (A much nicer term than fainting, don’t you think?) The other part of my face was shockingly white, except for the red line of the princess’s scratch.

I am sitting in the bath as I dictate this to my recording quill (I hope I have not splashed it too much.)

Now I have definitely splashed it too much. Muse appeared right in the middle of the bathroom, with no regard for my nerves or my modesty (thank goodness I have strong nerves and a lot of bubbles). He didn’t make any of his usual snide remarks as he handed over your letter, and he wanted to immediately take this one and be on his way! But I am making him wait until I have read your letter in case I have anything to add.

You were attacked by wraiths?! WRAITHS!! My water is still warm, but I’ve got cold chills all over. I’ve been having nightmares ever since we woke up that old memory, and the thought of you actually confronting the SAME WRAITHS AGAIN terrifies me, even though it’s already over, and you are safe. Is there any way at all to trace who has summoned a wraith? It’s one thing for them to come after me, but now they’ve put you in danger too, and I won’t stand for it!

You say you need advice about Sean, but I’m not certain I have anything to offer. On the one hand, he saved your life! On the other hand, he was the one who dragged you into the Pass in the first place! On the other hand, he is clearly strongly attracted to you. On the other hand (I’ve always wanted four hands), he lied about having to share a larat and took advantage of you! If he were standing in front of me, I don’t know whether I would hug him or slap him. Why are men so confusing? Couldn’t they be straightforward for once in their obnoxious little lives? Perhaps you should simply cut through the problem and demand an explanation. Don’t let him get away with vague hints and cryptic comments, but make him say it out loud! I wish I had enough courage to do the same.

Muse is getting very restless and keeps twitching the parchment. He promises to come back with a reply by this evening (I am not certain if I believe him) so I will save my reflections on our dubiously romantic problems for the next missive.

Ever most affectionately yours,
Cordy