Illusions of Fate (10 page)

Finally managing to rip free of the corset, I slide out of the whole mess and toss it in a bin along with my ruined stockings.

The prospect of soaking—actually soaking!—in a bath sings a siren song and in a few minutes I am up to my chin in hot water. I have no concept of the time. The fact that I no longer feel hungry means I have gone beyond the point of complaint from my stomach. My fingers tremble as I undo my bun and let my hair fall onto my shoulders.

I stay until the water cools, then towel dry. I kept my gloved hand out of the water. I will have to ask Finn how to wash it. The nightshirt I choose from the many options is light and thin, and feels marvelous against my skin. I wrap a black dressing gown around it, and though I am now more covered than I was in the dress, I feel exposed.

I try on a pair of slippers, but they are far too large, so I leave the washroom and pad silently down the plush rug in the hall. One door is cracked open, so I push it but stop short of entering the library.

Finn is wearing a fresh suit. He sits on the couch facing me, but with his head bowed and cradled in his hands. He looks so despairing, so raw with pain or worry, I know I have intruded on a private moment. My first impulse is to go to him, to put my arm around his shoulders and comfort him. But this is not done here. Nobles are proper and distant, and no doubt that is the best comfort I can offer him. I back silently through the door, pulling it closed behind me and then wait a few minutes before knocking.

“Yes, come in,” Finn calls, and I reenter the library to find him standing, straight and assured as ever, with falsely bright eyes.

We wear faces as disguises. I hold back a shudder, remembering the nightmare man’s true face revealed in snatches behind the one he wears for the world. I suspect I was seeing straight to his soul.

“I’ve some sandwiches, and there’s tea—”

“No tea!”

Finn startles at my exclamation, and I stutter to explain. “It’s—you see, there was tea—I could smell it so strongly while he was—” I twist my hands, running my fingers over the glove.

“Of course. We need brandy.” He grabs the silver service set and whisks it away. I sit, jumbled with nerves, on the edge of the couch. He is going to explain everything. I am not sure how, but he will. I long for the security of the world I lived in yesterday, but it is lost to me forever.

He returns with two cut crystal glasses filled with amber liquid, and sets one on the table in front of me. I eat half a carefully cut sandwich and find it is all I can manage. Sipping at the warm brandy, I wait for him to start.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t see the tea,” he says.

I frown. “How could you have? And how did you know what . . .” I cannot say aloud what the nightmare man did, because then I have to acknowledge it happened. “How did you know to prepare the glove?”

“You saw my shadow, correct?”

I nod.

“It is a . . . peculiar sort of connection and separation. I could choose to see through it, which is much like looking into a dim room from outside in the brilliant sunshine, or hear through it, which is much like listening with cotton in your ears. Since I needed to prepare the glove, I was forced to listen instead.” He stares into his cup of brandy and then takes a gulp. I remember my screams. Clearly, he does, as well.

“Why
was
your shadow there? Is it like his birds, a sort of errand runner?” I look for Sir Bird and instead find a massive black volume atop one of the piles of books. I hope he’s resting.

“The bird!” Finn stands, whirling and frantically searching the room. “Curse that bird, he’ll—”

“Here!” I grab the book, waving it at Finn. “Unless this is one of yours.”

Finn’s eyes narrow, and he reaches out to take it. I hug it to my chest, matching his glare.

“Curious.” He sits again, still staring at the book. I place it on my lap. The cover is pure black, with a faint hint of iridescence, much like Sir Bird’s wings. But it is far heavier than Sir Bird, and much larger than any of the bird-books that were on the shelves. I wonder if it has anything to do with his having swallowed so many of the other creatures.

“Your shadow?” I am impatient for actual answers now that we have begun. Denial and avoidance will get me nowhere. I want to learn as much as I can about this . . .
magic
. . . that is now a painful and confusing part of my life.

“Oh, yes, well. That’s a complicated bit to explain.” He tugs at his collar as though it is bothering him. “I should rather tell you about Lord Downpike.”

I shudder, twitching my neck to relieve the prickling of discomfort there. “Is that his name? It sounds familiar.”

“It should. He is the minister of defense.”

Twelve

I GASP, STUNNED. “THAT MADMAN IS THE MINISTER
of defense?” In the hierarchy of Alben rule, the minister of defense was just below the prime minister.

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“This country just gets worse and worse.”

Finn laughs sadly. “It does have some good parts. But he is not one of them.”

“Well, go on, before I decide I’ve gone mad after all.”

He nods. “Doubtless you have surmised that, for lack of a better word, magic exists in the world.”

“I had noticed,” I say dryly.

“Subtlety is not a strong point of Downpike’s.”

“Nor is sanity.”

“No, nor sanity. The distribution of power is not always what it should be, and men like Downpike are born with more than their fair share.”

“Is that what it is? An issue of the nobility? You secretly use magic because it gives you privilege?”

“You misunderstand. I could show you, step-by-step, the precise method to, say, turn this brandy to ice. But even after learning the symbols and words and following all of the directions to the letter, you would be missing the final . . . how do I put it . . .”

“Variable?”

“Yes! Exactly. There is a variable that you lack. Nearly everyone lacks it except those of noble bloodlines.”

“So there
is
a reason you’re born into privilege and take what you have not earned!” I glower at him.

“You of all people should know what it is to be relegated to one side of the great power struggle due to factors about yourself you cannot control. It is not my fault I was born with these abilities. Please do not hold me accountable for my birth, as I assure you I would never do you the same dishonor.”

I lean back and fold my arms across my chest. “Very well. Your noble birth is the variable needed to make magic. Wonderful! How lovely to have it in the hands of a madman who also controls so much of the country.”

“I am sorry.” His voice has lost its sting. “I did my best to keep you from crossing paths with this world. And I shall do my best to protect you now that you have been so violently initiated.”

“Why
did
Lord Downpike choose me? I have nothing to do with any of this.”

Finn stands and goes to the window, his back to me. “You know of the tenuous peace between Albion and the Iverian continental countries. Our history is long and fraught with conflict, though the last few decades we’ve found balance. There are some who wish to tip that balance back in favor of Albion. Lord Downpike wants something he thinks I have, and will do anything to secure it. For the last two years, I’ve managed to subvert his efforts, never giving him ground or opportunity to manipulate me. Then I met you.” His voice is bitter.

“What am I to you?” I am angry, growing angrier, that I have somehow become a pawn in a game I did not even know was being played. “Why would he think you would care?”

Finn reaches into his waistcoat pocket and pulls out a familiar deck of blue-backed cards.

I scoff. “You cannot tell me this has anything to do with silly, superstitious cards.”

“If it is silly, you won’t mind drawing again. One card.”

We match glares, neither of us backing down. Finally, just to move on to actual answers, I reach out and snatch a card from the middle of the deck.

He doesn’t look at the card, keeping his eyes locked on me. He simply whispers, “Fate and lovers.”

I roll my eyes and hold up the card.

The cards.

Again, where I am certain I took only one, I hold two. I turn them so I can see what they are, and my breath catches. The first card shows two bodies twined around each other, blending until I cannot tell where one begins and the other ends. A red ribbon encircling them twists out LOVERS.

But it is the second card that hits me like a blow. Two roads converge in a tangled wood tunneling into darkness. The branches of the trees spell out FATE.

“I know this path,” I whisper.

“You do?”

“I’ve dreamt it. But it wasn’t trees, it was bodies, and we danced down the line. . . .” I look up to find Finn’s stony glare has melted into something like hope, and I stop myself. “Let me see the deck.”

“What?”

I hold out my hand. “You knew which cards I’d get before you saw them. Let me see the deck.”

He hands it over and I thumb through it, my triumphant
aha!
ready to be unleashed when I proved that all of the cards were FATE or LOVERS dying on my lips as I see dozens of cards, all distinct.

I drop the cards on the floor, feeling dirty for having touched them. “It means nothing. This isn’t magic, it’s superstition of the basest kind. And you’ve told me nothing to explain why Lord Downpike would target me.”

“I tried,” Finn says, staring at the mess of cards. “I tried so very hard. After our first meeting, I thought I could put you out of my head. And then when I saw you in the park, I aimed to test myself, to prove that you meant nothing. I found myself checking into your hotel afterward. Not to see you—I didn’t want to see you, I couldn’t—but simply to be near enough to—” He shrugs helplessly. “It was obviously indulgent and selfish. I should have known I was being watched. When you drew the cards . . . well, I resolved to never speak to you again and that would end things. I did not count on the reach of Downpike’s spies, though, and he presented an impossible task at the gala. How could I see you and not—”

My heart beats rapidly as I wait for him to look up, to finish the sentence. I’m disappointed. He stops, gathering the cards and tucking them away. “Well. He played the game better than I. But he underestimated you.”

Blast that unfinished sentence. But something else is off. He is not telling me enough. Then I notice that, though the light streams in all around Finn,
he has no shadow
. I run to the window next to him, then turn and look at the ground. My shadow is there, silhouette of long hair and robed body, but there is something fuzzy, something not quite the same about it. I raise one arm as fast as I can, and there! The hint of another shadow behind it.

“I still have your shadow!” I gasp. “Take it back!”

“Would that I could.”

“No, I don’t want it, you must—” I stop, my heart racing as I remember what he said earlier. “You . . . you can see and hear through your shadow.” Minutes ago I was naked in his bathroom, with his shadow there the whole time! “How dare you!” I slap him, and he has the audacity to look surprised.

“No, it doesn’t work like that! I don’t see and hear through it all the time. It takes a great deal of concentration and power, and I’m entirely tapped out at the moment. I promise I would never intrude on your privacy.”

My face is burning, and I cannot find it in me to believe him. “Take it back. Immediately.”

He raises both hands in the air, exasperated. “I can’t! These things don’t work like that. You don’t understand.”

“Then tell me how they work! Why did you attach it to me in the first place?” Had he suspected Lord Downpike would do something? If so, why hadn’t he protected me?

Finn looks to the side, taking a deep breath and folding his hands in front of himself. I can actually
see
him regaining control of his temper. “I would prefer not to discuss it at the moment. In due time we will figure out . . . a solution.”

I want to strangle him. The cool, smooth planes of his face, the sharp contours of his jaw, the perfectly combed golden hairs atop his head. It infuriates me how he can be so put together and calm when my whole world has shifted.

I lift a hand. He cringes expecting another slap, but does not move, as if he knows he deserves it. Instead, I push my fingers through his hair, making it stand at wild angles, horribly mussed.

“There.” I mimic his imperious, disengaged face. “Now.” I sit back down and take a sip of my brandy. “You have more to tell me, but first I would like to send a letter to my friends at the hotel telling them I am safe and will be home soon. They’re probably sick with worry.”

“I’ll send notice that you’re safe, but I am afraid you can’t go back.”

“Pardon?”

He moves away from the window and stands, examining a bookshelf as though it contains something more interesting than a rainbow of cracked and worn spines. “I think it best if you go to my home in the country. You’ll be safe there until this is sorted. The grounds are well kept, and you’d love the greenhouse. I can hire a few servants for you.”