Beauty and the Werewolf (27 page)

“Aha, now the truth comes out!” she said with amusement. “Thank Godmother Elena for sending me the ingredients then.”

He snorted. “Godmother Elena was getting tired of sending me the components every time I begged her, and so was Granny when I actually dared to approach her. Which I didn't unless I couldn't help it,” he retorted. “It's hardly difficult for magicians like them. And in the Godmother's case, it's not as if she was making them herself! No, it was her Brownies who were doing it.”

“And if she sends components to every whining wizard?” Bella responded. “That's scarcely a good use of her time!”

“But other wizards have
apprentices!
” He mock-pouted. “I've never had one until now! Apprentices are
supposed
to do all the boring work for you!”

This was a great improvement over the melancholy Sebastian. She liked this version of him much better.

She mimed a cuff at him across the table. He ducked and grinned.

“All right, let's go get to work,” she told him. “You've stuffed your face quite enough. I want to see if you actually know how to do anything with my hard work.”

“And if I don't?” he asked archly.

She growled at him. “Then I will stand over you and make you concoct the rest of the list yourself!”

He was not in the least cowed. “Good thing I do know exactly what to make with your welcome bounty, then! Come on,
apprentice.
Let's see if you can master the next lesson
I
have for you!”

THE HORSE—SHE STILL DIDN'T KNOW ITS NAME, SINCE
Eric evidently didn't think that the name of a horse was important—eeled his way along a game trail that Bella could scarcely make out. Eric was right, the horses he used
did
know all the trails. All she had to do was start the beast down one, and it did the rest. She was a little farther afield than usual, but this was an easier part of the forest; easier to spot the rabbit runs and easier to see the snares. As she rode, Bella had that back-of-the-neck-prickling feeling that always came when she was being watched.

Not that this disturbed her. In fact, if it was the poachers, she
wanted
to be watched. She was proving that even while Eric was disporting himself among the ladies of purchasable virtue in the city, Abel, his new Under-Gamekeeper, was more than adequate to taking up his patrols. This would please Eric, and it would cement her identity in
his
mind as “Abel.”

In the two days he had been gone so far, she had collected a proper number of snares. Not so many that she could have said for
certain
that Eric had left them for her to find, but quite enough to prove that she was not slacking off in his absence.

As for Sebastian—

Since the night he had made his proposal, he had not made any more overtly romantic overtures. But his entire manner had changed for the better. He laughed more. He no longer had that haunted look about him. He was even tentatively talking about what he
might
do if he was given leave to come back to Court. So he had stopped thinking about it as an impossibility and had begun contemplating it as something he wanted to do.

If anything, she was fonder of this new Sebastian than of the old.

She finished her patrol—a good handful of snares, but no rabbits, which was something of a relief, because she was looking forward to something
other
than rabbit for supper tonight—and headed back toward the Manor.

The feeling of being watched did not ebb….

That's…odd.
Was someone following her? She didn't look back to see. The horse didn't act as if it thought there was someone else out here, but that didn't mean much.
I wish dogs could stand being around Sebastian. At least if I went out with a dog, he'd alert me to a follower.

She wanted to get back to the Manor fairly quickly today—there were two more of Sebastian's components that needed some tending, and more important, the Godmother's green-faced Mirror Servant had promised the results of his researches into the Traditional tales of
protective
were-creatures. If they couldn't manage to break or counter the curse, this might be their only chance of turning it from a liability into something useful.

Something that even the King could approve of, in fact. It would be one thing for the King to grudgingly grant Sebastian the freedom to spend a few days a month at Court. It would be quite another for the King to decide that Sebastian—wolf or man—was an asset.

If someone wanted to trail her all the way back to the Manor, well, that was his time wasted.

Instead, she played the part of Abel to the hilt, whistling once she reached the actual road—she'd have preferred to sing, but her voice would definitely have given the game away. She remembered how angry it used to make her when the Housekeeper would waggle her head when she whistled as a child, and quote the old adage,
“A whistling girl and a crowing hen always come to some bad end.”
She used to counter it with the other adage.
“A whistling girl and a wise old sheep are two of the best things a farmer can keep.”
Then Housekeeper would frown and say,
“Well, but your father's not a farmer, now, is he?”

It was, as it turned out, a good thing she had learned to whistle. Especially as she was whistling “Little Ball of Yarn,” a bawdy tune no proper young lady would ever admit to knowing.

She still felt that “being watched” look as she entered the gate into the courtyard and one of the Spirit Elementals closed it behind her, then came to take the horse.

Well, it's probably nothing but my imagination at this point.

Reveling in the freedom that the breeches gave her, she ran into the Manor and straight for the stillroom.

After ensuring that the next stage of her concoction was well under way—cold-pressing, a long and tedious process, but one which fortunately only needed to be dealt with once every half day or so—she ran back up to her rooms, and impatiently sat before the mirror.

Just when she was getting ready to prod the recalcitrant Servant into appearing—her control of magic had progressed to the point where she was fairly certain she could do just that—his face appeared.

“Greetings, Isabella,” he said. “I have mixed results. I shall be as brief as one such as I can. In my researches, I have indeed come upon creatures who will act as Protectors and who switch from animal to human form. The difficultly lies in the fact that those creatures
are invariably one of two types. They are either wholly magical in nature, such as the Fox-Spirit, the Rus Firebird or
Zhar-Ptica,
or they are, in fact, animals who have somehow gained the ability to become a human.” Even though he had no shoulders, she got the sense of a shrug. “It is as if, I fear, that while transforming from animal to human brings out the best in these creatures, transforming from human to animal brings out the worst in a man, unless it is the purely voluntary and magical Transformation spell, which most Godmothers and a few magicians have mastered—the one that does not require the shedding of blood, nor the belt of the skin of the creature you wish to become.”

She felt her heart sink, but the Mirror Servant was not done quite yet.

“Now, having said that, it is a fact that Sebastian has not killed anyone.”

“He hasn't exactly had the opportunity,” she demurred.

“Pish, he could easily have killed
you,
” the Servant chided her. “If you please, I am trying to research a Path out of this dilemma, failing being able to break the magic on him. Now, may I continue?”

She apologized. He peered at her as if to determine whether or not the apology was sincere. When he decided that it was, he picked up where he had left off.

“You will recall that we had determined that this was done to Sebastian by means of magic—though whether it is a curse-spell, or an actual
curse,
which does not require a magician to set it. Correct?”

Since the face waited patiently after this, she assumed she was supposed to respond. “Yes, I have been told that this was a curse, and that you hadn't— Wait, what
is
the difference between a curse and a simple spell?”

The face beamed. “Now, there you are! That is the real question, isn't it? The difference, my dear sorceress, is
passion!
”

She gave this careful thought. The Servant allowed her to take her time. Evidently there was no one else clamoring for it—or perhaps it, too, had apprentices, who could take over the more mundane task of telling callers, “I am sorry, but the Godmother is unavailable. Would you care to leave a message?”

“Sebastian has been quite adamant that I am supposed to keep emotion at bay when I work magic,” she said slowly, “because emotion interferes with control.”

“Yes,” the face said, smiling genially.

“He's right. When I get upset, or worried, I can't concentrate.”
Or when I happen to notice how Sebastian's eyes take on a stormy-gray color when he's unhappy, and a green glint when he's— Bother, not now! Think this through!

“Indeed,” the Servant encouraged.

But was there ever a time when emotion had made it easier to concentra—

“When Eric tried to bully me, just before I was bitten, I was truly angry. And it made me sharper. I knew exactly what to say, and how to say it. I was able to figure out from how he stood and the expression on his face what he was likely to do next. And when I was frightened, when those poachers attacked us, that made me very sharp, too. I knew instantly that I couldn't get to my knife, and it wasn't as if I even
thought
about it. My hand went right to the quiver, I got a crossbow bolt and I used it like a knife.” She paused. “I think I would have to say in both cases I was very passionate.”

The face bobbed. “And there you have it. Fear, anger, hate, pain—all these things can create a single-mindedness that surpasses everything a trained will can do. Not everyone has this sort of mental quirk. Many—I would say most—people become more confused
when they are consumed by passion. But those who possess this same talent as you are able to cast curses. This is why incredibly powerful curses can be cast by the dying and the desperate. The Tradition, of course, has a lot to do with this, as well—it responds to an exceedingly well-worn Traditional Path and puts all the force of its power behind the curse. But before The Tradition can feel this, the passion itself must be single-minded. If it's not, if the passion does not have a single object and a single goal in its focus, then The Tradition can't sense it.”

She shivered, despite being cozily close to the fire. “It's like this giant slug, isn't it? Incredibly powerful, but so stupid that it will always follow the path of least resistance, and always be attracted to—” she paused, feeling a moment of startled epiphany “—what it feeds on?”

“Very good.” The face beamed at her. “You are going to make a quite outstanding magician, I do believe. Yes, we think that The Tradition feeds on, derives its power from, emotion, at least in part. So this may explain why it does what it does—it ‘knows,' as a slug knows, that if it forces matters into
this
shape, there will be a richer reward. So it does.”

“All right, so what does this have to do with Sebastian?” she asked.

“It means that he didn't have to actually do something that he remembers to cause someone to hate him enough to cast a curse. It means that for all we know, it could have been something completely out of his control. But that, in turn, means that
we
—or more precisely, he—may be able to alter the curse. Casting a curse on the curse, so to speak.”

“But why can't the Godmother— Oh.”

“Exactly. She has a hundred concerns as pressing as Sebastian. There is no way she can muster enough passion. Only Sebastian himself can.”

“Or the person who cast it, I suppose,” she said thoughtfully. Sapphire moved over to the fire and threw a few pinecones on it for the pleasant scent. “If we could find that person and persuade him of the wrong he had done Sebastian and make him sufficiently remorseful.”

The face bobbed in agreement, but grimaced. “That is why the original caster can remove a curse when no one else can. And that is why it is so rare for him to do so. Or her, since females are extremely good at casting curses. You are very passionate creatures. Males are told from childhood to restrain their passions. Females are not. Now it is true that for most magic, control is what is important. But that is not true in curses. In a curse, it is the passion that creates the powerful curse. Females, therefore, are better at casting curses.”

It was her turn to grimace, at a memory of one of those moments when she had realized just how unfair life was. It had been another child's tenth birthday fete when she was very young and her mother had still been alive. The event had been enormous, for the father of the birthday child was fabulously wealthy and his father wished both to demonstrate that wealth and indulge his child with the most insanely elaborate party anyone in the city had ever seen. Not even the Prince's birthday fete the next week rivaled it… People were still talking about it to this day.

In fact, the Prince's celebration had been quite modest by comparison. Just the usual distribution of food and blankets to the poor, and free wine to drink the Prince's health in all the taverns. Presumably there had been a party for the boy, but only a choice few had been invited.

I wonder if that was allowed on purpose,
she suddenly thought.
The Prince and Darian Errolf were the same age. And if I were King and wanted to deflect the ire of evil magicians and the attention of The Tradition from
my child, I think I'd welcome some idiot throwing a fete that was fit for a Prince.

Come to think of it, Darian never was the same after that. He was always doing dangerous things and sneaking off to learn sword work… No matter what his father did, he never would settle down to learn the business, and two years ago he stole a warhorse and vanished. Good thing he had a younger brother who would have turned himself inside out to please their father or there would have been no one to become the next Errolf of House of Errolf. I wonder what the ending of that tale is going to be?

Well, the point was, there had been races on ponies for wonderful prizes, but not just any ponies. These had been colored up in every shade imaginable by magic—Illusion or Transformation really didn't matter for the effect—and of course every child wanted a ride. And of course, many fell off, because not all the children were good riders, or even riders at all. And she remembered two children who must have been the same age, sitting on the grass of the racecourse—also softened by magic, because it wouldn't do for anyone's child to get more than a bruise or two—crying after being thrown almost identically. One was a boy, and one a girl. The girl had been picked up by her nanny, petted, cooed at and taken off for cake. But the boy had been pulled up to his feet by his caretaker, his shoulder had been given a shake, and he had been told in no uncertain terms that he was shaming his father and he was to stop crying and be a man.

And he had.

And she had known at that moment, with complete astonishment, that the world was unfair. Sometimes it was worse to be a boy.