Bound (Bound Trilogy) (35 page)

“Lisbeth?”

“Could be.”

He glanced behind him into the dimly-lit room. “She’s awake, but groggy,” he said. “Una gave her something that should let her sleep. I didn’t want to leave her alone.”

“You’re a good person, Kel.”

“I know,” he said. “Don’t say it too loud, though. People will think I’ve gone soft. I have a reputation to consider. Wait… no, that’s you.”

I laughed. “You’re such an ass. I’ve missed you.”

He grinned. “I know that, too.” We switched places, and I closed the door behind him, shutting out the music, laughter, and clinking of glasses from below.

A single lamp flickered on the fireplace mantel, its light reflecting off of the blue dress laid over the back of the sofa. Rowan rested under a heavy blanket on the bed. She opened her eyes slowly. “You didn’t have to come.”

“No, I did. You said it wasn’t too bad.” I kicked off my shoes and sat down on the edge of the bed.

“It wasn’t at first. And I didn’t want to leave. That was the best party I’ve ever been to.”

“Maybe because there were no terribly dull people trying to marry you.”

She gave me a groggy smile. “Maybe that’s it. Anyway, you can go back. I’m not even awake. She gave me something that tasted like seaweed.”

“It probably was. You sure you don’t want me to stay? I think I’m finished down there.”

“No, go on. I heard the music, there’s still plenty of party left. Have fun.” She paused. “Is Cassia still there?” She sounded slightly clearer-headed than she had the night she took the strong heartleaf, but she could barely keep her eyes open.

“I don’t know. Why?”

“No reason,” she said. But it didn’t sound like no reason.

Rowan’s hand rested on the pillow near her face, and I reached out to touch her fingers. “Cass is a good friend. What I had with her before… that kind of thing never lasts longer than a summer with a mer. It was perfect for both of us at the time. It was what it was, and I didn’t have to worry about losing her as a friend when it was over.”

“And now?” Her eyes had closed again, and I wondered whether she’d remember any of this in the morning.

“Now I’m glad I have friends down here. It’s good to be back with them and to hear what they’ve been doing since I left, even if sharing my side of the story isn’t so pleasant. And it’s good to be able to relax a bit, knowing that we’re safe and that these people will take care of you. I’m sorry if you thought there was anything else.”

“Okay.” She pulled the blankets up over her cheeks, which had become flushed. “But if I wasn’t here?”

“If you weren’t here, I wouldn’t be here. And even if I were, it wouldn’t be anything like what you and I have… Rowan?”

She was asleep, her breathing deep and regular. I stayed for a few more minutes, and then went back to the party. I was pleased to have that much of the discussion out of the way, but more than happy to leave any more of it for another time.

Chapter Thirty

Aren

A
ll was quiet in the Grotto the next morning when I left my room to go up to Rowan’s. The food and dirty plates had been removed from the table, but a few wine glasses still sparkled in the sunlight, and dirty linens littered the surface of the table. By the end of the day it would all be cleared away, but for now everyone seemed to be sleeping.

Well, almost everyone.

Niari was in Rowan’s room clearing away a few dishes and collecting Rowan’s dress and shoes. “Good morning,” she said, her voice huskier than it had sounded the night before.

“Is everyone still at home?” I asked. They all would have returned to the water for the night. Being on land could be fun for a while, but most mers found that it became uncomfortable if they stayed up for too long.

“Mostly. Their homes, or each other’s.” She grinned wickedly. “You’re looking for Rowan? Una came and took her to the healer’s room for tests. If you help me get this stuff to the kitchen, I’ll take you there. You probably won’t be able to see Rowan, though.”

I frowned. If Rowan had known about the tests, she hadn’t mentioned anything about it to me. “What are they doing?”

“Darned if I know.” She tossed the blue-green dress over one shoulder and stacked five delicate teacups into a teetering stack that she carried in one hand. “Some kind of testing of what she can or can’t do, I suppose. Trying to figure out what’s got her blocked up. I don’t understand it. I’m going to the library to help with research. The elders are already there, and a few others. Everyone else is probably in bed.”

Niari gestured toward a small stack of papers that sat folded and sealed on the table next to the bed. “Letters,” she explained. “To her parents, a friend, some guy. My hands are full, can you get them? I said we’d have the humans send them back. Just telling folks she’s safe, I think, but not saying where she is.”

I wondered what the letters said, especially the one addressed to Callum Langley. Did she tell him what she was, or only that she wasn’t coming back? Whatever it was, she probably said it more kindly than he deserved.

I handed the letters to Shawn when we reached the kitchen, and she promised to do her best to make sure they crossed the border and made it safely to Lowdell.

I’d never been to the healer’s room before. Niari led me down a long, dim hallway to a closed door made from solid oak. She knocked softly, and Mariana opened the door just enough to step out. A pained moan came from inside the room.

Rowan.

I tried to see in, but Mariana pulled the door closed behind her and gave me a sharp look that made me take a step back.

“What are you doing in there?” I asked, and Mariana grabbed my arm to steer me away from the door. She watched to make sure I wasn’t going to cause trouble, then nodded to Niari to indicate that it was all right for her to leave us.

“Only what we have to do. This is what Rowan wanted. She said she’d rather we learn what we could and be done with it. She’s handling it quite admirably, all things considered.”

My stomach clenched. “There’s nothing I can do?”

“Not now, no.” She released my arm, but her voice remained cold. “We’ll be through soon, but she’ll need time to rest here before she goes anywhere. I know this must be frustrating for you, but you’ve done all you can for her.”

It was more than frustrating, it was infuriating. I wasn’t accustomed to being useless, but Mariana was right. There was nothing I could do. “I’ll go help with clean-up,” I told her. It wouldn’t take my mind off of Rowan, but at least it would accomplish something.

“Excellent idea. I’ll have someone let you know as soon as she’s ready to see you.” She opened the door, releasing a cry from within the room. I wanted to break the door down, to make them stop whatever they were doing to her.

It’s what she wants
, I reminded myself.
She could stop it herself, any time
.

Mariana closed the door behind her.

I stood for a few minutes in the silent hallway, fighting the urge to break my promise to the elders, blast the door in, and make them stop. But then Rowan would never find her cure.

I ignored the ache in my chest, and hurried back to the main hall.

#

It was many hours before I heard anything else, and each dragged on longer than the one before. It’s hard to tell what time it is when there are no clocks and you can’t see the sun clearly. The other clean-up volunteers avoided me, seeming to sense that I wasn’t interested in speaking, and then left me alone to pick at the piano when the cleaning was finished.

I didn’t know what else to do with myself. Had it been only a week before that I’d thought Rowan talked too much, that her company was irritating and that I might have made a mistake in helping her? All I wanted now was to have her in my arms again, and to hear her laugh.

The light was fading from the water outside the window when Kel found me. “We’re in the library,” he said. “Arnav wanted to talk to her alone first, but she said she’d rather have you there.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

“Just come with me. It’ll be… she needs you, okay?” He wouldn’t say anything else.

The library was a huge room. Even so, papers and books overflowed from every shelf. The merfolk’s curiosity extended to many subjects, but their watery cities were no place for the materials they collected on land. Someone once told me that the Grotto’s library held a more complete history of my own land than our universities did. I had no doubt that it was at least a more objective one.

We entered the round room near the painted ceiling. Three balconies separated us from the floor, with doors leading off of each level. Glass cases set into the walls between shelves featured collections of gems and stones, dragon scales, insects, plants, maps, and anything else that could be kept and preserved.

Rowan should have been wandering around looking at everything. Instead, she sat curled up in a soft chair on the bottom level near a table that was covered in books and loose papers. Mariana sat at the other side of the table, and Arnav paced behind her, paging through books he pulled off of the shelves seemingly at random, then shaking his head and returning them. I greeted them, then took the chair next to Rowan’s.

“I’m sorry I had to leave the party so early last night,” she whispered. Sitting as she was with her hair damp and pulled back into a pair of plaits, she looked as though the morning’s trials had erased five years from her age. “I hope no one thought badly of me.”

“No,” I told her. “You’re the mystery woman, now. When I went back, everyone was asking about you.” I hoped that would please her, but she seemed too distracted.

Kel came over and gave Rowan’s hand a squeeze, and Niari offered an encouraging smile as they followed a few others out of the room through a lower-level door, leaving me and Rowan alone with the elders.

Mariana reached for several flat, cream-colored pages covered in fresh ink. “Aren, you thought that someone may have placed a binding on Rowan when she was young in order to keep her magic a secret.”

“It made sense to me.”

“It seems you were correct.”

I’d never been less pleased about being right, but at least we knew.

Mariana turned to Rowan. “There’s no way for us to know who did this, or exactly how, but what’s happening here is consistent with the bindings that were once performed on Sorcerers in Tyrea as precautions or punishments. According to our records, it was done by Potioners, using a formula we haven’t tracked down.”

I winced. Potioners. No wonder I hadn’t found records in the old Sorcerers’ records. They’d have had nothing to do with each other.

Mariana caught my expression, but said nothing about it. “The methods used in your case seem to have been somewhat…” She looked to Arnav.

“Sloppy?” he suggested, and Mariana nodded.

“That will do. Not surprising, given where you come from.”

“Does that mean it will be easier to get rid of?” Rowan asked, not sounding hopeful.

“I’m afraid not,” Arnav said. “Now, most records are not complete. People who had this done to them were able to disappear quite effectively because there was no trace magic to track them by. It was hidden, completely useless.”

Rowan didn’t say anything, so I did. “Why has she been able to use it, then?”

“This interested us,” Arnav said, “these instances of her healing you, but never herself. It’s happened twice now?” Rowan nodded, but didn’t look up from studying her hands as they rested against her thighs. “When we say the methods were sloppy, we mean that while the binding is rigid, it’s not without flaws. This may be one of them. A certain amount of stress on the mind or emotions plus a build-up of magic, perhaps aided by proximity to a magic-user, caused some sort of leak.”

Rowan lifted her head. “If it’s relieving pressure, why did it hurt so much?”

Mariana stood and set the papers down in front of her. “We don’t know. It may be some sort of punishment for using magic, a failsafe of sorts. Or it may just be your body’s reaction to that unfamiliar power. We can’t know without speaking to whoever did this. So much depends on the individual magic-user. Do you know of anyone in your country who might have been able to do this? Perhaps someone who worked with potions or herbal remedies?”

“No. But my mother would.”

Mariana and Arnav glanced at each other. “Are you sure?” Arnav asked.

“I’m sure. My grandmother once told me that my father wanted to name me Holly, but my mother convinced him to change it before my naming day. Rowanwood is supposed to protect against…” She stopped and took a shaky breath. When she spoke again, her voice cracked. “Against witches. She knew what I was.”

I knew what she was thinking. “You’re not a monster,” I told her.

“I know.” She didn’t sound convinced.

“So what do we do?” I asked. “If we find the person who did this, can it be undone?”

“No. I’m so sorry, Rowan.”

I couldn’t sit still anymore. I stood and paced behind the chairs. Mariana kept her gaze trained on me as Arnav spoke. “We won’t say that there’s no way to fix this, only that no one has ever found one before. We found two documented cases of Sorcerers attempting to use the magic trapped within them to break their bindings.”

“And?” I asked, growing impatient.

“In both cases the toll of attempting such a massive and unfamiliar use of magic destroyed them completely,” Mariana said. “One physically ruptured at every one of his joints, and died in great pain. The other vanished completely.”

Rowan shuddered. “So what happens if we just leave it? If I keep the binding and try to manage the pain?” Arnav hesitated, and she patted his hand. “It’s okay, I think I know. You can say it.”

He looked away. “In a case like this, according to what records we’ve found, the people all had pain much like you have, which became worse as time went on. You seem to be at a very late stage of this.”

“Then what?”

Rowan was watching Arnav, and didn’t see Mariana reach up to wipe a tear from her own eye. “They died, my dear,” she said. “Many went mad from it first, but it ended the same for all of them.”