Illusions of Fate (22 page)
“I don’t believe you. You know how to reverse the spell.”
“Do I? Will you really risk Eleanor’s life? You could ask your dear Lord Ackerly to find the spell, but it’s such a large volume and she has so very few hours left. Ah, here we are.” He stops in the park, shielded by trees but with a view of the door to Finn’s home. “Do hurry. I can almost hear her desperate coughing from here.”
He releases my hand, and I stumble forward on leaden feet.
I cannot give back the book without losing the only insurance I have against another attack, but I cannot allow Eleanor to suffer and even die for my sake. I burst through the door, screaming for Finn. He’ll know what to do. He’ll fix Eleanor, turn Lord Downpike’s evil plan on its head.
There is no answer, so I run through the hall to the library. A note is tacked to the door.
Urgent summons from the queen. Stay in the house until I return. Please.
Yours,
Finn
I DON’T KNOW WHICH I DREAD MORE—THAT
Sir Bird will be in bird form when I enter the library, or that he won’t, and I will never get to say good-bye. I push open the door to find him perched on the edge of a chair, completely back to his normal black, arranging a pile of shiny coins and buttons.
“I—” My voice catches. Sir Bird looks at me, extending and retracting his wings nervously. “I have to give you back to him. Lord Downpike. If I don’t, Eleanor will die. Do you understand?”
Sir Bird is very still and then slowly bobs his head once.
“I already owe you my own life. And if you don’t want to do this, I won’t make you. I’ll open the door and you can fly away and I’ll try to find some other way to save Eleanor.”
He hops with a flap of his wings and lands on my shoulder and then nudges my cheek with his beak. He’s giving me permission, and it breaks my heart.
“Will he hurt you?”
Sir Bird shakes his whole body from crown to tail, puffing up his feathers, then caws in his most dismissive tone.
“You are the finest, bravest creature on the whole planet.” I take a deep breath, and then have a thought. It’s a gamble at best, probably pointless, and at worst will bring down more pain and trouble on all of us. I’m already allowing Sir Bird to be sacrificed. Eleanor is dying. Can I risk it?
Is it even possible?
“If I were to write a few pages, could I put them in the book? Could you make them a part of yourself?”
He lets out an uncertain squawking sound and then hops to the table. I kiss his feathered head and stroke the length of his back. “Thank you,” I whisper, then he turns into a book.
Sabotage, sabotage. If, like Finn, Lord Downpike has to renew spells every time he uses them, then maybe I have a chance to mess with his abilities. Opening, I search frantically for anything I recognize. I cannot risk damaging a spell that might be the one Eleanor needs. If it’s even in this book. Finding pages we’d looked at earlier, I rip them out as carefully as I can, hoping Sir Bird cannot feel it. I line them up with a blank sheet of parchment and transcribe the sequences nearly identically, mimicking the pen strokes as best I can. But I make subtle changes, substitute the wrong elements, the wrong words. Fire for water, confusion for clarity, darkness for light. I alter the parts of the equations I can understand. If I had more time, if I’d been able to plan . . . But this is the best I can do.
Then I tuck the papers back into the crease and hold my breath. A series of black sparks dance along the spine, and when I pull lightly on the pages, they stay affixed.
Lord Downpike wins this round, and I only hope that he has nothing further planned right now. I pick up the book to take it out to the nightmare man, but it trembles and then pops back into Sir Bird’s form.
“You should stay a book. It seems safer for you.”
Sir Bird pecks my hand.
“All right! Your way is best. I won’t argue.”
I walk down the hall with a heavy heart, already mourning the loss of Sir Bird. Something inside me is shaking loose, rattling around and making it hard to breathe. I push aside my own fear for what will happen when I hand the book to Lord Downpike. I’ll have no more insurance against physical harm.
It does not bear thinking about. There are no other options. I will not sacrifice Eleanor for myself.
Taking a deep breath to steady myself, I wipe under my eyes. Lord Downpike will not see me a tearful, fearful mess. Sir Bird nips my ear softly, and I nod. “I’m glad of your company, dear friend.”
I open the door. Twilight has cloaked the park in shadow, but I can see Lord Downpike standing at the edge of the trees. Before I can cross the threshold of the house, Sir Bird takes off from my shoulder with a loud series of caws. “Oh!” I reach out for him, then drop my hands, resolved. He took the offered escape. I’m not sorry. At least one of us has freedom.
So be it. I will throw myself at whatever semblance of mercy a man like Lord Downpike has. I lift my foot to step onto the porch, when I look up and see Sir Bird land in front of Lord Downpike. Downpike reaches down, takes Sir Bird around the neck, and twists his head with a quick, snapping motion.
“No!” I scream, but it’s too late. In his hands is nothing but a book. I slump against the door frame, hands over my mouth, silently shaking my head as though I can undo what he’s done.
“Not coming out to play?” he calls, tucking the book under his arm and strolling closer. “Clever, sending the poor birdie out so you could stay safe in Lord Ackerly’s home. I am impressed.”
That was why Sir Bird changed. So I wouldn’t have to leave the protection of the house. I owe him my life again, and he . . . oh, Sir Bird.
“Are you
crying
for my unfaithful familiar? Women are such strange creatures. I suppose you kept up your end of the deal, though I had hoped to take a stroll, maybe have tea together.”
I narrow my eyes, Lord Downpike blurred by the tears there. “Fix Eleanor. Now.”
“As you like. What was that countercurse . . .” He flips through the book then snaps it shut. My stomach tightens. If he noticed I altered spells, I’ve lost any hope of gaining an advantage and Sir Bird’s sacrifice is wasted. “That’s right. I left it in a sugar bowl in her silver tea service. Make sure she takes a cup with two scoops and she’ll be fine.”
“You didn’t need the book,” I whisper.
“I
did
need the book. But not to fix Eleanor. Would you like a ride in my motor to her home?” He smiles, and again I see a hint of what is underneath his strange face that doesn’t move quite like it should as he talks.
“She would not.” Finn stands behind Lord Downpike, his cane gripped tightly.
Lord Downpike doesn’t take his eyes off of me. “His now,” he whispers. “Bought and paid for. You aren’t nearly as interesting as I’d hoped, little rabbit. Until we meet again.” He nods, tipping his hat at me, then walks past Finn without so much as acknowledging him.
Finn rushes up the steps and pulls me back inside, closing the door. “I should have known it was a trick to get me away from the house. When I got to the palace and they had no record of sending for me, I . . . but you didn’t leave. He couldn’t take you, not across the threshold.”
“Sir Bird.” I break into sobs. Finn takes me into his arms and I let him, resting my face on his shoulder, his hands rubbing gentle circles on my back.
“Why did you give him the book?”
“Eleanor. Eleanor! We have to get to her. He cursed her, she’s dying. She needs two scoops of sugar from the silver tea service.”
“It’s not safe for you, not now that we have nothing physical to threaten him with. Stay here. I’ll take care of her and be back as soon as possible.”
I nod into his shoulder, wanting him to stay and hold me. Then I pull away and wrap my arms around myself. “Go.”
He opens the door and runs out. I watch him disappear into the trees as he cuts straight through on the most direct route to Sir Rupert’s house. In the tops of the trees, a dozen yellow eyes stare at me from soulless black faces.
I WALK ACROSS THE SMOOTH BLACK SAND OF
Melei’s northernmost beach, a day’s journey from my village. The breeze off the ocean whips my hair to the side, and I have to keep pulling it away from my eyes. A slight chill cuts through the humid summer air. I ought to be perfectly content but something is off.
I look around for Mama but she isn’t with me. I’m never at this beach alone. We come for summer holiday, Mama and I and Nani and even sometimes Henry and his family. But as far as I can see, there’s no one here.
The wind cuts colder, and I rub my hands over my bare arms. The filmy skirts of the red dress are trailing out away from me on the wind, reminding me of the scarlet ribbon spelling out
LOVERS
on the card I drew from Finn.
Why am I in the red dress? I don’t want to be in this dress, I hate this dress. I threw it away. I turn around to hurry back the way I came, but the beach stretches on infinitely. I look down and see Sir Bird’s lifeless body on the sand. “No,” I whisper, but when I reach to pick him up he disappears.
A nameless fear surrounds me, chokes me, and I turn to run back when I notice something ahead of me. I walk toward it, my terror growing, but I must go that direction. There are no other options.
On the beach is a table, rich dark wood, laid with a familiar tea service.
I try to run the other way but the table is behind me now, and this time Lord Downpike sits at it, wearing a suit and top hat, black feathered wings tucked behind him. “Do sit down,” he says, giving me his sharp smile.
I sit across from him.
This isn’t real, it can’t be real, but I can taste the salt air and feel the stomach-turning terror as I smell the tea.
“It’s not real,” I whisper.
“Of course not.” He says it with a condescending laugh and the wind dies, leaving us in a vacuum on the soundless, motionless dead beach. The smell of the tea is overwhelming and I put my hand to my nose to try and block it.
“Oh,” I cry out. My hand is a mess of broken, splintered bones and ghastly bruises. “No. No, Finn fixed it.”
Lord Downpike pours the tea, stirring in scoop after scoop of sugar. “But you still remember the pain. He couldn’t take that away, could he? He couldn’t make you forget what you’ve already been through. Put your hand on the table.”
I stare at my hand, fingers splayed out, unmoving on the tabletop. “Wake up, Jessamin. Wake up, wake up.”
“Not until I say so. Tell me, are you enjoying your time with your dashing Alben lord? Is he taking good care of you? You make a lovely pet.”
My brain screams at my hand to move, but it doesn’t. It should hurt, the state it’s in. “I can’t feel my fingers.”
“I can change that. What is Finn doing? Has he shown you any magic? Told you about his mother?” Lord Downpike picks up a hammer, idly waving it from side to side as though testing the balance.
I seal my lips shut. I will not engage this dream. I will not.
I’m fine, I’m asleep, I know I am, I know I am.
Lord Downpike sighs. “Very well, then. Your mind already knows exactly what this will feel like. I don’t have to do a thing.” He brings the hammer down on my hand, and I scream.
“Jessamin!” Finn says. He’s not on the beach. Where is he? I’m screaming, screaming, my hand—the pain is too much, I cannot—“Jessamin,
wake up
.”
I sit up, gasping, my hair tangled around my face. “My hand!” I clutch it to my chest, stare at it in the dim candlelight. Nothing but the black glove, the cold tingling sensation overlaying the sharp, bright aftertaste of pain still lingering.
“That’s the third time tonight.” Eleanor leans against my doorway in her white nightdress. Her hair is in a long braid down her shoulder, and she looks exhausted.
“I’m . . . I’m so sorry. I was . . .” I cannot tell them, cannot get the words out. I know my hand is fine,
I know it
, but the pain! I close my eyes, unable to get rid of the smell of tea lodged in my sinuses.
“It’s perfectly understandable,” Finn says, rising from where he was sitting on the edge of the bed next to me. “You’ve been through so much.” He doesn’t sound tired like Eleanor. He sounds weighted down, sad.
