“How about now?”
He lifted his eyebrows at her. “Now?”
“I have the afternoon off.”
He eyed her levelly, then sighed. “All right. Fine. Yes. Now.”
She grinned. “Great.”
The first lock Arabel picked once she’d learned how was Alistair’s. She waited until she knew he was meeting with Oswald, then skipped out on practice, feigning a sprained ankle, and snuck back up to the dorms. She already knew which one was Alistair’s. For one, it had his name on it, and secondly, she’d heard him crying behind it. The lock fell apart in her hands and she slipped in, shutting the door quietly behind her.
The room was much like her and Avery’s. There were two beds. One had sheets and a blanket; the other was a bare mattress on which sat a small heap of grubby clothes. They had similar organizational styles, apparently. She picked through the pile, just in case, but it was stiff with dirt and sweat. Nothing was hidden underneath.
One by one she slid the drawers of the dressers open. One dresser was entirely unused; the other had a single pair of pants wadded up in it. Hands on hips, Arabel surveyed the room. There wasn’t anything personal here. No papers. What she needed was a diary. The thought of Alistair sitting on the bed writing out his secret plans almost made her laugh. She lifted the mattress, searched around underneath it, and her fingers brushed a scrap of paper.
She pulled out the torn, dirty piece of parchment, but there was nothing written on it. It was only a sketch, done in now-blurred charcoal, of a man, laughing, with a full, handsome face and long dark hair. Alistair’s long-lost love? She squinted at it. Actually, if you took away the happiness, it looked sort of like Alistair. She held it up to the light, examining the delicate marks, the meticulous shading. It was skillfully done, whatever it was. But no writing, no clues to who Alistair was or what he was doing here.
Disappointed, she replaced the parchment, rearranged the bed so that it looked more or less as it had when she’d come in, and left, locking the door behind her.
23
Arabel awoke the next morning feeling completely exhausted. The sun was blasting into her face and she was damp with sweat. She thrust a leg out from the blankets and threw an arm over her eyes and groaned. Then she wondered what time it was. She listened, hearing nothing outside her door. Reluctantly she pulled herself out of bed, opened the door a crack, and looked out. No one. An uneasy feeling crept into the pit of her stomach. Not bothering to change, she wandered down into the dining room—completely empty—and saw the clock. Her heart dropped out from under her. One thirty. She’d slept through breakfast, through chores, through lunch. They must already be down on the practice grounds.
She grabbed some biscuits and stuffed one in her mouth as she ran for the door.
Stumbling down the narrow steps, she breathed a relieved sigh, spraying out a mouthful of crumbs and nearly choking, at seeing Naomi and the others down on the practice field.
“Well, look who decided to join us.” Naomi’s hands were on her hips.
“Sorry,” Charlotte mouthed, looking mortified.
“Sorry, Naomi, I—” but she had no explanation. She’d never slept in that late before. But Naomi wasn’t listening. She just pointed to the edge of the field.
“Laps.”
For the rest of the afternoon, Arabel ran laps while the others practiced. The biscuits didn’t last long and hadn’t been that filling to begin with. She started walking whenever Naomi’s back was turned, but Naomi caught her and made her do pushups instead. She was near collapse when Naomi finally called the practice session and stalked off.
“Where were you?” Ferne asked.
“I slept in.”
“Through lunch?”
“I guess I was tired,” Arabel said, just as confused as they were.
“Stop staying up so late,” Ferne said.
“I didn’t…” What had she been doing last night? She didn’t even remember going to bed. “Avery, what time did I come in last night?”
Avery scratched her head. “Umm… I don’t remember. You’ve been coming in late a lot.”
Right. Wait, what? Her head swam, and she blinked away the dizziness. What had she been doing in the evenings? And why hadn’t she noticed that she didn’t remember? “Can I borrow some ink and parchment tonight?” Arabel asked.
“Sure,” Avery said. “Why?”
Because she needed to keep a record of what she’d been doing, to figure out if she really was missing large swathes of time. “Er, eidolon research.”
Ferne rolled her eyes. “You, too, now? Avery, you’re infecting her with your book obsession.” She linked her arm through her sister’s as they climbed the stairs to dinner.
24
The weeks went by more and more quickly. Time passed in a blur of practice, chores, and intermittent vindictiveness from Naomi. Arabel and the others fell into a rhythm, going to bed early, waking with the sun, doing chores all morning, and working with Naomi all afternoon. In the evenings, Arabel grudgingly went to the library and made herself think about her emotions, but she made no progress. For a while, she diligently recorded everything she did, and when. No gaps in time appeared. She must have just spaced out.
Finally, Oswald returned from his trip and it was Arabel’s turn for her fourth meeting with the archguard.
On the landing a few doors down from the archguard’s office was a small round sitting room with windows looking out over the valley in the distance. Just visible over a rise were the roofs of Norbury. Arabel was slightly early for her meeting—as she had been early for everything since sleeping in that weird morning, just in case—so she paused, looking out at the view.
“You’re Arabel Fossey, is that correct?” She hadn’t even heard the man approach.
He was well dressed, in a neat linen tunic. Tall, and solidly built, with a faint shadow of dark stubble across his well-defined chin. Everything about him, from his short hair to his impeccable clothes, was immaculately well-kept. He was incredibly handsome.
“Yes,” she said, taking his outstretched hand, which grasped hers firmly.
“Welcome to Castle Claria. Ian Wellard. I was just meeting with the archguard. Back from a mission.”
If that was how he looked immediately after returning from months in the wilderness fighting demons, Arabel wondered what he could possibly look like the rest of the time. It was a formidable thought.
He released her hand. “So, how are you adjusting to life at the castle?” His hands swung at his sides, and he tucked them into his pockets.
“It’s fine.”
“Naomi can be a bit of a taskmaster.”
“She’s all right.” She got the impression that he wanted something and didn’t feel like baring all of her difficulties with her teacher to someone she’d just met who was also being so secretive. And so good looking.
“Well, glad you’re getting along well. If there’s anything you have questions about, I’m happy to help.” He took a quick breath. “You seem… young for an aspirant.”
She raised her eyebrows. She wasn’t young, she was the same age as everyone else, and no one had ever told her she looked young before. He seemed to be waiting for her to say something, but she didn’t know what, so she just waited.
“Er, how old are you?”
That was a creepy question. “Seventeen.”
His eyes widened slightly, but he seemed to realize how weird he was being. “Er, I apologize for waylaying you. I’d better be off.”
He made a hasty exit, and Arabel watched him go. She would have wondered longer what that was all about, but she heard a clock chiming and hurried down the hall so as not to be late for her meeting.
Oswald was busy as she came in, shuffling through the mess looking for something, but he glanced up and smiled.
“Ah, Arabel, wonderful. Please, have a seat.”
She did, staring out the window at the windswept view and waiting while he stirred the contents of hi
s desk. Leaves skimmed past the rain-flecked windows. Fall came early this high in the mountains.
He seemed to find what he was looking for, crumpled it up, threw it away, and sat, clasping his hands over the top of the mess.
“How was your trip?” she asked.
“Not very successful, I am afraid, but thank you for asking. How has your work in the library been going?”
At least she’d been going. “Terrible—I’ve been going, it’s just… pointless. I’m not learning anything.”
“Is that so?”
She told him about her attempts.
Rain lashed the window as he sat back, nodding.
“A few thoughts,” he said once she had finished. “The first is that you haven’t learned nothing. You have learned that you use annoyance not to feel other things. This is very useful.”
She started to roll her eyes, then caught herself.
“The other thing, though, is that this is great progress you have made.”
She blinked. Had he not heard her story?
“It would be wonderful if we could simply go to the library, peruse a list of emotions, and determine which of them we had pushed away from ourselves. Unfortunately, our minds are often better at avoiding than we realize. What you have been practicing is simply the willingness to try, which is the first step. Possibly the hardest.”
“I have no idea what my eidolons are, though.”
“They will tell you, when you find them. You just have to be willing to listen.”
She raised her eyebrows, frowning at him. “So… all this was a huge waste of time? I could have just decided to listen to them?”
“What is deciding besides acting? Everything else is just wishful thinking and fantasy.”
She opened her mouth, then shut it again. There was a flaw in that thinking somewhere; there had to be.
“That said—” He leaned forward, scratching his chin. “Have you been going through them one-by-one?”
“Yeah—or, I guess… well, no. I’ve just been standing on some of them.”
“It’s easy to skip the ones we don’t want to think about that way. Try going through them one at a time.”
She sighed. “All right.”
He twiddled his thumbs briefly, and the wind howled around the eaves of the window.
“Something else you should know. Naomi has, I understand, begun your meditation training. Part of this is to help you understand yourself, to delve into your own soul, but you should know that you may find other things there. Especially with your… history.”
“My history?”
“Yes. You see, typically eidolons belong only to one person, but they don’t always. Sometimes, when a body dies, the soul goes to the Deep, but part of it is left behind. Sometimes the eidolons it created are so powerful that they stay in the world. They are bereft, and the soul that is missing them is in torment without them. In these cases, sometimes, we have seen that they will have an affinity for the souls of family members.
“The souls of families are more closely related, and sometimes there are eidolons created that are too powerful, too full of unfinished business, to be banished, and they live on, passed down through generations, growing stronger and stronger. You come from an… interesting… family, and if there was such an eidolon, you might be able to sense the echoes of it within yourself.”
She doubted her father had enough of a soul to even make eidolons.
Oswald regarded her for a few moments. “All right, well, that will be all for today, I think.”
Not at all sure what they had accomplished, Arabel shrugged, gave one last glance out the window at the pouring rain, and left.
25
That evening, Arabel collected a heaping plate of food from the kitchens and went to sit by herself at a table far away from everyone else, underneath a portrait of a mushroom. She hunched over her plate, shoveling potatoes and bits of roast into her mouth indiscriminately, washing them down, half-chewed, with the weak wine they always had with dinner. She didn’t feel like talking with anyone today.
A throat cleared politely, and Arabel looked up to see someone looming over her. It took her a moment to place him. Ian Wellard, the guardian who’d asked her how old she was outside of Oswald’s office. She continued chewing, waiting for him to say what he wanted.
“Would you mind if I joined you?”
She was about to say yes but wasn’t able to swallow her huge mouthful before he sat. He spread a cotton napkin across his lap and looked down at his food, lifting his fork and then setting it back down again.
“Congratulations on the death glimmer; you did well, I hear.”
Arabel furrowed her eyebrows at him. He looked up, and his dark eyes were warm, strangely familiar. He had the unmistakable look of someone who had something they were too uncomfortable to say. Arabel swallowed and waited for him to get to the point.
He picked up his fork and set it back down again, then smiled at her. “I have to admit I was surprised your father let you come. Was it your mother who suggested it?”
“My mother’s dead.” Arabel took a swig of wine and started cutting her meat roughly.
“I know. I’m sorry; what I meant was, was she the one who gave you the idea? Before…”
“Who are you again?”
“Ian. Ian Wellard. I apologize. I suppose that’s a rude question. Your mother was a friend. I… I knew you when you were a baby.”
Wine sloshed over the rim of her cup as Arabel clunked it down on the table. “What? How?”
He smiled, his eyes sad. “I saw you when your mother brought you here, of course.”
“I’ve been here before?”
Ian looked confused. “Yes. You… you don’t remember? I suppose you were young at the time. Only a few years old. You were walking, though. You don’t remember playing under these tables?”
Arabel surveyed the room. Nothing came to mind.
He was watching her with those warm, kind eyes, and Arabel’s stomach twisted. She looked away, and he picked up his fork with his left hand and began to eat.
“I heard from Naomi that you’re not very interested in being here, is that true?” He readjusted his napkin. “I’m sorry for prying,” he added hastily. “I know Naomi was the one who picked you up and she… isn’t always the easiest to get along with. I just… don’t want you to get the wrong impression of us. I heard about what she did with the death glimmer, too. I think that was a bit much.”
Arabel shot a glance at him; he seemed sincere.
“I also heard that you’re… having some trouble with the training.”
Arabel’s face heated. “I’m fine. I’ll figure it out.”
“I don’t doubt that. But, well, your mother, while she wasn’t a guardian, had her own way of dealing with the eidolons. You remind me of her—you look so much like her and, well, you seem to be trying to do things our way. It might work better if you did it her way.”
Something clicked into place in Arabel’s chest and she looked up. “What do you mean, my mother’s way?” And why hadn’t anyone told her any of this before?
“She was more sensitive to them than the rest of us. She only told me a bit… about her thoughts on them. It might be useful to you.”
Trying not to let her excitement show, Arabel nodded. “All right. Yeah. That’d be cool.”
“I’m leaving soon, out on a patrol, but I have time tomorrow morning before I leave.” He glanced over his shoulder.
“All right, great,” Arabel said.
He piled his silverware back on his plate. “All right, well, I’m sorry for disturbing you. I’ll leave you to eat in peace.”
“Er, wait,” she said, and he paused. “No, that’s fine.”
He waited for her to clarify.
“I mean, what do you know about my mother?”
He settled back onto the bench. “Serafina was… very talented. And very headstrong. She could have been a guardian. Easily. She came and went a lot, es
pecially before she… she married. She studied in the library here often and ran her own trainings here. That’s where I met her. I was an acolyte at the time.”
Arabel leaned forward, forgetting all about her food. “What was she like?”
He smiled, looking thoughtfully down at his fork. “She was hilarious. Always laughing. You didn’t want to make her mad, though.” He grinned and shook his head. “She didn’t get mad often, but when she did…”
Arabel strained to remember any of this, any of what he was telling her, but there was only a blank buzzing in her mind.
“And she was beautiful. She had your same wavy hair, only she wore it down mostly. Same red-brown color. You really don’t know any of this?”
She shook her head.
He touched his chin thoughtfully. “Well… she would have wanted you to know everything, I’m sure. She… she had a hard childhood.”
“What do you mean?” The whole room faded away. Nothing else existed.
“She was an orphan, as far as we could tell. We think what happened was that her family was killed by eidolons. They missed her somehow, and she was found by a sorcerer. A… a rogue sorcerer, who had his own ideas about things.”
Arabel’s chest constricted.
“He… he had collected others before her. They all died.” Ian’s fist was clenched on the table in front of him. “This monster thought people could be trained, could cut out all the worst parts of themselves, replace them with only the good. What he considered pure. He had re-engineered the siphons so that he could… rip apart people’s souls.”
“And he did this? To my mother?”
“And to many other children. The others all died, but whether it was that your mother was stronger, or that he had improved his techniques, for whatever reason she survived.”
Arabel took a deep breath, her stomach churning. Oh, mom.
“For years he ripped her soul into pieces and put it back together again, grafting on things that didn’t belong there. Until he needed money. Then he went to someone he thought would be amenable to his theories. Cecil Fossey was a young man at the time. The new Lord Protector of Myrefall, his father having recently slipped into senility. Everyone could see how ambitious he was. But the sorcerer had misjudged him. When Cecil saw what had been done to Serafina, he arrested the sorcerer on the spot. He took her from that place that very night, took her to his castle. Nursed her back to health, falling in love with her in the process.”
The Eidolons of Myrefall Page 15
