by F. D. Lee
Ana stepped forward, peering at the room. “There’s guards on every door, and a standing army outside. Although it’s probably more of a leaning army now,” she conceded, thinking about how much free beer the citizens of Llanotterly could get through. “Do you think it’s the Baron? Is he coming?”
“No,” Melly said. There was a film of sweat on her skin. “And it won’t matter how many guards are stationed at the doors.”
“Why not?”
Melly looked at the far wall, glazed doors along its length to allow access to the gardens. “They won’t be using the doors.”
The band has ceased playing, Seven thought. It struck him as odd that they would, considering there were still couples dancing. Perhaps they hadn’t realised the music had stopped?
Seven didn’t glide, not anymore. He wasn’t even sure he knew where his feet were, or any other part of him. He knocked into the heavy shoulder of a fat woman from the Six Points whom John had gone to a great deal of trouble to get here. She turned her red face towards him, insulted by such unaccustomed mistreatment, but when she saw his beauty she went back to her conversation, settling to disparage the poor breeding of Llanotterly.
Seven watched Maria Sophia as she made her way through the crowds towards the throne. She was as beautiful as he remembered. Her skin seemed to glow, reflecting back the candlelight like porcelain. She looked every bit as fragile and lovely as he remembered.
The image of her lying dead in her glass coffin filled his vision. He could still remember the hollow, raw, futile sound of his voice as he begged her to wake up, his face pressed against the glass, his thick, black blood smearing against the clear surface, mixing with his tears.
But as much magic as he’d used, he hadn’t been able to wake her up. For three weeks he’d returned to her living grave. He’d sat with her, telling her stories, sharing memories with her of their time together and his life before The Great Redaction. He begged her, quietly, softly, to just wake up.
And then one day she had.
Seven watched her now as Maria Sophia turned and smiled up at the tall, dark, handsome man on her arm, whispering something in his ear that made him laugh. A knot of fire twisted in Seven’s stomach, so hot it burned him. He fixed his gaze on the man, a shadow of a memory brushing against his consciousness. And then he had it.
He had only ever seen the man at a distance, on the day Maria Sophia had married him and become the Countess of Cierremont, a small city in Marlais. Seven hadn’t been at the ceremony, but he’d seen the new couple when they’d stood on the balcony of their turreted castle while he had stood in the market, hidden under his hood.
That was the first night he had ever been drunk. When he’d come to outside the boundary of Cierremont, hazy memories of trying to convince the revellers to wish for their new Countess to die in a series of increasingly painful ways had clogged his memory. His ribs had been broken, his left arm fractured and his body a mess of bruises, all no doubt courtesy of the drunkenly patriotic locals.
And now she was here. In Llanotterly. She had returned to him.
He stepped back as Maria Sophia and her man walked passed him. Someone came up to speak to them, a guest Seven should have known but couldn’t place. Seven’s mind had shattered, broken into sharp shards at the sight of her.
He could only see Maria Sophia’s back, but the patrician face of the guest they were taking to seemed serious. Somewhere Seven knew he should be paying attention to this rigid, humourless man. But he couldn’t focus, not when he could see the curve of Maria Sophia’s back. Not when he could remember so clearly what it felt like to run his fingers over her, to press his lips to her, to love her and cherish her and be inside her.
The tall, austere man leaned forward and spoke to the Count, who shook his head, laughing loudly. Maria Sophia stood up on her toes to whisper something to her husband, Seven’s stomach twisting anew as he saw her lips brush against the man’s ear. The Count shrugged his wide shoulders and after another round of head shaking and laughter they said goodbye to the white-haired man and continued their journey towards the throne to formally thank John for the invitation.
Seven stepped into pace behind them, his mind racing. She was here and the world, for so long ugly and deformed, was all at once itself again. She was taking a glass of sweet wine from one of the waiters. She was smiling. She was breathing. She was here.
Maria Sophia was an island of such colossal importance within a sea of inconsequence that it seemed impossible the Ball was able to continue its empty existence.
She was on the steps now, a few feet from John and Ana and the witch. Seven realised all he had to do was walk up behind her, reach out his hand, touch her shoulder and-
What?
What would occur?
Seven’s step faltered.
The woman above him had tumbled out of his dreams, and now stood like a half-waking ghost, a photograph double exposed, showing him in one moment the fallacy of his past as it bled into his future. The image of Maria Sophia had grown too large for him to bear. He had made it so. In his industry and creativity, he had transformed her into something so wonderful that the very fact she might now be anything less terrified him almost as much as the prospect she might exceed it.
Seven turned. He had made a mistake. He never should have come here, never should have mixed and meddled with these creatures. What a fool he was – he had put himself in the eye of the Teller and the General Administration for something he now knew he would never have the courage to take.
It was time to run. Time to hide. He would recover what remained of his lamp, and he would leave this-
“Albelphizar!”
Seven froze.
She had called him.
Chapter Forty-one
Bea peered around the corner, and then ducked back.
There was no mistaking that narrow back – it was definitely Mistasinon. But what in the worlds was he doing here?
Her first thought was that he had come for her. But as the initial wave of panic ebbed, she’d realised he was heading towards Seven’s room, so she’d followed silently behind him. She was very good at being quiet, something an unthinking person might find surprising given her proportions. It was a skill learned through years of living in the Sheltering Forest, always on the lookout for orcs and gnarls, and later honed as a result of all the Plots she’d watched. Bea peered around the corner again. Mistasinon was kneeling outside the genie’s door, rummaging in the tatty satchel he always carried with him.
Without warning he froze, Bea’s heart not far behind him. He sat still, his back to her and his arm lost in his bag. She watched, not daring to move, as he took a deep breath in through his nose. He sat quietly, breathing deeply, for what felt to Bea to be a hundred years.
And then he went back to rummaging in his bag, as if nothing had happened. He pulled out a bronze ring from which hung five oddly shaped, flattened sticks, and held it up to study it. Bea watched as he brushed his fingertips over the keyhole in Seven’s door.
He put his eye to the hole, as if he was trying to spy into the genie’s bedroom. Then he turned his attention back to the bronze sticks and, after a moment or two flicking between them, chose one that to Bea seemed to be a bit pointier than the others. He slipped the stick into the keyhole and then, leaning into the task, began to wiggle it around. Bea wasn’t sure what she expected to happen, but when nothing did she felt almost as frustrated as Mistasinon did, if his quick expulsion of breath was anything to go by.
She was just trying to decide whether she should confront him when he stood up and stepped back from the door. He put the sticks back in his bag, which he placed carefully at his feet. Next, he took off his blue suit jacket and waistcoat, and then, of all unexpected things, he started unbuttoning his shirt.
Bea considered pulling her head back around the corner, but she very quickly squashed that thought. If she was going to ignore all the things she shouldn’t do, surely that included ignoring the fact she shouldn’
t be watching Mistasinon undress? That was just parity. She had always thought herself a very fair person.
She was surprised to see a dapple of light brown hair across his chest, disappearing down his stomach and under his trousers. The fae, as a rule, didn’t grow body hair. Even the trolls, who were generally considered to be a boorish tribe, only grew hair on their fingers and in their ears. Body hair was limited to humans and animals.
Mistasinon rolled his shoulders, shifted position and then, in a movement so fast Bea wasn’t sure she saw when it began, he slammed himself, shoulder first, into Seven’s door.
Bea yelped in shock, but the sound of the wood creaking covered her cry. She quickly pulled her head back behind the wall and listened as Mistasinon hit the door again. This time there was the loud crack of thick timber splitting.
Silence fell. Bea swallowed, and waited for her heart to slow down. When she was reasonably confident it wasn’t about to beat its way out of her chest, she peeped again around the corner. Mistasinon was gone, his shirt, jacket and waistcoat no longer on the floor, nor his satchel. Seven’s bedroom door was also markedly absent. All that remained was a splintered hole, edged with jagged pieces of broken wood. It looked like it had been hit with a battering ram.
Bea bit her lip.
It was only Mistasinon – sad-eyed Mistasinon, with his lopsided smile and kind words. He was her Plotter. He’d taken her to dinner and, she was almost one hundred per cent certain, flirted with her. She liked him. But then he’d also just broken down a solid wooden door. And, she remembered, he was fast. Very fast.
She glanced behind her. The Ball was still going, which meant that Seven was still out there.
How did the wishes work? Would he hear her if she called to him?
She would just have to hope he would.
Bea released her lip and stepped through what had once been Seven’s door.
Mistasinon was on the floor, his top half disappearing under Seven’s bed. Around him various drawers and cabinets hung open, their contents spilled out across the floor.
“Looking for something?” Bea asked.
Mistasinon backed out from under the bed. He had replaced his shirt, the crisp, white sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His satchel was sat on top of the bed, his jacket and waistcoat presumably stuffed inside. Some madness caused Bea to notice how the white shirt seemed to suit him more than the dark blue of his Plotter’s uniform.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“I was going to ask you the same thing.”
“I came to see if you were alright. You didn’t report in at the Grand.”
Bea raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think that’s true.”
Mistasinon stood for a moment, his hands flexing at the end of his arms. And then he flopped down on the bed.
“I – it’s complicated,” he said.
“I’m beginning to think everything is,” Bea answered. “What are you doing?”
“Will you sit down?”
“I’d rather stand.”
“Please?”
Bea rolled her eyes but grabbed the chair from Seven’s desk and pulled it over to the bed. She set it down in front of Mistasinon and sat down, her large skirt billowing up around her.
“So why are you here?”
“I’m, um, looking for something.”
Bea took a moment to glance pointedly around the room. “I can see that. What are you looking for?”
Mistasinon rubbed his neck. His hair, normally slicked back, had fallen loose from his exertions and hung over his eyes, softening his wide forehead. “There’s another fae here,” he said slowly. “In addition to you and me, that is.”
Bea leaned forward on her elbows. There didn’t seem much point in being coy, not any more. “You mean the genie?”
Mistasinon frowned. “Yes. How did you know?”
“It wasn’t hard to put it together,” Bea said breezily. “So, what is it you’re looking for? And why don’t you just ask him for it?”
Mistasinon moved forward, so he was sitting on the edge of the bed, his knees brushing against the thick material of Bea’s skirt. “I know you must have a lot of questions, but this really isn’t the time to explain. It’s almost midnight.” He shot her a relieved smile. “And now you’re here, you can come back to the Grand with me.”
“Are you mad? I need to be here, with my Plot.” She didn’t add that Melly was downstairs in the Ballroom. She didn’t want to get her friend into trouble. “What’s going on?”
“Honestly, it’ll be easier to explain once we’re back home. Give me ten minutes to have one last look around and then-”
“I just told you, I’m not going anywhere.”
Mistasinon was so surprised and confused, it took him a moment to reply. “Um. Well, I’m your Plotter, and a GenAm official. You need to do what I say, or else-”
“No I don’t.” Bea said. She was beginning to realise that whatever was going on, it was about a hundred times worse than anything she’d imagined up to this point. “You just tell me why you’re here, and how you know about Seven. I’m not frightened of you.”
Mistasinon snorted. “Everyone’s frightened of something.”
“Redaction doesn’t scare me either,” Bea said, annoyed.
“What about the Cerberus? A ‘monster’, that’s what you said, wasn’t it?”
“So what? The Beast is a monster. But it’s not here, is it? It’s just you and me.”
He was only a few inches from her. She could feel the tension in him, like the whisper of air on skin in what should be an empty room. Then he spun around on the bed, reaching for his satchel.
“Don’t,” Bea warned.
He sighed, but he turned back to her. “I’m not about to pull out a sword, Bea. I just wanted to put my coat on. We’re wasting time. It’s twenty to twelve.”
“Why are you so worried about midnight?”
“I, we, have to be back by Midnight.”
“With this mystery object you’re looking for?”
“Ideally, yes. Bea, I… I waited for you at the Grand. I waited too long, when I should have been here, hunting. I thought you’d given up. I hoped you had.” He offered her one of his rainy smiles. “I should have known better. But thank the mortal gods, you’re here now – I mean, here with me. That is, that you followed me. I mean, mortal gods, what do I mean? I mean, you can come back with me, now that you’re here. That’s all.”
Bea felt herself wanting to return his smile. If someone had asked her half an hour ago, she would have said he was nice. Perhaps even her friend, or something more. Certainly trustworthy. But now…? Now she wasn’t so sure.
“Why weren’t you surprised when I said Seven was a genie?”
Mistasinon pulled back. “I – does it matter? We need to leave.”
“What’s happening at midnight? I’m not leaving until you tell me what in the five hells is going on.”
“Why are you so determined to stay?” Mistasinon said, his expression souring. “You’ve lost control of your Plot.”
“How do you know that?”
“Are you staying for him?”
“What? Who?”
Mistasinon stood up. “Are you staying for him? For ‘Seven’?”
Bea stood as well, her skirts knocking her chair to the floor with a loud crash. “Why on Thaiana would you think that?”
“I saw you dancing with him.”
“And? He’s not a character. No rule against dancing with another fae, is there? Stop distracting me and tell me what’s going on.”
“Let’s go, and then I promise I’ll explain ev-”
“Now. Explain now.”
Mistasinon looked like he was about to scream. He took a deep breath, obviously trying to gather himself. Bea very quickly tried to work out how far away she was from the hole in Seven’s door. There was something about the way Mistasinon was acting that suggested he was very near the end of his patience, and Bea was suddenly absolute
ly certain she didn’t want to see what would happen if he reached it.
“Fine,” he said. “But then you’re leaving with me. The Mirrors use magic to work.”
Bea stared at him. “But that doesn’t… I mean, what have the Mirrors got to do with Seven? Anyway, magic isn’t…” she was about to say strong enough, but she knew better than that. “I mean it’s banned.”
“You’ve been told it’s weak? Useless? Haven’t you thought about why something that the GenAm says is laughably weak is also banned?”
Bea opened her mouth to stand up for herself, but she knew he was right. She hadn’t thought to question it. She’d gone along with the GenAm’s line on magic, the same way she’d gone along with everything else the Teller told her.
“It’s not weak at all,” Mistasinon continued. “But it is difficult. Only the very, very old can use it with any real level of accuracy or success, and even then, if they aren’t careful or they overuse it... It’ll kill them.”
Bea thought about her own brush with magic and shivered. “And the Mirrors use magic?”
Mistasinon nodded. “A lot of magic. If we were to try to travel through the Mirrors by ourselves, ‘under our own steam’ as the characters would say, we’d never survive it. Certainly not given how reliant we are.” He glanced at the clock. “Bea, the time...”
“Explain faster. If the Mirrors use magic, how do we use them without killing ourselves in the process?”
“Belief.”
“Belief?” Bea nearly laughed. “So the GenAm was telling the truth?”
“Belief is a kind of magic all of its own. Belief can change reality, lives, the world, just as magic can. But belief can only do so much.” Mistasinon was growing increasingly restless. “Bea, we must go.”
“What about the Anties? Are they even real?”
“Yes. In a manner of speaking,” Mistasinon said. He started walking towards Seven’s mirror, standing covered in the corner of the room.
“What have the Mirrors got to do with Seven?”
Mistasinon had reached Seven’s mirror. “I wanted to find his lamp. But the GenAm… they want something else from him.”
