Inexplicable anger surged through me. Perhaps it was from my mother, anger at not having ended up with the man whom she had been madly in love with. After uttering the word, she lifted the lid from the box, and the vision left as quickly as it had come.
I opened my eyes and whispered, “Sibelius.” To my utter amazement, the lid lifted as easily as if it had never been locked. Given the difficulty of getting into the thing, I half expected light to shine forth and angels to sing from the heavens.
Inside sat one item: an identical container the size of a jewelry box.
“Dammit.” They were like little matryoshka dolls. It would be stupid to have the same password open the smaller box, but I couldn’t resist trying.
“Sibelius.” No luck. My mother’s paranoia had gone from annoying to downright aggravating. All I wanted was the truth. What would warrant this level of protection?
Chapter 14
As the first sun set and the second sunset approached, I couldn’t wait for my meeting with Marguerite. If nothing else, it would prove a great distraction from trying to figure out the damn box. No matter how many times I tried, I couldn’t summon the same type of vision that had given me the answer to the outer box. If my mother’s ghost provided the visions, she’d gone silent.
After I tried every magical trick and password I could think of, I’d resorted to physical violence against the container. I knew it wouldn’t work, but it served as a great release for my frustrations. Unfortunately, it left a sizable dent in the wall.
There was one obvious possibility: the password for the smaller box was my father’s name. She had used her ex-lover’s name for the outer box, so it made a weird sort of parallel sense for her to use my father’s name for the inner. At this point, all I wanted from Marguerite was a name. The rest of it could wait until later.
“She’s here,” Alex said, his chin lifting slightly as he either heard or smelled her. “I’m going to shift. If you need anything, call my name. I’ll make sure the guard doesn’t disturb you.” Alex assumed his familiar panther form and headed to the cover of the trees. We decided that he would observe the meeting in secret. I needed as much information from Marguerite as possible, and given how hesitant my family was to speak about my father, it would be easier to get her to talk without anyone present.
A few minutes later, Marguerite walked toward me from the back of the property. “Good, the guard isn’t here.”
“You asked for privacy.” We embraced in a perfunctory hug. I liked her better than my great-aunts, but I still barely knew her. Though the similarity in appearance to my mother made me feel affection toward her that wasn’t totally warranted.
“I’m sorry for the way Matilda and Lucinda acted earlier. They’re insufferable. People only tolerate them out of respect to my father.”
“So a sorcerer really killed him, and the Council did nothing about it?”
“No, I wouldn’t characterize the Council’s reaction that way. They never caught who did it and decided that catching his killer wasn’t as important as avoiding war. It was a precarious time. The people loved your grandfather. Most mages wanted to see us go to war over it, and it took all the diplomacy in Elustria for the Council to avoid it. I agreed with them at the time, and I still do. As much as I’d like to see justice for my father, I want peace between our people more. He would’ve felt the same way.”
“I take it my mother didn’t agree.”
“No, temperamentally she took after our mother where I took after our father. Meglana was always inquisitive, intelligent, interested in power, but it changed after our parents died.”
I could relate. It was impossible to escape the death of both parents without bearing a few scars.
“It caused something of a rift between us. She didn’t understand my desire for peace, and I didn’t understand her thirst for vengeance. I thought the way she behaved dishonored our parents’ memory, and she thought the same of me. Looking back now, I wish I would have done things differently.” Marguerite’s gaze shifted. She stared behind me into the past.
As much as I enjoyed learning this, there were more pressing matters at hand. I didn’t know how long we’d have our privacy. “You said you’d tell me about my father.”
“Oh, yes, what do you want to know?”
“For starters, what was his name? I’ve never heard it.”
“I think his name was Marty.”
“Marty?” Lame. In this land of interesting names, I had a dad no one talked about except to call him Marty.
“I think it was short for something, but I’m not sure what.”
“So he wasn’t close with the family?” How was it possible she didn’t know his name?
“Oh no. I never even met him. The only reason I know his name is because I stumbled upon Meglana talking to him through a communication orb. He would’ve never been welcome in our family home. When Meglana took up with him, she retreated from the family more than she already had after our parents’ death. I only saw her a few times after that.”
For the first time, I realized I didn’t know my father’s fate. “When did he die? Or did he? Is he still alive somewhere?”
“I have no idea. If he is alive, no one in our family has heard from him. I assumed he must’ve died with Meglana.”
“There was no mention of him.” I caught myself from revealing too much. I didn’t know what the Council was making known about the assassin and my mother’s death. Preserving the Council’s reputation didn’t concern me, but I didn’t want to reveal something that might make life more difficult for me.
“I have no reason to believe he’s dead then,” Marguerite said. “He wouldn’t seek us out, regardless.”
“Why? I don’t understand why he wasn’t part of the family like anyone else would’ve been. Is it just that he wasn’t Sibelius?”
Marguerite laughed. “Oh, no! Sure, whoever Meglana ended up with was going to be ‘not-Sibelius,’ but that wasn’t the issue with your father. The issue there was that he was a sorcerer.”
“What the…?” How had I never known this? In a matter of weeks I had gone from being human, to being a mage, to being half mage half sorcerer.
“That’s why we don’t talk about him.”
My mind whirled with this new information. How did that fit into the picture of my mother I had drawn? “I don’t understand where this prejudice comes from. Sure you might not like sorcerers, but wouldn’t that have been the best way to heal the rift? I mean, the fact that my mom fell in love with a sorcerer after what happened to your parents is amazing. Is the hatred between mages and sorcerers really so deep that you’d ostracize a member of your family over it?”
“Mages and sorcerers don’t mix. It’s a matter of great shame when they do.”
I remembered back to my conversation with Mikael at the Armory. He had said something similar. “I just don’t get it. I mean, there’s racism on Earth, but we’ve pretty much moved beyond outlawing mingling.”
“You don’t understand, and this is another reason we were hesitant to say anything in front of you. The children of mages and sorcerers can’t produce children with magic. To mate with the other means never having magical grandchildren, and people without magic can’t survive in Elustria.”
“All right.” My mind tried to adjust to the fact that I would never have magical children, not that I had thought about it much before, but it still shocked me. “I understand it would be difficult to live here without magic, but billions of people live without magic on Earth just fine. It isn’t something that would make a parent love their child any less.”
“You misunderstand.” Marguerite shook her head. “Non-magical beings literally can’t live in Elustria. They will eventually wither and die. To have a non-magical creature here is a death sentence. So falling in love with a sorcerer means ending your family. It’s selfish and cruel to bring a child into this world who can never have children of their own.”
Marguerite’s words knocke
d the wind out of me. I didn’t even know if I ever wanted children or if I’d settle in Elustria, but I couldn’t help a deep sense of loss. “Wait, so she was madly in love with Sibelius, and you all made it sound like he was in love with her, but then she breaks that off to have a child with my father which she knows means ending her family line? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Welcome to the family. We’ve been trying to figure it out for ages.”
“Did any of you search for me? Did you wonder what happened to me?” Had they written me off as the daughter of a sorcerer?
“We didn’t know you existed until the Council informed us. All we knew was that she broke off things with Sibelius to be with a sorcerer. She retreated afterward. Any time we tried to talk to her, she got angry and lashed out at us. She became obsessed with her fanatical research.”
“You said she continued your mother’s work.”
“Yes and no. My mother was an intellectual. Her pursuit was academic in nature. That’s not how Meglana operated. She took everything in life to the extreme. The intricate differences between our races didn’t interest her. She wanted to be as powerful as the sorcerers, and she wanted it now. I hate to cast aspersions, I loved my sister, but the Council has given you this task, so you need to know what you’re dealing with. Whatever you find of hers, take it to the extreme because that’s what she did. Don’t back off or shy away. Don’t think that anything she studied or wrote down was confined to the theoretical. My sister did not deal in theoreticals.”
I wanted to ask if she suspected Meglana was part of the Directorate, but again, I didn’t know how much the Council had made known. “Thanks. That helps.”
“I’m glad. My sister may not have been a model citizen, but I don’t see why the Council insists on dredging this all up. She’s dead. That should be enough for them. They’ll use whatever you find to throw dirt onto her grave.”
That much I knew. “That’s the last thing I want. I’m doing this to vindicate her. I don’t believe she’s the monster they say she was. I’d rather not give them anything.”
“You can’t do that.” Panic entered her eyes, and she grabbed my hand in alarm. “Don’t go to the Vortex for my sister’s sake. It’s sweet what you’re trying to do, but you’ve already been through enough. I’ve got to get going now, but I’m here for you. I’ll take your call any time. I understand you’re busy, but hopefully this will all be resolved soon, and we can take a stab at being a proper family.”
“Yeah, I’d like that.” To my surprise, I didn’t need to lie.
She embraced me again before leaving. When she pulled away, she said, “And don’t worry. If you and that panther who’s watching us now end up together, you’ll have a warm welcome in our family.”
I didn’t have a chance to tell her that Alex and I were just friends before she walked away.
Less than ten minutes and I’d gained a father, lost a future, and opened the door to a family.
Chapter 15
Even though Marguerite had acknowledged Alex’s presence, he waited until she was out of sight to walk to me in human form.
“That was enlightening.” He sounded as surprised as I felt. “Do you want to discuss it? What you found out is a big deal. I didn’t even know non-magical humans can’t live in Elustria.”
“So I won’t be able to have little magical children. I’m not worried about that right now.” I waved off his concerns with my hand and rushed back to the cottage. “If my theory is right, my father’s name opens the inner container.”
Alex followed me to the cavern and watched as I picked up the little jeweled box. Having an audience didn’t make this any easier.
“Marty,” I whispered as I held the box. The lid didn’t budge under my hand. “Dammit.” I threw it as hard as I could against the ground, hoping it would crack open. Of course, it didn’t.
“Hey, we know that’s not going to work.” Alex handed me the box and met my eyes with his. The yellow irises had ceased to be alarming a while ago, and now they communicated strength, comfort, steadiness. All the things I needed. “Take a deep breath and think. You can do this. You wouldn’t be here if you couldn’t.”
The idea of using my father’s name seemed sound, and I wasn’t willing to give up on it yet. “Isn’t Marty short for something?”
“Sure. I don’t think anyone names their kid Marty.”
Thank god. I couldn’t handle my dad’s actual name being Marty. There were enough weird names floating around as it was. Then again, if I had grown up with him, if I had cousins—did I have cousins?—I could imagine my father as someone loving and kind. With a nickname like Marty, he’d have to have a great sense of humor. I could see my cousins loving their uncle Marty, and me loving my father.
Grief at a missed life dissolved into grief over my real parents who had raised me. I hadn’t missed a thing growing up with them. Mom and Dad had loved me in the unwavering, unconditional way of good parents. They didn’t have magic, but their devotion to me had given me more strength growing up than any talisman or wand could.
“What is it?” Alex’s forehead crinkled in concern as he looked at me. Only then did I notice the mistiness in my eyes. I must’ve gone quiet there for a minute.
“Nothing, just thinking through all of this. So what are names that Marty is short for?”
“Well, there’s Martloeb, Martista, Martholomew—”
Martholomew. That was it. The stone on my chest warmed against my skin in recognition. I looked at the small box and whispered, “Martholomew.”
Just as with the larger box, the lid lifted easily. Alex circled around to peer over my shoulder into the box. I reached inside and lifted out a single, ordinary key. It could’ve come from my key ring back home.
“Great, what am I supposed to do with this?”
Alex took the key from me and examined it. “What were you expecting? A miniature book containing all your mother’s secrets?”
“Well, yeah.” Saying it out loud made me feel foolish, but at some point these clues had to lead to something.
Alex handed me the key. “Do you have any idea what that would go to? It’s definitely from Earth.”
“You’re sure?”
“People don’t use keys like that in Elustria. They’re quaint in a world of magic. It seems odd that your mother would’ve left anything of value in a place so easily opened with a key.”
Understanding dawned, and I smiled. “No, she was a genius. If you wanted to hide something from a mage, where better than in a human place? A mage would never think to look on Earth. If she had hidden her secrets here, someone might’ve found them, even stumbled upon them given enough time. There’s no chance a mage would just happen upon whatever this key unlocks.”
Despite all the negative things I’d heard about my mother recently, my respect and admiration for her grew. If a mage opened the cavern, found the chest, opened the chest, opened the box within, they would still be stumped upon finding this key.
“So where do we start? Your mother’s plan didn’t just cleverly stop mages; it’s also stopped us.”
I held the key up to the light, looking for any engravings or markings. It was smaller than a house key. “It looks like it belongs to a mailbox or a locker of some kind. Maybe a safe-deposit box?”
“Your guess is better than mine. I wouldn’t know anything about that. Remember, I spent most of my time on Earth as a panther.”
That was hard to believe given how good he was at being human. “We’re not going to figure this out here. I need to get back to Earth. This place may be full of magic, but what I need is a good Internet connection.”
I’d need a lot more than that, but I did have one friend I could call.
“How do you propose we get to Earth?” Alex asked. “We don’t have access to a portal.”
“The Council will have to get me one if they want me to deliver my mother’s research.”
“I don’t see that happening. At the very l
east, they’d want us to take someone appointed by the Council with us to Earth.”
That didn’t sound like a good idea. While I wanted to help the Council, and I was realizing from what my family told me that my mother most likely worked for the Directorate, I still wouldn’t give them everything I found. I wanted to control who knew what.
“Maybe I should talk to Marguerite about it.” My aunt had seemed willing to help.
Alex frowned. “Whatever the plan, you need to get some sleep. It’s late, and you’ll think more clearly after you’ve rested. I’ll patrol outside to make sure nothing gets past our guard.”
“No, stay inside tonight. The guard’s here, and nothing’s going to happen. I’m starting to think that whole security system thing was a fluke. This way you’ll be well rested tomorrow and be more help to me.” I could tell Alex wanted to refuse, but after a few seconds of internal deliberation, he nodded.
“All right. Though I don’t think I’ll be much help.”
“You can think of a way for us to get to Earth without the Council sending a babysitter. You’ve done a decent job of getting them to trust you. They might let me go on your word that we’ll return.”
“I doubt their trust extends that far, but I do seem to be a little more diplomatic than some people.” Alex eyed me.
I couldn’t help laughing at that. He had a point. Confident that one enchanted container was enough security for the key, I put it back in the more portable smaller box. Although I was eager to return to Earth to solve this, the chances were slim I’d find the door that key opened before Casper got wind of my return.
Chapter 16
Magic Unknown (The Elustria Chronicles: Magic Born Book 2) Page 9
