FALL TERM - November 2nd
Marblebrook was correct about the scrying glass. It's addicting. I limited it to just glimpsing moments from home, and even that was too much. I saw my mother having afternoon tea with Lady Salazar, my father's eyes slowly drifting shut as Lord Hart talks on about something inane, Ianthe throwing a tantrum - I looked away before more blood was spilled. One thing I hadn't realized with the scrying glass was just how hard it would be to see if anything was amiss. I was getting fragments, at random, and mostly of nothing significant. Though it was comforting all the same.
I hadn't seen my mother in months. She looked the same as always. Dignified. Her gray scales gleamed even under the low light of Caburh's ever-dark skies. She wore new headscarves, new gowns, but otherwise she was the woman I remembered, no less. I watched her practice her lyre on the terrace some evenings, imagining the sound of the instrument from memory. It was easy to miss her and harder to admit it.
Outside of the scrying glass, the term has carried on. Exams are a week away. I'd promised myself I'd study a little more for the individual classes, but since finding the other beginner's grimoire in the Sanctum, I've had a hard time choosing to read pretty much anything else.
The first spell I tried from it, ruin, made one side of the courtyard fountain weather away to dust. Okay, maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but it did actually make all the faces of the figures carved into the stone melt away in an instant. I hadn't even been aiming at the fountain. I hadn't been aiming at anything. But the sheer force of the spell once cast sought a target. I loved it immediately.
Imagine it: the feeling of that much power waiting at your fingertips. I really am going to need to learn a good repair spell before trying it again. I don't know how many shredded tapestries the faculty will be willing to excuse if I don't.
But this grimoire has other spells too. There was one that enabled the caster to see spirits of departed souls. I practiced it on a whim and for the hour that followed, I could see ghosts. The Court, it turns out, is absolutely riddled with them. I couldn't walk to a lecture without being met by a dozen hollow-eyed stares from beyond the grave. Won't be doing that again any time soon.
Then another, deathless familiar. This one I'd had Aisling help me with, with the promise that if it worked, we'd summon a familiar for her next. We rearranged the furniture in the little sitting room of my suite and prepared the room for ritual. It was an elaborate ritual casting that lasted close to twenty minutes. While that may not sound long, it's a very long time to cast. By the end of it, I was exhausted, but I'd felt the presence of magic and Aisling, who'd watched, said, "Yeah, you definitely did something." But then, nothing happened.
No familiar rose from the summoning circle. "I definitely put out a call, but I guess there's no guarantee there'll be any response," I said.
Aisling shrugged. "We're doing mine next," she reminded me. I could walk her through the casting. It wasn't that it was so hard, only long and draining. At least this time around I wasn't casting it myself. Nothing showed for her either.
The other spells though were not duds. I'd practiced a few that I had confidence would work, but as for what they actually do it's hard to know exactly until you see them in action. They were marked, by some past coven member, as good for dueling and the description made me think they were worth trying. I found with each new spell a loud burst of power, it was like discovering ruin all over again. This was magic as I liked it best, strong, dangerous, and effective.
Today, I was preparing to vanish off into the Sanctum for a few hours after lunch, when Aries caught me by the elbow. "Hey, you've got a minute?"
I wasn't hiding the fact that I'd been obsessed with this grimoire I'd been reading in the Sanctum, but in front of Aries, I downplayed it as much as I could. It was normal enough for me to disappear into the library or the Sanctum alone for awhile, but it was completely unnecessary for me to go on and on in front of him about this awesome new spell book I'd found. Given he still had yet to go to the Sanctum any more than he needed to.
"What's up?" I asked.
He was still holding onto my elbow. "It's really nothing major, I just wanted to -"
Aries quickly shoved me hard with his free hand. The other still gripped my arm. I stumbled, only to feel the world pulled out from under me. The feeling was horribly uncanny until I realized what it was and let myself fall into it.
Aries had cast shadow step. If anything, this was him getting even.
When the shadows parted, I leaned against his shoulder, panting. "I deserved that," I said.
Aries laughed. "I thought it was supposed to feel better once you knew how to cast it?"
"Wait, you don't still feel crappy, do you?"
Aries looked fine. He was still actually cracking up and I was breaking out in a sweat. "No, but you look like shit. I think it just sucks to be a passenger."
I scoffed, ran my hands up through my hair, and tried to shove the nausea way way down. He was probably right.
Then, I realized I didn't know where we were. I'd half expected Aries to have traveled us to the same courtyard we always went to, where there was a bit of grass, and sun, but that wasn't here. We were standing on a riverbank in the shadow of the cliffs where the Midnight Court loomed. From our vantage point, its high towers were half hidden in the seaside haze.
"Where are we, Aries?" I asked.
He threw back his head, a little haughty, but immediately tripped over himself and skid down the muddy slope of the riverbank. He caught himself with his hands just before land gave way to stream. "I thought you might want to come check it out with me," he said. "I didn't just drag you all the way here for no reason." He wiped his hands clean on the pant leg of his trousers.
I held out a hand to him and helped heave him back up the side of the riverbank. "Okay, I'll bite. Where to?"
He was following the river away from the Court. We crossed by a trio of old frogfolk women scrubbing laundry with lye, the three giving us odd looks as we passed. Aries was being a little cagey about the destination, but this was Aries. I wasn't so suspicious, but I was curious. He kept glancing back over his shoulder as though to make sure I was still there, only to smile a little to himself when he realized I was.
"So, do I get any hints?" I asked. "How'd you hear about this place?"
He was quiet for just long enough that I almost assumed he wasn't going to tell me. We'd diverged from following the river to following a narrow deer path through the treeline. Finally, he said, "There was a note about it in one of the books in the Sanctum, and I asked Kelyn Marblebrook."
Even just a few weeks ago, the path would have likely been so overgrown still traveling down it would have been impossible, but now that we were late in the season and the summer foliage had finally faded, the path was manageable.
"But you've never been there, right?"
Aries groaned. "No, I haven't but I—we're getting close, Zeph. Just bare with me. It's the kind of thing you're into anyway."
"What's that supposed to mean?" I wasn't sure whether or not to be offended.
But quickly enough, I understood. The deer path opened up into a half-shaded glade where we were first met by a stone statue of a satyr posed neatly on a plinth.
Beyond him, there were dozens of other white marble heads poking up between branches and ivy.
This was a statuary. A long abandoned one by the looks of it, but still. Once it had to have been quite lovely. My first thought was, Aries wasn't wrong. This is very much my kind of thing.
"It's not as sunny as the courtyard, but it's quiet and out of the way," Aries said. "Though we are pretty far from the Court, probably better that you don't come all the way out here for a nap."
I must have been smiling. It wasn't conscious, only that I was suddenly very touched that when he heard about an old statuary in the woods, Aries's first thought was to bring me along to explore it with him. It was sweet.
I threw my arm over his shoulders and urged him to come along with me to look around. "It looks kind of like a cemetery," Aries said.
I shrugged. "A field full of stones. Most in memory of someone. Yeah. Only main difference is whether or not there's bodies buried beneath, I guess." For a second I remember the many ghosts of mages at the Court - where were they buried exactly? Maybe it's better not to know.
Most of the statues were semi-realistic imaginings of different people. There was a full body carving of a scantily clad dwarven woman. The thick braids of her beard were long enough to tastefully cover her breasts. There was another of a frogfolk man completely bare from waist up, abs rippling, throat inflated. I caught Aries staring a little too long at a completely nude statue of a minotaur and when he noticed me standing there, he turned red.
He sat down on a stone bench, back turned to the minotaur and not making eye contact. "I can see why Kelyn thought this place was kind of romantic…" Aries muttered.
I didn't even want to know how that conversation had gone. I sat down on the bench beside him. "I think everyone can appreciate a hot minotaur," I said.
Aries burned a little redder. His eyes shot around the statuary, suddenly avoiding me.
I clapped a hand on his shoulder with a laugh. "Don't worry, Aries. He's not real," I teased.
Aries was the one to change the subject. "I actually was hoping to show you… I've been practicing." He twisted back to face me on the bench and raised his hands up between us to cast. He had to do it twice before the spell worked, but if you needed me to tell you the difference between his gestures between attempts, I couldn't. Three little flames, candle yellow, shot up into the air over his hands and hovered there. He slowly directed them to where he wanted them, and let them drift like planets in orbit a foot above his head.
I raised a hand up to one of the lights, careful first not to touch it. It had no heat. It was the color of flame and bright as a torch, but then, I let my hand pass through it.
"It doesn't burn," I said.
Aries shrugged. "It's a light spell. Not everything has to be a fight, you know."
I sniffed. "Some real words of advice there. Maybe you consider taking them yourself?" Aries kicked a pebble out from under the bench and sent it flying into a patch of ivy. "It's only you that thinks that about me," he said.
"You're kidding, right? I'm pretty sure half the Court would back me up on this one."
"I'm not always looking for a fight. My brothers all call me a push-over."
Aries almost never mentioned his family. Had I not recognized his family crest, there was a chance I wouldn't have known who he was at all. "You have more than a few, don't you?" I asked.
"Four- er, actually it's three. Three now. I'm in the middle," Aries said.
"So, who fights who?"
Aries chuckled. "You know, it's hard to tell most days. Everyone but me, I guess. Aksel is the biggest offender. It's gotten worse since he got the werewolf bite, but I think he was already headed that way with or without the wolf. It was also around the same time Ander-"
Aries paused. I could already feel my memory stretching out to fill in the blanks. The train of thought snagged on something old and half-remembered. One of Alden's sons found dead, no suspects.
"I'm sorry for your loss," I said.
"Thank you," Aries said automatically. "It happened a few years ago. But Ander was always in a fight with someone, sometimes Alaric or Auren, usually Aksel, never me. He usually stuck up for me."
"Sounds like you were close."
"We were. You know, I'm not violent, right? Like I might be a little rough, but I don't actually ever want to hurt you."
I rolled my eyes. I really didn't need him trying to explain this to me. I'd brawled with him enough in the past month to know the worst of my injuries were accidental. And it wasn't as though I didn't get even. I'd mostly just accepted this was part of our friendship, for better or for worse. I tried to change the subject, "You said before that not everyone survives their first full moon. Did Ander…?"
It was the wrong question. I should have known not to ask. But Aries stared at his shoes and answered it anyway. "No. That's not what happened. I still don't really know what the investigation turned up. My parents won't talk about it. They say it was an accident and just want us all to move on."
"Sounds healthy," I muttered.
"I know, right? I think they know who did it but won't do anything about it."
"You think he was murdered then," I said.
Aries hesitated. He twisted back to face me, letting our gaze connect. He inhaled steeply and nodded. Yes.
"It wasn't the moon. Aksel's the only one who got bitten. He'd wanted it for years. I mean, so did I. But my mom got it in her head to check with a seer–she's been going to one for forever– and the seer said I won't make it. A werewolf is going to kill me one day. Seer, of course, didn't even mention Alaric or Auren, but it got mom nervous. I think Auren's a little mad mom won't let him be a werewolf, but Alaric doesn't care. Alaric's basically dad's clone anyway. He's his heir and the oldest."
"It's kind of why I'm here," Aries explained. "I don't want to die. Mom thinks me staying in Fel is tempting fate. I'm never going to be the strongest in a physical fight, not against a werewolf. And for a little while it was feeling like whatever happened to Ander was eventually coming for me."
"You think someone would try to kill you?"
"Fel's always had a werewolf on the throne. Since Aksel turned, there's been a lot more talk of picking off the other heirs. Ander's dead already. It's just me and Alaric that stand between him and the throne. Alaric is popular. The public would care about his death. But me? Not a chance. I'm here so I don't end up dead."
My hand was on his back. I'm not sure when I put it there, only that it was there as he told me this and I let him lean back against me. He was running from his life in Caburh too. We'd had that in common.
But I had to point out the obvious. "You know that I'm a werewolf, right?"
Aries laughed. "Yeah, obviously. I just decided you don't count."
I was pretty sure that wasn't how that works, but kept my mouth shut.
After, we went back to wandering deeper into the statuary. Aries agreed to show me how to cast his little light spell if I taught him a few of the other spells I'd learned. I walked him through gestures for frostbite. It was an easy enough variation on conjured frost that I felt he could pick it up quickly. I guided his hands with my own through the gesture. It probably hadn't been the wisest choice though, because by the time we'd finished casting a few times, there were icicles hanging from the limbs of a nearby statue of a dancing elven maiden and Aries and I both shivered. He hung close, a leech on my body heat, but happy. He liked learning new spells, and I was beginning to like teaching him.
I took the next moment to show off Aisling's flower growing spell from the start of term. She'd taught that one to me in exchange for letting her invite Noodle and Aries to join us for lunch weeks ago. I cast it on a knot of thorns at the foot of another statue and watched as a dozen red roses sprouted up into bloom.
Aries looked on, a little awestruck. He didn't ask for me to teach him that one, only plucked one rose from the bush and twirled it between his fingers until we decided it was too cold and shadow stepped back to the Court.