Illusions of Fate

by Kiersten White

  He nods. “It will. Terribly. But only for a moment.”

  “Couldn’t you knock me over the head with something first?”

  He smiles, but it doesn’t touch his eyes. “Then I would have to fix your head, too, and I’m much better with fingers.”

  I take a deep breath and hold out my hand. I cannot move it past my wrist.

  He surveys the damage. Then he reaches into his vest pocket and pulls out a black satin, wrist-length glove. “I already made it,” he says. “As soon as he started . . . well, I wanted to be ready when I got into the house. I didn’t count on you meeting me at the porch.”

  He sets the glove down next to me and then looks into my eyes. “It may be best not to watch.”

  “You cannot compete with any of the horrors today has already delivered. I’d prefer to see.”

  This time the sad smile makes it to his eyes. He reaches out like he would tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear, but stops short and turns back to his work. “Very well. Take a deep breath. On the count of three—”

  I draw in the deepest breath I can, holding it, watching and waiting for him to start twisting and popping my fingers back into place. He picks up the glove, then says, “One . . . two . . .”

  Without warning, he pulls the glove over my hand. I scream and kick out, catching him on the chin with my knee, but as soon as the pain registers it is gone, replaced by a strange, crawling, cold sensation, prickling beneath my skin.

  I stop midscream and look in wonder at the glove, perfectly fit like a second skin, each finger straight and placed as though they had never known a hammer. I brace myself, then wiggle my hand to find that there is no pain at all, and each finger bends where a finger ought to.

  “Now.” Finn rubs his chin where I struck him. “Are you ready for an explanation?”

  Eleven

  I NOD, DISTRACTED, STILL FLEXING MY FINGERS with wonder. I broke a toe once, when I was six or seven, and even after my friends popped it back into place, it ached for months. Wanting to look at my fingers to see if the discoloration and splits in the skin have mended as well, I move to tug off the glove.

  “No! Don’t do that!” Finn grabs my gloved hand and holds it protectively in both of his. “You cannot remove it.”

  “Ever?”

  “No, no, not that long. But it must stay in place until everything has settled. Can you feel it? The sort of itching crawl beneath your skin?”

  I nod. It’s like pins and needles, the way my foot feels when I’ve been reading with it tucked under me for too long. But colder. “What is it?”

  “Magic.” But the word sounds tired and ordinary coming out of his mouth. I know I should be shocked, disbelieving, but after everything I have seen and been through, it’s a relief. I’m not losing my mind.

  I shake my hand as though I can dislodge the sensation there. “I am not sure I like it, but it’s better than the pain. You’ve felt it before?”

  His eyes focused on nothing, one corner of his lips pulls up. “Every waking hour throughout my entire body.”

  “Well, a glove and a strange sensation is more than a fair trade. Thank you.”

  “I am—you must know how sorry I am for all of this.”

  “Yes, though what ‘all of this’ is I cannot begin to fathom.” Needing some fidget to break eye contact—his dark eyes are piercing, and I begin to feel those strange pins and needles across my whole body under their gaze—I pull off my regular glove, wrinkling my nose at the filth caked there. It is then that I’m finally aware enough to take into account the relative state of my clothes and person.

  The dress is snagged and torn. The skirts around my knees are black with grime, and I want nothing more than to be shot of it and the associations with the man who sent it to me.

  “This is an explanation best made in clean, dry clothes, worn over full stomachs,” Finn says, anticipating my discomfort. “Though I have no women’s clothing here, I’m afraid.”

  “I should wonder greatly if you did.” I smile, attempting levity, and then realize I know next to nothing about him. He could be married. He certainly wouldn’t be the first married Alben man to pursue a Melenese mistress.

  “How old are you?” I blurt out.

  “I am the oldest nineteen-year-old alive,” he says, smiling sadly. “This way.” He waits for me to stand, watching to see how steady I am. I’m pleased to be able to walk more or less confidently. He leads me out a door—which does not disappear, I have kept half an eye on it the whole time—and into an electric lantern–lit hall. I look down both ends, but it stretches beyond what I can see, blurring far sooner than it should. I cannot make out how many doors there are, and they seem too close together to lead to any rooms other than closets.

  Finn opens one onto a washroom. It’s generously sized, bigger than my room at the hotel, and far larger than the doors in the hallway would account for. But inside, the walls are free from extra doors, a pale blue color with waist-high wainscoting.

  This house makes me dizzy.

  I decide to willfully ignore the problem of the doors and inspect the washroom, instead. There’s a claw-foot bath, and a pillar washbasin against the wall, complete with in-room faucet. Running water! A large, gilt mirror hangs above a dressing table and a plush chair. Against the far wall is a window, through which I can see branches of a tree and the late afternoon sky.

  “Towels, here.” He opens an armoire. “And a clean nightshirt with a dressing robe. I am sorry I cannot offer better, and that it’s not pressed.”

  “It’s fine, thank you.” Something nags at me, however, and though it should be the least of my worries, I cannot help but ask. “What will you tell the servants?”

  “I keep secrets in this house. I have found that one can either keep secrets or keep servants. The two are incompatible. I’ll leave you to it, and prepare a luncheon in the library.” He closes the door quietly behind himself, and I turn the lock.

  As I struggle to undo the lacings of my corset, I look out the window, needing distractions. Odd. The windows in the library were streaming warm golden light, but this window overlooks a tree-lined park, the day drizzling and gray as it was when we fled the nightmare man’s house. I suppose I should no longer expect anything in the world to make sense, but I find this annoying in the extreme. Other memories demand to be felt, tugging at the edge of my mind and emotions, but I cling to the annoyance so I can delay addressing what the nightmare man did to me.

  Finally managing to rip free of the corset, I slide out of the whole mess and toss it in a bin along with my ruined stockings.

  The prospect of soaking—actually soaking!—in a bath sings a siren song and in a few minutes I am up to my chin in hot water. I have no concept of the time. The fact that I no longer feel hungry means I have gone beyond the point of complaint from my stomach. My fingers tremble as I undo my bun and let my hair fall onto my shoulders.

  I stay until the water cools, then towel dry. I kept my gloved hand out of the water. I will have to ask Finn how to wash it. The nightshirt I choose from the many options is light and thin, and feels marvelous against my skin. I wrap a black dressing gown around it, and though I am now more covered than I was in the dress, I feel exposed.

  I try on a pair of slippers, but they are far too large, so I leave the washroom and pad silently down the plush rug in the hall. One door is cracked open, so I push it but stop short of entering the library.

  Finn is wearing a fresh suit. He sits on the couch facing me, but with his head bowed and cradled in his hands. He looks so despairing, so raw with pain or worry, I know I have intruded on a private moment. My first impulse is to go to him, to put my arm around his shoulders and comfort him. But this is not done here. Nobles are proper and distant, and no doubt that is the best comfort I can offer him. I back silently through the door, pulling it closed behind me and then wait a few minutes before knocking.

  “Yes, come in,” Finn calls, and I reenter the library to find him standi
ng, straight and assured as ever, with falsely bright eyes.

  We wear faces as disguises. I hold back a shudder, remembering the nightmare man’s true face revealed in snatches behind the one he wears for the world. I suspect I was seeing straight to his soul.

  “I’ve some sandwiches, and there’s tea—”

  “No tea!”

  Finn startles at my exclamation, and I stutter to explain. “It’s—you see, there was tea—I could smell it so strongly while he was—” I twist my hands, running my fingers over the glove.

  “Of course. We need brandy.” He grabs the silver service set and whisks it away. I sit, jumbled with nerves, on the edge of the couch. He is going to explain everything. I am not sure how, but he will. I long for the security of the world I lived in yesterday, but it is lost to me forever.

  He returns with two cut crystal glasses filled with amber liquid, and sets one on the table in front of me. I eat half a carefully cut sandwich and find it is all I can manage. Sipping at the warm brandy, I wait for him to start.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t see the tea,” he says.

  I frown. “How could you have? And how did you know what . . .” I cannot say aloud what the nightmare man did, because then I have to acknowledge it happened. “How did you know to prepare the glove?”

  “You saw my shadow, correct?”

  I nod.

  “It is a . . . peculiar sort of connection and separation. I could choose to see through it, which is much like looking into a dim room from outside in the brilliant sunshine, or hear through it, which is much like listening with cotton in your ears. Since I needed to prepare the glove, I was forced to listen instead.” He stares into his cup of brandy and then takes a gulp. I remember my screams. Clearly, he does, as well.

  “Why was your shadow there? Is it like his birds, a sort of errand runner?” I look for Sir Bird and instead find a massive black volume atop one of the piles of books. I hope he’s resting.

  “The bird!” Finn stands, whirling and frantically searching the room. “Curse that bird, he’ll—”

  “Here!” I grab the book, waving it at Finn. “Unless this is one of yours.”

  Finn’s eyes narrow, and he reaches out to take it. I hug it to my chest, matching his glare.

  “Curious.” He sits again, still staring at the book. I place it on my lap. The cover is pure black, with a faint hint of iridescence, much like Sir Bird’s wings. But it is far heavier than Sir Bird, and much larger than any of the bird-books that were on the shelves. I wonder if it has anything to do with his having swallowed so many of the other creatures.

  “Your shadow?” I am impatient for actual answers now that we have begun. Denial and avoidance will get me nowhere. I want to learn as much as I can about this . . . magic . . . that is now a painful and confusing part of my life.

  “Oh, yes, well. That’s a complicated bit to explain.” He tugs at his collar as though it is bothering him. “I should rather tell you about Lord Downpike.”

  I shudder, twitching my neck to relieve the prickling of discomfort there. “Is that his name? It sounds familiar.”

  “It should. He is the minister of defense.”

  Twelve

  I GASP, STUNNED. “THAT MADMAN IS THE MINISTER of defense?” In the hierarchy of Alben rule, the minister of defense was just below the prime minister.

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  “This country just gets worse and worse.”

  Finn laughs sadly. “It does have some good parts. But he is not one of them.”

  “Well, go on, before I decide I’ve gone mad after all.”

  He nods. “Doubtless you have surmised that, for lack of a better word, magic exists in the world.”

  “I had noticed,” I say dryly.

  “Subtlety is not a strong point of Downpike’s.”

  “Nor is sanity.”

  “No, nor sanity. The distribution of power is not always what it should be, and men like Downpike are born with more than their fair share.”

  “Is that what it is? An issue of the nobility? You secretly use magic because it gives you privilege?”

  “You misunderstand. I could show you, step-by-step, the precise method to, say, turn this brandy to ice. But even after learning the symbols and words and following all of the directions to the letter, you would be missing the final . . . how do I put it . . .”

  “Variable?”

  “Yes! Exactly. There is a variable that you lack. Nearly everyone lacks it except those of noble bloodlines.”

  “So there is a reason you’re born into privilege and take what you have not earned!” I glower at him.

  “You of all people should know what it is to be relegated to one side of the great power struggle due to factors about yourself you cannot control. It is not my fault I was born with these abilities. Please do not hold me accountable for my birth, as I assure you I would never do you the same dishonor.”

  I lean back and fold my arms across my chest. “Very well. Your noble birth is the variable needed to make magic. Wonderful! How lovely to have it in the hands of a madman who also controls so much of the country.”

  “I am sorry.” His voice has lost its sting. “I did my best to keep you from crossing paths with this world. And I shall do my best to protect you now that you have been so violently initiated.”

  “Why did Lord Downpike choose me? I have nothing to do with any of this.”

  Finn stands and goes to the window, his back to me. “You know of the tenuous peace between Albion and the Iverian continental countries. Our history is long and fraught with conflict, though the last few decades we’ve found balance. There are some who wish to tip that balance back in favor of Albion. Lord Downpike wants something he thinks I have, and will do anything to secure it. For the last two years, I’ve managed to subvert his efforts, never giving him ground or opportunity to manipulate me. Then I met you.” His voice is bitter.

  “What am I to you?” I am angry, growing angrier, that I have somehow become a pawn in a game I did not even know was being played. “Why would he think you would care?”

  Finn reaches into his waistcoat pocket and pulls out a familiar deck of blue-backed cards.

  I scoff. “You cannot tell me this has anything to do with silly, superstitious cards.”

  “If it is silly, you won’t mind drawing again. One card.”

  We match glares, neither of us backing down. Finally, just to move on to actual answers, I reach out and snatch a card from the middle of the deck.

  He doesn’t look at the card, keeping his eyes locked on me. He simply whispers, “Fate and lovers.”

  I roll my eyes and hold up the card.

  The cards.

  Again, where I am certain I took only one, I hold two. I turn them so I can see what they are, and my breath catches. The first card shows two bodies twined around each other, blending until I cannot tell where one begins and the other ends. A red ribbon encircling them twists out LOVERS.

  But it is the second card that hits me like a blow. Two roads converge in a tangled wood tunneling into darkness. The branches of the trees spell out FATE.

  “I know this path,” I whisper.

  “You do?”

  “I’ve dreamt it. But it wasn’t trees, it was bodies, and we danced down the line. . . .” I look up to find Finn’s stony glare has melted into something like hope, and I stop myself. “Let me see the deck.”

  “What?”

  I hold out my hand. “You knew which cards I’d get before you saw them. Let me see the deck.”

  He hands it over and I thumb through it, my triumphant aha! ready to be unleashed when I proved that all of the cards were FATE or LOVERS dying on my lips as I see dozens of cards, all distinct.

  I drop the cards on the floor, feeling dirty for having touched them. “It means nothing. This isn’t magic, it’s superstition of the basest kind. And you’ve told me nothing to explain why Lord Downpike would target me.”

  “I tried,”
Finn says, staring at the mess of cards. “I tried so very hard. After our first meeting, I thought I could put you out of my head. And then when I saw you in the park, I aimed to test myself, to prove that you meant nothing. I found myself checking into your hotel afterward. Not to see you—I didn’t want to see you, I couldn’t—but simply to be near enough to—” He shrugs helplessly. “It was obviously indulgent and selfish. I should have known I was being watched. When you drew the cards . . . well, I resolved to never speak to you again and that would end things. I did not count on the reach of Downpike’s spies, though, and he presented an impossible task at the gala. How could I see you and not—”

  My heart beats rapidly as I wait for him to look up, to finish the sentence. I’m disappointed. He stops, gathering the cards and tucking them away. “Well. He played the game better than I. But he underestimated you.”

  Blast that unfinished sentence. But something else is off. He is not telling me enough. Then I notice that, though the light streams in all around Finn, he has no shadow. I run to the window next to him, then turn and look at the ground. My shadow is there, silhouette of long hair and robed body, but there is something fuzzy, something not quite the same about it. I raise one arm as fast as I can, and there! The hint of another shadow behind it.

  “I still have your shadow!” I gasp. “Take it back!”

  “Would that I could.”

  “No, I don’t want it, you must—” I stop, my heart racing as I remember what he said earlier. “You . . . you can see and hear through your shadow.” Minutes ago I was naked in his bathroom, with his shadow there the whole time! “How dare you!” I slap him, and he has the audacity to look surprised.

  “No, it doesn’t work like that! I don’t see and hear through it all the time. It takes a great deal of concentration and power, and I’m entirely tapped out at the moment. I promise I would never intrude on your privacy.”

  My face is burning, and I cannot find it in me to believe him. “Take it back. Immediately.”

  He raises both hands in the air, exasperated. “I can’t! These things don’t work like that. You don’t understand.”