Illusions of Fate

by Kiersten White

  “There was a man. He stopped me on the street and asked me to deliver a letter to you. I said I hadn’t seen you and didn’t know where you lived now. Then I asked how he knew that I knew you, because it seemed strange.” A birdsong drifts past us on the bitter breeze, and he flinches, looking back over his shoulder. “He told me you had business. I didn’t like the looks of him so I told him where he could get off, and then a great flock of demon birds swooped down out of nowhere, pecking and scratching and—then they were gone, and he handed me the letter and told me to deliver it myself or he would know.” He holds out a thin envelope, crinkled in the corner where his fingers are clenched around it.

  “I’m so sorry,” I say. “So very sorry. I never thought . . .”

  “Can I come in?” he asks, and I recognize the wild look in his eyes of someone on the verge of losing their composure. It is the same look I carry with me all the time since Finn was taken.

  “Of course you can—” I stop, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath. “No. I can’t explain why. I want nothing more than to have you in and clean you up, but this is not my home, and I can’t let you past the door. If you’ll wait right here, I’ll bring a cloth and a basin of water.”

  “What are you involved in, Jessa?” His eyes with their almond corners narrow in concern. “You should have let me get you out.”

  “Please wait. I’ll be right back, I promise.” I run to the washroom and fill a basin with water, then grab several hand towels. When I come back out he’s sitting on the porch, arms around his knees and eyes trained on the sky.

  “Here.” I set the basin on the porch step next to him, along with the towels. Only my hand crosses the threshold.

  He frowns and then holds out the letter again. I take it, sick to my stomach but oddly hopeful. Perhaps Lord Downpike has given up. Perhaps he realized that Finn hanging accomplishes nothing.

  Perhaps I have been declared queen of Albion. It is just as likely.

  I break the seal and pull out a single sheet filled with elegant writing. A card drops down, but I do not pick it up. The fate card, once again decorated with the gleaming yellow-eyed bird. This time, the bird has its beak open wide around the letters, swallowing them whole.

  Kelen cleans his wounds, muttering about killing the man if he ever sees him again, while I read the contents of the letter.

  Little Rabbit,

  Lord Ackerly will go to his grave without giving me what I want, but I suspect you will be more accommodating. Please do not bother protesting that you do not have the information. Let us not pretend you are anything other than clever. I say this not to flatter you, but because many lives depend upon it.

  It took two years of waiting for your Finn to have a weakness, but you bring all the tender compassion of a woman to the bargaining table.

  I have recently had disturbing reports of violent rebellious rumblings on the island of Melei. Whole stacks of reports, written and sealed by the ministry of defense. I can think of no option but to brutally smash this rebellion and all associated with it. I fear no one will escape unscathed by the demands of restoring order.

  The letter commanding the occupying soldiers to show no mercy in burning the village at the epicenter—I believe it is the same village you are from—will be posted tomorrow.

  Unless you deliver to me what I need: a book of Hallin magic. You do have a flair for returning books to me. I hope for the sake of those poor, primitive colony rats that you do not fail.

  As a friendly gesture, I may even be inclined to find evidence clearing your Finn’s name. Make me happy, little rabbit. Many lives depend upon it.

  Tender regards,

  L. D.

  “No,” I whisper.

  “What’s wrong? You look as though someone has died. Oh, no, someone has, haven’t they?”

  I shake my head, hollow with dread and hopelessness. “Not yet. But they will. So many will. He will destroy Melei.”

  “What? Who?”

  I close my eyes, cradling my head in my hands. “The man you met, Lord Downpike. He thinks I have access to something that he wants, and if he doesn’t get it he will order the slaughter of our entire village.”

  “But he can’t!”

  “He can.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Because I took a path I had no business being on, and now I must pay the price.” We sit in a vacuum of silence, both lost in our own worlds of fear and confusion.

  “Can you find it?” Kelen’s voice is soft, unsure. All the fight has gone out of him. “The thing he wants?”

  “I honestly don’t know.”

  “Would it be so bad if you did?”

  “It would mean war. Alben domination of the Iverian continent. Doing to other countries what they’ve already done to Melei, on a grander scale.”

  “Who cares?”

  I look up into Kelen’s black eyes, surprised. “What?”

  “Who cares? Let these arrogant spirit cursers fight their own battles. This is nothing to do with you. If you have a way to protect Melei from being ravaged any more than it already has, then take it. The wars of these ghost-faced monsters are their own fault.”

  “But it’s wrong to give in to him. Lives will be lost.”

  “Do you value Alben lives, continental lives more than the lives of your own people? Are you that far lost to this poisonous country that you’d put their safety above the safety of your own village? Your own mother?” His words have no venom, but I can see the disappointment in his eyes.

  I shake my head. “I don’t know what to do.”

  Kelen stands, dropping the cloth now spotted with his blood. “I wish I could help, but seeing as I’m not allowed into a fine lord’s house, I suppose I can’t. You’ve already shown you don’t accept help, anyway. I hope you make the right choice. I really do.”

  He walks away, taking with him one of the paths I didn’t choose. I wonder what would have happened, what would have been different, had I given up Finn at the start.

  I look down at the letter in my hand, feeling the weight of lives in my palm. I want to sit here forever and never move, never make a decision. But that is not an option, and I am better than that.

  I stand.

  First things first, to see if I can actually find the magic Lord Downpike wants. Then I’ll decide what to do with it.

  Thirty-two

  ELEANOR COLLAPSES ONTO THE COUCH, THE entire library a labyrinth of madly strewn books. Most of them aren’t even magic. There are history volumes, philosophy, even a full section of gothic novels.

  “It’s useless. This whole place is positively drenched in magic. I couldn’t isolate a single item if our lives depended . . . well. I can’t.”

  While Eleanor has been following magic trails, I’ve physically checked everywhere. The kitchen, the art gallery, the guest bedrooms Eleanor and I have been staying in. I searched everywhere in Finn’s room, the absence of him so physical it was a sharp pain in my stomach. I even checked for loose floorboards, hidden panels, everything.

  I briefly wondered if he would have hidden something at his country estate, but considering that was where he wanted to send me for safety, I can’t imagine he would risk that.

  No. The library is where he studied, where he worked, where he spent nearly all his time.

  “If he didn’t want anyone to find something, I doubt we’ll be able to.” Ernest scowls, then tightens his tie. “I’ll—I’ve got to be off. I’ll call on you both tomorrow.” He twitches nervously, and I fear he’s given up on us entirely.

  Eleanor waves good-bye to him, then turns to me. “I’m so sorry. We tried.”

  I nod, throat tight. Ernest is right. Even if Finn had a book of Hallin magic to begin with, if he wanted the book hidden forever, we have no chance. I wish I could visit him, talk to him. He would know what to do. But I can’t leave the house, and the prison returns all the letters I’ve sent him, unopened. Eleanor’s, too, which is an even greater loss, since she
can apparently know things just by her letters being read.

  “You can go,” I say, defeated. “There’s no reason to stay here now. Downpike knows he has me. I can’t imagine he’d bother hurting you.”

  “A blessing of unimportance. I’ll stay until tomorrow, though. If you need me I’ll be in my room, spying on the letters I’ve sent. Something might turn up.” She squeezes my shoulder as she walks by. “Maybe he’s bluffing.”

  I touch my glove, the pins and needles nearly gone. I do not doubt Lord Downpike’s vicious sincerity.

  Alone now, I sit and stare blankly at the setting sun beyond the windows. The sun won’t set here for another hour or two, and again I wonder where this library is. I pick up one of the books next to me, a gothic romance, and open it.

  Edeline Annaliese Hallin is written in slanted, feminine cursive in the front. I pick up another of the novels. The same. And another. The same.

  Finn’s mother. It has to be. I had never heard her name before.

  Finn mentioned that parts of this house were his parents’. I know now why this was Finn’s favorite room, why he spent so much time here: it was his mother’s library.

  And then I remember something he said out in the hall with a smile of a secret humor: No book of Hallin magic is in this country.

  I rush to the windows, pushing against them, trying to find any that slide or open. I must get out, must see what’s beyond this room. Grabbing a chair, I slam it into the window as hard as I can. I’m thrown against the floor for my effort, the window not so much as cracked. Desperate, I start at the far end of the window wall, searching for a hint of an opening. I miss it the first time, but doubling back I notice a small, round indentation in one of the vertical lead seams between glass panes.

  I lean in closer, tracing it. Finn’s heavy golden seal ring glints in the dull light, and I’m unsure if I should shout for joy or cry out in despair. Is it better for me to find the book or to fail? I cannot tell. But now curiosity has taken over, and I must see this through. I turn the ring around on my finger and put my palm flat against the glass so the raised circular top of the ring fits into the indentation.

  The pane in front of me shimmers and disappears. I walk through into a balmy twilight, on a balcony overlooking a mirror-clear lake surrounded by deep green pines. There are mountains in the distance, carefully groomed gardens immediately beneath me. I turn and look to the side to see a turret jutting out, the flag on top bearing the crest of Saxxone royalty.

  The castle. His mother’s library in the castle where she grew up, the one she had to leave forever. I lean against the carved stone railing of the narrow balcony, missing Finn and missing his parents for him. Feeling sorry for a woman I never met who had to leave behind everything she loved and knew, because she could not give up the man her shadow chose.

  I smile, knowing at least she got to keep a segment of her old life, a library and a balcony blocked off from everything else. But still home. I wonder if I could choose only one part of Melei to keep with me always, if I knew I could never go back, what I would pick.

  I think it would be the sun-spackled glen next to a waterfall hidden deep in the mountain hills behind my village. I should very much like a door that opens there.

  There’s a bench in the corner of the balcony. I want to sit on it and think, but then I notice something beneath.

  I kneel on the stone floor and duck my head down. There’s a chest, wood carved with the family seal I wear on my finger. My heart racing, I pull it out and find the same lock that kept the window-door closed. The ring fits, and it pops open with a click.

  I reach in to find a sheet of stiff parchment on top.

  Last Will and Testament of Lord Finley Rainer Ackerly, son of Lord Thomas Ackerly and her Royal Highness Edeline Hallin. Being of sound mind and judgment, I hereby bequeath all my earthly possessions and inheritances to my betrothed, Miss Jessamin Olea of Melei.

  Signed this day in front of witnesses,

  Lord Finley Ackerly

  I sit on the hard floor, stunned and angry. I don’t know what bothers me more—that he claims me as his fiancée, or that he thought the odds of his death were high enough that he had to find one last way to try and take care of me.

  “Fie on you, Finn Ackerly, if you think I’m going to let you die.”

  I set aside the will with a scowl and return to the chest. Sitting snug in the bottom is a thick volume of deep green, an unfamiliar crest stamped into the cover. I pull it out, brush off a layer of dust, and crack it open.

  Inside are symbols and directions, crammed in tiny writing, page after page after page. I don’t have to be able to use any of it to know that in this book is all of the Hallin line magical knowledge.

  I hold in my hands the fate of Melei, the fate of the continents, the fate of Albion. The fate of my Finn.

  I have never known such a heavy book.

  Thirty-three

  IT’S LONG PAST FULL DARK WHEN I FINALLY carry the book back inside the library. The windowpane reappears, sealing itself shut behind me, and the room is pitch black. I feel my way to the desk against the wall where I know I’ll find a small glass kerosene lantern. Fumbling, I pull a match from the drawer and light the wick.

  The soft, warm glow throws the room into shadows, and I sit with my back to it, looking at my own shadow. These past days with Finn gone, I’ve spent more time than I care to admit watching my shadow, waiting for glimpses of his, wondering if he’s watching or listening, if he even can from a prison designed for magic practitioners.

  “I don’t know if you can hear me,” I say. “And I know you can’t answer. But I’m lost, Finn, and I wish you were here. I have to make a decision, and whichever way I choose, lives will be lost. It won’t be my fault, it will be the actions of an evil man, but he makes me complicit. I don’t know that I can live with the results of my choice no matter what it is.” My shadows flicker, probably in response to the unsteady light behind me.

  “I think you would caution me to do whatever I must in order to keep myself safe.” I smile. “I think you also know me well enough by now to know that I will certainly not listen to your advice on that matter. I’m lost no matter what happens tonight. I wish . . . I wish many things, but I wish I had been able to tell you that I love you, in so many more ways than that word can convey in Alben, and I’m sorry for how things look like they will end. I would have liked the chance to yell at you for claiming me as your betrothed without my consent.”

  I pause.

  “I would have liked the chance to let you wait in agony and then, maybe someday, accept an offer of marriage.”

  The lines of the shadows grow a bit stronger and I smile. “Well, if wishes were water I’d have a well, as Mama liked to say. And since you are not here to tell me what to do so I can decide to do the opposite, I’ll have to make up my own mind.”

  I stand, carrying the lamp with me, unwilling to turn on the electric lights and illuminate the empty house I don’t expect to return to. The lamp is elegant, all glass, the bottom globe holding the fuel with a wick going up to the top globe where the flame gleams. It feels fragile, personal.

  I go to my bedroom to change, buttoning a dark overcoat on top of my white blouse and long skirts as rain patters against the windows.

  If the independent input of fate is the line of my derivative equation, it most likely ends in my death at the hands of Lord Downpike. But how can I shift the other variables around that line to save the highest number of people? Which variable do I sacrifice? X, being the Iverian continent, has a vastly higher proportion of people. Y, being Melei, has a vastly higher proportion of personal importance. Z, being Finn, seems to be so tied to my line I cannot imagine a way to extract him from my same fate.

  And is Lord Downpike a variable, or is he the chart on which all other variables are plotted?

  No. I will not give him that power. I may not be able to write him out of the equation of my fate, but I can eliminate his variable.

/>   I smile, and whether it is the prospect of my impending doom or the realization that, one way or another, everything will be decided soon, I feel light and disconnected, unweighted by the worries of the world.

  I pick up the worn umbrella from the kind woman in the park. It seems like a lifetime ago I accepted it from her. There is goodness everywhere, more than enough to combat the Lord Downpikes of the world. I tuck the book beneath my arm, take up the lantern, and walk down the hall.

  “Good-bye, Eleanor,” I whisper.

  I open the door to the park and am unsurprised to find my porch lined with big black birds. “Go tell your stupid master I have what he wants. I will be waiting in the park.” I walk past them, missing Sir Bird terribly. I would have liked his company tonight.

  The rain patters loudly on my umbrella and drowns out any other night sounds. It’s an actual downpour, more ambitious than Avebury’s usual attempts, and I feel sealed off from the night beneath the curve of my protection. The gravel path is puddling in lower areas, water streaming into more water, which will seep down into the tunnels beneath the city where I first rested my head in the hollow of Finn’s neck.

  So much water.

  I think of Sir Bird, and a tiny flame inside of me dares to hope.

  I make my way to the center of the park, lantern light turning the rain around me into golden drops. When I leave the path, the earth squelches under my feet, already saturated. Overhanging branches drop heavy collections of water in staccato bursts onto my umbrella.

  I wait.

  Before long, a figure in a dark suit materializes like a shadow from between trees, staying just outside the ring of my light. He has no umbrella, merely a hat set back on his head. He seems unaware of the soaking rain, smiling at me as though we were dear friends meeting under the sun.

  “Well done, little rabbit.”

  “I want Finn freed. Now.”

  “Oh.” He says it as a sigh, a false note of sympathy behind his voice. “Finn made a rash decision just a few minutes ago. Thanks to Eleanor’s industrious brother, Finn was being delivered to the courts to have an audience with the prime minister when the guards reported he stopped and did not respond to anything they said, as though he were listening to something they couldn’t hear.”