The Language of Ghosts

by Heather Fawcett

  “All right, Mighty Mite,” Julian said. “What would you like to hear this evening?”

  8

  Noa Attends Her First Meeting of the Council

  “Let me get this straight,” Tomas said. “You want me to bake cakes for a sea serpent? One who spends her spare time plotting to kill us all?”

  “She especially likes lemon-lime,” Noa said. “Just tell your father they’re for Julian. He won’t ask questions.”

  “He might if he notices they’re the size of a seal.”

  They were sitting in the shade of a lime tree in the village square, which, in typical Florean style, had a large garden at its center filled with trees and flowering bushes. Noa was happily flaunting her cloak pin—a sapphire-studded JM, overlapping so that the letters looked like a dragon in flight—which was worn only by royal councillors.

  “What is this for, anyway?” Tomas said. “Don’t tell me the king’s trying to turn that thing into a pet.”

  “Not exactly,” Noa said. “I need information about that myth I told you about. The Lost Words. I think Beauty might be able to help—if I give her a good reason.”

  The idea had come to Noa in the night—her best ideas usually did. Beauty had been around for a long time, tangling with kings and queens and their mages, none of whom had been able to best her. No one knew exactly how old she was, but Noa thought there was a good chance the sea serpent would know whether there had once been mages with powers that didn’t exist anymore. At the very least, Beauty had probably eaten a few of them.

  One of the villagers looked Noa’s way, and she puffed out her chest to show off the pin.

  “You look like a peacock,” Tomas said.

  Noa deflated a bit. “Will you help? Nobody else can know. Julian always tells me to stay away from Beauty. He won’t like that we’re eating cake together now.”

  “Doesn’t that go against your family motto or something?” Tomas said. “Marchenas are always first?”

  “Our motto is about helping each other,” Noa said. “Not being honest all the time. Who could manage that? Please, Tomas?”

  “Of course I’ll help you,” he said. “I always do. That’s why whenever you get one of your mad ideas, you come to me.”

  He sounded cranky, but Noa figured that was because he wasn’t quite as floury as usual—it was Sunday, and his father’s assistants were cleaning the ovens.

  “Did you finish repairing the bakery?” Noa asked.

  Tomas nodded. The bakery had been scorched by the fire that had swept through the village, which had been started by a corrupted mage. Julian had sent soldiers and mages to help with the repairs, but the cobbler’s and the mustard shop were still shuttered and blackened. It was unusual that a village the size of Astrae would have a shop just for mustard, but the island had long been famous for it. Noa hoped it was more famous for dark magic now, though she supposed a place could be famous for dark magic and mustard.

  “Oh, great,” Noa muttered. Striding toward them was the green-eyed sentry who’d been making eyes at Julian in the tower. She walked self-importantly down the middle of the road, which required the villagers to get out of her way. Julian probably wanted to lecture Noa for leaving the castle without waiting for Mite to wake up.

  The sentry bowed to Noa. “Princess, the king sent me to summon you for a meeting of the council.”

  Noa leaped to her feet. “Really?” Several villagers looked her way, and Noa lowered her voice to a more stately pitch. “Yes, of course. Thank you.” She said a quick goodbye to Tomas, whose only response was a long-suffering sigh.

  The sentry led her along the winding village thoroughfare and turned onto the road paved in black lavastone that went to the castle. It took much longer than cutting across the hillside did, and Noa wanted to break into a run. She forced herself to maintain a dignified pace, which made her irritable.

  “So,” the sentry said. “Is your brother seeing anyone?”

  You don’t waste any time, Noa thought. She widened her eyes and blinked slowly. “Julian sees fine. He only needs glasses when he reads.”

  The sentry looked suspicious, which meant she was clever—most people fell for Noa’s innocent little sister act. “I mean, is he dating anyone? One of the other mages told me he hasn’t since Gabriela.”

  Noa hopped over a lizard in her path, silently seething. After the events of the past week, she didn’t want to hear Gabriela’s name ever again, and certainly not thrown around casually by someone who’d been on the island for all of five minutes. Noa hated to admit it, but she was still impressed by Gabriela’s dramatic escape off the sea cliff. Gabriela did everything with flair, even betrayal.

  “I know he dated Lord Henry back at court,” the sentry went on. “And wasn’t there another mage before Gabriela—Florence something or other? And of course, everyone knows about him and Antony Farseer—that was a scandal for your mother, wasn’t it? The future king dating the son of a convicted pirate? But then, Julian doesn’t mind associating with pirates, does he?”

  At this point, Noa would have paid the sentry to be quiet. Being subjected to a narrative summary of Julian’s love life was beyond the pale. “Oh,” she said, pretending to be embarrassed. “I thought everyone knew about him and Leo. But I guess you’re new, after all.”

  The sentry’s eyebrows shot up. “Leo?”

  “Yes.” Noa was trying to smother her laughter. Leo was Julian’s most trusted scout, and Kell’s second mate. It was a good thing he was a scout and spent most of his time in a rowboat far away from everyone else, because he smelled like a catch of herring left out in the sun. He had lost half his teeth in a series of drunken brawls, and wasn’t exactly Julian’s type, but he was as far as you could get from the type presented by the prim sentry, who looked like she measured her bangs with a ruler.

  The sentry looked disappointed, but also thoughtful. Noa realized, too late, that she probably should have picked someone other than Leo—the sentry looked as if she were sizing up her chances against that particular competitor, and liking them just fine.

  They followed the lavastone path back to the castle, entering through the gatehouse at the back. The council room, which was also the throne room, was at the end of a long hallway, and here the sentry bowed to Noa and left. The guards held the huge doors open for her, and Noa felt a prickle of happiness. She had never been welcomed into a council meeting before.

  Julian lounged on his throne, his legs dangling over the arm and his eyes fixed absently on the orb he was hovering over his open palm. The other royal councillors milled about the recessed aisle at the center of the room, some muttering in small clusters, others gazing at the papers piled on the council table. Renne murmured something in Julian’s ear as Noa came in.

  “Glad you could join us, Noabell,” Julian said, extinguishing the orb with a murmured word and a flick of his wrist. “I’m happy to see that you know where the door is, in addition to the windows.”

  Noa strode down the aisle with a bounce in her step. Julian’s quips weren’t going to dim her excitement. She was a royal councillor!

  The throne room was grand, anchored by pillars of dark basalt and framed with windows of colorful sea glass, through which the sunlight poured and splashed the floor with squares of gold. On either side of the aisle rose tiered benches like seats in an amphitheater. The throne at the far end, made from fantastically shaped driftwood and jagged spears of obsidian, commanded immediate attention.

  Julian rose and went to the table, and the councillors fell silent. There were eleven in total—five of Julian’s most trusted mages, as well as an ambassador from each of the six Florean islands he had conquered so far.

  “Let’s begin,” he said. Murmuring something in Hum, Julian summoned a larger orb, which rose above the table to the height of a lamp before shattering into a hundred tiny glints to illuminate the scattered papers. “You’ll notice that we have a new councillor. I trust you’ll give her ideas your full consideration.”r />
  A few of the councillors, including Renne and Asha, a wizened mage who had also served their parents, smiled at Noa. Others, including most of the ambassadors from the islands Julian had captured, watched her with varying degrees of curiosity and disapproval. Noa gave them her best imperious stare, which didn’t achieve much except to make some of them smile condescendingly. She decided that she would start practicing in front of a mirror.

  “First, the reports,” Renne said.

  Each of the ambassadors described the state of their islands, including their defenses and the taxes they had raised for Julian’s treasury. Julian looked distracted. At one point, he summoned another orb and began tossing it lazily from hand to hand. Reckoner awoke, sniffed around for Julian, then snuffled against his hand for chin scratches. Once he got them, he flopped back down under the table. He repeated this process five minutes later. Reckoner had a short memory.

  The ambassadors droned on. Renne broke in occasionally to do some droning of his own, though his was flustered and occasionally confusing. Renne wasn’t any better at public speaking than he was at magic or strategy, and Noa wished for the thousandth time that Julian hadn’t appointed him second-in-command, which made him head of the council. Noa had tried to talk him out of it, but Julian wouldn’t hear a word against his childhood friend. She’d also tried to get him to replace Ellabeth, a mage so ancient she could barely do magic anymore, and whose only contributions to council meetings were to loudly demand that the councillors repeat themselves and occasionally snap at Julian to stand up straight. There were plenty of other capable mages on the island to take her place, but Julian refused to sack her, for Ellabeth had been Mom’s councillor since before he was born. Noa had grudgingly come to accept that this sort of impractical loyalty was one of Julian’s weaknesses that she was never going to change.

  There wasn’t much new information since the last meeting, and Noa began tapping her foot impatiently. Julian eyed her with amusement. When the last ambassador fell silent, he said, “Perhaps we should come to our main order of business.”

  “Yes,” Asha said. “I’ve been waiting to hear more about these mysterious magics you hinted at yesterday.”

  Julian told them what he’d told Noa, recounting the myth of the Lost Words and what he’d learned from the captured mage. Noa watched the faces of the councillors as he spoke. The ambassadors looked puzzled, if not skeptical. But the mages’ eyes sparkled with excitement. It was clear that the myth of the Lost Words was well known among them.

  “Forgive me, Your Highness,” said one of the ambassadors, a man with yellow hair and a very red nose. “But this strikes me as a fool’s errand. We have plenty of magic at our disposal—what we don’t have is territory. We should focus on capturing more islands, not chasing after long-lost grimoires. You can be sure that Gabriela isn’t so easily distracted.”

  Julian’s expression didn’t change, but Noa saw him stiffen ever so slightly, as he always did when Gabriela’s name was mentioned. His mages knew this and avoided bringing her up whenever possible, but this ambassador was new and clueless.

  “You don’t get it,” Noa said before Julian could respond. “This isn’t just about finding new spells—it’s about stopping Xavier from getting them.”

  The ambassador looked down his red nose at her. “And if he does? Are we not led by the most powerful dark magician in Florean?”

  “Julian can’t protect us against magics he’s never seen, let alone used himself,” Noa said. “If Xavier finds the Lost Words, it could be the end of us.”

  Several of the mages were nodding. The ambassador huffed. “We don’t even know they exist.”

  “Precisely,” another ambassador said. “Could this be some elaborate scheme of Xavier’s to send us on a wild-goose chase? His mage may have been lying.”

  “He wasn’t,” Julian said. “But perhaps you’d like to hear it from him?”

  A shadow seemed to fall across the council. Renne was regarding Julian with an uneasy look that made Noa frown. Renne was Julian’s oldest friend—when had he started being afraid of Julian?

  Julian motioned to the guard at the door, who vanished into the antechamber. Seconds later, he was back, and behind him were two more guards, each supporting the arm of the man between them.

  “Here we are,” Julian said pleasantly. “Say hello to the council, Thadeus.”

  The man, who wore the red-and-gold cloak of Xavier’s mages, looked up. Noa recoiled, and several of the councillors gasped. The man’s eyes were shadow. A strange, swirling shadow that ran from lid to lid. His face was pale, his mouth slack. He barely seemed alive.

  “Tell them how long Xavier has been searching for the Lost Words, Thadeus,” Julian said.

  “Since the spring harvest,” the man intoned in a voice that wasn’t his own. It was Julian’s voice, Noa realized with horror, only twisted and wrong, as if Julian had stepped inside the man’s head and was pulling out information like papers from a cabinet. “He sent out his spy ships last month.”

  “You see?” Julian said with a cold smile that Noa didn’t like one bit. “He’ll tell you anything.”

  “What’s happened to him?” Asha said, her hand over her throat.

  “I don’t exactly know,” Julian admitted. “I wanted more information from him than he was giving to Renne. So I decided to experiment with a truth spell I’ve been working on.”

  “You experimented on him?” Noa repeated. This was how Julian had learned about the Lost Words?

  Julian nodded, perfectly calm. “After that, he was very cooperative.”

  “Well, sure,” Noa spat. “You turned him into a zombie.”

  Julian blinked. “How else was I supposed to get him to tell me Xavier’s plans?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Noa said. “Offer him gold? Charm him into joining our side? I can think of a few ways, and so could you if you bothered to think at all, instead of just throwing magic at things you don’t like.”

  A little silence followed this speech. The councillors shuffled their feet and tossed nervous glances at Julian. He blinked, and Noa thought she saw a flash of hurt in his eyes, followed quickly by annoyance. “I had to be sure I was getting the truth. Thadeus gave me a lot of information about Xavier’s plans, some of which we already knew from our spies. I have no reason to disbelieve the rest, including everything he told me about the Lost Words.”

  Asha stepped forward and waved her hand in front of the mage’s face. Her initial, horrified reaction seemed to be changing to fascination. “I’ve never seen a truth spell produce such a powerful effect. They’re usually too easy to throw off to be of much use.”

  Noa’s heart thudded. “Will he get better?”

  “Let’s hope not. I like seeing Xavier’s mages this way,” said a tall, auburn-haired woman with an unpleasant smile. It was Esmalda, Julian’s least savory councillor, one of several criminals who had joined him over the last year. She’d been their mother’s councillor once, until she’d been thrown into prison for working as an assassin. Esmalda said she’d been falsely accused, and maybe that was true, but something about the weather mage made Noa’s skin crawl. Also, Esmalda often encouraged Julian’s worst instincts.

  “He’s cooperative, is he?” she added, prodding the man’s shoulder. “Why not make him dance?”

  “I think you’ve made your point,” Renne said. He alone among the councillors looked squeamish; the others were regarding Julian with varying degrees of bewilderment and awe.

  “You have me convinced,” said the red-nosed ambassador. He looked awed, too, but also like he wished he was far away from the shadow-eyed mage. “But what if we spend months searching for these magics, only to come up empty-handed?”

  “I can put your mind at ease,” Julian said. “There are two places where Xavier is looking for the Lost Words—one is an island called Evert. We can reach it in a few days.”

  “This sort of spell will be enormously useful,” said a blood mage, peerin
g into Thadeus’s vacant face. “Tell me, did you base it off Pizarro’s Theorem?”

  Julian launched into a complicated account of the truth spell, but Noa didn’t hear any of it. She couldn’t stop staring at Thadeus. He could have been staring back at her, as they faced each other across the table, but Noa knew he couldn’t see any of them. He was gone, an empty shell. It was worse than being dead.

  Noa didn’t offer any more opinions for the rest of the meeting, and Julian didn’t ask her to.

  9

  Noa Doesn’t Figure Things Out

  Noa hugged her knees to her chest, savoring the salty breeze on her face. The stars peeked through windows in the clouds, which framed the crescent moon like white curtains. The mast flapped cheerfully, as if it was enjoying the night, too.

  Fortunately, the iguanas were asleep, so Noa didn’t have to worry about having her toes tickled during her shift at the prow. She listened to the lava crickets singing peacefully along the basalt shoreline and nibbled at the cake she had brought with her—plum, with an oozy jam filling that turned her fingers the color of twilight. The cakes were still flooding into the castle, to the dismay of the servants, who had taken to storing them on windowsills and rafters and using the less popular flavors, like spiced nettle and toasted seaweed, as doorstops.

  Usually Noa loved taking a shift at the prow. But tonight she was too distracted to appreciate it. She hadn’t spoken to Julian since the council meeting that morning—he hadn’t come to dinner, as he’d been too busy meeting with his scouts and with Kell and her mates. Noa didn’t know if he had come to say good night, because she had left to go to the prow before then, even though her shift wasn’t scheduled to start for another hour.