The Etsey Series 1: The Seventh Veil

by Heidi Cullinan

  She lay there until Emily went out to check the animals in the barn, and then she rose. Madeline rolled from beneath the bed, wrapped herself in her warmest cloak, scuttled down the stairs, and hurried out the back door.

  It was raining, a slow, steady drizzle that was turning the already darkening world a darker, mistier gray; Madeline pulled the cowl of her shawl deeper over her face and hurried faster to her workshop. But when she pressed her hand to the door, she stopped, staring at her pale hand, watching as the rain fell against it, coating it with a cold, wet sheen.

  “Because of your pride, Madeline.”

  She pulled her hand away and tucked it into her cloak and backed away from the door, blinking tears from her eyes. Pride! Her pride? What about his incredible arrogance? It had taken everything in her to stay there as he shouted his bile at her, had taken every ounce of control to not roll out from her hiding place and leap at him from the top of the stairs, to break a mirror over his head and tell him that yes, he had in fact learned how to be a complete and utter bastard! She had wanted to, but she knew that was what he wanted, and so she had forced herself to stay rigid, invisible, and silent.

  And was that indeed what you wanted? Or was that your pride?

  “Be quiet,” she whispered back at herself and turned to walk out onto the moor.

  But her rage was leaking now like air from a child’s toy bladder, and with it went her strength. By the time she reached the tree, she was spent. She sank into the moss and dust beneath it and rested her head against the great gnarly roots, letting the old wood cradle her like a mother. She had learned to do this when she was small, when her real mother had grown distant and uninterested in cradling her herself. Later she would learn it was because she had been busy cradling the candle merchant, which Madeline had resented until she made the connection that the candle merchant was the only reason Emily came into existence. Still, she had never again lhad let her mother hug her, not even when she grew sick and sad and asked so often if Madeline would let her make amends for her neglect.

  Pride. Madeline curled her legs tighter to her body and pressed her cheek more firmly against the root.

  “Do you know, I forgot how perfectly lovely this tree is.”

  Madeline jerked her head up and tried to push herself upright, but her wrists were weak, and she fell back down. She saw who it was, however. She couldn’t decide if she was relieved or terrified.

  He glowed. There was no other word for it—the White Charles glowed. At first she thought he was a ghost, that the androghenie had revealed themselves to her at last, but then she saw his face and knew it was him again.

  He grinned. If she focused, she could see the other side of the tree through the White Charles.

  “I’m getting really good at this,” he said, sounding proud. He held out his arms, displaying them for her, flipping his wrists over and over again. “You aren’t even dreaming and look how solid I am.”

  Madeline pushed herself up again, more slowly this time. “Who are you?”

  He looked a little irritated, and he threw his arms wide. One of them went through the tree. “Who do I look like?”

  “You look like Charles,” she said carefully, “but—”

  “But I might not be Charles,” he finished, resigned but irritated. “Very witch of you. And with the forest and the moor and—well, I can’t give too much away. But it’s me. If you reach out and search me with your heart, Maddie, you will see.”

  “I’m too tired to cast,” she said, keeping her voice rigid so it wouldn’t break.

  “Not with magic. Your heart.” He reached out and took her hand; she could feel a strange tingle and warmth where he touched her, but she could feel no skin. He pressed her hand to her heart, then drew it forward to his own. “Your heart to mine. There is magic between us, Maddie, magic that will never fail you. You will need to remember that. It will shortly be very, very important.”

  She did feel it. She knew magic when she felt it, and there was a current between them, a current all their own. There was another too: his. More magic than she knew could exist in the entire universe.

  “You are like a god,” she whispered, a little afraid now.

  His grin was devilish. “Yes, and that means you should listen to me.” But then his grin fell, and he simply looked weary and sad. “I can’t tell you what is coming, Madeline. I don’t know what it would do if you knew. Probably drive you mad. Certainly it’s doing nothing for me, knowing.” His eyes glistened; he laughed as he reached up and wiped the strange diamond tears away, but it was an aching, heavy laughter. “I’m being selfish now. But do you know, Maddie, it isn’t what you might think, playing god. It’s very hard. And very lonely. You would be better at it than me. I’m just not strong enough, no matter what I do. But it doesn’t seem to be something I can shake.”

  He wiped his eyes again, lifting his face up to stare into the tree. Madeline lifted her face and looked too. The roots were like arms, but the lower branches were thicker than her body. The branches twined like snakes through the air, sometimes around each other, sometimes out into nothing. It was not marred in any way, not by an axe, not by lightning or wind. Not a branch was broken. The leaves were thick and lush, and they rustled like whispers in the breeze, even in the rain. And beneath the tree, rain never came. Only light mists of water drifted down, no matter how hard the rain outside was falling. And the green leaves never changed, and they never fell, not even in the dead of winter.

  “So beautiful,” he whispered. “So old. So immense, so beyond belief. You look at it, and you think it can’t be real. And yet it’s here.” He smiled through his tears. “It’s good. There is so much heartbreak, so much pain, so much to bear—but this tree. Look what it has borne. We must forget. But it remembers.”

  Madeline was staring at him. Her heart was breaking for him, for the sorrow in his voice, but she didn’t understand. She reached tentatively for him, but her hand went through him.

  He must have felt it, though, because he looked down, smiled sadly again, then caught her hand, drawing it out of himself and lifting it to his lips for a kiss. “Dear Maddie. So much is yet to come. I wish we could just sit here forever under this tree, you and I, and pretend none of it will happen. But we can’t.” He kissed her hand again and held it to his lips, shutting his eyes tight and holding it there for several deep breaths before he let it go. “You need to go beyond the ridge,” he said, his voice soft and a little broken. “Stay away from the lake until after you’ve found me. I’d tell you to stay away entirely, but there’s no point. It’s part of the road we both must take, and you’ll have to go. But go find me down by the Circle. Don’t be too shocked at what you see. Remember this, what you see in me here, now. Remember that I get better.” He squeezed her hand tight, and for a second she thought she could feel his flesh. “I have to leave too. I have to go back to you, in fact. A different you.” He drew a very shaky breath and had to pause to wipe his eyes again. “I’m tired, Madeline. I’m so very tired. I want—” He pinched his nose and breathed deliberately, slowly. She could feel his breath on her hand.

  He turned to look at her, and there was so much pain, so much sadness in his face.

  He shut his eyes again and laughed, a hollow, sad sound. “I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have to bear this. I really am being very selfish now.”

  Madeline had no idea what he was speaking of or why he was so sad. She didn’t know how or why he was here. She only knew she could not stop herself from rising to her knees and leaning forward to take him into her arms, even if they did largely go through him until he figured out what she was trying to do.

  “It’s just that this is the last one,” he whispered brokenly. “The last one and then there’s nothing else to do. This one and then—then I’ll have nothing left to do but forget.” He sighed on a ragged breath. “But I wish to remember.”

  “Then remember.” Madeline shut her eyes and leaned her cheek against his warm, wet, shiny one.
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br />   This time his laugh was a little bit brighter. “Maybe I will. Maybe I just will at that.” When he kissed her cheek, it made her tingle. Then he brought his mouth close to her ear. “He’s right—you are full of pride. But that is not always bad. You are full of pride, but you also have a rich and giving heart. Remember both, Madeline. Remember both. You will need them both. Let your pride give you strength for the battle you must fight. Let your heart give you the wisdom and the courage to step away when the time is right, when you know the battle is not yours.” He kissed her temple, then drew her up with him as he rose to his feet. “And now I must go back to the new beginning.” He nodded through the mist, down the ridge to the moor and the Stone Circle. He squeezed her hand. “You’ll have enough to get you through what you need to do. Nothing more. But you’ll have enough. Go on, then.” He smiled and let go of her hand. “I’ll see you soon.”

  She watched as he faded away before her eyes, waving at her as he went. Madeline stared at the empty space, trying to decide if it all had been real. She lifted her face and looked up into the tree, into the whispering leaves and the snakelike branches. She pulled her cowl back over her head and started over the ridge to the Stone Circle, staying well away from the lake. She found Charles where the other Charles had said he would be, just beyond the Stones. He was lying facedown in the mud, his clothes ragged and dirty and torn. He wasn’t moving. He was barely breathing. When Madeline turned him over and saw his ruined face, she fell against his chest and began to sob.

  When she was able to rise again, she whispered prayers of healing. When she felt the block of the alchemist’s spell around Charles, she paused, stunned. Smith had taken her protective amulet and turned it sour; she had to fight her own magic now as well as his. Normally it would be nothing to remove it, but now?

  “You’ll have enough to get you through what you need to do. Nothing more. But you’ll have enough.”

  Madeline took a deep breath, reached out onto the Plane, and cast the counterspell.

  It depleted her completely; when she pulled the charm over Charles’s head, her arm ached at the effort and her hand shook so hard it banged the charm against his bruised and bloody face several times before she could wrench it free. She collapsed against his chest again and shut her eyes, sobbing quietly for a moment. When she lifted her hand and saw his blood against it, however, she reached even farther into her soul, digging into reserves she had never used before. One more spell. She pushed the energy at him. She could not heal him completely, but she stopped the bleeding, and she took away as much of the pain as she could. Then she slumped against him and slid into the welcoming embrace of darkness.

  When she woke, she woke to more darkness: thick, swelling darkness. She lifted her heavy head and blinked against it, trying to see through it, but there was nothing to see but black. It was fog, she realized. Black fog from the lake. She raised her hand and tried to cast a path through it, but she had no strength left. In the distance she heard strange, unearthly cries; the moor beasts were waking again and in greater force than ever before. They were not safe here, not on the moor, not without magic.

  She stumbled to her feet and reached for Charles’s legs; it made her muscles scream to so much as stand, but she pushed them farther and made them work hard enough to drag him up the slope, whispering prayers all the way as she went, begging the Goddess to help her find the Stones, weeping with relief when she ran into one.

  If we can get inside, we will be safe. The guides of the Circle would protect anyone with power who came inside, so long as they could prove their worth. Madeline thought again of her weakened state and was tempted to worry, but she remembered the White Charles’s promise that she would have enough. She hoped he was right.

  She tugged again on Charles, but he was stuck on something. She felt her way up to his head and freed his coat from the stone it had snagged on, realizing belatedly that it could have caught on the back of his head. She moved him more carefully the rest of the way, rolling instead of dragging him, rolling him backward, always checking the ground for several paces before she moved him again.

  She shuddered in relief once she went inside the Circle, feeling the sheltering magic wrap around her, but no sooner did she pass through the barrier than she lost him again. She stepped back out, hurrying to find whatever had blocked him from rolling inside, desperate to get them both into safety. There was nothing caught on him. She frowned and shoved at him from behind, rolling him the last inch in between the two great stones, and then he was inside.

  When she leaned forward and tried to follow, the Circle kept her out.

  Madeline blinked at the empty air, then pushed again; it pushed back, as firm and implacable as a plate of glass—a plate of glass eight feet thick. She banged against it, shouting now, crying, screaming. “Let me in! Let me in!” But the Circle would not yield. She reached for magic again, but it would not answer. There was nothing left. Charles was safe inside, but she was not. And she could not get to him.

  “Help me!” She turned back to the black fog, sobbing, shaking, terrified. She lifted her face to the sky. “Help me, someone, please!”

  “Here.”

  She startled, then wiped her eyes and stared into the fog. Someone was there. But who? She took a step forward.

  The wind picked up, and the fog swallowed her whole.

  Madeline cried out and backed away, but the fog moved with her. She kept backing up, trying to find the edge of the Stone Circle again, but it was gone. Or she was gone. She couldn’t tell which it was, or even, at this point, where she was. She cried out, moving faster in the opposite direction now, then switched again. She heard the cries of the dark creatures coming closer and closer.

  “Here,” the voice whispered from behind her. Then in front of her. Then to her right. Then her left.

  “I

  am

  over

  here.”

  Then it was everywhere.

  “Come to me, Madeline Elliott. I am yours, and you are mine.”

  She felt something wet at her feet, and she looked down. She was standing on the water.

  She was standing on the lake. She was in the center of the lake, the ring of fog surrounding her, closing in. And she had no strength left to fight. This was more than she could face. More than anyone should face. She needed help, but there was no help to be had.

  “Let your heart tell you when it is not your battle to fight,” the White Charles whispered in her ear. “Call him. Call him now, Madeline.”

  “Jonathan,” she whispered. “Jonathan, please—help me!”

  Then the lake swallowed her, and she was gone.

  * * *

  Jonathan drove the foil home, feeling it hit hard before it arced up against the force he exerted against Timothy’s chest, and he let out a deep and lusty crow. Timothy swore at him in Catalian, but he grinned too, his foil clattering against the wall Jonathan had pinned him to as he held up his hands in surrender. “Point to you,” he wheezed.

  “I’m out of shape. Took me too long.” Jonathan spat on the ground to dislodge the phlegm he’d gathered at the back of his throat. He felt the old thrill, though, the heady rush of a bout. It hummed in his blood, his bones, his muscles, his mind—he hadn’t felt this alive in years. He withdrew and leaned against a great oak that had grown and then fallen inside the courtyard. Night had come, but they had set up torches on the walls, and the enclosure flickered with soft light. They could go on for hours if they so chose. Jonathan just hoped he could keep up.

  “That’s one to three now.” He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “Just so it’s clear, I don’t intend to let you out of here until I’ve reclaimed my honor.”

  Timothy arched his eyebrows and whipped his foil delicately through the air as he pushed off the wall. “Just as long as you understand that I don’t intend on leaving until I’ve mopped the entire courtyard with your pale, pathetic hide.”

  Jonathan nodded, deadpan. “I see we�
�ll be here for some time then. Those li muscles can barely lift me from the floor.”

  Timothy didn’t so much as blink, just stepped forward and made the next thrust. “You Etsians are so weak your women have to mount you in order to conserve your strength for battle.”

  “No, they’re just lusty wenches getting their exercise so they can breed more strong boys for the army,” Jonathan replied.

  A smile played at the edge of Timothy’s mouth, but Jonathan didn’t believe for a minute he was about to break. Timothy had always been the best at the Catalian-Etsian shout-outs that had become a tradition in the front lines of the war. Generally it boiled down to the pair of them, the last two left. Jonathan won as often as Timothy did, but it was always a near thing. And Timothy was always full of tricks. He looked as if he were gearing up to one now.

  “Yes, but can they take four men in one night?” Timothy shot back. “Because I don’t feel I’ve been properly warmed up until I’ve had at least that many.” When Jonathan opened his mouth to fire back, Timothy made a soft little moue and reached back to rub his right hand sensually over his bum, affecting a very crude Catalian gutter tongue. “Ooh, I wish there were a real man here to get me going right now, but there’s naught here but pasty Etsian fish!”

  Jonathan choked, then burst out laughing. It started in his chest, and every time he tried to recover it rumbled down farther, all the way into the depths of his bowels, and it doubled him over, sending him practically to the floor. “Stop!” he cried as soon as he had enough breath to speak, but he was still laughing. “Stop. I can’t take it anymore.”