by Lucia Ashta
“Lady Mirvela, the petite owl on Lady Clara’s shoulder is Sir Lancelot,” Mordecai said.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you as well, Sir Lancelot,” Mirvela said.
Sir Lancelot bowed deeply from my rigid shoulder. “The pleasure is all mine, Lady Mirvela.”
“Did you not hear me, Mordecai?” Marcelo hissed. “This woman isn’t who she says she is.”
Mordecai continued as if Marcelo hadn’t spoken. “I wish you’d been here to see Lady Mirvela deal with those stubborn pixies. Her magic is so powerful that they just ran into the tapestries and paintings, even before she cast any spell. And she took care of all the other lingering creatures too, even the weeping maiden.”
My body tightened further. Had Mirvela put the poor maiden back in the tapestry with the satyr, to continue being victim to his aggressions and torments?
“You ingratiate me with your comments, Mordecai,” said Mirvela, “but it was nothing, really.”
Mordecai let out a light-hearted laugh that sounded as if it had come from a man at least two hundred years younger. “Oh no, Lady Mirvela, your magic is truly remarkable. You are truly remarkable.”
Mirvela laughed back, with convincing flirtation.
I flashed my eyes at Marcelo—what was going on here?—but Marcelo was looking toward Robert, still stationed at the archway inside the dining room. Robert was inexpressive as always.
“My son, won’t you sit now and join us for dinner? I’m sure the kitchen can put together something suitable for you, on short notice.”
“I won’t sit at any table this woman also sits at.”
“All right then, if you’d like to change before dinner, go do so, but hurry. I’d like to hear tales of your travels.”
I looked at Sir Lancelot. Even the usually sharp owl didn’t behave as if anything was wrong.
Marcelo backed away awkwardly, and he took me with him, my arm still interlaced with his. Only when Mirvela was out of sight did we turn.
“What’s going on?” Marcelo whispered aggressively under his breath.
“I have no idea, but whatever it is, it’s not good, that’s for sure.”
We raced down the entry hall. I said, “Marcelo, stop,” and he halted right in front of the tapestry that contained the satyr and his ugliness. My heart sank. It was as I’d feared. The maiden hid behind a tree in the background of the tapestry, tears streaming down her face. The satyr, with bright red eyes, was in pursuit. The threads of their tapestry fixed them, unmoving only to the eye of the external viewer, to this cycle of torment.
I pulled Marcelo along slowly. The pixies looked like they’d been flung into their respective paintings and tapestries. The playful mischief that had annoyed me when we shared the castle with them was frighteningly absent. The pixies’ faces were haunted now, as if they knew who Mirvela was and that she had control of the castle.
Marcelo shifted to take my hand. “Come on, Clara. Let’s go.”
He picked up the pace again and led me down the long, echoing corridor to the other end of the castle, as far away from Mirvela as we could go.
Chapter 20
We fled to the third floor, navigating stairways and hallways all the more treacherous for their infrequent use. This part of the castle was deserted.
We were moving so fast that the worst of the castle’s traps sprung after we passed. Once I turned to see a wall rise where we’d just been, but Marcelo pulled me, and I couldn’t look back again. There was enough danger ahead in this enchanted castle to overlook the treachery we avoided.
Finally, Marcelo stopped. He and I were out of breath, and Sir Lancelot was perfectly flustered and ruffled. Marcelo paused with his hand on a door handle. “Ready?”
I nodded, though I had no idea what I was saying I was ready for.
Marcelo swung the door open into a room I’d never been to, but wished I had. It was enclosed in a tower very similar to the ones that housed the brothers’ and Marcelo’s studies. The walls were thick, old stone interrupted by sparse windows. Ceiling-high bookcases lined the walls in places.
And the similarities ended there. This was very obviously a woman’s room, or it had been at one time. It was fit for a princess, and being in it made me want to be one. What was this room, and how could it possibly be here, in this castle of all places?
Marcelo began mumbling a spell under his breath. I couldn’t understand what he was saying, but I could sense the protection he was erecting around us. I thought I might be able to see it as well. There was now a subtle blur around the hard edges of the room’s walls, as if we were encased in a great big bubble.
Marcelo took his time with the spells. There was more than one, and he worked them in layers. I was mindful not to interrupt him. As far as Mirvela was concerned, there couldn’t be too much protection. Between the two of us, Marcelo and I lost more than eight years of our lives to Mirvela’s magic. Even a day more was unacceptable.
After the third spell, Sir Lancelot flew from my shoulder to his usual hangout on the windowsill. He took up less space than usual; the elegance of the room appearing to make him self-conscious of any part of the décor he might disturb, any feather he might shed.
When Marcelo finally finished placing five protection spells, he put his hands on his hips and looked at me, as if I might have an answer. “We need to figure out what to do about this situation. Right now.”
“Marcelo, I have no idea what’s going on. What can we do?”
“I don’t know yet. But whatever we do, we have to do it fast. I can’t bear the thought of that woman—or thing or whatever she is—using Mordecai for even a second longer. It’s repulsive.”
A shudder of agreement ran through me. “How did she even get out of the underwater world? I thought the merpeople were trapped there, or at the very least that something bad would happen to them if they left the water.”
“I thought so too,” Marcelo said. “I never once considered that Mirvela might walk out onto the yellow-tiled floor and into the castle. Not once. Had I done so, I probably would’ve never slept at night. I didn’t realize her tail could transform into legs either.”
“Me neither!”
“I assume she must’ve used her own magic to replace her tail with legs. And either there never was any spell in place preventing her from leaving the merworld, or she learned how to break it, or some other circumstance dissolved the spell.”
Marcelo ran his hand through his hair. “I don’t know. There’s so little information about the merpeople available. I think I told you, when I first got out of the merworld, I looked for pertinent information everywhere. I read every book with any reference to them I could find. But no book mentioned them coming out of the merworld. Or maybe they do it all the time and we didn’t realize it because they don’t have tails and they act like normal people.”
He paused. His next words were haunted. “The only likely way for magicians to get information about them is to have fallen into their merworld trap. And then… well, I don’t know if the two of us might be the only two magicians to have ever escaped it.”
I allowed Marcelo’s words to sink in for a moment, until their implications were too great for me to deal with right now, on top of the immediate threat that currently sat at the dining room table engaging in polite conversation. “Well, whether she walked out or somehow used magic to get herself out, she’s here. And she’s obviously doing some kind of trickery over Mordecai. And Robert. And Sir Lancelot. Everyone but us. Did you notice? Mordecai didn’t seem to hear a word you said.”
“It was as if he knew I was speaking, but Mirvela was changing what he thought I said.”
“Yes. It has to be something like that. If not, how he acted would make even less sense. He responded to you, just not to what you actually said. Kind of like what the merpeople did to us when we were in the merworld.”
“When we interpreted a language we didn’t understand into the words they wanted us to hear.”
“Exact
ly. Are there spells that allow you to control how another person interprets the meaning of what’s being said?”
“I’ve heard of them, and certainly Mirvela and the others must have used some kind of magic like it. But it’s incredibly advanced, ancient magic. I wonder if even Mordecai can do it. And I don’t know how to block Mirvela’s interference. Still, there must be a way.”
“That’s why you brought us as far away from Mirvela as you could in the castle, isn’t it? So we could figure it out at a safe distance from her meddling?”
“I hope this is a safe distance from her, although I’m not certain that any distance is as safe as we’d like it to be. I just didn’t know where else to take us and still remain inside the castle. No one comes here, not even Mordecai. None of the staff comes either. I doubt the servants even know this room exists. There are spells in place that keep it clean.”
“Why does no one come here? I’d come here all the time if I were allowed. It’s beautiful. I love it.”
“I don’t see any reason why you couldn’t come here.”
I brightened, even if our circumstance was dire, it didn’t feel as serious in this room. This was a room for fairy tales, with their obligatory princesses and princes.
I looked at my prince. “Can I stay here? I mean, can this be my room?”
Marcelo smiled, and it was the first smile I’d seen on him in several days. The ride to Irele had been full of tension. Marcelo was on the constant lookout for threats, only to find the most dangerous of them here, infiltrating the castle that had been more a home to him than Bundry.
“I think you can. But we’ll have to ask Mordecai—once his mind isn’t controlled by Mirvela, obviously—since this was his sister’s room.” The smile was gone before I had a chance to ask about this sister I’d never heard mentioned. Marcelo was pacing. “Do you have any ideas of what we can do?”
“Me?”
He spun on me. “Yes, you. You, who do things I’ve never even imagined possible in all my study of magic. You, who do things that magicians aren’t supposed to be able to do. You, who’s seen a fifth element that no one in the magical world knows anything about. You, whose chest glows sometimes. Should I go on? Yes, you.”
Marcelo prowled the circular room like a wild cat on the hunt for prey.
Only, he was on the hunt for an answer. Just weeks ago, he’d killed his father and lost a mentor who was like a father. Now, the only man left alive that was like a father to him, more than any others, was in the grasp of an expert in deceit and enslavement. Marcelo couldn’t lose another father—not his last chance at having one—he couldn’t.
He spun again, eyes wild and glassy. His hands ran through his hair. “Clara, what are we going to do? I have no idea how to save him. Not one.”
I walked to him calmly, as if I were a true princess and nothing affected me like it bothered others, safe in my enchanted tower bedroom. I took his hand. “We’ll breathe deeply and calm ourselves, and then we’ll work on the problem until we’ve fully resolved it. With your experience and with my”—what was it that I had?—“powers, we’re certain to figure it out in time.”
I didn’t say in time for what, nor did I want to think about how much damage Mirvela could do in the time she’d already taken from Mordecai. “Besides, we have an advantage.”
“We do? What might that be? Because I’d very much like to have one.”
“We have Sir Lancelot with us, and Sir Lancelot, quite obviously, is also under Mirvela’s spell.” I trained my eyes on the unusually fidgety owl. “We can try our spells directly on him to see if they work before we have to try with Mordecai. Because I have the suspicion that Mirvela won’t let him out of her sight now that we’re here.”
“Yes, I suspect you’re right.” Marcelo ran his hands through his black hair again, his eyes on Sir Lancelot. “Thank you. I think that is a true advantage. And we have another one too. Neither you nor I are affected by Mirvela’s charms. There has to be a reason for it, probably linked with our underwater years.”
I thought it lucky that Sir Lancelot didn’t seem to be absorbing a thing we were saying. The owl might jump out of his skin if he fidgeted any more. Mirvela still possessed his thoughts, and her presence within him wasn’t a gentle one.
Chapter 21
Marcelo and I sat next to each other on an ornate love seat that suited the princess room perfectly. It was overly stuffed, with elaborately patterned silk upholstery. But it was comfortable and overlooked the valley below the cliff that dropped straight down just beyond the wall of the tower.
“It’s a magnificent view, isn’t it?” I said.
“Yes, it is. Although I’d enjoy it more if a slave master weren’t in the castle, controlling everyone.” He took in the oblivious owl with sullen eyes. Sir Lancelot remained unaware of what was going on, blissful in his ignorance, atop the windowsill.
“Then let’s figure it out. Let’s stop Mirvela.” I sounded more buoyant than I felt to compensate for Marcelo’s moroseness.
“Let’s.” Marcelo discordantly followed his statement by scooting forward on the seat and staring farther out the window.
“All right.” It was obviously up to me to get us going. “Do you think Mirvela would’ve gotten whatever spell she’s using from a book?” Assuming merpeople used spells.
“That’s what I would’ve automatically thought before meeting you. Now, I can’t be sure. Maybe there are more people out there able to do magic the way you do.”
He looked at me pointedly, and I secretly hoped Mirvela would be nothing like me. The thought of her with unbridled, intuitive magic was terrifying. “Why don’t we go on the assumption that she isn’t like me and that she uses constructed spells just like other witches?”
“Even though she comes from an underwater world that might very well operate in different ways than ours?”
“Yes.”
“Why? Isn’t it a risk not to take into account the possibility that she might have unpredictable, uncontrollable powers?”
“Of course it’s a risk. But if we think of Mirvela as being able to do whatever she wants with magic, then we’re doomed to begin with. You and I both know she’ll use her power unkindly. So let’s go on the premise that her power operates within the same limits that constrict all magicians…”
“… so we can find a definite way to stop her,” he completed.
“Yes.”
“All right, Clara. I’m not really comfortable with the idea of ignoring what might be part of the problem. But I do agree with you that, if Mirvela can do magic like you, then there’s little hope of us stopping her, anyway. So let’s do what you say. Let’s assume she’d act like an ordinary magician, like me.”
“Marcelo, you are not ordinary.”
He surprised me and laughed. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I believe I am.”
I said nothing, but only smiled back, a smile that indicated Marcelo was anything but ordinary.
“And if I wanted to control someone’s mind, I’d search the ancient spell books,” Marcelo said.
“Why do you think no one uses mind control magic nowadays? I mean, I agree that it’s much better this way, but why wouldn’t the magic be kept alive? It’s useful magic after all.”
“It was probably hidden away purposefully, like many other types of magic considered too dangerous for the ordinary magician,” he said. “There’ve been many spells difficult to control. When that’s the case, almost anything can happen, most of it not good.”
Marcelo studied the landscape. The light outside was fading quickly. Soon, it would be night. “With this spell, or what I can understand of it without actually seeing the words, there would be the potential for a lot of problems. I imagine eager magicians interfered with other people’s thoughts all the time. And they may have lost control of their spells, or perhaps the spells proved too powerful for them. If so, people would never have returned to the way they were before. Who knows what the effects would’
ve been, anything from permanently believing the thoughts the magician imposed on them to full madness? When things like that happen, when a spell’s proven to be difficult to control and to have long-lasting ill effects, the magical council bans it. It labels it dark magic and forbids it.”
“I didn’t know there was a magical council.” I wondered how many things I still didn’t know about magic. A hundred thousand? A million?
“Well, there definitely is one, although no one but the council members knows who’s on it. I’ve suspected for a long time that Albacus and Mordecai are—were, are, whatever—on it, but they always change—changed—the subject when I ask. I can’t get used to speaking of Albacus in the past tense.” Marcelo’s shoulders slumped even further. “Although I must.”
I sat with him in silence for a moment, giving Albacus’ memory the respect it deserved. But then I moved on. Albacus’ brother was still alive, and he needed our help. “So if the spell were a dark one, how would Mirvela have learned it?”
“There are three ways I can think of: she could’ve gotten hold of a book of dark magic; or she could’ve discovered a book that included the spell before the magical council decreed it dark magic, so it would have to be a very old book; or she could’ve found another magician who held the knowledge and was willing to tell her about it.”
“Like Mordecai?”
“Yes, possibly like Mordecai, assuming he knows the spell, and I think chances are good that he does. Mordecai and Albacus are some of the more powerful and knowledgeable magicians still alive.” He grimaced at the use of present tense with Albacus, but didn’t correct himself. “However, Mordecai wouldn’t tell Mirvela how to do a spell which would give her control over him. Of that I’m certain.”
“That leaves the books. Do they have books in the merworld?”
“Not that I ever saw.”
“Nor did I. Not even a paperless version of them.”