Sylvia and Francesca take a couple of minutes to go about their ward-breaking, and then Francesca picks up again and we continue on. Soon after that, the tunnel opens out into a small cavern. I think it’s about the size of the bedroom in my dad’s apartnt, but it’s difficult to tell when the light is limited and I can’t even turn my head.
In the centre of the cavern is a circular stone table, with markings of so sort carved into it.
“This is it?” Francesca asks in Sirgalese, a note of wonder in her voice.
Sylvia doesn’t respond. She just carries Edward around and sets him down standing beside the table, leaning on it to support his weight. Then she moves his hand to rest on the table.
“We rest our hands on the circles?” Francesca asks.
“Yes.”
I would have struggled to understand her question even a few minutes ago, between the panic and my sowhat rusty Sirgalese. But a side effect of drawing as deeply on the anomaly as I have is apparently improved language processing.
Francesca sets down beside the table, just as Sylvia did with Edward, and places my hand on the table. In a place where the carvings make a circle, as Sylvia said.
There must be sothing magical about this table. So kind of ward, or sothing that we can activate. It’s not quite symtrical though. Edward and I aren’t opposite each other, we’re standing at two of three equally spaced points. I try to understand the markings, but all I can see is lines spiralling inwards from the circle where my hands rest.
Francesca walks calmly around the table until she’s standing at the third corner of the triangle, and rests her hand on the table in what must be the last circle.
I don’t understand why they’d go to all the trouble of abducting us for sothing any three magicians could do.
So this must be sothing that not every magician could do. And what unusual thing do Edward and I have in common, that Sylvia would have known about as a sensitive? Stars, why did I believe her when she said there was nothing unusual about my magical signature? Especially when Electra had provided conclusive evidence to the contrary. I just… forgot.
Does this an Francesca has the anomaly too?
And, most importantly – what will this table do?
“What now?” Francesca asks. “We just… channel magic into the stone?”
“Yes.”
“I suppose you have a plan to deal with the fact that these two might not be the most inclined to work with us right now?”
“Indeed,” Sylvia says. She walks around the table to stand beside , and withdraws the knife from a pocket.
I should be terrified. So distant part of is. But all I can think of right now is a weapon. An opportunity.
“If I’m right about how this paralytic works,” Sylvia says, switching to Rasin, “you won’t feel pain. Which is unfortunate for you, because it ans I’ll have to do sothing more… permanent.”
She takes my spare hand in hers, and presses it against the edge of the table. “I think this should be sharp enough to remove a finger.”
I thank the stars that I’m beyond fear right now. I know what I have to do.
“No,” says Francesca.
Sylvia laughs. “You object?”
“I object,” Francesca agrees.
I wonder vaguely whether this could lead sowhere that helps , and decide that it doesn’t matter. I focus my attention on the knife, and think of animation. Rember how smoothly Electra could make knives fly through the air.
“Bit rich, coming from the girl who created that paralytic,” Sylvia says. She’s distracted. That helps . “Besides, Isabelle, you don’t have a say in this.”
That almost distracts for a second – why is Francesca suddenly being called Isabelle? But whatever anomalous force is guiding my mind dismisses that as unimportant.
Focus. Clarity. Intent.
My General Animation Spell takes effect.
“She – she’s casting,” Sylvia says, shock in her voice. “That’s impossible.”
But it’s happening. Slowly, the knife glides out of Sylvia’s hand and hangs in the air. Just as slowly, it rotates until the blade is pointing directly at her.
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“Don’t just stand there, Isabelle, stop her!”
“Didn’t you just tell I didn’t get a say in this?” Francesca – or Isabelle – asks. She turns to look at , and she’s smiling.
It doesn’t make sense, but I can’t afford to dwell on it. It’s taking all the concentration I have to hold the knife in place and move it closer to Sylvia. I’m going to need to be a lot faster if I want this to actually be effective.
“That wasn’t what I ant,” Sylvia says, taking a step away from and the knife. I can’t see her any more; I’ll have to rely on sound and anomalous instinct to track her. “You need , rember? Without , you’ll never make it out of here, never mind earn your freedom.”
Isabelle laughs. “You underestimate .” And the words have the weight of an incantation. And the cavern goes dark.
I hear Sylvia collapse a second later, and I have no way of telling what’s happened. Presumably Isabelle dismissed the light-spell to cast sothing else, but beyond that… did she betray Sylvia? Why? And is she the enemy now?
I hear her footsteps, moving towards , and then beyond. To where Sylvia was, and presumably still is. I try to work out where she is compared to where my knife still hovers, unused. I’m scared of what happens if I guess wrong.
More footsteps. She must be close to now. I can hear her breath. Maybe she’s even touching . I can’t tell what she’s doing. Stars. I’m just moving the knife in what I hope is her direction when she sighs. “I suppose we need so light.”
And she summons a ball of light. She’s standing just feet from , along the edge of the table. One of her hands holds the bright white light, while the other is feeling the hand Sylvia recently threatened. Looking for sothing. The ring, I realise after a second. Lord Blackthorn’s ring.
“Sorry about this,” she says, tugging the ring off my finger. “But we need to talk, and that can’t happen if you summon help the mont I give you the antidote.”
I don’t understand why she would do that. Or why she would help in our abduction only to betray Sylvia and then let us go. What does she want? As long as I can’t understand that, we’re still in grave danger.
She slips the ring away and tips the contents of another vial into my mouth. I feel its cool taste on my tongue, and then realise that I can feel things. Slowly, my body is returning to life. It’s cold in this cavern, I realise now that I can feel the air against my face. The air feels very still.
Isabelle, not waiting to watch my recovery, has walked around the room to where Edward was sitting and is now removing his ergency ring. I lose concentration on my levitation-spell and Sylvia’s knife clatters to the floor behind .
I try to speak. My muscles are stiff from the lack of sensation, so it takes a couple of attempts to form words. “Why?” I ask finally.
“Because I need sothing inside this tomb. And this was the only way I had to get here. I’m sorry.” She pours the vial of antidote into Edward’s mouth.
“Then you need us,” I say. “To help you open it.”
Tomb, she said. This table is a giant tombstone. Who is buried beneath it?
“Yes.” Isabelle steps calmly away from Edward until she’s returned to her original place.
I’ve regained enough sensation in my hands to feel the cold stone of the table – tombstone. I remove my hand from the circle. I’m not opening the tomb for the person who’s just kidnapped , even if she’s playing nice now.
“And yet you’re letting us go.”
She shrugs. “There are better thods than my aunt’s of getting people to do what you want. For instance, explaining to them why it should also be what they want.”
“Sylvia is really your aunt, then?” It’s a silly thing to focus on at a ti like this, but I want to understand how much of what they told us was a lie.
“Yes. I lied about my first na, though, as you might have worked out. I’m Isabelle Front. It’s a pleasure to properly et you. And I’m not really a dical student, either, though I’ve picked up a fair bit of dical knowledge.”
“Then what…” but I already know. She made the paralytic, Sylvia said. “Alchemist?”
“Indeed.” She’s smiling now.
Edward was wrong about alchemy, I realise. It very much is proper magic.
I’ve regained feeling in my whole body now. I take a tentative, shaky step away from the table. I don’t know exactly what I’m aiming for. The knife, I think, just to have the weight of a weapon in my hands. But I don’t get to it in ti.
Edward makes a sudden sharp gesture, and it flies into the air and across the table. Directly towards Isabelle, until it rests with the tip of the blade touching her neck.
He’s alive. He’s safe. I feel an overwhelming surge of relief.
“Give us back the rings,” he says icily.
Isabelle shrugs. “No.”
“You can’t win this fight.”
“This isn’t a fight. It’s a negotiation. And I have all the cards. As long as you don’t summon help, I’ll tell you everything you want to know. I imagine you have rather a lot of questions.”
“None that can’t be answered by my father prying them out of you.”
She laughs. “I wish him luck prying answers out of my corpse.”
That’s enough to give Edward pause.
“I drank a dose of a slow-acting poison before I ca here,” she explains. “If I don’t purge it from my system within… probably about two hours, I will die.”
“I’m going to assu that you’re neither actively suicidal nor stupid enough you might as well be. So either you’re bluffing, or you have the antidote on your person.”
I begin to pace around the table, away from Isabelle and towards Edward. I don’t know what I’m doing, other than wanting to stand beside him. I don’t understand what Isabelle is doing.
“This isn’t a bluff. Being captured by your father is, for , a fate worse than death. And I do have the antidote on my person. But I have half a dozen alchemical vials on my person. Do you really want to take the chance that you don’t just end up killing faster?”
Edward winces.
I reach his side. “Your dad has access to the best alchemists in Rasin. Surely he could – “
Isabelle laughs. “Oh, please. The best alchemists in Rasin are a joke. Any Master of the Sirgalese Guild is worth more than all of them put together.”
“…that’s probably true,” Edward admits. “All right. You’ve bought yourself ti. Now start talking.”
“This tomb,” says Isabelle, “belongs to Cyrus.”
It takes too long to place the na. It’s not one I expected to hear in this context. And when I do realise who it belongs to… stars.
“Just to be clear,” I say. “When you say Cyrus, you an the Mage Cyrus. Right?”
“Right.”
“And we – the three of us – are the only ones who can open the tomb of a Mage.”
“Yes.”
I look at Edward. He looks at . I can tell he’s reaching the sa conclusion as I am. It’s utterly impossible. And yet – it makes sense.
“You’re saying,” I say slowly, “that we’re the Mages Returned.”
Isabelle nods, once, slowly.
Stars.
I don’t understand. This isn’t… I’m not… stars.
I can’t afford to panic. “What does that… actually an?”
“Among other things,” says Edward, “it ans that each of us has a legitimate claim to the throne of Rasin. Which in turn ans that Isabelle needs to die.”
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