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“You hardly seem like a shrinking violet.”
Alys shrugged. “People change.”
“So what happened?”
“Understand that my brother is a truly frightening individual. I lived through more than one occasion in my youth when I thought he might kill me. When I turned fifteen winters and he seventeen, he strangled me because I laughed at him, and the only reason I am not dead is because Lina broke a vase over his head and the resultant noise brought the rest of the household.
“My parents sent him away after that. Various schools and military institutions they believed would cure him, as if his actions were born of some disease and not his own wretched soul. Yet they must have somewhat understood his nature, because they left the estate, in its entirety, to me, with the stipulation that I would continue to provide for Geoffrey. There were also stipulations that, in the event of my death, the estate would revert to a trust that would pay for housing and staff, and allow Geoffrey a fixed allowance. They did not wish to humiliate him, so the particulars of the inheritance were sealed from public knowledge, and only Geoff and I were present for the reading.
“When Geoffrey did not cause a scene after the news, I thought perhaps the various rigors of military life had cured him, as my parents hoped. I hadn’t seen him in years, by that point. I realized how wrong I was as soon as I returned to the manor. Because the reading of their will was private, only Geoffrey and I were allowed to attend. Lina stayed at home. I was delayed in town by some business I now recognize he planned for, and he returned to the manor before me. When I came back, he had Lina. Are you familiar with binding bracelets?”
Clare shook her head.
“Well, that is the ‘wretched thing on her arm’ that stops me. They were made in pairs, two bracelets cut from the same chunk of white dreamstone, the bound slaved to the master bracelet. It is illegal to make them anymore, but of course there is always a market for antiques, if one has money and a taste for that type of sordidness.
“If Lina so much as steps a foot outside of Megadari Manor without Geoffrey’s consent, the bracelet will kill her. She cannot run away, and I cannot take her.” Alys took a steadying breath. “He wanted me to sign control of the estate over to him, but even if I was willing to, I don’t have the authority. The will was very clear on that point. So instead, I became his puppet, with Lina’s life always subject to his moods. It is no way to live, and Lina and I were not going to do it.
“I tried to steal the master bracelet while he slept. He woke and gave me this.” She indicated the jagged scar running diagonally across her face. She grimaced. “I’d never wished to have been born a mage so fervently as in that moment. I spent a week tied up in the unused groundskeeper’s cottage while my face grew infected and my brother examined legal loopholes, the predominant one being that nothing in my parents’ will explicitly stated what happened to the estate if I went missing but did not die.
“It only took the right lawyer to tell him what he wanted to hear: if I were missing for long enough, but not dead, he could gain control of the estate. When I learned that, I knew I had to leave. Geoffrey would keep me tied up for the rest of my life with Lina as security. As it is, if anyone sees me, I have no doubt he will kill her.”
“Why didn’t he just kill you outright and tell everyone you were missing?”
Alys laughed. “You’re direct, aren’t you? Well, I am sure you will be shocked to hear this, but the nobility are quite accustomed to scandals, treachery, and backstabbing. As such, any family worth anything pays to have their children entered in the Book of Life at birth. It takes a single drop of blood, the power of which is consumed entirely by the spell that places it in the book, so one need not fear it being used for nefarious purposes. While a person lives, their name in the Book of Life is written in red. When they die, it fades to black. To date, the book has never been manipulated, so all of Veralna City knows I am alive, if they choose to look.
“Naturally, certain people suspect my brother of having a hand in my disappearance. Those who prefer me to my brother ensured Megadari Manor was searched, as were his other holdings, and the staff questioned, but the only person who knows anything is Lina, and if she speaks of it, she will die.”
“You must have powerful friends, why not go to them?”
Alys hesitated. “I don’t have any I trust enough with this.”
“Verol and Marquin?”
“Have already risked enough for me.”
“They don’t know, do they?”
“Not the particulars. And you will take care to keep it that way. So long as I remain hidden, Lina is safe. If she dies, he knows nothing will prevent me from coming forward. But if he hears that I am coming forward, he will kill her simply to hurt me, even if he can’t stop me.”
“So all you really need,” Clare reasoned, “is this bracelet destroyed?”
Alys laughed. “You don’t understand, Clare. The bracelets cannot be destroyed. Only the person who possesses the master bracelet can remove Lina’s, and since my attempt to take it from him, Geoffrey has taken certain precautions to ensure that if anyone attempts to remove it, it will destroy her. When you said you could take care of it, I assumed you had an actual plan.”
“I do.” Clare lifted her hand and, at Alys's tight-lipped nod of consent, placed her fingertips to Alys's cheek. The Song unfurled inside Clare, reached out through her fingers, and drank the magic of Alys's glamour down. The doing of it filled Clare with a soft warmth, as if the glamour’s magic were something she had given away long ago and come to regret the giving of, and now it was being returned to her.
The action seemed to Clare a simple enough one. So simple, in fact, she had doubted the Song’s insistence that this show of ability would convince Alys of anything at all, much less that Clare could free Lina of the binding bracelet.
Alys's response was to stumble—inasmuch as anyone with Alys's court-trained graces could be said to stumble—back two steps, her face blanched of color. Trembling fingers slipped into the pocket of her breeches and she pulled out a little compact mirror, opening it to stare at her face, and the wholly visible scar upon it.
When she closed the compact her hand was steady once more, fright hidden beneath layers of frigid control. “I need to arrange a few things. Once I have, you will come with me and free Lina, and in return for your help and your own silence, I will do you the favor of never speaking of this again.”
She walked away, as if frightened to stay any longer in Clare’s presence, and climbed the stairs to the living quarters above the stable.
Why is she scared?
The Song purr-hummed in response, its self-satisfaction evident. Because we do what only one other can.
Clare did not miss how much ‘we’ sounded like ‘I’ in the Song’s voice. How long, she wondered, before it failed to remember she was here at all? How long would she maintain control, before she ceased to be, and only the Song remained?
