“You decided to steal my books instead?” Jada replied, voicedripping with sarcasm. “You had to know you wouldn’t get away with it.”
“I know that, and I didn’t and don’t want to disobey. You know how much I hate the root cellar and the Sleep of Ages.” She let her voice tremble with her very real anxiety over that threat. “I’ve been so good, hoping that you’ll relent about putting me to sleep the next time you leave. Why would I jeopardize that now?”
Jada stared at her evenly, as if trying to penetrate Thorn’s thoughts. When she was a little girl, she’d thought Jada could read her mind. Her guardian had always seemed to know when Thorn was up to something she shouldn’t be, but recent events had definitively proved Jada didn’t knoweverythought in Thorn’s mind. And the visitation by that sorceress proved Jada wasn’t all-powerful. The realizations felt like the ability to breathe clean air.You have far more power than you know.
“So, pray tell, whodidsteal my books?” Jada inquired icily. “Let me guess: a ghost.”
Thorn told her, describing the unknown sorceress’s arrival, brief stay, and departure, in as much detail as she could recall. In particular, she made sure to mention how the thief had taken a book from the locked and warded shelves, as well as others. Thorn only embroidered on the truth by inflating the number of books the sorceress removed and from where, to cover her own theft.
Jada listened intently, losing her anger, her face paling. “Describe this sorceress,” she demanded as soon as Thorn finished, even though Thorn already had.
Dutifully, Thorn repeated every detail she could recall about their nocturnal visitor.
“Oneira,” Jada breathed finally, knuckles whitening as she clutched her mug. “It couldn’t be anyone else, but… she’s gone. Disappeared from Zarja’s court and the face of the world. How is that even possible?”
“I don’t know,” Thorn ventured. What did that mean,disappeared from the face of the world? Maybe that’s why the sorceress had looked so transparent. The hairs prickled on the back of Thorn’s neck. “Could she have been an actual ghost?”
“There’s no such thing as ghosts, stupid girl. Sometimes I despair of you. No, she used magic to get here. That explains why I got so sleepy, that inimical bitch. I have to know what she took.” Launching herself up, she took a step toward the library, then spun back so abruptly that Thorn gasped. “You’re certain she didn’t see you?”
“She seemed to sense me,” Thorn answered honestly, “pausing to ask if anyone was there, but I was hiding and she didn’t see me. When I didn’t answer, she seemed satisfied and went about her business.”
“Well, that much of the warding is working anyway,” Jada muttered to herself, piquing Thorn’s immediate interest. Was she, herself, somehow warded so that she couldn’t be seen?
She mused over that question while she ate her breakfast in rare peaceful solitude. The warding would explain why the sorceress had looked right at her, but didn’t completely detect Thorn’s presence. She didn’t want to congratulate herself too soon, but she thought she might have pulled off obtaining the research materials she needed while blaming it all on the fortuitous arrival of their illicit visitor. The fresh, warm bread and honey tasted sweeter than usual, and Thorn sipped her own tea, savoring the quiet.
Soon enough, however, Jada stormed back into the kitchen, more furious than ever, but at least not at her now, to Thorn’s vast relief. “A dozen books!” Jada proclaimed. “At least that. Possibly more.”
Thorn put on a worried face. “Are we in danger?”
“What? No. Don’t be ridiculous. The great and powerful Oneira isn’t going to bother with the likes of us. She got what she wanted and I doubt she’ll be back. But why she bothered with an elementary text on oneiromancy, I don’t know.”
“What is oneiromancy?” Thorn took the opportunity to ask, not really expecting an answer, and knowing she could soon look it up for herself—giddy thought—but figuring she’d be expected to ask something like that.
“Nothing for you to bother about,” Jada answered vaguely, but with a frown that made Thorn think Jada regretted the slip.
It was enough to make her even bolder. “What was that portal?” she pressed. “How did the sorceress travel here?”
“A niche magic, not important, not all that useful, really. I’ll be busy in the library and I’m not to be disturbed.” Jada left without another word or backward glance, so Thorn lingered over another slice of honeyed toast and a fresh cup of tea. Humming happily, she cleaned the kitchen, mixed fresh dough, and set it to rise in the warmest spot. Finished, she looked out the kitchen window at the snow-covered sleeping garden, gleaming dully in the weak winter light. Along the white fence, the black, thorny canes of the roses snaked and snarled, frosted with snow.
Perhaps Thorn, too, had been only sleeping, slumbering away the frozen season of her life, and now her personal year had turned. Spring could come for her, too. Spring was supposed to be the season for love and lovers. Soon she would wake and her life would begin.
And she was going to start by finally looking up the Sleep of Ages.
6
The day after the grandness and glitter of the Solstice Ball, Rose resumed her normal life and routine.
She packed away the ball gown Clotaire had given her, specially made for the occasion, so that she would outshine them all. He had very likely arranged for her to be Solstice Queen, too. He’d made the comment that no one would forget the sight of Rose with a crown on her head, an omen of the future. She didn’t mind his interference. It had been a loving gesture and she’d had one of the best nights of her life because of him.
And then there was the glow of dancing with Prince Sebastien. She’d found out who he was almost immediately, of course. It hadn’t taken much effort. Everyone was abuzz with the excitement of having a real royal as a classmate.
It was, of course, extraordinarily rare for a late bloomer to arrive at a magic academy. Even more unusual, to the point of being unprecedented, was for that person to be actual royalty. But, arrive Prince Sebastien had, like a jeweled gift for solstice, dazzling everyone with his effervescent charm, golden good looks, and piercing green eyes that seemed right out of a fairy tale.
Sebastien also possessed the advantage of having spent his first two decades of life in the glittering whirl of the court, as opposed to the rest of the students at HASP, most of whom owed all their social life to the academy. By contrast to their woefully inadequate attempts at fine manners, the prince’s effortless grace and generous wit eclipsed them all.
That first night after the ball, he presided at the high table in the dining hall, the one usually reserved for the most seniorstudents with the highest honors, but of course no one expected an actual prince of the realm to sit at a lower table. A chair had been wedged in for him at the center, where the most opportunistic sycophants of the academy allowed at the high table immediately flanked him with adoration. From her favorite seat at the far end—faster and easier to sit, eat, and leave, not to mention less likelihood of being jostled—Rose observed the spectacle with what she hoped was a jaded level of cynicism. He didn’t seem to remember her or their dance, and she had her pride. She wouldn’t be the first to unbend and greet him.
She also didn’t care for the creeping sensation that she was as dazzled by the charismatic royal as any of her simpering classmates, nor that she uncharacteristically seemed to be wishing to be the one seated at his right hand. That one dance with him had been… exhilarating. And, most notably, she hadn’t minded him being so close to her. She’d even liked the way he smelled and his politely intimate touch. Before he’d waltzed her around the room, all strength and grace, Rose had formed only vague ideas of romance, of what it would be like to touch a man who wasn’t her father.
