Page 20 of The Court of Venus

“Look into my eyes.” He took his nephew’s shoulders in his hands. “That man Ambrose could peer into your very soul. Your essence. He could see that you became a thief because when you were seven years old, you found you could steal with impunity, and at my house too, mind you, and my silver. You found you liked the thrill and taste of it so much you never stopped. Or if you are Fulke, that you hated your uncle, the king, with a startling depth, and every moment of your life you worked to undermine him. Every breath you took you wanted to steal from his lungs. So, you see, Ambrose was too dangerous to reside at court. Fulke was exposed.”

“Yet, so in the open—”

“To be a magician is to be a threat,” said Charles. “Ambrose shouldn’t have come here.”

No. And I shouldn’t have, either. I risked too much, and they had not so much as mentioned Hal. I had arrived too late, or on the wrong night. I had never felt so precarious as I did on that ledge, listening to the Guildfords wave away a magician’s murder, as they nodded and agreed that Ambrose’s death was an unfortunate tragedy. But no matter. No matter at all.

The birds began to commune and chime. The Guildfords dispersed into the hall. The Marsborn woman was last, and as I watched her slip her cloak over her head, I wondered if the midwife shuddered too when she was born with such eyes.

They would pierce me that very afternoon in the tournament. I knew she would try her very best to kill me.

Six

To most magical scholars, Mars and Venus present us with a clear dichotomy: action and reception, masculine and feminine, hatred and love. Venus builds, Mars destroys. Venus stitches, Mars rips apart. Yet does Venus not indulge in pleasure until it has destroyed itself, too? I admit I have seen more similarities between the two planets than my predecessors.

—PROSPERO THE ALL-KNOWING, THE CELESTIAL BODIES

Roland was late to tutoring. I sat with my head in my hands and practiced manipulating Prospero’s emotions. “Good,” he said—a burst of laughter—“Now”—a wracking sob—“Enough of this, I think, for today.”

I released his mind and returned to staring out the window, where two figures, a tall, spindly man and a petite woman, walked arm in arm through the knot garden.

Prospero followed my gaze and frowned but said nothing. He chose his words carefully, often discarding most of what he wanted to say. When he spoke, his voice was authoritative and booming, plump with the king’s will. It was a golden age. A time of abundance. The treasury overflowing, the palace kitchens bursting with poultry and venison and sweet pies. The armada swayed with the tide, ready to set sail at a moment’s notice. Queen Gertrude was gout ridden.

“Since Roland has delayed us again, let’s work on your transformations.”

“Anything but a tree.”

“No, no, no.” Prospero shuddered. “Not a tree.”

Prospero had found a drawing in a wrinkled book of a white-bearded magician mid-transformation, his hair bursting into a leafy crown. It had taken Roland two days to pry all of the splinters out of my arm.

Together, Prospero and I interrogated my limits. I could wear any face, become any creature—any living thing—but nothing beyond the boundary of my skin answered the call of my magic. To my dismay, not even clothing. I’d also attempted transforming someone other than myself—Prospero said he’d always longed to be a cat for a few blissful, quiet hours—with no success.

“I did receive this the other day. It was sent to me from a library in Lionesse.” He showed me another old tome. Thumbed through pages until he landed on a sketch of a woman with a serpent’s tail. “It would take a great deal of control to limit the change to only a portion of your body.”

Roland finally surged into the room then, followed closely by Hal. They were flushed pink, bright with amusement—something they would never share with me, no matter how I longed for it. As a pair, they were impenetrable. I chased them still; perhaps I’d chase them forever. They were always a hundred yards away, disappearing around a bend. A door in the palace closing, locking me out, and their laughter from somewhere behind it.

Roland kicked Hal in the shin, then settled in the chair beside me, crossing one long leg over his knee. They’d shot up last summer, the two of them. Roland was fifteen, and to me, it seemed as though many things—his voice, his confidence—were full where they had once been sparse. He’d grown his hair out to his shoulders, braiding or twisting it around his forefinger whenever he was bored.

“Hal would like to stay today,” Roland said then. He often spoke for Hal, as if they were one mouth. Hal was their ears, the one who paid attention while Roland’s mind wandered.

Hal smiled at Prospero. “May I?” He turned to me. “Do you mind, Oswyn?”

“Mouse,” corrected Roland.

“Beatrice,” said Hal.

“I’d forgotten about that one,” muttered Roland darkly.

Prospero boxed Roland’s ear then nodded at Hal, for Hal was the prince and could learn whatever he wanted. I envied him that. Prospero swept the book in my lap away, returning it to his shelf. In his hands now was a thick tome bound in calfskin leather. His masterwork, The Celestial Bodies. A compendium of magical knowledge. His own planet, Jupiter, was the largest section of the manuscript. Venus, a thumb’s width. Mine was only a page or two. Prospero assumed, though he couldn’t be certain, that I was the first Moon-ruled magician in a thousand years. He pored over any account or legend he could find to discover what I might be capable of, but they were sparse. Drawings like the woman with the serpent’s tail. The leaf-crowned sorcerer, who was said to live as a man in winter and a tree in summertime.

Now, he multiplied The Celestial Bodies so there were two copies, setting one before me and the other before the boys. “You two can share,” he said. Hal scooted into Roland’s chair, crushing him, while Roland attempted to swat him away. “Mars today.”

I obediently flipped through the book until I arrived at the thick parchment Prospero had dyed red with madder and crushed insects.

But Roland was now whispering in Hal’s ear, describing how eagerly a pretty kitchen maid had kissed him, and Hal’s eyes were wide.

“Roland, do shut up,” said Prospero.