Chapter Twenty

CHAPTER TWENTY

T he tower was dim after the brightness of the clearing. I stood just inside the doorway until my eyes adjusted enough to make out the details before me. My first impression was one of space. The room I stood in was large and circular, unbroken by dividing walls. A staircase spiraled up the edge of the room and disappeared through an opening in the ceiling. The ceiling itself was covered in a mural of the sky, with painted clouds so realistic I suspected the artist had used a spell or two.

To my right was a stone hearth, and directly across from where I stood were bookshelves set into the curved wall. In the center of the room were two velvet sofas that sagged a little in the middle, aging but still doing their best. Overlapping rugs covered the floor, muffling my footsteps, and the air smelled faintly of beeswax and smoke. Not the smoke of fire or candles, but the unmistakable metallic tang of spell smoke.

After the imposing grandness of the tower's outside, I'd expected insides that matched. Instead, the tower's interior seemed to say, Well, since you've made it this far, might as well stay awhile .

Other than the wolf, who had flopped down on a pillow in front of the hearth, the room was empty of life. Grimm lingered awkwardly near the door, and even I felt a little hesitant to explore further. Snooping through a stranger's belongings was all well and good if you could be sure you weren't being watched, but who knew what sort of magic kept this place protected?

"Hello?" I called out.

As though waiting for this summons, there came the sound of footsteps, and a woman descended through the opening in the clouds where the stairs disappeared. She was small and round and dark-haired, with a generous mouth and an aquiline nose. She wore a dress made of shining purple silk, and over it a dark blue coat tailored to hug her curves. The coat had many pockets.

"Oh good," she said, smiling down at us. "You're here."

Being a performer myself, I knew when someone was making an entrance. This one was expertly done.

"I was worried it would take Beaugard longer to find you," the woman said as she came down the stairs, one hand trailing lazily along the metal railing. "I really should have known better. He has such a good nose for sniffing out anything strange in this forest."

"Are you the sorcerer?" I asked, uncertain. I had pictured someone more like Phade—older and stern, with stooped shoulders and eyes clouded by years of accumulated knowledge. Someone with an aura of gravitas, that sort of thing. This woman looked only a handful of years older than I was.

"I'm not sure I deserve to be referred to in the singular, but I am a sorcerer, yes." Her demeanor was as far from Phade's as I could imagine—playful rather than somber.

At the bottom of the stairs, she paused and looked both of us over thoroughly. Of the two of us, Grimm was clearly more remarkable, and yet her attention quickly settled on me alone, in a look of such stark appraisal that I quite forgot what I'd been going to say next.

I was overcome by the strangest sensation. Like I'd unexpectedly caught sight of myself in a mirror—that split second of surprised recognition. The sorcerer was a stranger, I was certain of that, and yet there was something about her that was as familiar as my own reflection.

"You must be the composer of my message," she said. "It was very nicely done. I've been humming it ever since."

"Have you really?" I asked, pleased.

"Oh yes. It was quite catching. I've never thought to try setting magic to music like that before. It's clever." She leaned forward on her toes a little, face alight with interest. "I tried to replicate it but couldn't get a feel for it, which is a little unusual for me. I suppose the trick lies in the composition of the tune itself, rather than just the words?"

"Probably. It was only my first time experimenting with messages. The spellsongs are something recent that I've been—"

Grimm cleared his throat pointedly, cutting me off. He'd taken a few steps away from the door to stand looming at my back like a dour guard dog. "Who are you?" he asked bluntly.

"Grimm!" I said. "There's no cause to be rude."

"She set a monster on us. I don't see what reason I have to be polite."

Grimm's suspicion wasn't entirely unwarranted. After all, the last person I'd asked to help us had turned out to be a wanted outlaw.

"Oh dear." The sorcerer looked to the wolf by the hearth, expression more indulgent than chagrined. "Beaugard can get a little enthusiastic sometimes. I'm very sorry if you were frightened, but he really wouldn't hurt a fly. Unless I asked him to."

This implied a degree of control that was more alarming than comforting. It was like the colorful display of some poisonous creature, warning that it was not nearly as innocuous as its stature implied. And the sorcerer was colorful, with her bright skirts, fine coat, and inquisitive eyes.

"I apologize." I flashed my most gracious smile, in hopes it would help balance out Grimm being so… himself. "We've had a trying time in the forest, you see, and it's made us forget our manners. This is Sebastian Grimm, and I'm Leovander Loveage, but you may call me Leo. We're very glad to have found you…"

"Sybilla," the sorcerer supplied, offering her hand. "My name is Sybilla Laurent."

S. L. The mysterious initials from the book Cassius had given me were transformed into a flesh-and-blood person.

"A pleasure, Sybilla."

Taking her hand, I swept my best version of a half bow over it. I managed to ignore the strangled, scoffing noise Grimm made, but the grand gesture was ruined anyway when my arm twinged so painfully that I was forced to lurch upright with a gasp, all elegance lost.

"Oh, but you're hurt!" Sybilla exclaimed, eyes widening.

"Just a scratch," I lied. "That's not actually why we're here. We wanted—"

But Sybilla cut me off, grabbing my good elbow firmly in one small, plump hand. "There will be time for explanations later," she said, steering me toward one of the velvet sofas.

In the end, the delay wasn't such a bad thing. The adrenaline from being chased by the wolf was wearing off, leaving me a little fuzzy from pain. I was happy enough to sink down into the cushions. Sybilla instructed, "Wait right there; I'll fetch my first aid box," before disappearing through a door I hadn't noticed before, tucked between two bookcases.

"That door is strange," I informed Grimm, somewhat woozily. I was nearly certain the tower had been perfectly round when viewed from the outside, which meant the door should have opened back out into the clearing. But the only door I'd seen on the building's exterior had been the one we'd come through, and the one Sybilla had just gone through offered a glimpse of a room behind, not grass and sunlight. "That door doesn't make sense ," I said, gaining conviction.

Grimm first looked at me in concern, then at the door. His expression turned thoughtful.

"No, it doesn't," he said. Which was nice. It was nice when we agreed.

I may have said that last part out loud, because Grimm went back to frowning at me and continued to do so until Sybilla returned with a first aid kit.

The less said about what my arm looked like once Grimm cut away the stained sash, the better. I find it's best to forget painful things whenever possible. I do remember Grimm casting two rather strong anti-infection spells, and that they stung terribly but made my fever break almost immediately. Much to my amusement and his dismay, Sybilla insisted that Grimm also cast an anti-nausea charm from the kit for himself. Because, as she said, "Travel by ramble wolf really doesn't agree with everyone, and I'd rather not mop the floor today."

Once I was clearheaded and Grimm was less green, Sybilla went through the mysterious door again and returned with tea and a plate of cakes. She laid everything out on the little table between sofas and sat down across from us. And then finally, finally it was my chance to speak.

"You're a hard person to track down, you know."

"If you make your doorstep too easy to find, all sorts of riffraff will show up on it asking for all sorts of things." The way Sybilla looked over her teacup at us made it quite clear that we weren't being excluded from the category of riffraff, and our relative interest to her was being weighed against the amount of bother she was willing to engage with. Which seemed fair, considering Grimm had already thrown up on her lawn and I had narrowly avoided bleeding on her sofa. "It's been a long time since I felt obliged to fix the problems of every errant sorcerer who decides to seek me out."

"And yet here we are," I said. "Not just on your doorstep but past it."

Sybilla smiled, cheeks dimpling. I was beginning to think she was the sort of person who smiled as often as Grimm frowned, and that each one held a different meaning.

"You're very sure of yourself, aren't you? I admit your message caught my attention, but sending Beau to find you was not a promise of aid, only of tea and some conversation. I find most of the problems people come to me with are too banal to waste my time unraveling these days." This said, she picked up one of the tiny cakes and calmly took a bite.

"You're not curious at all?" I asked, heart sinking.

"I didn't say that." Sybilla waved her cake-free hand at me encouragingly. "Go on, convince me. Tell me something interesting."

I could have launched into the whole story. It might have even impressed her, for I've been told I have a way with words. But a good storyteller knows how to set the scene, and there was nothing I could say that would have the same dramatic effect as actually seeing the curse in action.

My mouth went dry, but I didn't dare take another sip of tea. I was glad I had not sampled the cakes yet either. My skin crawled at the thought of what was to come.

"A demonstration will explain the problem better than I could." I nodded to Grimm. "Go ahead. Show her."

It was a little better when I knew what was coming. Not comfortable by any means, but when, after a long moment of hesitation, Grimm said, "Stand up on the sofa, Loveage," at least I expected to lose myself briefly in his words. I climbed onto the sofa and stood there, lost in a blissful haze. And then Grimm said, "That's enough," and the fuzziness went away, leaving me cold.

I looked down at Sybilla. "Do you see?"

"That your boots are on my sofa? Yes, I do see that." Her voice was light, but there was no hint of amusement on her face when Sybilla turned from me to Grimm.

Her eyes, which up until then I would have described as twinkling , went very dark.

"That's a nasty piece of spellwork to cast on someone."

"I know," Grimm said simply. "I wasn't aware what the spell would do at the time that I cast it."

"Neither of us were," I said, sitting down on the sofa once more. "It was a misunderstanding."

Sybilla wanted to be told something interesting, so I did my best to turn the whole sorry affair into something other than an absolute personal low. I did not lie, but I spun the truth into a tale that could have been seen on a stage or written in the pages of a book. It was better, looking at it like that.

Sybilla only interrupted once, to ask why I hadn't tried to write a counterspell myself.

"Grandmagic and I don't get along," I explained. "Charms and cantrips are fine, but I knew it would take more than that to unravel the curse."

"You didn't even try?"

I shook my head. "No. It would have only made things worse. It always does."

"Hm," Sybilla said. She took a dainty sip of her tea. "You may continue."

By the time I was done, the plate of cakes was half gone and my own teacup was empty. I reached for Grimm's cup and took a sip. The tea was long cold but still soothed my throat nicely after all the talking.

"That's mine," Grimm pointed out, but idly, like he wasn't actually bothered. He hadn't touched any of the food either, probably afraid it would come up again if Sybilla decided she'd had enough and told her wolf to whisk us away.

Sybilla rose to her feet, brushing crumbs off the front of her coat. She clasped her hands behind her back and walked over to the hearth, then spun on her heel and walked back toward us, head bent in thought.

"Do you have any questions?" I asked eventually, unable to contain myself.

"I do, actually." Sybilla looked up from studying the floor. At some point her eyes had gone bright again. "Has your magic always been like this, or were you once able to write Grandmagic without it going wrong?"

"Not always," I said, too surprised by the change of subject to be anything but truthful. "Though, it's been a very long time. But I meant do you have any questions about the curse."

"Oh, that." Sybilla thought for a moment, then said, "What would happen if he asked you to do something impossible?"

After brief deliberation on what was a suitably impossible order, Grimm asked me to fly up and touch the ceiling. I first tried to accomplish this by jumping as high as I could and then clambering up onto the sofa again and jumping from there, as though that would make a difference. This was rather embarrassing, but the truly concerning bit came next, when I calmly sat down and asked Sybilla to provide me with quill and paper so that I could write a spell that would grant me flight. This would have been no small bit of magic, but that did not seem to bother me in my altered state. Thankfully, Grimm took back his order before I could actually begin composing.

"And what did that tell you?" I muttered testily, to cover up how shaken I was.

"That this spell does not grant you any special abilities, only increased determination," Sybilla said. "Now, I'd like to see the spell as it was written."

This was one particular spell I wasn't in danger of forgetting anytime soon, but I still let Grimm do the honors. He took the quill Sybilla offered and wrote the whole thing down in his careful, precise hand while I watched over his shoulder, a sense of dread creeping further and further up my spine as each new word appeared.

Sybilla was quiet while she read, studying the whole thing intently. Afterward, she folded the paper up, smearing the ink irrevocably, and threw the spell into the hearth.

It curled and burned away immediately, going up in ordinary smoke. I felt relieved once it was gone.

"You spoke a great deal about the effects of the spell," Sybilla said. "But there's one rather significant symptom you did not mention. I find that curious. I wonder, do either of you know exactly what type of magic this is?"

"Control magic," I answered promptly.

Sybilla shook her head. "That's the effect, not the cause. The spell wants to control you, yes, but its method of doing so is quite ingenious. You see, most control spells are hard to maintain because the subject struggles against them so thoroughly. But whoever wrote this spell took that into consideration and came up with a more effective way of exerting control. It's something that many of us are influenced by, in one way or another. Would you like to share what that might be, Leo?"

Sybilla was looking at me, soft and searching, almost encouraging.

I blinked and looked to Grimm, not at all certain what I was being prompted to say or do. He appeared equally flummoxed.

"We really don't know. That's why we came to you."

Sybilla sighed, but with an air of great indulgence. "Very well, if you don't want to say it, I will. This is a love spell."