Chapter Twenty-Two

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

W e began work on the counterspell the following morning. In Sybilla's dressing room of all places, because that was where Grimm was casting, and I was only a useful assistant if we were in the same memory room.

We'd tested the limits of the curse further upon waking. I'd gone to the parlor where morning tea and toast were served, while Grimm lingered in his bedroom. The restless pull was not so bad on the stairs, but as soon as I stepped over the threshold into the quaint sitting room, the curse began to build itself up toward a tantrum. An absolute storm of turmoil in my chest that abated as soon as Grimm was back in sight.

"It makes a certain kind of sense," Sybilla said, tapping her chin thoughtfully. "The rooms in this tower don't exist in precisely the place they're meant to, and the memories they're built from belong all over the world. I've tethered them to the staircase but not one another, so I suppose that confuses your curse. It must think you're eating breakfast on one continent while he gets dressed in another."

This being the case, Sybilla and I gathered our supplies and prepared to follow Grimm around as he cast his way through the stack of spells Sybilla handed him over breakfast.

For once, I was the one eager to get to work, while Grimm looked around at the profusion of silk and velvet overflowing from Sybilla's drawers with something like despair.

"Are you sure this is the most pressing issue?" he asked.

"Living alone in the woods is no excuse for not keeping up with fashion," Sybilla said, "and my wardrobe is dreadfully out of date."

Grimm took one last look around the dressing room, then squared his shoulders like a man about to go to war and began to read the first spell.

Meanwhile, Sybilla lifted her scriver's kit onto her cleared-off jewelry table. My own kit fit easily into one of the pockets of my coat (and was usually empty, since I hardly ever remembered to restock it), but Sybilla's was more like a chest. When opened, it unfolded like a flower, revealing drawer after drawer full of quills and paper and ink. In addition to this, she'd also brought enough books to build a small wall with.

"I need you to go through these and mark any pages you feel might provide insight into your curse, or love spells in general," Sybilla said. "The first step to writing any good piece of magic is arming yourself with knowledge."

I looked gloomily at the stack of books. "You sound like my instructors at the Fount."

"If you've changed your mind about the manner of help you're comfortable giving…"

"No, no," I said hastily. "Reading is fine."

In the end, it was not as much like my boring sessions of research at the Fount library as I'd feared. For one thing, anytime I found myself in need of cheering up, I had only to look over at Grimm, stoically sorting through what appeared to be twenty years' worth of silken underthings. For another, Sybilla was not the sort of work partner dedicated to silence. She liked to think out loud, and we often got swept away in conversation that had nothing to do with counterspells, prompting Grimm to repeatedly call out "One week, Loveage!" in order to steer us back toward more productive waters.

And so it went. After the dressing room, we followed Grimm to the bathing chamber so he could install a tap that spit out only bubbles. In the ballroom two doors down from where we slept, I got to participate, fetching my violin so that Grimm could cast a spell that ensured music would begin playing every time someone opened the door. Then we moved on to an empty greenhouse that was so much higher in the tower than any of the rooms we'd previously visited, it prompted Grimm to say, "If you can make rooms built of memories, surely you could open them all with the same door. I don't understand why you would bother with all these stairs."

"You have no sense of romance, do you?" Sybilla replied, somewhat sadly. "There's no point in building a giant, mysterious tower in the middle of the woods if you're going to ruin it by being sensible about interior design features. Of course I could have just one door, but that's not what I want. I want hundreds."

I thought about this in the bright light of the greenhouse, as Grimm cast spell after spell to add greenery to what had previously been an empty structure (empty, because Sybilla said the plants in the original building had been too boring, and she had needed to research ones worth adding).

"You could make a fortune," I noted idly, "if any of this could be replicated by another scriver's hand."

"Oh, it can be," Sybilla said. "Everything I write is that way. I do sell a few every now and again. But most of my ideas are either too big or too small for the general public."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well, a tap that spits out bubbles is fine, I'm certain plenty of scrivers could come up with a version of that, if they cared to. But take the memory doors." Sybilla waved her quill at the greenhouse entrance. "The spell is solid, but the rooms themselves aren't always. They're a funny sort of in-between. I'm not sure everyone would know to be careful, and so I've kept them to myself. If I was capable of writing, oh, I don't know, spells that did away with hunger, or healed any wound, I wouldn't hoard them. But alas, I write either frivolities or magic so grand it comes attached to a host of pesky questions about how it should be used ."

"I think I know what you mean," I said. "There's a weight to writing magic. A responsibility. Sometimes I almost wish I'd been born a caster."

Sybilla turned on me, dark eyes wide. "Don't say such things, Leo. Would you really rather be doing that?"

She pointed toward Grimm, who paused in the midst of extricating himself from an overly enthusiastic flowering vine to cast a baleful look our way.

"This is not what casters normally do."

"I know," Sybilla said placatingly, settling more firmly back into her patio lounger. "And yet you're doing such a good job. I think I'll have you cast the fountain next. Just over there."

I liked Sybilla, more and more as we spent time together. The only thing I didn't like was her persistent curiosity regarding my Grandmagic, or lack thereof.

The subject came up again after dinner. I had retrieved my violin at Sybilla's request, running through several ordinary songs before playing a melody that made the candles in the room spit out sparks that hung above me in a halo. Grimm's eyebrows furrowed, but it was a tiny casting, barely enough to leave me breathless. Beau stood up from where he'd been asleep under the table and sat at my feet until the song was finished, ears pricked forward and silver eyes swirling with interest.

Sybilla clapped and exclaimed at the trick.

"You're very skilled, Leo," she said. "I've never seen a scriver able to cast so well. Your methods are unique. Look, even Beau is impressed."

The wolf had gone to sit by Sybilla but was still watching me with an eerie intensity. "The monsters in the woods liked the music too," I admitted. "I'm not sure why."

Sybilla rested a palm lightly on Beau's head and began to scratch behind his ears, looking thoughtful. "Perhaps because your way of using magic shares something in common with them. They are creatures of the Wilderlands, and there is a hint of the wild in your spellsongs, I think. Or perhaps there is some other reason we will never know. Magic, like music, does not always need to be explained. It is enough that it exists. And the way you've combined the two is ever so lovely." Her attention on me was bright and warm as any flame, and I flushed with the praise. Then she said, "I'm very curious what Grandmagic might sound like written into one of your spellsongs, aren't you?"

I froze, then forced myself to smile disarmingly. "Little point in wondering. I'd rather spend my time writing the songs available to me than mourning the ones that are not."

"A fine sentiment," Sybilla agreed, but her eyes were glittering, and I was sure she could sense the lie in my words.

Because I had wondered. Of course I had. Especially now that I had Grimm there to sing my songs, it was impossible not to wonder what they might be capable of, if only there weren't this flaw in my making. But it was frightening to long for such things. When I dwelled in the wanting, it felt like an ocean, endlessly vast and moving just beneath the surface of my skin. If I stayed there, I would be swept away.

I did my best to shake the moment off, but it clung to me. I put my violin away without playing another song and was unusually quiet all through dessert, relieved when it was time for us to leave Sybilla and return to our room. Later that night, I awoke in the dark with Grimm's hand on my shoulder. Thoughtlessly, I reached for him, mind still thick with dreams of drowning in the things I disallowed during waking hours, and somehow Grimm and his hands were a part of that. My heart pounded hard enough that I could feel it in my mouth, underneath my tongue. For an instant the sensation was so overwhelming I thought I would choke on it.

And then I recalled myself and let go.

"What's wrong?" I asked, once I could speak.

Grimm was leaning half out of the bed to reach me. His hand fell away when I spoke. "You called out. I thought you might wish to be woken." He drew back under the covers, but I could still feel him watching me in the dark.

"Sorry I woke you," I whispered, unsure if I was grateful or mortified that I'd been loud enough for him to realize I needed saving.

"It's of no bother."

I waited for the rise and fall of his chest to turn steady before wiping at my cheeks. Then I crept out of the room and retrieved one of the endlessly full bottles of wine from the dining room. I drank half of it out on the stairs and brought the other half back to the room to keep under Grimm's bed, within easy reach in case the nightmare returned.

It didn't matter, in the end. I was still awake when the gray light of morning crept through the curtains.

The next day, instead of assigning him multiple projects to complete, Sybilla set Grimm the more arduous task of refreshing the barrier around her tower.

"Can one person do that?" Grimm asked doubtfully.

If it were any other task, I might have teased him about trying to get out of working, but I understood his concern. The barrier surrounding Miendor was notoriously strong—it had to be, in order to discourage monsters getting through. Refreshing the spell flags sometimes took as many as four or five casters from a troop, and it was a tiring process even then. Sybilla's barrier was smaller, and had trees instead of flags, but its purpose was the same. More complex even, since her barrier kept out humans as well. It seemed a tall order for one caster to complete, even when that caster was Grimm.

Sybilla's lip curled disdainfully. "The Coterie is good at many things, but efficiency is not one of them. Didn't you say you'd managed to do the job of ten casters in that field on your way here? This is the same. Every spell I write has to be useful to one person, because I rarely have more than one guest at a time. It will take you all of today and most of tomorrow, but you will feel no more tired at the end of it than you did yesterday."

She shooed him toward the door, at the last minute calling, "Take Beau. He'll have more fun out there with you."

Grimm eyed the wolf with some trepidation but waited for Beau to follow him outside.

Perhaps it was because I hadn't gotten enough sleep last night, but the shine of playing assistant wore off for me that day. Sybilla and I set up on the ground level of the tower, the doorstep, rather than following Grimm outside and risking our papers being blown away in the breeze. I had not thought this small amount of distance would bother me—this level of the tower's existence was perfectly ordinary, and Grimm wasn't far—but I felt the pinch of his absence in my chest.

It was getting worse again, I realized. The area in which I was allowed to exist independently was steadily growing smaller. At the Fount, I had been able to wander where I liked with ease so long as I was in Grimm's presence at some point during the day. Then, at Grimm's house, it had allowed me only a mile down the road before it acted up. Since arriving here, it hadn't even let me sleep alone, thanks to the tower's interference, and now it was making my skin crawl again without even that excuse. Grimm wasn't in a memory room, and neither was I; the curse just didn't like him being out of my sight. Grimm probably could have hidden behind the sofa and prompted the same reaction.

The worst part was that, instead of mourning my lack of autonomy, the thing I felt most keenly was the lack of Grimm's presence. I was bored and sullen without him there. Sybilla's companionship was suddenly too easy. I found myself missing the little quirks of Grimm's irritation when I talked too much, and the rarer glimpses of amusement. It left me frustrated with both myself and the work in front of me.

The smart thing to do would have been to calmly report this new symptom to Sybilla and then perhaps move our work outdoors, despite the inconvenience. Instead, I gritted my teeth and ignored the sensation. When Grimm had left the Fount for Dwull, it had taken me nearly a full day to realize he was even gone. Surely I could manage one afternoon of reading without him in my line of sight?

I could, but only just. My movements were slower as I sorted through the assembled books, and the words of each chapter swam before my eyes and took ages to understand. My notes for Sybilla were messy and lacked the consideration I'd given them the day before.

Most of all, the curse wore away at my patience.

"Surely we've collected enough information for a first draft to be written," I groaned, well into the afternoon. "You've been fiddling away at composition for ages."

"Counterspells take time," Sybilla said primly.

The words One week, Loveage rang out in my mind. Time was something we did not have an unlimited supply of, but I'd already told Sybilla this.

The ache at my center grew steadily worse, until I fidgeted in my chair and couldn't help looking hopefully toward the door.

"I wonder if this word might be a good choice for the opening line," Sybilla said, and pushed the page she'd been working on over the table for me to look at. She'd asked for my opinion before, always in a casual manner. Thus far I'd feigned ignorance or reminded her that such advice from me was unwise. But I was tired, the invisible string that connected me to Grimm drawn painfully tight, and so I answered without thinking.

"A word that mirrors the one used in the original poem would be better," I replied after a glance. "The reflection will provide a stronger countering effect." I spoke aloud the word in the old language that had been dancing at the back of my mind.

I didn't realize my mistake until Sybilla's lips curved into a satisfied smile.

"Just so," she said.

I pushed the paper away from myself, but the damage was done. Icy panic dripped down the back of my neck until I nearly shivered with it. "I shouldn't have said that. Don't use it. Think of something else."

Sybilla tutted at me. "I was already going to do just as you said. You speaking the word aloud doesn't change anything. I'm a very skilled scriver, Leo. Do you really think I wouldn't be able to spot an error in your work?"

"It's not the sort of error you can see," I insisted. "It's me. It's not safe for me to use Grandmagic, I told you."

"Oh, Leo," Sybilla said, and this time instead of exasperation, I heard only sadness in her voice. She reached out and laid her pointer finger lightly on my forehead, right between my eyes. "It's all terribly twisted up in here," she said softly, "isn't it?"

My mouth went dry. I'd gone about this all wrong. I should have laughed and changed the subject. Now I was stuck there, transfixed, as Sybilla stared into my eyes. I blinked and looked past her shoulder, lest she see everything.

"I don't know what you mean."

Sybilla sighed and her hand dropped away. "I'll tell you a secret. I said I would take your case because it intrigued me, and that much is true. But writing a counterspell doesn't interest me nearly as much as you do. Whatever has your magic so turned around that you can't so much as think about anything stronger than a charm without getting twitchy, that's a problem I'd like to solve."

"Are you trying to fix the curse, or me?"

Sybilla tilted her head a little, looking me over. Her eyes were bright and somehow faraway, like stars in the night sky. "Why can't it be both? I'm a good multitasker."

For a moment her age showed, and so did the power she held. Not in her face, but in her oh-so-careless interest. The way she wanted to lay me out to be dissected, just so she could see something new.

It was a strange way to be wanted.

I gave in to the impulse I'd been pushing aside for hours and stood, moving toward the door.

"I think I'll get some air and check on Grimm's progress."

Sybilla leaned back into the soft velvet of the sofa, and some of that strange intensity drained from her face. "A break sounds like a lovely idea. I think I'll have some tea. We can finish this later."

It was unclear if she meant our work or this horrible conversation. I didn't ask, too eager to flee the encounter. I was almost to the door when Sybilla spoke again.

"I'm not pushing you just to satisfy my own curiosity, no matter what you may think. This curse is highly personal. The more personal our counter to it is, the better. That might require you to give more of yourself into the making of this magic than you're comfortable with. Please think about it, at least."

"I will," I lied, immediately resolving to take this conversation, lock it up in a box, and hide it in the furthest reaches of my mind. Someplace where I would not be tempted to use Sybilla's reasoning as any sort of excuse for madness.

I found Grimm reclining in the dappled shade beneath the pale-barked birch trees that marked Sybilla's barrier, looking uncommonly relaxed. Drawing closer, I was startled by a loud and sudden pop , and then Beau appeared a few feet ahead of me with a stick in his mouth. He bounded the remaining distance toward Grimm and dropped the stick in front of him, tail wagging. Grimm, without hesitation, picked up the soggy piece of wood and threw it as far into the trees as he could. Beau went racing gleefully after it. Whatever protection Sybilla's barrier provided did not seem to apply to her pet monster.

"What's this?" I called out, delighted. "Are you playing , Grimm? Are you relaxing? How scandalous. Look what forest life has done to you."

I was only partially joking. Grimm's coat, normally so pristine, was wrinkled, he had not bothered tying his caster's sash in such a way as to hide the stitches holding it together, and now he'd clearly been caught playing fetch with a creature that only resembled a dog in the broadest sense. This was not quite the upright image of a Fount-trained sorcerer that everyone expected from Sebastian Grimm.

"He likes to bring it back," Grimm said simply. Sure enough, there was another pop and Beaugard reappeared. Grimm didn't throw the stick again, watching me instead as I flopped down onto the grass next to him. Beau dropped the stick near my feet and looked at me hopefully until I took my turn.

Grimm's sword lay in the grass between us. I nudged it with my knee and said, "Agnes will scold me for getting out of practice. Too bad the river ate my sword or we could spar."

"We fight enough as is."

"I suppose. Anyway, it's probably better for my dignity if we don't. I'd only end up on my ass in the dirt." Grimm, tactfully, said nothing. "Is this what you've been doing out here all day?" I asked, waving a hand in the direction Beau had gone. "Making friends with a monster of the wood?"

Grimm said, "Isn't that what we've both been doing?"

My first instinct was to protest that Sybilla wasn't monstrous at all. But the conversation I'd just fled from returned to me and I frowned.

"Did you and Sybilla argue?"

"Why would you ask that?"

"I can't imagine another reason why you would be out here with me."

Can't you? I nearly said, but even I was not so daring as all that. "We didn't argue, not really. Sybilla just has no sense of when to leave well enough alone."

Grimm shot me a sideways glance and said, in a flat sort of voice, "That must be very trying for you."

" I only bother people about trivial things," I said, raising one hand to my chest. Then hurriedly, before Grimm could ask what nontrivial matters Sybilla had been poking her nose into, I added, "You'd think someone who went to such lengths to escape being disturbed would extend the same courtesy to others, but I suppose living alone for as long as she has could warp anyone's social graces. It's wonderfully peaceful out here, though."

I waited for Grimm to respond by shooting a pointed glance to where my sprawled limbs overlapped into his space, or say something like It was . But all he did was look up at the leaves above us and say, "Yes, it is."

A warm shiver of pleasure swept over me. I leaned back in the grass, sprawling a little more thoroughly.

"Maybe I'll follow in Sybilla's footsteps after the Fount, build myself a tower somewhere remote. I'll only visit the nearest town on the day before the full moon, or something dramatic like that, and everyone will think me very mysterious."

"You could never be mysterious," Grimm said.

"Why not?" I said, offended by his decisiveness. "I'm rich, already considered strange by many, blindingly handsome, and I'm a sorcerer. All those things are perfectly mysterious."

"Mysterious people don't list off the traits that make them mysterious."

I spluttered a little but had no response that didn't further prove his point.

"Well, what are your plans?" I asked. "I've spilled all the secret yearnings of my heart at your feet on multiple occasions and you haven't reciprocated even once."

"I don't yearn for anything," Grimm said, looking uncomfortable at the very idea. "And you already know my plans. I'll join the Coterie once I'm done at the Fount. The path is already laid out for me."

"Yes, but where does it lead? Come on, play along for once."

Grimm studied his hands where they sat folded in his lap, then said haltingly, "Well… I suppose, eventually, it leads to the Citadel. A seat there. Someday."

"Oh." I shouldn't have been disappointed. Grimm was ambitious, this was no surprise. It was a good answer. My father would have liked this answer.

But Grimm wasn't finished speaking.

"The Coterie is flawed in some ways. Not in its purpose, but the ways of being that have sprung up around it. There is stagnancy there. People know it, bemoan it even, but doing something about it would mean disrupting the cycles that so many gentry families have grown used to. And gentry families make up the majority of the Coterie. So, nothing is done. I would like to be in a position to do something."

"You want to disrupt things?" I was scarcely able to believe my ears. "That's why you want a seat in the Citadel?"

Grimm looked up from his hands. "Yes," he said. "If I have a plan, I suppose it's that."

Oh , I thought, with an altogether different inflection this time.

Grimm's eyes were dark, and his face was set in familiar lines of determination. He also looked like he was bracing for some snide or teasing remark. But that wasn't at all the response his words had prompted in me.

I was suddenly wondering what it would be like to kiss Grimm.

I had once joked (meanly) to Agnes that kissing Grimm would be good only for bragging rights, since I was certain it would be akin to kissing a statue. But now I wasn't so sure. If I leaned across the grass and put my lips to his, would they really be so cold? I wanted to find out.

I'd already swayed forward slightly when I remembered: This isn't real.

The speed with which I scrambled to my feet made Grimm look up at me quizzically. Good, I thought. Better he be confused than have noticed how near I'd come to doing exactly what I'd promised him there was no danger of.

"I have to get back," I said, nervously ruffling my hair with one hand. "Counterspells to write and all that."

"All right," Grimm said. "I need to resume casting anyway."

I worried the curse would be upset I had done nothing to ease this new symptom, but it let me walk away without protest. I didn't have to act on my urge, but the thought was still there, impossible to leave alone, the same way your tongue would be drawn to a loose tooth.

I fled back to the relative safety of the tower, where the pain in my chest would be worse, but at least I would not be tempted to soothe it by kissing Sebastian Grimm.