armyinform Chapter 217: Properly Accessorizing
Chapter 217: Properly Accessorizing
Chapter 217: Properly Accessorizing
Sebastien
Month 8, Day 23, Monday 11:15 p.m.
Sebastien’s mind was spinning so fast and intently that she seemed to blink, look up, and find that they were already outside of the warded room in the depths of the white cliffs, walking back to the University library. ‘How did this happen?’ she wondered, catching herself as she started to trip on a rough segment of the floor.
Professor Lacer gave her an exasperated look. “Please do not forget how to walk because you are too busy thinking. Keep your attention on the present.”
Sebastien cleared her throat and gave a small nod, refusing to meet his gaze. She still couldn’t figure out how Professor Lacer had managed to figure so much out, yet still come to such a strange, erroneous conclusion. She, as Sebastien, had been in contact with the Raven Queen, who had been using her to get into Myrddin’s journal? And as payment, the Raven Queen had given her a boon and protected her from the Pendragon Corps? And, perhaps most ridiculous of all, Sebastien was possibly descended from Myrddin? Professor Lacer had embedded enough clues in his questions that she had some idea of the “evidence” he had used, but it still felt like she was missing some critical connective tissue that could have led from A, to B, all the way to Z.
Furthermore, she couldn’t believe she had been so careless as to leave such blatant clues linking her to her secret identity. Growing up with Ennis had taught her that when one was doing something secret—and usually bad—it was very often growing lazy and sloppy that got one caught.
Which sometimes meant packing up and leaving—running—again.
Sebastien could only be thankful that Professor Lacer hadn’t managed to deduce the real truth. In a way, it made sense that Professor Lacer had thought the Raven Queen simply borrowed Sebastien’s student token. It would take a big leap to realize that Sebastien, who had spent so much time as a student—so much time in Professor Lacer’s presence—and obviously lacked the Raven Queen’s prowess, was the same person. But that didn’t mean that no one could make that leap, if she kept screwing up and handing out clues like they were candy.
As they exited into the library above, Sebastien’s mind returned to the room below. Myrddin’s other three journals looked strangely, exactly the same as her own, to the point that she might not be able to pick hers out of a lineup. That had to have been deliberate on Myrddin’s part, and it also helped to explain why the University wouldn’t have known that one of the five books was missing before they even got to Gilbratha, once it was removed from the expedition records.
‘But if that were the case, how was everyone so certain that the one I held was the one that could answer their questions about celerium production?There must be some reason I don’t know about—something that sets my journal apart from the rest. Maybe they marked or labeled them in some way.’
Outside of the dormitory building, Professor Lacer pointed imperiously to the door. “Go to sleep. Take your anti-anxiety potion if you need it.” He paused for emphasis, then added, “Do not do anything foolish or incriminating.”
She guessed that he was trying to tell her not to panic and contact the Raven Queen or something similar. If the Red Guard had the same kind of suspicions as Professor Lacer, they could be watching her.
As she walked in, she curled her hands into fists to suppress the trembling in her fingers and crossed her arms. This couldn’t calm the sour feeling in her stomach or the bone-grinding tension in her neck and shoulders. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, but this made her eyes sting, and she gritted her teeth together to shove the emotions back down.
Damien was waiting up for her. As she passed by his cubicle, he darted out, looking from right to left for observers while he waved his hands in what looked like a frantic interpretive dance.
She grabbed him by the elbow and dragged him into her cubicle, since his was overrun with newspapers. She closed the curtain, violently shook a bottle of moonlight sizzle, and then drew out the sound-muffling spell array they had gotten from Professor Lacer.
As soon as she cast the spell, words spilled out of Damien’s mouth with the force of a breath held until the edge of suffocation. “He was using some kind of divination spell on me, I couldn’t lie, but I had to tell him something, and he was so frightening, I couldn’t think, and it was totally obvious why he got his reputation, it’s embarrassing to say but I almost peed my pants from the pressure, and he knew something so I ended up telling him about the Pendragon Corps trying to kidnap you and the person who saved you but I’m pretty sure he thought it was the Raven Queen who saved you.” He sucked in a deep breath, then winced and held a hand to his forehead, as if holding back a wave of dizziness.
“It’s fine. Of the things you could have told him, that was probably the best.”
Damien nodded hesitantly. “Taking out the thirteen pointed star was a sneaky way to ask me if I let anything about that slip, right? Because I didn’t. He shouldn’t have any idea about it.”
“Yes. Thank you.” Damien had picked up on Sebastien’s indirect question with surprising alacrity. “I don’t think he knows anything. But we need to be even more careful.”
“What did he say to you?” Damien asked.
Sebastien hesitated. “He asked me a lot of questions...”
Damien stared at her with wide-eyed expectation that slowly morphed into a speculative squint as she tried to figure out what she could say. “Does this have anything to do with the big secret you’re hiding?”
Sebastien stared at him with silent misery.
“Alright, alright,” Damien said, waving his hand between them as if to shoo away a fly. “You don’t have to tell me. But is there anything specific that I should know? I just went through a traumatic experience. Surely I deserve something.”
Sebastien scratched the nape of her neck, where some of her fine blonde hair had stuck to her neck with sweat. “You do,” she admitted, before Damien could grow upset. “It’s just...I don’t know what I can say.” Almost everything she had talked about with Professor Lacer was either something she needed to keep secret, or a clue to something she needed to keep secret.
“He told me the Raven Queen said you were in danger.”
Sebastien let out a slow breath between pursed lips. “Okay. Well, there was that. But he also was concerned that my Will is growing too quickly.” She decided to give Damien something that seemed big, but that wasn’t related to her real secret. Perhaps it would help to lead him off the trail, because she very much doubted he would be able to stop speculating if he thought there was some huge mystery that he was being left out of, with the clues lying all around him. She crooked her finger to draw Damien closer, then leaned in and cupped her hands around his ear to cut off any possible sight of her next words. “He thinks I might be distantly descended from Myrddin.” She pulled back.
Damien’s eyes had grown as wide and round as two silver coins.
“You can’t tell anyone,” she added. “Not even a hint. Pretend you don’t know. It might not even be real.”
Damien inhaled sharply, then started coughing. When his violent fit had passed, he sat staring at the cubicle wall for a minute, then looked at her, and then back to the wall. “Wow.” After a long pause he said, “Wow,” again. Finally, he seemed to regain some of his wits. “Does anyone else know?”
Silently thankful that he had refrained from asking for further details about this “discovery,” Sebastien shook her head. ‘Though, technically, I guess the Raven Queen knows.’
“Is...anything going to happen? I mean, are there any implications?”
“Not unless anyone finds out. But Professor Lacer thinks it could be very dangerous.”
Siobhan waved away their words, but was slightly hesitant to move past the dog when it was in such an agitated state. After a moment’s consideration, she brought the free portion of her Will to bear on the creature. She impressed the certainty of her own harmlessness and friendly nature into her Will, and pushed it out toward the dog.
Slowly, the dog calmed, then looked away from her gaze and wagged its tail.
She let it sniff her hand, refrained from petting it, and turned toward the mansion on the other side of the gardens.
Miles burst out of the back door before she could make it very far. He raced up and grabbed her hand, babbling about how happy he was to see her and any random tidbit about his life that popped into his mind. He dragged her to the side of the garden, where a poorly constructed tiny house had been nailed to an old tree.
Miles held his fingers up over his lips. “Shh. They might get scared if you’re loud.” Within the tiny house, which he had made “all by himself” with the help of some of the adult Nightmare Pack members, lived a family of sprites.
A mother tended to a wriggling pile of grubs within the dimly lit interior, which was luxuriously appointed with silk scarves and cloud-cotton.
“Did you know they can sense your Will?” Siobhan whispered.
“Like you did to the dog?” Miles asked.
Siobhan blinked, surprised for a moment, but then realized that Miles must have heard it on the wind. “Well, yes.”
“Can I learn to do that, too?”
“Very likely, though it will probably take a lot of practice.”
“I’ve been doing a ton of meditations. It helps with the whispers, and when I get afraid or have the bad thoughts.”
“That is good. The meditations should help to prepare your Will for other things, too.” Siobhan remembered some of the books on mental trauma that she had skimmed through. “Do you have someone you can talk to about the bad thoughts?” It was always easier to give advice than to take it oneself.
Miles let out a tiny, uncomfortable grunt. “My mom, I guess.”
Gera and Lynwood exited onto their back porch, and Siobhan shared a nod with them across the distance.
Miles and Siobhan stared at the sprite family for a while, and then made their way slowly up to the mansion, holding hands. “My birthday is soon,” Miles reminded her. He looked up at her with wide, innocent eyes. “You’ll come to my party, right?”
“I plan to, as long as nothing goes wrong.”
“And you’ll bring a gift?”
“I will.”
“I know you’ll come up with something amazing. Something unexpected. Something that makes people jealous.” He held up a forefinger. “That last part is most important. A gift so awesome and special that other people won’t be able to sleep because they can’t stop thinking about how jealous they are.”
Siobhan’s lips quirked up. “By ‘other people,’ do you mean Theo?”
“Yes,” Miles stated unashamedly. “But, you know, everyone else, too. Is that something you think you can handle? Something better than the book you made for him.”
Siobhan rubbed one of the feathers sprouting from her hair. “This feels like a lot of pressure.”
Miles patted the hand he was holding. “I believe in you,” he said reassuringly.
After greeting Gera and Lynwood, Siobhan handed over the detailed sleep-proxy spell arrays that she had copied down for them. While the Lynwood’s thaumaturges were setting up and double-checking everything in preparation for Siobhan’s supervision, she took a few minutes to teach Gera the esoteric humming spell.
“Thank you,” Gera said, very calm and strangely loose-limbed after having practiced the spell on herself. She even smiled.
Siobhan realized that Gera must almost always be tense around her. She hadn’t even known the other woman could appear so at-ease.
Soon after, Siobhan supervised the first casting of the sleep-proxy spell for Millennium. Since she was not very magically powerful, and her presence as a joint-caster might make the spell more difficult to cast, she only watched from the side of the room.
Instead of ravens, which apparently everyone had felt was too sacrilegious to sacrifice, they were using a raccoon that they had prepared and boosted with the death of its brethren ahead of time. Siobhan and Liza had tested this, too, and it worked fairly well, though raccoons already slept so much of the day that they weren’t quite as effective.
Still, it would be enough for Miles, since the raccoons were also less likely to die from sleeping for a few days straight. And the dreamless-sleep spell would always be there as a backup, or if Miles simply preferred the comfort of sleep.
When the spell took effect and Miles started jumping about with wild, exuberant energy, Siobhan turned to Gera. “I understand that Deidre Johnson has set up an...organization, of sorts, who call themselves the Undreaming Order and have been acting in my name. I would like to see them.”
Any lingering ease drained from Gera’s body language. Her arms held straight to her sides, she nodded stiffly. “I will escort you, my lady.”