The corners of her lips tilt upward. “But Farin, we are going home.”
My legs are shaking, my feet rattling against the floorboards of the carriage. It’s embarrassing, but I can’t get them to stop.
I try to swallow, but my mouth is too dry. “My name’s Nox, remember?”
The queen brushes my cheek with her thumb. “I like Farin better, don’t you?”
CHAPTER 12
BLAISE
Reading is already difficult enough without the distraction of Gunter clanging about at the counter with his vials and beakers, mixing concoctions that hiss when combined, filling my cell with a foul stench.
“You know, it would be much easier to focus if you did that somewhere else,” I grumble over the dusty grimoire I’ve been slogging through for the past two hours.
Gunter doesn’t bother to turn from his experiments. Instead, he just says, “This was my workspace long before you took up residence here.”
My belly spasms, like my body thinks I should be laughing but has forgotten how. “You know what? You’re right. How inconsiderate of me. I must have forgotten my manners when I selected your workspace as my chambers.” I toss the grimoire on my bed-dais upon which I’m perched, and the noise of it slipping off the edge and onto the floor is enough to get Gunter’s full attention. He turns around and visibly flinches when I hop down from the dais and pick the book up by a clump of pages.
“You could always move me to the library,” I say, and he doesn’t take his beady eyes off of me until I’ve placed the book safely back upon the dais. “Then we’d be out of each other’s way.”
“It is Her Majesty’s wish that you remain here.”
“So you agree with me, then?”
Gunter turns his back to me once again. He’s dressed in another set of black robes. At least I assume it’s another set. I suppose the male could just simply refuse to change, or that set might be the only one he owns.
You would think he’d start to stink if that were the case, but then again, it isn’t as if I could smell him over the deviations of nature he concocts. His hair is combed back neatly, every strand in place, though there’s no amount of combing that could make the blotches of missing pigment appear neat.
I take a few laps around the dais, stretching my sore limbs as I do. Gunter might claim that he obeys the queen’s every command, but he hasn’t bothered to chain me back to the table, and I’m not about to bring it up.
Once my legs are sufficiently stretched and my back is sufficiently cracked, I climb back onto the altar and plop onto my belly. It’s probably not the best position for siphoning through the dense grimoire, but I’m at least less likely to drift off to sleep than if I tried lying on my back.
Gunter confirmed this morning that the queen has agreed not to personally end my life should I cooperate with extracting the parasite and handing it over to her, and should the information I discover prove useful.
I wasn’t there for the bargain, but it sounds like it has enough qualifications to be believable. Besides, Gunter’s fae and can’t lie to me about it.
I find the section where I left off and get to work.
Fae and humans alike have long since been captivated by the allure of the heavenly host and the magical properties they possess. Though the most powerful of fae draw their magic from their ancestral line, through the channels of Old Magic that run through their veins, not all fae have access to such magic. Indeed, it is well accepted among most scholars that the Old Magic originated from the Fabric that separates the realms, the veil that maintains the distinction between one world’s realities and the next’s. When the Fabric frayed, several strands of the Fabric drifted into the various realms, and thus was the beginning of what we now refer to as the Old Magic.
But there are records of humans performing magic well before the fae set foot in this realm and absorbed the Old Magic, and seldom few of the accounts match the pattern of how the Old Magic once operated.
Some humans acquired their magic through the natural elements available to them. Myrtus petals were often slipped into teas to brew love potions. Physicians mixed crushed marebone with their patients’ wine to plunge them into deep slumber during procedures, though the use of this method was soon discontinued, as they often found their patients difficult to wake. Blood, of course, was used as a magical binding agent in many rituals.
Instead, the humans of old acquired their magic from the heavenly host, among other natural elements. Some scoff at this notion, but this scholar supposes that, if it is true that the Old Magic originated from the material that separates the realms, it is not too far of a stretch to believe there is a natural sort of magic that maintains order in this realm—and are not the celestial elements a part of this order? Does not the moon command the waves, the sun the crops, the stars the time?
I can’t help but let out a yawn at this section. I’ve never been one for theory, and I don’t really care why magic works the way it does, so long as this book informs me how to work it. Gunter turns his head a bit, and his nostrils widen, as if it’s inherently offensive to yawn at a book. I’d like to point out to him that neither the book nor the book’s author can sense my slight, but I think better of it and continue.
The first records of humans wielding celestial magic originate with tales of the West, before the Quake that left this realm divided by impassable gulfs and oceans. It is said that after the Quake, much of the knowledge of moonwielding was lost to a lack of practice, and then to a lack of believing in such practice, many attributing such stories to legends and fables rather than history.
Still, the legends—as we will call them for the sake of prudence—tell of women who gathered moonlight from morning dew in troughs carved into mountainsides, like a person might gather salt from seawater. Women were said to drink the moonlight during pregnancy to support the health of the baby, but many stories suggest these children were born with supernatural powers—the ability to lull an entire village to sleep with their cry, the capacity to snare animals into their will.
The drinking of moonlight became outlawed, as was only natural.
But the expecting women weren’t the only ones said to drink the moonlight. Warriors were said to consume it before battle, and the ones who did often boasted the strength of ten men. Healers partook of the milky substance when they were facing particularly difficult plagues, and it is said their hands were guided during procedures as if by an invisible force.
But with the Quake, the exact methods for obtaining liquid moonlight were lost, and so was the desire to pursue it. After all, the stories, extraordinary as they may be, were also frightful, for prolonged exposure to the moonlight was said to drive its acolytes mad. Healers acclaimed for saving entire villages from disease would wake to find their hands covered in blood and soon find themselves the only living being amongst a village of corpses. Warriors praised for leveling their enemies were found hanging from the rafters of their cottages. Children were sometimes heard howling with the wolves. Babes—
I slam the book shut and catch a mouthful of dust in the process. The choking fit is worth it though, because I have little to no desire to read about undead babies. Besides, I can feel a headache coming on, and the words are starting to swim across the page.
“That edition is two hundred years old,” Gunter says, which translates into “that edition is fragile,” but Gunter hardly ever says what he actually means, which irritates me, so I return the favor by pretending not to understand, which irritates him.
“It shows,” I say. “There’s nothing but superstition in this thing.” I pat the cover not-so-delicately, and Gunter’s knuckles pale around his frothing beaker.
“I take it that means you’ve found nothing useful.”
“Not yet, which is exactly why I think we’d make more progress if Nox was here to help me.”
It’s a desperate line, I know that. I might as well just ask him why it’s been days since Nox has visited me, but I’m not keen on Gunter assuming that Nox’s glaring absence bothers me.
It doesn’t really bother me as much as it incites my curiosity. At least, that’s what I’ve been telling myself. I wouldn’t exactly describe Nox as the warm sort, but the way he acted when I last saw him… The way he wrapped his arms around me from behind, like I was his. The way his eyes smoldered, his voice dipping when he said those words that’ve been playing on repeat in my mind at night when I should be falling asleep…
What if I’d prefer to keep you?
A too-pleasant chill washes over me at the memory.
“Nox has fallen ill,” Gunter says without much feeling, though he taps a scalpel against the counter like he’s forgotten what he’s supposed to be doing.
