Fallen Magic

The rest of the day passes slowly. I feel like I ought to be making the most of the unexpectedly free time, but instead I page listlessly through Georgiana’s diary and try to work out what I’m thinking and feeling. That it’s strange, how the fate of the country can turn on one woman, one child. That Alexandra was more than a woman, that she was a symbol of many things but the country’s future most of all. And that the future looks uncertain now, without her.

I wish I could take a step back and pretend I was reading about this in a history book. Maybe then it would seem less scary. At least I’d know what was going to happen next.

Edward gives me a brooch at lunchtime. It’s small and silver, and in the shape of a constellation, which I recognise after a moment as the Bird. My birthday constellation.

“…tell me you didn’t have this commissioned especially for me,” I say.

“I thought girls were supposed to like jewellery?”

“Maybe some girls do. I’m not one of them.” Well, not when it’s jewellery given to me by a Blackthorn and thus absurdly expensive. Aside from the price, there’s something vaguely discomforting about wearing things Edward got me, but I can’t quite work out what.

“I found it in the family vaults,” he says.

“Of course you did. Whose was it?”

“It belonged to my great-aunt Matilda. She was born on the Bird’s Day as well. She was a painter, of all things. A lot of the art in the manor is hers. I should give you a proper tour at some point, shouldn’t I?”

I shrug. “If you want to.” Now doesn’t feel like the right time to plan that. “Why are you giving me your great-aunt’s brooch?”

“It’s a mourning-brooch,” he replies. “And we are in mourning.”

I turn it over in my palm, studying it more closely, but I can’t recognise any symbols of death or grief or loss. “I don’t see how…”

“It’s enchanted,” says Edward. “If you pin it to an item of clothing, it turns the item black. I thought it might be useful, since you probably don’t have enough black clothes to last you a week.”

He’s right; I could cobble together two or three black outfits, but that would still mean wearing the same clothes too many days in a row. I hadn’t even thought of that problem. It’s a practical gift, then. Thoughtful.

I still feel faintly uneasy. “Are these common, then, amongst – well, nobility?” I can’t imagine ordinary people would be able to afford something like this, even if the enchantment is a relatively simple one.

Edward shrugs. “Fairly. Some of them frown on it, because it’s seen as a sign that you can’t afford an entire wardrobe in black. And a lot of magicians prefer to enchant their own clothes black. The problem with that is that it doesn’t work well if you already have enchantments on your clothes. And temporary enchantments are easy to sabotage.”

“Why would you want to…” I imagine political squabbling at court. How disrespectful it would seem to suddenly not be wearing black. And I can see why someone’s political rival might want their clothes to suddenly revert to their original colours. “Never mind.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you have one?” I ask.

“I don’t,” he says. I wonder vaguely why, but don’t quite want to ask.

“Well,” I say, resisting the urge to ask how much it costs, “thank you.” And I slip it into my pocket, since the enchantment is useless when I’m already wearing black.

I go over the notes I made from the meeting with Lord Blackthorn. Was that only yesterday morning? The world has changed since then. I wonder what Lord Blackthorn is doing and thinking right now. If he’s putting on a performance the same way Edward is. He’s undoubtedly already planning for what comes next in his mind, but is he talking about it with the King or other influential figures? What does he want to happen next?

I suppose he’s trying to work out which of Stephen and Miranda would make the better King. I know he doesn’t think well of either, so I imagine he’s… frustrated, that this makes his job so much harder.

I can’t blame him, really.

At some point I should write to Tara. But I suppose it’s unlikely that she’ll want to file the case while we’re in mourning. So I don’t have to do that right now. Though I should visit the post room, I realise, to see if she or my dad has sent anything. Or if Edward’s mother has sent another message through me to change our plans for tomorrow.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from NovelFire. Please report it.

I wander downstairs, after being careful to make sure everything is filed away. I really ought to properly secure my trunk at some point. Especially since, as Edward would point out, I’m sharing a room with a known spy. But Robin wouldn’t look through my things, not knowing that if I caught her it would destroy whatever friendship-like thing we have left.

Or at least that’s what I tell myself. Maybe I’m just too naïve, or I don’t understand her as well as I think. Stars, I hope not.

There is a letter from my dad, it turns out. My mother is contesting the divorce arrangement he drew up, arguing that she should receive more money. Her arguments won’t stand up in court, because my dad has records of both their incomes on which he based the amounts he originally proposed.

But the fact that it’s going to court at all is not ideal. For any of us. It means that the proceedings will be public, and with your notoriety they may well be reported on.

I grimace. He’s right. And stars, the idea of my mother giving newspaper interviews about me, about everything that happened… I can barely contemplate it. But there isn’t much I can do to prevent it, either, so contemplate it I shall have to. At least I have some advance warning this time.

The letter mentions a court date a couple of weeks from now, but it was sent before the news of Alexandra’s death broke. So I imagine there’s a good chance that date will change, and I’ll have a little longer to mentally prepare myself.

I thought for a while that, not having spoken to or even seen her in months, the idea of her had no power over me. But that’s not true, I see now. Stars. I hate that part of me still feels like a child about to be scolded – except very, very publicly.

Charles First-King. Edwin the Just. I lean against the wall outside the post room, focusing on breathing slowly and hoping no-one happens to walk past and ask if I’m okay. Because I’m not, and I definitely don’t want to explain that to a stranger.

I need to talk to Edward. But he’s retreated back to his room, and I don’t want to interrupt him. I’ll be okay for a couple of hours, I tell myself.

I go to a study room and draft a reply to my dad’s letter. I don’t have that much news to share in return, or at least not that much that I want him to know and that’s safe to write down. But I tell him that Electra is no longer teaching me, which I’m sure he’ll be relieved to hear. And I describe what the mourning is like here, telling him classes are cancelled and describing the brooch Edward got me.

That’s the easy part. I don’t quite know what to say to him about the divorce proceedings. He must know that it’s going to hurt me, having them so public. But the alternative is that he accepts her terms and sacrifices a sum of money that’s apparently substantial enough that he’d struggle to buy a good house without it. Or that he remains married to her. Both of which are bad outcomes.

So I can’t tell him to stop, or that I don’t want him to go ahead, because I do. A little part of me wishes that he’d at least asked my permission to proceed, but I can’t really blame him for not doing that.

I’m sorry to hear that your soon-to-be-ex-wife is contesting the divorce arrangement, I write carefully. I don’t want to write down my mother. Because that feels like conceding that she has a claim to me.

That makes me realise why I felt so uneasy about the brooch. Edward giving me expensive wearable gifts – especially ones connected to his family – makes me feel as if he’s staking his own claim on me. And, as much as I care about him, I don’t want to be his. I’m sure if I mentioned it to him, he’d say he didn’t mean it like that at all, it was just meant to be a practical gift to make my life easier.

And he’s probably right, but that doesn’t change my unease.

I set that thought aside, and return to the letter I’m writing. What do I actually want to say to my dad? I want him to know that I’m aware of the consequences of public proceedings, and that – while I don’t particularly like it – I’m not objecting to his going ahead regardless. I scribble a couple of sentences on a spare scrap of paper, testing out different wording, until I find something I’m happy with.

It takes me a few more minutes to finish the letter, but at least I manage to get a draft I’m prepared to send on my first attempt. Even with copy-quills, it’s still annoying to have to completely rewrite things. And I don’t need another reminder that I only have access to these enchanted gadgets because of Edward.

Writing the letter helped a bit, I decide. It at least forced me to tame my feelings enough to be put into reasonable-sounding words. But I know that the dread won’t stay tame for long. That I’ll have to face this, and I don’t know how I’ll react when it happens. I don’t know if I can cope with it.

That’s what scares me the most, I think. The idea of having a publicly visible Malaina episode because of this. And – even more than the obvious awful consequences of that – the idea that if that happened, it would prove that she was right about me.

I make it through the next few hours, mostly by burying myself in Georgiana’s diary. I see Edward at dinner, and it only takes a couple of sentences’ explanation for him to understand the problem.

“Nothing she says matters. You know that, right? She’s the most foolish woman I’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting.”

“She’s still – “ I say, and stop myself. “It still hurts me. Especially if the whole world can see.”

“Yeah,” says Edward. “Because they don’t know you like I do. They don’t know how wrong whatever she says will be.”

I don’t know that it will be as wrong as Edward seems to think. But I don’t quite want to admit that, even to him. “Something like that,” I reply.

“Unless,” he says thoughtfully.

“Unless what?”

“Do you remember when we first became friends?”

I do. The flashes of connection and understanding, the gradual realisation of how well we fit together and how much we liked each other’s company. But I don’t think that’s what he’s referring to – unless –

“The statement I helped you write,” I say. When Rasin found out that he was Malaina, and assumed the worst of a man they already thought of as a monster. It doesn’t take much of a leap of deduction to piece together his idea from there. “You want me to do something similar. Tell my own story.”

“Yes.”

“I – I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I… I don’t know,” I realise. “It just… scares me. A lot. I’m trying to forget the past. I don’t want to tell the whole country about it.”

“The country will find out regardless,” Edward says. “The question is whether you want them to only have that woman’s version of events, or whether you want them to have yours as well.”

And when he puts it that way, it seems like the logical thing to do. But I don’t know if it’s something I can do, or something I want to do. “I suppose,” I mutter.

“You don’t have to decide now. But… consider it?”

That, I can agree to.