Illusions of Fate

Last Will and Testament of Lord Finley Rainer Ackerly, son of Lord Thomas Ackerly and her Royal Highness Edeline Hallin. Being of sound mind and judgment, I hereby bequeath all my earthly possessions and inheritances to my betrothed, Miss Jessamin Olea of Melei.

Signed this day in front of witnesses,

Lord Finley Ackerly

I sit on the hard floor, stunned and angry. I don’t know what bothers me more—that he claims me as his fiancée, or that he thought the odds of his death were high enough that he had to find one last way to try and take care of me.

“Fie on you, Finn Ackerly, if you think I’m going to let you die.”

I set aside the will with a scowl and return to the chest. Sitting snug in the bottom is a thick volume of deep green, an unfamiliar crest stamped into the cover. I pull it out, brush off a layer of dust, and crack it open.

Inside are symbols and directions, crammed in tiny writing, page after page after page. I don’t have to be able to use any of it to know that in this book is all of the Hallin line magical knowledge.

I hold in my hands the fate of Melei, the fate of the continents, the fate of Albion. The fate of my Finn.

I have never known such a heavy book.

Thirty-three

IT’S LONG PAST FULL DARK WHEN I FINALLY carry the book back inside the library. The windowpane reappears, sealing itself shut behind me, and the room is pitch black. I feel my way to the desk against the wall where I know I’ll find a small glass kerosene lantern. Fumbling, I pull a match from the drawer and light the wick.

The soft, warm glow throws the room into shadows, and I sit with my back to it, looking at my own shadow. These past days with Finn gone, I’ve spent more time than I care to admit watching my shadow, waiting for glimpses of his, wondering if he’s watching or listening, if he even can from a prison designed for magic practitioners.

“I don’t know if you can hear me,” I say. “And I know you can’t answer. But I’m lost, Finn, and I wish you were here. I have to make a decision, and whichever way I choose, lives will be lost. It won’t be my fault, it will be the actions of an evil man, but he makes me complicit. I don’t know that I can live with the results of my choice no matter what it is.” My shadows flicker, probably in response to the unsteady light behind me.

“I think you would caution me to do whatever I must in order to keep myself safe.” I smile. “I think you also know me well enough by now to know that I will certainly not listen to your advice on that matter. I’m lost no matter what happens tonight. I wish . . . I wish many things, but I wish I had been able to tell you that I love you, in so many more ways than that word can convey in Alben, and I’m sorry for how things look like they will end. I would have liked the chance to yell at you for claiming me as your betrothed without my consent.”

I pause.

“I would have liked the chance to let you wait in agony and then, maybe someday, accept an offer of marriage.”

The lines of the shadows grow a bit stronger and I smile. “Well, if wishes were water I’d have a well, as Mama liked to say. And since you are not here to tell me what to do so I can decide to do the opposite, I’ll have to make up my own mind.”

I stand, carrying the lamp with me, unwilling to turn on the electric lights and illuminate the empty house I don’t expect to return to. The lamp is elegant, all glass, the bottom globe holding the fuel with a wick going up to the top globe where the flame gleams. It feels fragile, personal.

I go to my bedroom to change, buttoning a dark overcoat on top of my white blouse and long skirts as rain patters against the windows.

If the independent input of fate is the line of my derivative equation, it most likely ends in my death at the hands of Lord Downpike. But how can I shift the other variables around that line to save the highest number of people? Which variable do I sacrifice? X, being the Iverian continent, has a vastly higher proportion of people. Y, being Melei, has a vastly higher proportion of personal importance. Z, being Finn, seems to be so tied to my line I cannot imagine a way to extract him from my same fate.

And is Lord Downpike a variable, or is he the chart on which all other variables are plotted?

No. I will not give him that power. I may not be able to write him out of the equation of my fate, but I can eliminate his variable.

/> I smile, and whether it is the prospect of my impending doom or the realization that, one way or another, everything will be decided soon, I feel light and disconnected, unweighted by the worries of the world.

I pick up the worn umbrella from the kind woman in the park. It seems like a lifetime ago I accepted it from her. There is goodness everywhere, more than enough to combat the Lord Downpikes of the world. I tuck the book beneath my arm, take up the lantern, and walk down the hall.

“Good-bye, Eleanor,” I whisper.

I open the door to the park and am unsurprised to find my porch lined with big black birds. “Go tell your stupid master I have what he wants. I will be waiting in the park.” I walk past them, missing Sir Bird terribly. I would have liked his company tonight.

The rain patters loudly on my umbrella and drowns out any other night sounds. It’s an actual downpour, more ambitious than Avebury’s usual attempts, and I feel sealed off from the night beneath the curve of my protection. The gravel path is puddling in lower areas, water streaming into more water, which will seep down into the tunnels beneath the city where I first rested my head in the hollow of Finn’s neck.

So much water.

I think of Sir Bird, and a tiny flame inside of me dares to hope.

I make my way to the center of the park, lantern light turning the rain around me into golden drops. When I leave the path, the earth squelches under my feet, already saturated. Overhanging branches drop heavy collections of water in staccato bursts onto my umbrella.