Page 14 of Elemental Truth (Mysterious Fields #3)

14

NOVEMBER 19TH AT brYN GLAS

B y Tuesday night, Vitus was very glad that Thessaly had made it clear he should come by. She’d put him off on both Saturday and Sunday— Saturday, because she was going to be at Arundel, and Sunday for reasons she hadn’t explained. She didn’t owe him an explanation, and there was a decent chance it was something to do with her parents or her family.

But then he’d caught several bits of gossip, some on Sunday, some yesterday, about her. Their parents had been out, so he’d gone with Lucas for supper in Trellech. They’d ended up at The Boar’s Head, then gone on for a drink with a group of people at Wishton’s, which was rather more upper class than Vitus usually ran. The conversation had been pleasant, but more superficial, so Vitus had been quieter, listening to the comments around him.

Lucas had asked - Vitus was fairly sure it was a deliberate strategy - about something related to the Challenge. It had been rather easy to get related topics going from there. Including Thessaly. Some of the gossip was that she was going mad with grief, or perhaps somewhat feral. No one had seen her since the funeral, at least no one who was doing any of the gossiping. One source had talked to someone at Hermia’s finishing school, or said she had. Vitus thought it might be a lie. That woman had said Thessaly’s family was terribly worried for her, but sensible people had wondered if she was cursed.

Implying, of course, that she’d had a part in Childeric’s death, directly or indirectly. Vitus had had to leave the room after that one. His coming to her defence wouldn’t help anything at all. He’d tell her when there was a chance.

The other gossip had been along those lines, if less personal. That she was running out into the woods, barely dressed, like something out of a Gothic novel. Another had it that she was stalking the halls of ‘that house in Wales’ wearing all black, her hair tumbled and wild. For one thing, the halls at Bryn Glas were mostly rather short, not at all designed for proper ghostly haunting of that kind. And for the second, Vitus was entirely sure Thessaly was wearing as little black as possible.

It meant that he turned up on Tuesday, unsure what to expect. Thessaly met him at the gate. Then she stopped, one hand on it. “I was wondering, would you like it if I attuned you to the wards?”

Vitus halted, halfway through the gate. “I thought you’d been advised to wait?”

“It’s not that I can’t add people. It’s that while things are settling, it’s tricky. And also, if I’m not adding people, Mother and Father can’t fuss about them not being added. I am not suggesting it to them. I am suggesting it to you.”

Vitus wanted to dance, to swing her around in his arms, to take her to bed. He managed to swallow most of that down. “It means a lot that you trust me like that. I’d like it very much.”

“Well, then. Hand here, if you don’t mind, and I’ll manage the charm.” The attunement took a minute or so, and caused a rather intense buzzing feeling through his hand. “I’ll have to do the house, too. They’re different. Come on!”

Certainly, this wasn’t the Thessaly anyone was gossiping about. She was bright-eyed, her hair was simply put up, but smooth and glossy. And she certainly wasn’t wearing black. This was a sea-green overdress over a pale yellow undergown, like the shade of a white wine or mead. Now, she held out her hand again, after she closed the gate behind them, and tugged him along to the house, repeating the process there.

“Now you can come visit whenever you want.” She tugged him upstairs again, and Vitus followed. Of course he followed.

“Did something make you decide this all of a sudden?” He wasn’t at all sure how to ask, even once she’d nudged him to sit down on the sofa and settled herself right next to him. Distractingly close to him, but that— well, at the moment, distractingly close probably did include the far side of the room, at the very least.

“It feels right.” Thessaly shrugged. “How have you been? And I’m sorry about Saturday. And Sunday. I learned some interesting things, though? And I have the charmed pieces to give back to you. Don’t let me forget.”

“What sort of things?” Vitus considered, then shifted his arm to rest along the top of the sofa, encouraging her closer. She immediately shifted to lean against him, which was even more disruptive to anything like a coherent train of thought.

“Sigbert had a very earnest conversation with me about how he’s not like his brother. He’d treat me much better.” Thessaly wrinkled up her nose. “I think he was telling the truth, honestly. But I was just as honest that his parents are actually rather a lot of the challenge there. Besides the part I wasn’t telling him about preferring you.”

“I am glad to hear you still do.” It came out awkwardly, and a little hollow, and Vitus didn’t like that at all. “I mean.”

“There’s something wrong there. I don’t know what sort of wrong it is, but someone needs to find out. It’s not as if Magistra Hereswith can just stroll in and look around. I could. I mean, if we decided it was worth doing.” Thessaly paused. “And it’s not like we can just ask Laudine and Dagobert, though I suspect they know. Some of it, at least, maybe all of it? And even if Magistra Landry knew, I’m sure she wouldn’t tell us.”

“We?” Vitus swallowed harder at that. “Talk, um. More about that? Please?” Though she was, he thought, right on both counts about people who might know more and who wouldn’t say.

She twisted so she could see him, and that meant he could see her face. “I’d much rather make a future with you than with Sigbert. I don’t know what that looks like, and my parents— well, that was Sunday. Mother, directly, and Father indirectly. Again.” She grimaced. “You’d think when the previous tactics didn’t work, they’d at least try something new.”

“Your parents are, erm, not up to your standards in a duel?” Vitus offered it a little uncertainly. But Thessaly lit up, smiling.

“Just like that.” She rearranged herself again, leaning against him. “There’s a short list of people they’d like me to consider. I am firmly refusing to consider anyone, beyond the conversations I’m already having with Sigbert, until at least January. Past the holiday chaos and obligations, not that I’m planning on going to any of that this year.”

“There was some gossip about you hiding away.” Vitus considered, then added. “You don’t look like the gossip suggested. You’re not haunting the place, or tearing your hair out, tear-stained, or whatever.”

She turned back. “Really? That’s what people are saying?”

“Some of them. It wasn’t the kind of thing where my pointing out the problems in their logic was going to help. Wishton’s.”

“Oh, well. I suppose Bourne’s would be worse, even. Sigbert and Childeric were there quite a lot. Sigbert still is, probably.” She waved a hand. “He doesn’t have the luxury of being in deep mourning, even if he wanted to be. Mind, I’m not sure he wants to be, exactly. More like he misses the brother he wishes he had, not the one he actually did.”

Vitus shivered at that. “I keep thinking about Lucas, honestly. What it would be like if we were like that? And I hate the idea.”

“The way you talk about him, it’s always so fond. Sometimes confused, he likes such different things from you? Goes about things differently, too?” The last one was definitely a question.

“He does. I suppose that’s partly the different houses. A lot of the Boar House magics, I gather, are about focus and aim. In a military context, particularly, but it applies to other things too.”

“And Salmon is solving problems?” Thessaly offered it a little uncertainly.

“That. And sometimes they’re the same problems Lucas is tackling, and sometimes not. I do think it’s an advantage to the talisman work, especially if you’re anchoring it in the personal rather than the theoretical.” Vitus hadn’t really ever talked with anyone about that.

“What does Magistra Hall do?” Thessaly asked. “Or what house is she, actually?”

“Horse.” Vitus said, amused. “Which, now you ask, explains some things about her preferred approach. And why certain people won’t come to her. She is not terribly fond of individual ambition in the less pleasant senses.”

“And you?” Thessaly’s voice quivered for a second.

“I am in favour of ambition, but clear-sighted ambition. And ideally with some larger goal in mind. I want to make excellent talismans so that people can do the best they can, at what they care about. I wouldn’t take a commission for the more manipulative ones. That’s both because I disapprove, and that would show in the work, and also because that is not my best skill set. You, Thessaly, are of Fox House, but your ambitions seem to me to be mostly about learning more, and figuring out what might be useful.” He tilted his head. “Did you ever consider challenging for the Council, perhaps in the future?”

She shook her head, rather violently, several wisps of hair coming out. “No. I’m not. That’s not the shape I have?” She was fumbling with the words, and then she sat bolt upright. “Wait.”

“Wait?” Vitus was startled as she got up, turning around, as if trying to spot something she’d forgotten, a book put down on a table, or something of the kind. Before he could say anything more - before she answered - she went striding off into the bedroom, her gown billowing behind her, and then seconds later, she was coming back. “Do you know how to do the charm, the sympathetic magic one, like calls unto like, any of the variations of it?”

It was a common enough one, if advanced, and Vitus did in fact know it. “Yes?” It came out weakly. “Why?”

“Use this.” She ran her hand through her hair, which only pulled more wisps out, then she grimaced and pulled the hairpins out, letting it tumble down over her shoulders. Vitus tried very hard not to be distracted by that. “Please?”

Thessaly was holding out a garnet pendant on a chain, talismanic work. He could tell that even without holding it. “That?”

“Aunt Metaia gave it to me. It’s not, I have the rest of the necklace set? But I’m suddenly wondering if she put earrings or something from the set with the papers. Or— mostly, I can try things to break an illusion, but I don’t know where to start.”

“Right.” Vitus rubbed his nose, then reached out to take the pendant hanging off the chain. He mentally ran through the variations he knew. “Do you think it’s most likely up here, rather than, I don’t know, the library or her study or something?”

“I think it’s likely one of those three places. I’d guess here or the study before the library, though.”

Vitus tried the charm after taking a moment or six for preparation. At first, he thought it hadn’t worked, and then there was a tug toward the bottom of the bookshelves, what looked like a plain wooden panel. Thessaly moved, going over to kneel in front of it. She tapped it, knocking it with her hand. The panel next to it made a solid sound, but the one the pendant had most likely aimed at sounded different, lighter and more hollow.

Thessaly stared at it, feeling around the edges to see if there was some latch. Then she blew a breath out, making all her loose hair shiver around her face, and called magic to her fingers. Vitus could see it glowing softly, a golden warm colour. She blew on it, and it drifted, and suddenly the entire panel changed colour, from a paler wood to a darker one, and a latch appeared on one side.

Thessaly reached to open it, revealing two flat shelves, both stacked with papers. She looked up from where she was sitting on the floor. “Thank you.” That was all she said.

Vitus shifted from foot to foot, then came over, bending down to offer her the pendant back. Thessaly fastened it around her neck, still looking at the papers. “Should I leave you with them?” He wasn’t at all sure what she might find.

She hesitated, then nodded just once. “We’ll talk soon?” She looked back at the papers, almost like they drew her in with some sort of compulsion. “When I have a chance to figure them out?”

Vitus shifted just enough to kiss the top of her head. “At least I can now let myself out. Send me a note if I can help, all right?” He wasn’t sure what he felt about her mood shifting so quickly, but on the other hand, it wasn’t as if he didn’t know and understand her priorities. He certainly could give her space to figure out what she could, about this mystery that twined through every part of her life.