Page 6 of Elemental Truth (Mysterious Fields #3)

6

OCTOBER 17TH AT brYN GLAS

W hen Vitus came through the portal, Thessaly was there, waiting. He was a hair later than he’d wanted to be. He’d stopped in one of Trellech’s bookstores on the way to Portal Square, to pick up two titles he thought she might like. Vitus held them up, tied up in paper and string. “Apologies for being a tad late, but I brought books?”

She came over to him, laughing, then tugged him along into the warding. “I do not need more books, but I am entirely curious.”

Vitus did his part by refusing to tell her what they were until they were sitting down. This turned out to be in the library, with a table set up for eating. “If you don’t mind eating down here, supper at seven?”

“Of course not. I am your guest. I should get home by, oh, nine? Niobe wanted me to consult on something in the morning, and I’ll need my wits.” Vitus looked at her, and offered a smile. “A delighted guest. Glad to enjoy whatever you offer.” Then he blushed, because he had and hadn’t meant that innuendo. He cleared his throat hurriedly. “You are less brightly coloured today?”

“Cousin Owain was here earlier, and I didn’t know what he’d think about the more vibrant versions.” Thessaly tilted her head. “I’d like to talk that out with you, actually. Do you mind?”

Vitus shook his head. “Of course not.” The thing of it was, every time she trusted him like that, he fell in love with her a little more. Or it became a little more certain. It was like cutting a gem, the way tiny gestures, piece by piece, formed facet after facet. He felt falling in love was about working with the stone itself, the way it wanted to cleave and shape, and also about being delicate, not rushing anything. It was an excellent metaphor, and it meant, he hoped, that sometime he’d look and it would be there, blazing away for everyone to see. Undeniable.

Thessaly considered, then nestled in against him, as he moved his arm around her. Today, she wore no bustle, but she had put on a corset. Presumably so as not to scandalise her cousin entirely. It meant she was leaning, more than curled up against him, but they would manage well enough. He listened as she explained what sounded like a fair bit of the conversation.

“It’s curious that your cousin said he doesn’t trust your mother. Both parts. Not trusting and also telling you about it.” Vitus was caught by that one.

“He also said nothing about you, when he might have. I’d not have answered, not right now.” She twisted to look up at him. “I feel very private about you at the moment. Does that bother you?”

Vitus wanted to shout from the top of Snowdonia— or in Portal Square, there would be more people to hear there— that he loved Thessaly. But she was right, not just now. She was supposed to be in mourning. They had to behave properly in public. In due course, in five or six months, they could build what they wanted with other people seeing. “I did tell you Mama knows, didn’t I?” He thought he had. But the times he’d seen her were still simultaneously precious and detailed in his memory on other nights, and sometimes jumbled.

“You did. That’s different.” Thessaly let out a soft breath. “You trust your mother. That part is very different.” Before he could say anything, she added, “Mother is in a difficult position, and I understand that. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to keep doing things for her benefit. I want to help Hermia, when I can, but Hermia doesn’t know what she wants yet herself. Apprenticeship, maybe, but it would take the right thing. I’m sure Father is looking to make arrangements for her to marry.”

“She could refuse now, yes?” Vitus was not entirely sure how that worked at this point.

“Technically, yes. Certainly, she can refuse particular matches, but—” Thessaly shook her head. “I keep coming back to what Cousin Owain said about using my skills. And what that means. Father’s certainly looking for another match for me, even though I can refuse and keep refusing.” Then she twisted, squeezing her hand. “Or make my own choice. If that?—“

“If that.” Vitus felt a lump in his throat. “If that goes how I hope.”

She shifted enough to kiss him on the cheek, then leaned her head back. “I was thinking, after Cousin Owain left, about why they asked me. Why they’d think I’d be any help in the first place. The Council. They’re scrambling, unsteady, he said as much. I can’t imagine that I’ll solve anything that all of them couldn’t. A fair number of them being creative and intelligent and good at solving problems.” Her voice changed. “Even if Aunt Metaia was excellent at it, everyone said so. The creative part.”

“It is curious. I’d have expected them not to say anything to anyone. Though I suppose if there is anything in the house, they’d need your help one way or another. You have found nothing at all?”

“Nothing I didn’t already mostly expect? Whatever is here, it’s going to be thoroughly hidden.” Thessaly sighed, then said, “The other part is that everything that’s happened, since, I feel like some of it is connected. But I have no idea what.”

“Would it help to talk it out in order?” Vitus asked. “I can do that. We can do that together?” The together part was what he’d like.

“Together.”

She said nothing more, so after another few moments, Vitus took a deep breath. “You became betrothed to Childeric in March, at the equinox. Between then and the summer solstice, she became concerned about the betrothal, and the way he treated you. Did she explain why? Did she see anything specific?”

Thessaly shivered, once. “She mentioned nothing specific. But there’s the change in her will. There’s how she talked about it, at the solstice. Something new happened, or she learned something. She must have.”

“Did your Aunt Metaia have concerns about the Fortiers for any other reason besides Childeric? That’s the part I can’t make fit.” Vitus considered. “Something she found out?”

“I suppose it’s possible she found something out. That she was paying more attention to them because of the betrothal. And then spotted something else. I don’t know what, though.”

“And you don’t know what— no, wait, we’ll come back to Dagobert in a minute. Then there’s the summer solstice, and someone kills your aunt, and there’s still no idea who or how. I mean, how they got her outside the warding.”

“No. I can only assume it was someone she knew, someone she trusted enough? Or someone who set up an illusion, a cover, but she was cautious. Especially here.”

“They’d have had to come through the portal, wouldn’t they? And then around the far side, until they could come down by the road to the east?” Vitus had seen enough of the landscape now to fit that into place.

“Mmmhmm. And there’s not much on that side, a few cottages. I can’t imagine anyone would have come up the road, from the train. That takes ages.”

“And she’d changed, so it wasn’t something she noticed coming home, through the lawn.” Vitus considered what you might hear from the grass. “The barn’s in the way.”

“The more you lay it out, the odder it is. As if she was meeting someone, but not by the portal, where it would be easy. And she went out of the warding.”

Vitus nodded, moving to kiss her hair before turning his head back to keep talking. “And then Philip Landry turned up dead. There’s nothing directly connecting the two things, and yet, it’s suspicious, the timing.”

“It is. But I can’t imagine why he’d have wanted to hurt Aunt Metaia. Or why he’d do it like that.” Thessaly shivered. She’d seen Aunt Metaia’s body, just after they found her. She’d been on her back, as if someone had tended her, but her face had suggested she’d seen her death coming. Some form of magic, Thessaly had been told, but without any obvious signs of exactly what. Philip Landry was the most logical person to be involved, but it didn’t answer anything at all.

“All the Fortiers left the Council rites rather suddenly,” Vitus said. “Did Philip? I didn’t see him after that, but you often didn’t, even when he was there.” There were plenty of smaller conversations in the side rooms, people making their own arrangements in varying ways. “And it was rather a crush, so many people around. Henut Landry and Alexander were still there when you noticed the Fortiers were gone, but I didn’t see Philip. Mama didn’t mention him.” Vitus thought back to what she’d said. “That’s a mystery, then.”

“Does this bring us back to them?” Thessaly’s voice quavered, and Vitus tucked an arm more securely around her.

“You don’t enjoy talking about him, of course.” Vitus wasn’t at all sure how to weave his way through this. “Can you tell me why?”

“A few bad dreams.” She hadn’t really moved, but she somehow felt more distant. “About what he’d likely have done once we were married. Why now, I don’t know. And just remembering. It wasn’t, mostly, anything he said or did, not exactly. It was the look in his eyes. Controlling and expecting. Everything Aunt Metaia was worried about.”

“She loved you very much.” Vitus felt like it was a silly platitude, but it was also true, and maybe it would help to hear someone say it. “Should I keep going or do you want to stop?”

“We need to keep going. It will not get better, ignoring it.” There was the stubbornness, that sounded better. “Childeric got worse. Sigbert stayed more or less reasonable, but he’d not stand up to Childeric. No one told me anything at all, except Laudine. I don’t know, maybe that was Lady Chrodechildis’s doing? She’s still clearly the one directing the family. Only whatever’s changed for Dagobert, that includes Laudine.”

“And she left with the rest of them,” Vitus noted. “What’s different about Dagobert and Laudine? That’s what I wonder? Other than they have told you some things, they have made overtures, you’ve said. And the fact Dagobert was hurt, somehow, right around that time.”

“You’d said,” Thessaly now twisted so she could look at him again, “that he’d been reading about electricity. And that Childeric’s body, it had marks like lightning. I forget the name?”

“Lichtenberg marks.” Vitus nodded. “Was there anything odd between solstice and Childeric’s death? Other than Childeric being worse to you?”

“A lot of worse. There was that odd thing, them keeping me away from that corner of the property. But I didn’t see any obvious reason.” Thessaly frowned. “Is there a thing like a map of the estate in the Trellech Library, do you think? That would have buildings on it?”

“I suspect the Council has one, if you asked nicely for a copy,” Vitus said. “I don’t know about the library. I can ask, find a time when it’s quiet. Why am I asking? I don’t have anything like a good cause.”

“You said Laudine was thinking about some talisman work. Could you ask them, I don’t know what sounds right, but wanting to understand the geography so you could fit a piece better to that and their home in Essex? Or could you say you were working up a comparative study on the implications of local gemstones? And you wanted to compare several of the oldest and most stable demesne estates?”

Vitus felt his jaw drop. “You just came up with that, right in the moment?”

“Yessss?” It came out as a hiss at the end. “Is that a problem?”

“I have a lot of research I want to do now, but that is not actually a problem.” Vitus pulled her closer to kiss her properly, taking a moment for it. “I’ll ask something along those lines. And the paper will, I’m sure, be of interest. Please, any more ideas like that.” Then he cleared his throat. “And then the funeral was odd, but I think we’re assuming that was the ordinary sort of odd, other people’s customs?”

“Well.” Thessaly considered. “Were you close enough to see Henut Landry at the funeral?”

Vitus shook his head. “Not as close as you were. What I saw was that she didn’t take a bee from the basket, but tossed something in, something she already had in her hand. The Fortiers didn’t like that much, but they didn’t stop her.”

“It was a bee, but it was gold. And yes, she had it in her hand before she came to the grave.” Thessaly wriggled closer against him. “I saw a flash of gold. But it’s gold for the men, silver for the women of the family, copper for everyone else. Traditionally.” She added a sour, “Laudine explained that to me, of course no one else did.”

Vitus nodded slowly. “That part, definitely particularly odd. But I do not think it is the sort of thing we could reasonably ask Magistra Landry about. Was that the only unexpected thing, then?”

“I think so? I’ll think about it more. It was just all rather awful, and I wasn’t sleeping much, and everything sort of blurred.” Thessaly let out a huff of breath. “That all is better laid out, but I don’t think it gets us any closer to understanding any of it.”

“No.” Vitus heard the rattle of the door and a knock. “You see what you can find here, and I’ll think about the electricity side and the land. Is that supper?”

Thessaly glanced at the clock over the fireplace. “It is. Come in?” She called out, pitching her voice to carry, and moving away a little. “Thank you, Collins. The table would be lovely. It smells wonderful.”

Vitus let her, not at all sure how much she was comfortable with the staff seeing, though they must know. After all, he and she had been alone together for several hours now, entirely unchaperoned. Once the table was set, he held her chair. They spent the meal talking about less dire topics. The conversation ranged from some of his recent work with stones to something she’d been reading about stabilising illusions.