Page 16 of The Curse of Indy Moore (The Cursed Duology #1)

Where Indy Suffers Questioning

Mr. Hawthorne’s office carried Ivory House’s chaos.

Books and scrolls spilled from the shelving lining the facade.

Three windows stretched to the ceiling at the back of the room, decorated by a cat chasing a stream of fish.

The light filtering through the panes illuminated the back of the desk chair and the desk itself, I imagined, seeing as it was hardly visible under the mountain of text and scrolls.

A nook beneath the window spoke of many naps, and a steaming teapot floated nearby, prepared to pour a drink once the cups maneuvered out of whatever rubble they were trapped under.

Chalk marked the floorboards in shapes of runes and patterns that meant nothing to the untrained eyes.

On the ceiling, the decorative crown molding matched in color to the pale wood floorboards, while the shelving and furniture were a slightly darker hue.

The walls were painted a cool, light green tone that brought the outside in .

Mr. Hawthorne took to clearing off his desk.

He set aside previous work to reveal the mahogany desk with rounded edges engraved with crows.

Speaking of, Slate landed on a perch, a preserved tree branch, jutting out from the top of the desk.

A nest fit between the branches, filled to the brim with trinkets, where he stashed his newly acquired utensils.

Those bright green eyes of his observed, and unlike Miss Beamy, he didn’t so much talk as scrutinize.

Miss Beamy hadn’t joined us. Upon returning, she had yawned and announced herself in need of a nap.

She disappeared around a bend to find herself a place to sleep.

Having made room on the desk, Mr. Hawthorne sat and retrieved a notebook from the stacked mess. He settled the notebook in front of us and snagged a pen from the drawer.

“You have never worked with an artificer before, have you?” he asked.

I took the chair opposite of his, one he had grabbed from a nearby room. Seems he didn’t have many guests or patrons in his office, and I wasn’t entirely sure if that boosted my confidence toward him.

“I have not,” I answered.

“Then allow me to explain the tiring aspects of this job. Artificers must attend a Licensed Artificer Academy to conduct any form of work. In my case, as well as Otis’s, we are scientists conducting experiments in various fields.

Demonology is not my area of expertise, but that does not mean I cannot partake,” he explained.

The work of artificers was never my area of expertise, and I never expected to care.

However, with the possibility of losing my soul, my curiosity grew.

Francesca didn’t explain her work so much as share a story here or there, and few dared to ask for more, considering we all knew the warning to never cross an artificer, lest they saw themselves cursed. Baxter proved the saying had merit.

“Then what is your expertise?” I asked.

“I am an inscriptionist. I discover new rune configurations and ensure their safety for use among the public. No inscription may be used without first proving its safety. One wrong rune, a misplaced line of all things, could spell disaster. ”

That explained the doodles all over the office and pages. I understood artificers studied their craft, but had never thought about what they studied. My mind conjured possibilities of them shooting fireballs, not towering over pages, making lines at different angles to see what made a fireball.

“As you can see with my work on Ivory House, I am the most renowned inscriptionist in the world,” he declared, deflating my interest immediately, though my look of dismay couldn’t cease his bragging.

“Countless kingdoms have procured licenses of my inscriptions to be introduced into the populace. In fact, I am the sole reason we are moving on from carriages.”

He leaned forward, hands clasped and lips twisted into a grin so proud, it’d ruin anyone’s day.

“Carriage cars, have you read of them? They are boxed carts, nearly exactly like a carriage, but without horses. It took months for me to finalize a rune to hasten their speed without rusting the metal. Personally, I thought wood would prove a better medium, but it caught fire far too frequently, and I burned my eyebrows off. Twice!”

He abruptly realized his own ranting, or my disinterest. I wasn’t exactly hiding it, although the thought of him without eyebrows was rather humorous.

Mr. Hawthorne composed himself by sitting up right and adjusted his sleeves.

“On to more pressing matters, like with my inscription work, we will have to conduct experiments. I cannot do that without your consent, which I cannot get only through words. We must visit Wyvern Spire, where an intermediary will go over far too much paperwork to ensure you’re a consenting party. ”

“Oh, I see.”

I thought people hired artificers and they enchanted what they could.

The sovereign had laws protecting the public, but that didn’t truly protect everyone from a malicious artificer.

So long as they weren’t caught, which was easier at the hands of one capable of creating a literal floating island, it didn’t matter what a paper said.

In short, the protections weren’t too settling and, if anything, encouraged concern. That meant we would waste time waiting around going over paperwork. Carline had her claws in me, and I wanted free as quickly as possible .

“I don’t want to risk going there today, so for now, you will tell me your story and—” Mr. Hawthorne opened his desk to retrieve a circular device, golden with a large button.

He pressed the button and held the device close to his mouth.

“Miss Indy Moore, you are here agreeing to conduct research and experiments into your curse brought about by your interaction with Mother Wolf, a demon. I, Rooke Hawthorne, Grand Artificer appointed by the Eldari Council, have agreed to take on this research for my quarterly report with Wyvern Spire. You are consenting to first share your story with me in hopes of studying your curse prior to our visit to Wyvern Spire. Do you consent?”

He presented the device and nodded when I gave him a cursory glance. “I consent,” I said.

“Good.” Mr. Hawthorne clicked the button. “A recording device of my own design.” Then he scowled. “Albeit dysfunctional. It only allows thirty seconds of recording time. I am working on it.”

It was impressive, nonetheless, though I kept that to myself. He certainly didn’t need further encouragement; otherwise, he may fall into another rant.

“Let me reiterate, you cannot lie or hide anything from me.” The pen he retrieved stood at attention, prepared to write while he kept his attention on me, focused in an unsettling manner.

“I do not care if you are embarrassed, ashamed, or terrified by what happened. You must share every detail and answer my questions when asked. Demons are peculiar creatures and vary from one individual to the next.”

“What are they, exactly?” I asked. “I’ve heard tales, but they are those shared by locals, not artificers. Surely one of magic would understand them better. Carline seemed human until she wasn’t. I always imagined them to be less human… more obvious, I guess?”

“Why would they do that?” He chuckled. “What better way to catch their prey than to wear their skin? You wouldn’t waltz up to a demon if you knew they were one. It’s a cloaking device, no different from a butterfly parading itself as a predator.”

“Where do they come from? ”

Mr. Hawthorne ran his fingers along Slate’s feathers.

The bird leaned into the touch while never taking his eyes off me.

“The artificer community has speculated for centuries. We theorize they were once everyday people, as some have been linked to their past selves. What went wrong, we aren’t certain, because none of them have ever said, even if we could interrogate them.

Our best, or rather, least-argued theory is that they are a consequence of the human psyche, our emotions, extreme suffering, or even happiness. ”

“A demon of happiness sounds rather contradictory,” I said.

“Believe it or not, but there are helpful demons out there, too. They all have their reasons for conducting themselves as such. Now, shall we begin?”

The pen scribbled at the top of the page: The Curse of Miss Indy Moore by Rooke Hawthorne. The paper would be squared away in a place of scholars. They wouldn’t like it if one of their own didn’t know the true name of their study.

With a reluctant sigh, I said, “Lucinda. Indy is a nickname. I figured you would want your paper titled with my proper name.”

The pen scribbled out Indy to replace it with Lucinda.

“Thank you,” he said. “Lucinda doesn’t suit you.”

“Which is why I go by Indy.”

“How did that nickname come about?”

“Is my answer pertinent to my case?”

“It could be,” he replied, though that grin said otherwise.

“I would rather not talk about it.”

He settled his hands atop the desk, reminding me of Carline when she realized she caught me.

I felt the same way under his attention, caught by a predator waiting for the prey to slip up.

He watched, intent, focused, the heat of him palpable enough to dry my lips.

It was his eyes that caught me, such an enchanting green, threatening to devour.

He waited for me to begin, so I did, from the start.

He remained silent during the retelling, speaking only for clarification, specifically about the wolves.

“Did they speak?” he asked, puzzling me .

“What? No. They howled. They acted as wolves would,” I replied, wishing not to think of them at all.

The mere thought encouraged the sensation of fear, the mist coiling around me, shielding them from view, but not me from theirs.

I should have known early on that a demon was at play, or some form of magic.