Shoestring Theory

SIXTEEN

Cyril’s blood did not run cold, because he was sure it was not running at all. He had frozen, frightened to death. Any reaction he had to Atticus standing at the door to the library, leaning against the doorframe as though he had not just found his guest reading up on his private research, was being performed by his spectre, which was the only remnant of him left on earth after his entire being turned to dust.

He actually would have very much liked that, turning to dust. It would make for a smooth exit.

Instead, his hands trembled as he turned, slowly , to properly face Atticus and opened and closed his mouth like a fish out of water.

“Great work, Samson,” was the next thing he said. This confused Cyril greatly until he realised Atticus was not speaking to him.

From behind his legs, a pair of tan, alert ears peeked out, followed right after by the snout and body of a hare. Atticus leaned down and scratched it on the top of the head before turning his attention back to Cyril.

“It’s hardly fair, though, is it? Saying you didn’t really love me now . Feels a bit like a cop out. I had expected at least a bit more mixed emotion.” Atticus started to walk towards him, and Cyril felt like his legs were made of stone. “Or were you actually trying to manipulate me. I’m impressed. It hardly suits you, Cyril.”

Cyril’s gaze darted back to the hare. He had called him Samson. He had petted him. It did not take a great mind to work out the relationship.

“That’s your familiar.”

He was ignored outright.

“In any case, I wish you had not wandered down here on your own. What were you even doing ? I do not believe you were trying to unmask me; you do not have the insight.”

“You’re a wizard,” he croaked.

Atticus rolled his eyes. “It is taking you a while to catch up.”

Suddenly, he could move again. He stepped back, back, until he had his spine pressed to the table and pointed at the alchemist’s tools.

“ You did all that? All this time you’ve just been down here… making poisons ?”

Atticus stared at him a moment, then laughed so heartily it felt as though the room shook.

“An alchemist ? You think I am an alchemist?” The laughter took on the edge of a sneer. “Alchemists are crones and madmen. Do not insult me after taking so many liberties within my own home.”

“Then how?”

“I have told you how! Cyril, I’ve told you very few lies. I have mages who take care of the schools I am not so specialised in for me.”

Cyril could not figure it out. It was driving him to madness. It was like a portion of his brain had been set aflame and he could not put it out. It was an itch he could not get at, buried deep. His head was swimming. His vision threatened to turn hazy.

In a moment of desperation, Cyril broke the one rule of propriety held in high esteem by all self-respecting mages. He would like it stated somewhere, for the record, that it was an unorthodox situation, and he would not have done something like this otherwise.

Cyril made a diamond with his fingers and held it over one eye, then he pulled it apart, the motion like looking through thick foliage into a clearing.

He looked into the pattern.

It was oppressive .

In the middle of this tall, gargantuan library there was a spiderweb of fine thread, branching in every direction, its nucleus the epicentre of the room. It covered every nook and corner of the ceiling and reached its silks out, out, to beyond this one room, beyond the basement and from there – who could tell?

It was intricate, delicately woven together thread by thread. Cyril judged that it must have been amassing for years. There were thick ropes of magic, dangling heavy on their own as well as thin strands, almost floating from how weightless they looked. They coiled and tied together in beautiful, horrible patterns. It was so much and so overwhelming. It was like a veil had been placed over the room, glowing a white, lifeless light.

He stared so hard and with such rapt intensity, his eyes began to hurt. When Cyril blinked away the tears, Atticus had moved within inches of him.

Cyril let out a startled gasp and bumped against the table.

“I did not give you leave to do that, but I cannot begrudge anyone from admiring my handiwork. It goes unnoticed so often,” Atticus said.

“What are they…” It was a monumental effort for Cyril not to shake. “Who are they even attached to?”

“Have I not said I’ve many in my employ?”

And then, Cyril realised there was one strand, like a silver hair, that was not spreading out of the library. It was hanging down, towards him, onto him. It was attached to his shoulder.

“It is hard work,” Atticus sighed. “It is gruelling work. It is thankless work, but I am proud of it.”

“You should not be! What you call employment, it is – it is enslavement .”

“I pay my mages a living wage.”

Cyril felt like a trapped animal. There was nowhere else to run for him.

“You’ve ensorcelled them into a plot to kill your wife –”

“Fiancée.”

“ Widow if I’ve anything to say about it!”

“Good one, Cy.”

Tigris was so very clever, but sometimes… sometimes she was not.

Cyril, panicked that he had forgotten all about her, immediately swept his gaze all around the room until it fell upon Tigris. Atticus followed and his face split into the widest grin.

“That’s her, is it not? The woman of the hour.”

“Go fuck yourself, Atticus.”

He could not be bothered to tell her Atticus could not hear her. He didn’t think it’d make a difference.

“I don’t know what you mean. That is Shoestring.”

“Oh, you are a horrible liar. Wear your heart on your sleeve. It’s how I knew you’d be the perfect souvenir to bring back.

“I had suspected she asked you to stash her away somehow, but inside a cat ! She must have truly despised me. Which suits me fine.” Atticus cast a derisive glance back at the cat. “I never liked the stupid bitch. I would’ve been doing Farsala a favour getting rid of her, not that it matters now .”

Cyril’s hands balled into fists at his side, so hard his fingernails dug into soft skin. If he were the hero, the protector Tigris deserved, he would have thrown hands with the king of Cretea right then and there. But he was a coward, a clown who had messed up every step of the way, and he knew a fistfight between them would only end with his head under a boot.

His mind snagged on something, though.

“‘ Now’ …?” he repeated.

“Ah, yes! Yes, yes, yes, well! I did not expect the brother to be so much easier to manipulate! Take away his prized little courtesan.” Cyril heard Tigris hiss. “And he loses his head! He will be such a vicious king. A despot. A brutal invader, jilted over his runaway wizard. He shall do his damage and when the people are practically crying to unseat him, Cretea will rise again, and I shall save the day. Honestly, I had expected a longer timeline for the actual war to begin. You are a wonder , Cyril Laverre.”

Atticus put a hand on his shoulder again. The same squeeze, the same pressure, but it was more intense this time, somehow. He felt dizzy. His brain felt swollen in his skull.

“I had planned on just adding you to my court as a mage, but if you are worth starting political conflict over, there may be something to that courtship.”

The way Atticus said the word courtship sent a chill down Cyril’s spine, but, immediately after, it was as though it was being doused with hot water. He could not think straight. Could not find it in himself to truly hate Atticus.

And still, the man talked.

“Worry not. You will be a jewel to my collection. The way you’ve constructed her body to function the same as a familiar’s. I mean, the way she eats ! It is a one-to-one replica.”

“I am…” Cyril slurred. “I’m a very good mage.”

“You are ! That you are, pet,” said Atticus.

Cyril could see out of the corner of his eye that the thread on Atticus’s shoulder, once barely noticeable, was starting to become thick, snakelike. It coiled up from Atticus’s fingers, tapping a pattern onto Cyril’s very core, and hung around his neck like a choker. Like a noose . He could not breathe.

“Yes, I believe I pointed it out to you earlier today, even! You are… the ultimate playing card in my deck. A joker.” Atticus’s smile spread on his lips even as Cyril struggled to draw breath. Cyril nodded.

He should’ve given up by now. It would be easier. And yet, at the same time as his mind was going numb, there was a fire against his chest that threatened to burn straight through to his heart.

“You are a jack of all trades, Cyril. But I am a master of mine.”

And there it was. The final squeeze. A chain around Cyril’s neck that made him stupid and empty and pliant . He could not think of anything. He could not think of Tigris, or Heléne, or even Eufrates. He could just about think of Atticus and that was only because the man was stood in front of him, as pleased as an artist looking upon a masterpiece.

The only thing that truly grabbed his attention was that damn burning in his chest. It felt like it would engulf him in flames at any moment. It burned, but it did not sear. And it grew, and it grew.

And it grew.

Light bathed the two of them. Mageflame so bright and hot it burned blue at its core. It was like looking at a penitent on a pyre, but Cyril did not burn. Atticus did not burn. The only thing that caught fire, withered and turned to ash was the thread between them. Shocked and scared of being engulfed himself, Atticus drew back.

Cyril looked down when he heard a soft clinking of metal on a shirt button. The ring had weaselled its way out of his shirts, as though looking for credit for its gracious deed. It now hung over them, sparkling on his chest, still a bit incensed.

“What is that ?” Atticus hissed.

“It… is not as much of a curse as I thought,” he murmured to himself.

Atticus’s face was that of the Undertaker incarnate. Everything about him spelled death. He lunged at Cyril, hands making to grab for his throat. It was difficult to tell if Atticus wanted the ring, or wanted to strangle him, but Cyril was cornered.

Cyril ducked and raised his arms up over his face in a pathetic mimicry of self-defence. He braced for the blow, but instead he heard a feral, angry yowl and the wet, sickly sound of tearing flesh. His eyes flew open.

He caught the tail end of a flurry of messy, shaggy orange fur overwhelming his assailant. Tigris had leapt up, thrown herself onto Atticus and had managed to successfully take out a chunk of his jaw with her claws, having just missed his throat. It was brutal to look at. The blood started flowing immediately, richly fragrant in its metallic tang.

Cyril would not be outdone by the very woman he had sworn to protect, so he did two things at once. The first was he clumsily kicked Atticus in the stomach, rendering him prone for at least long enough to give them time to abscond. The second was, with a pluck of the pattern behind him, he set the table with the alchemical books ablaze.

“Let’s go , Cyril!” He heard coming from somewhere already far closer to the exit than he was in. He sidestepped Atticus, lost in the frenzy of stopping the bleeding and the pyre in his own home.

He passed the hare, Samson, as he ran. Cyril expected Samson to try and stop him, but he was obviously less important than the desecration of years of research and its master’s grievous wound. Samson leapt past him like a bolt of lightning.

For good measure, as soon as he and Tigris were outside, he turned around and closed his palms into a hollow clap in front of the door. It disappeared into the very stone it had been slotted into. It would be some time before Atticus could get anyone to help with his entombment.

Enchanters were not very physical mages.

As they began their mad dash to the stables, Tigris apparently still had the energy to insult him.

“Augh! You have always been so slow! Release me back into human form and I will carry you.”

“What? No!” He balked. “Absolutely not!”

“I will do it with as little humiliation as possible!”

“That is not the point , Tig.” He was frazzled and stressed and in no mood to be gentle. “Use your head . He knows who you are. He will try to kill you on sight. No matter how good you are at fighting , you’ve no magic. Right now, your body is near indestructible. It is the safest you’ll be until he is dealt with.”

“And you intend to deal with him? Alone?”

“I… I will come up with, with…” His breath was coming up short. He was also not prone to physicality. “With something once I’ve had time to… to think. Tan… Tantie will help.”

“Gods, Cyril, I’m going to drill you till your bones ache once this is all over.”

He did not respond. He was conserving air. He had heard somewhere that in moments of great danger, the human body was capable of extraordinary feats. Clearly no one bothered to tell his body about this as he huffed and puffed and skidded his way into a halt in front of the stables outside the palace.

Tigris pointed out a horse she had ridden before and was quite fond of. Cyril may have been a bad athlete, a horrible seducer and an overall mess, but he was still a courtier . He knew how to ride.

It had been years since he’d last been on a mount, but it came flooding back to him as soon as he figured out the saddle. He gracelessly climbed up onto the horse’s back – Tigris said her name was Titania and she was actually a mare – and willed her to speed off, far away from Cretea.

Once they had ridden on for about five minutes and no one came after them, Cyril let himself relax ever-so-slightly. He let out a deep, exhausted sigh and looked down at Tigris, who was cleaning dried blood from her claws.

“Thank you for that, by the way,” he said.

“What happened back there? You froze.”

“Atticus is… a wizard, as you might have surmised. Specifically, an enchanter.”

“Those are the feelings mages?”

“Feelings, thoughts, ideas, personalities… people . Yes. Enchanters are the purveyors of the mind.”

“You were being mind-controlled ?”

“Yes. The ring… severed it. I am not sure why. Perhaps me belonging to someone else did not agree with it,” he said with some degree of bitterness. “But mind-control is not… it is not the enchanter’s bread and butter. Their art is that of subtle manipulation. Of influence. A good enchanter will never even have to reveal themselves, all the while controlling a person’s very sense of self. It is a slow-acting poison, in its own way. Could be years until you’d see the effects.”

Something snagged in his mind, then, when he said that. Like a loose thread caught in a nail and as he untangled it, it began to spell out a message.

Eufrates… the way Atticus spoke of his husband was excited , eager. He welcomed a war. He would like very much if his home was taken over. He had said it was happening sooner than he had planned and, oh, what else? That he would swoop in and fix everything.

I have always wanted to play the hero.