Shoestring Theory
NINETEEN
70%
Cyril found out later that he slept for a mere hour. After all, it was not as though he had any wounds to render him bedbound. The shock of the day had just triggered a fainting spell, which mortified him no end.
In that hour, he had been transported from the study all the way back to his chambers in the tower, and his blood-soaked clothes had been traded for a clean nightshirt. When he woke up and looked to his left, he also found a fresh outfit he’d be able to change into when he was ready.
To his right was Eufrates, sitting on a chair, arms folded over his chest, watching him with a furrowed brow. He had not shaved – thank the gods – but he did seem to have washed his face and donned lighter clothes.
“I am alive,” Cyril said, stupidly.
Eufrates did not humour him. “Tigris told me everything. About Atticus and the enchanting business and the plot for her murder. She did a much better job than you, considering you have been parading her around as your pet and do not even let her speak.”
Ah.
This was how things were to be, then. Of course, Eufrates was angry at him. Maybe even furious. He had prepared for his own death and maybe, in a delusional corner of his brain, he had prepared for a reconciliation, but he had not prepared to live in the same world as him and be nothing more than embittered strangers.
It frosted his heart over.
“You managed to speak to her,” he said conversationally and sat up on the bed.
“Auntie allowed us to communicate.”
“I am glad.”
Cyril undid the better part of the buttons of his nightshirt while Eufrates pretended to look around the room at his hoard of baubles. He stopped when he reached the new scar. He touched it and it felt rugged and strange, but not painful.
“I have never had a scar.”
Eufrates scoffed under his breath.
“Did Tantie look at this?”
“Yes. She says it’s your curse.” He paused. “Well. Our curse.”
Cyril tilted his head. “What made her say that?”
In way of answer, Eufrates tugged the hem of his undershirt up. He did have a few scars. He had been accident-prone as a youth, and he was much more physical than Cyril. Cyril thought he knew every mark on his body, but there was a new one.
A starburst, faded as if it had always been there, on his side under his heart.
Cyril’s eyes widened and his hand flew to the ring. “I’m sorry…”
“Save it. I knew there was risk in trying to kill you, but I stabbed you anyway.”
“You said you hadn’t meant to–”
“I lied,” Eufrates said. “I thought I was doing a kindness to a dying old man.”
“Oh.”
They were quiet for a moment. Cyril fiddled with the edge of his comforter, twisting it and tying it up in knots in his fingers. Finally, because he could not stand it anymore, he spoke.
“Where is Tig?”
“Upstairs. She is trying to convince Auntie to change her back.”
Cyril let out a breath through his nose. “She cannot. Only I can release her.”
“And will you?”
“With that madman of a king on the loose? Over my dead body.”
“Of course. You always know best for everyone.”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing.”
Cyril yanked the comforter off himself and stood up, steadying his legs as he paced around the room. The first thing he did was grab the clothes that had been laid out for him.
“I am going to get dressed. You can stay and watch if you’d like.”
He did not have Eufrates’s heart, but he still knew it well and he knew the man’s chivalry would make him leave the room as if in a cursed catacomb.
Just as he thought, Eufrates also got to his feet and tucked his shirt back into his trousers. Once he made it to the doorway, he said, “I will be with my sister.”
Cyril should not have dawdled while getting ready. Not when there was so much looming over all their heads, but he needed a moment to himself where he wasn’t completely unconscious.
He sat at his vanity once he was fully dressed and began working on his paints, elongating his lashes and rouging his cheeks. It was a calming ritual for him, and it helped him think.
Eufrates hated him. That was nothing new. The only thing that changed was now he was being despised for exactly the right reasons. Cyril pulled the ring from its hanging place again, examining it carefully for the first time in weeks. He could barely comprehend how so much magic was able to fit into such a tiny circlet of gold. It had spared him twice by now, saved his life in its own horrible, immolating way. He could no longer call it a curse. Selfishly, he did not truly want it removed anymore.
But he would. He would find a way. Because Eufrates had called it a curse. Their curse. He had spat the words, as though the fact that it bound them together was worse than any physical pain it caused.
Cyril was going to dispel it even if it meant going into the pattern and tearing it apart, severing the strings with his bare hands like a clumsy fledgling of a mage. Cutting up a pattern was disastrous – the damage could be as little as a spark in the earthly atmosphere or a horrible explosion – but it seemed worth it to finally be rid of their link.
He looked into the mirror and saw himself again. It had been a week since he had been given drab, earth-coloured clothes and essentially told to blend in as seamlessly as possible with the Cretian court. He did not hate how he looked now, dressed down like this, but there was a wrongness to it. He was a clown. A little harlequin tasked with serving Farsala’s higher power. The paints and the costuming spoke of tradition. He was going to perform his duties whether he was wanted or not.
Once he was finished, he climbed up the steps of the tower. He had expected all three of them – Tigris, Eufrates and Heléne – to be in the same room, at the very top. However, he found the Margraves alone in the kitchen floor, sharing a platter of preserves, sweetmeats and a jug of what looked like wine someone had scavenged from somewhere within.
“Cy!” Tigris’s head shot up when she saw him. “I am so glad you are alright! Please, come sit!”
Cyril looked from her to Eufrates, who was pointedly not looking at him at all.
“I am sorry I kept Tigris from you.”
He snapped his head up and scowled deeply.
“I am sick to death of your apologies, Cyril. Sit down.”
This really was how it would be between them, then. That was fine. It was no less than what he deserved. Now he’d had a moment to think about it, he decided he would not let the barbs make it under his skin, no matter how much they tore at the dermis.
Cyril sat across from Eufrates and took a sweetmeat from the platter. He was starving, now that he thought about it.
“Where is Tantie?” he asked.
“Upstairs.”
“She said she was working on something and did not have time to watch us argue.”
“Is Shoestring truly dead?” Eufrates asked.
Cyril blinked. He had not expected that.
“Yes,” he said.
“A shame. He was the only good part of you.”
Ouch .
Cyril turned to Tigris. “So what have you been arguing about?”
“Strategy.”
“‘Storming into Cretea and laying waste to its sovereign isn’t a strategy , Tigris. It is barely an idea .”
“It’s better than what you’ve come up with which is, um, absolutely nothing .”
“No plan is better than a bad plan!”
“Gods, I can’t believe they ever let you be king.”
He did not realise how much he missed seeing them together like this until it was right in front of him. He could not believe he had kept them apart so long.
“I take it.” Cyril cleared his throat. “You’ve not been planning for long .”
“No. I had to pick Eufie’s melancholy arse off the floor and explain everything to him because you fainted.”
“What is… everything?” he asked with a touch of embarrassment.
“I mean, I’m not a genius with magic, but I think I did alright. He knows he was being enchanted, he knows about the poison. He knows Atticus should die, essentially. I told him while Auntie was taking care of you.”
“Wait, Tantie doesn’t know?”
“She didn’t question it when Eufie carried you over to the tower.”
Eufrates stiffened and focused on a spot of dirt on the wood of the table.
“Oh, we should tell her, though, right? See if she’s got any insight. ”
Cyril cringed. “Ohh… no, I don’t think so.”
“What? Why not?”
He made himself very small in his chair. “…She will be very cross with me.”
Eufrates scoffed, finally speaking up. “I cannot believe I was so besotted by you.”
The morsel he had been chewing suddenly tasted like chalk. He swallowed it down anyway. A spark of irritation pulsed in his blood. Eufrates was allowed to hate him, but he was not allowed to be unproductive when it was his sister’s life on the line.
Cyril steepled his fingers and smiled, saccharine. “You were taken by my ingenue charm. That’s not on me.”
Eufrates flinched, but scowled deeply at him. “It has taken you decades to become self-aware. You should get stabbed more often.”
“Boys, please!” Tigris chided them in the same tone she used when they had all been children, but she had been, ostensibly, the oldest child. “Are there any other reasons not to tell Auntie other than that you fear being lectured?”
“She will not lecture me, Tig, she will hang me by my ear–” He quickly silenced himself when he saw her unamused stare. “No. There are none.”
“Good. Then we call her down.”
He poured himself a glass of the wine.
Cyril was wrong. Heléne had not come for his ears. Instead, when she heard the whole, sordid story, the first thing she did was smack him across the head so hard he felt his brain rattling in his skull. Even Tigris and Eufrates flinched.
“You did not look at the pattern?” she said, sounding beside herself. “You let another wizard play you for a fool for over twenty years because you did not bother to look into the pattern ?!”
“Tantie!” he whined and rubbed the sore spot on the side of his head. “I – I couldn’t!”
“Why on earth not, child?”
“It’s in the rules! It is – it’s the fifth rule of magic. Do not look into another mage’s pattern unless you are given permission.”
“Where did you learn something like that?”
“The – the Academy! They drill all the rules into you, do you want to hear the others–”
“No, I don’t want to hear the others . They are sure to be just as asinine!”
Heléne massaged her temples, staving off an oncoming migraine. She looked like she might try and stab Cyril herself if he let his guard down.
“I thought sending you to that school would help you make friends , not scramble your brains to mush. I should have never let you leave here.”
“If it helps, I did not make that many friends.”
“Cyril, I don’t think it helps,” Tigris chimed from her corner of the table, where she sat at a very healthy distance from Heléne.
“The first opportunity I get, I will march over there myself and ohh, I will give that headmistress of yours an earful. The entire staff will hear.”
Cyril blanched. “Oh, please don’t do that, Tantie. I am a grown man.”
“Who thinks like an obedient child ! Always check the pattern , Cyril. How do you think I lived this long?”
“But – but then why would it be in the rules ?!”
“It is propriety nonsense . They are training you for court politics, not real danger. You will not have the luxury as grand mage.”
“I just think it is quite rude – oh, gods, Tantie, please not the face –”
“Anyway.” Eufrates sat up in his chair and smacked a hand on the table to distract Heléne’s attention away from her ward, who she was about to hit again, harder, just to make sure he understood the lecture. “Now we know Atticus is a wizard. What do we do about it?”
“An enchanter,” Cyril added in a small voice, because it did matter.
Heléne considered this. Her eyes looked stern and pensive through the round spectacles balanced on her nose.
“The way you’d defeat any other wizard, I suppose,” she finally said. “You kill him.”
All three of them stared at her. Cyril openly gaped. This was the smartest and wisest person they knew. The one remnant of the old guard. He had, perhaps, expected something a bit more elaborate.
“I’ll drink to that,” said Tigris. And she did. It was actually quite funny to see a cat lapping at a goblet of wine.
“What? No. Tantie, you cannot be serious.” Cyril turned from Tigris to look at Heléne.
“Why not? Wizards are just mortal men. Enchanters , especially. They are lily-livered milksops. I’ve not met a single enchanter who I couldn’t take in a fight, and I have arthritis. He is not trained in any combat magic. He cannot wield the elements or the physical world. What will he do? Whisper at you to stop?”
“He is trained in actual combat, if you all must know,” said Tigris.
“Of course he is!” said Eufrates. “He’s a king, he would not be able to leave the house without knowing how to swing a sword.”
“You’re all afraid of swords now?” Heléne raised a brow at the Margraves.
“I didn’t say that .” Tigris sniffed.
“The swords are not the problem, Tantie.” Cyril downed a swig of his wine. He did not think having allies would make things more cumbersome. “He is an enchanter, he has cultivated his weave for years. I am sure he will have powerful mages under his control.”
Heléne made a disgusted face. “Eugh. I did always hate those slimy little vermin. Enchanting should be banned.”
“Very helpful,” Cyril drawled, and helped himself to more libation.
“Well, do you have any idea what his pattern is like this time?”
“Yes.” He nodded. “I saw it.”
“Oh, well, good. Destroy it.”
Cyril very nearly choked. “Tantie, you did not see how big it was! It would take hours to untangle, and I don’t believe I’d have that kind of leisure.”
“I did not say to untangle it, boy.” She made a scissoring gesture with her fore and middle finger. “Destroy it. There is your problem solved.”
“It was – it was the size of a ballroom . I have no idea what it would–”
Eufrates cleared his throat. He was on his second glass of wine, and he looked from Heléne to Cyril.
“Would anyone do the kindness of enlightening us unlearned masses?” He pointed at himself and at his sister. “We are the royal family, after all.”
“Your lover is being a coward,” Heléne said.
Eufrates said they were not lovers at the same time as Cyril exclaimed he was not being a coward.
“Both of you are terrible liars.”
“I too could use an explanation. What happens when you destroy a pattern?” Tigris interjected.
“We don’t know. No one knows until it happens. It is why it’s such a foolhardy –” Cyril shot his aunt a sour look “– idea. It restructures the very material plane. It could cause an explosion. An avalanche. A torrent. It could rupture the earth itself.”
“Oh, yes, I am very worried about preserving the beauty of Cretea’s royal palace.” Heléne looked ready to hit him again.
“ We would be in the palace.”
“It’s worth it,” Tigris said. “It is, isn’t it, Auntie? You wouldn’t suggest it otherwise.”
The witch’s expression softened. “It is not ‘worth it’, child. It is the only way. You would be outnumbered if you allowed the pattern to continue to fester.”
“Right, because… he has all those mages.”
“Yes. You want to get to his core? You will need to destroy his advantages.”
Tigris nodded. “Cyril, can you destroy the pattern?”
Cyril huffed. “Anyone who can see a pattern can destroy it. It is an artless thing to do. You just…” He mimed tearing through an invisible web with his fingers. “Do it.”
Heléne finally smacked him again. It was at least a lighter hand this time. Warning. “I did not teach you to be smug about magic, boy.”
“You are being so horrible to me today!” he moaned.
“We’ve got a plan, though! We go in there, mess up his… pattern, or whatever it is, then we take Atticus to task while he is powerless.”
Eufrates had his hands pressed against his forehead. He groaned. “Again, Tig, that is not a plan .”
“What?”
“A plan should not have that many holes. What you’ve come up with is not a chart, it’s a net .”
“Oh, you’ve become quite comfortable on the throne, haven’t you, brother?”
“I am nearly twice your age. I have acquired some experience.”
“On what?” She laughed. “Being suckered?”
“I am trying to tell you that I have been ‘suckered’ enough to know we are running right into his waiting trap.”
“Then explain it to me properly.”
Eufrates looked at her exasperated, “We have no grounds to attack him! Before, I at least had a hint of an excuse, but Cyril is back in Farsala, so now I am just power hungry. And that is fine with me, but I will not let it be our entire kingdom ’s legacy. Not when you are to rule.”
“Is his plot to kill me not reason enough for you, Eufie? ”
“It would be the perfect reason if someone had not burned down the evidence .” Eufrates glared directly through Cyril, piercing him yet again.
Cyril raised his hands up in surrender. “I panicked!”
“What about how he mind-controlled you?”
“As much as I would love to pin that on him, it was in another lifetime entirely.”
“And you do not think he is the perpetrator of other crimes?”
“It is not our right to punish him for it. It is Cretea’s and anyone else he has harmed.”
“You just keep shooting things down! Why don’t you try coming up with something, then, old man?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Cyril saw his aunt balk at the insult. He poured her her own glass of wine. They would be here a while, it seemed.
“Tig, I’m not trying to be contrary–”
“The hell you’re not! You’ve been insufferable since we got here. You are sullen and mean-spirited.”
Eufrates ran a hand through his hair. “I am sorry to disappoint, Tig. I don’t know what you expected.”
“I expected my brother!”
“I am your brother. You are mad at me because I am no longer entertaining your ridiculous ideas! Tigris, you are in danger .”
“He’s right, Tig,” Cyril said.
“And you –” Eufrates turned to him with so much rancour in his eyes Cyril thought he might have a go at slapping him too. “We would not be embroiled in this mess were it not for you. So, I suggest you grow a spine for once in your life and take your aunt’s advice. She is clearly the better mage.”
“Aha!” Cyril sat up in his chair. “And you have offered so much help and insight!”
“My insight is that you should never think or have ideas again for the rest of your days.”
“Fine! I will sit here and drink my wine, and you will perform for us the tale of how you are going to protect your sister and save the kingdom from ruin.”
“He’s not going to do any of that because he’s never had a strategic thought since birth. Did you know he copied off me for government essays?” Tigris interjected.
Cyril’s brows shot up. “ Really ?”
“Enough!”
All three of them ceased their bickering to look at Heléne, who was fuming. It could not be good for her frail old heart, feeling emotions this strong.
She jabbed a finger at the Margraves. “I did not sit for over thirty years through your parents ’ political squabbles over cold food and too much alcohol to have to do it again now , at my advanced age, with the three of you halfwits. I have given my insight on the wizard. I do not have any thoughts on the king .
“I am not a lover of government. I barely know the names of any of your courtiers. It is getting late. I will retire to my chambers. Send for me only if someone else gets run through.”
With that, Heléne ascended the stairs to her tower and left the three halfwits alone to discuss among themselves. Cyril was first to break the silence.
“Has she seemed more reclusive to you?”
He expected Tigris to say something, but the answer came from Eufrates, who had temporarily dulled his tongue.
“I thought the same. She has barely left the tower. I did not know what to make of it.” He paused. “Honestly, I did not know what to do other than let her be.”
“I… I thought I’d saved her, somehow. That this time around I wouldn’t find her body in a year’s time.”
Eufrates scoffed, but it did not have the sting of its predecessors. “Optimism. How very unlike you.”
“You do not need to be so–”
“Oh.”
Both their heads snapped to Tigris, who sounded as though she’d just uncovered the secrets of the universe. After Heléne left, she had been sitting in an uncharacteristically contemplative silence, brow furrowed so hard it might put wrinkles on a cat’s face.
“I have thought of something,” she said.
Eufrates looked unamused, but Cyril knew better by now. Every time Tigris had some sort of epiphany it ended up being something so brilliant he wished he’d thought of it himself. She had saved him from his own meandering, frayed mind so many times already.
“What is it?” he pressed.
She turned to Eufrates. “You say Atticus has not committed any crimes against us. You are wrong.”
“Again, Tigris, attempted murder will not be enough–”
“No, Eufie!” Now that the euphoria of discovery was fading, she suddenly looked very troubled and a little enraged. “Our parents!”
Eufrates looked at her like she had lost a screw during their discussion. He leaned in and spoke in a softer voice.
“Tig… our parents died at sea.”
“So? I died of a wasting disease .”
Cyril swallowed convulsively. “Tigris, what are you trying to say?”
“Cyril!” She turned to him with a fierce determination. “Can mages control the weather?”
“I – some specialists yes, quite easily.”
“Rain?”
“Sure.”
“Storms?”
“Oh, certainly.”
“Eufie.” It was Eufrates’s turn to be scrutinized. “What were you doing the day of their death?”
“Gods, Tig, that was decades ago.”
She tilted her head at him. “You’ve forgotten?”
“…No. I was… I had been hunting for a couple days with some friends. We were in pursuit of a beast one of them swore up and down to have seen in the woods. I did not even see them off when they boarded the ship.”
“And what did you find at the end of your hunt?”
Eufrates did not get a chance to answer because Cyril did it for him, after he picked his jaw off the floor.
“A hare.”
Tigris nodded. “But just to be sure. What colour was it, Eufie?”
“I… it was tan. Does it matter?”
Tigris’s brain was working so fast it did not have time to answer. Cyril could see the gears turning behind her wide eyes.
“As for me, I had tired of Cretian delights about a week before I actually returned home. But my darling fiancé insisted I stay a while longer .”
“…Tig.” He was about to say something, but it looked as though she desperately wanted to continue.
“When we were in his room in this very palace, he had some peculiar almanacs, recording weather patterns from a month or so ago. In the library, I found a chart of the seas between Farsala and the ship’s final destination.”
Eufrates finally interjected, “I do not know what you are implying, but Mam? and Papa were not alone on that voyage. They had courtiers with them. They had Cretian courtiers. They had offered to share the journey. Would Atticus just sacrifice his own retinue?”
“Yes,” Cyril answered immediately.
“Definitely.”
“This is all conjecture, though,” Eufrates said.
Tigris frowned. “What is the matter with you? Are you defending him?”
“No – no!”
“Cy did say you two got quite close, but he is evil , Eufie.”
“I know that!”
“He had our family murdered!”
“ That I do not know.”
“What?”
“You’ve no proof.”
“What?” she repeated, completely incredulous.
Cyril saw the tremor in Eufrates’s hands. He looked like he was about to burst, to disappear in a cloud of smoke. Against better judgement, he began to reach out to touch his arm, but Eufrates exploded before he could make contact.
“It cannot be that simple, because then I am the one who failed to prevent it!” he roared.
Tigris blinked. “We both failed to prevent it.”
“No! You were abroad . I was camping in the woods on a leisure hunt .”
“You could not have known about the storm,” Cyril said softly.
“Shut up !”
Cyril flinched. There was a smoked ring of violet around Eufrates’s eyes that made him seem haunted. He looked at Cyril like a wild animal, caught and lashing out.
Cyril struck him across the face.
“Get a hold of yourself,” he hissed.
It could not possibly have hurt that badly. Cyril had air and magic where muscle should be. But by the look Eufrates gave him, you would have thought he had been hit with a mallet.
It did not deter Cyril one bit.
“You cannot blame yourself for a murder plot on open sea . That is insensible . And if you are responsible for it, I am even worse because as I have been told multiple times already, I should have just checked the pattern . In fact, I should have set a specific date to when I sent myself back in time and made it specifically before their death, should I not? But instead, I left it to fate, I made you bury them again and now I will go to my own grave knowing that blood was not a freakish accident. It is on my hands.”
“Cyril–” He knew exactly what Tigris was going to say and he did not let her. He would drown her out with his own words.
“I am the mastermind of all your tragedies. I am perhaps the worst thing that’s ever happened to the Margraves, but there is one left that I will not let die on my watch.” He pointed at Tigris. “So I could play this blame game with you all night, darling , and I would win every time, but I have more important things to do.”
He was breathless when he finished. Red-faced with frustration. A pregnant pause hung over the kitchen for what felt like hours before Tigris stood on her four legs and hopped off the table.
“Auntie was right,” she said. “It is getting late, and we are getting nowhere. I am going to sleep.”
She left the kitchen without another word, heading downstairs to Cyril’s bedroom.
Cyril raked a hand over his hair. “She is right. It’s best to continue this in the morning. At the very least we know what we are to do.”
He was talking more for his own benefit than Eufrates’s, who was still looking into the middle-distance with a stunned expression. Cyril got up and busied himself with putting away the platter of food and the wine and, much to his surprise, Eufrates followed suit.
Something occurred to Cyril.
“Where have you been sleeping?”
His rooms were destroyed. The entire east wing was sealed off.
Eufrates finally turned to him with those dark, red-rimmed eyes.
“I have not.”
“Ah.” It took Cyril a while to figure out how to respond to this. He could not show he cared overmuch, or Eufrates would just say something to tear at his heart. “Well. You should take my bed. You will have to share with Tig, but it is big enough. I will sleep on the sofa outside the bedroom.”
“I don’t need you to–”
“Your chivalry is wasted on me, Eufrates.” He took an emptied glass of wine from him into his own stack he had been collecting and suddenly they were very close. Cyril held his breath. “I’m sure you would agree.”
Eufrates grimaced. “You think me very weak.”
Cyril didn’t answer. It was a trap, set to careen them back into an argument and he was too tired to indulge. Instead, against better judgement, he reached up with his free hand to hover it over Eufrates’s cheek.
“I did not hit you too hard, did I?”
Eufrates let out a huff through his nose. “It was an open-handed strike. I barely felt it.”
“Good. It means I can hit harder next time.”
He started to withdraw his hand, but Eufrates suddenly closed a fist around his wrist to hold it there. Cyril’s heart began to beat so loud he was sure even Tigris could hear.
Eufrates encroached on him like a hunter on prey, nearly closing the distance between them. Heat pooled in his stomach from the proximity. His insides were on fire again, but this time it had nothing to do with the rings or any spell.
They stared at each other, unblinking, for an eternity. Eufrates opened his mouth to speak, but, seeming to think better of it, closed it and finally withdrew from Cyril, giving him leave of his senses back.
“Do not stay up too late,” he said and followed in Tigris’s footsteps out of the room.
Cyril had to steady himself against a chair from how jellied his knees had become. He decided he would clean up their feast in the morning. So he would not cross paths with anyone, he waited an appropriate amount of time to make his own exit and made his way to the sofa he was to sleep in, collapsing onto it like a spent, old ragdoll.