Shoestring Theory

TWENTY

Though the body was willing, the mind was far from the realm of sleep. Cyril was still feeling the effects of the fainting spell and his thoughts were racing, caught on a loop. He closed his eyes and images of the pattern he would have to destroy flashed behind his eyelids, arachnid and sprawling. He could not imagine the damage it would cause.

When he kept his eyes open, laid out on the hard crook of the sofa in an inert, comatose state, it was not any better. For whatever reason, his brain began forcing him to remember his wedding day, putting him through the torture of juxtaposing a tender kiss upon an altar with how he had been run through with Eufrates’s blade. He would start crying again if he thought too hard on it, so he just let the thoughts play out without dwelling on them.

He wanted his husband back, which was a request so ridiculous in its selfishness it would be hysterical to anyone else.

There was no use ruminating on it, but it felt like there was a spark of electricity bouncing off the inside of his skull. He forced himself to count sheep, begging the sandman to come take him away. He was about to crawl off of the sofa to find his trusted bottle of sleeping draught, at the early hour of five in the morning, when he heard frantic banging on his door.

Tigris was in the room before he could even muster the strength to lift himself up.

“Do you hear that?”

Cyril rubbed his eyes and finally sat up.

“Yes… yes, who could it be at this hour? Servants hardly come up to the tower.”

“Open it, Cy! Might I remind you of my lack of hands .”

“Alright…”

Despite not having slept a wink, his mind on high alert, his body felt groggy and out of sorts. It took him three tries to successfully unlatch the lock that kept his door shut. All the while, the banging grew louder and more desperate.

As soon as the door opened, a flushed, plump maid stumbled in so brusquely Cyril thought she might fall into his arms and topple them both over. He vaguely recognized her. Her name started with an ‘L’, and she had a cutesy affect that often grinded on him.

She also looked horrible . The stench of bile and rot lingered in the air around her and her eyes were bloodshot and sickly. She held a kerchief over her mouth and nose so tightly Cyril feared she might suffocate herself.

Before he could even ask, she blurted, “I was told His Highness the regent was staying here!” Then, her big eyes finally fell upon Cyril and she gasped, “Oh! Young Master Cyril, you are back!”

“I… yes. I should not have left.”

“Focus, Cyril! Ask her what she wants!”

Cyril inched closer to provide some sort of comfort, but she snatched herself away. “Do not come any closer! Oh, I must speak to His Highness!”

“He is–”

“I’m right here.”

Eufrates stood at the doorway to his room with the look of someone who had gotten dressed too quickly. The buttons on his shirt were one hole off.

“Oh, thank goodness!” she exclaimed. “Your Highness, there is a plague.”

“What?”

“What?” Eufrates repeated.

“A… a plague ! It is spreading throughout the lower floors. It began in the dungeons, I believe, but now it has spread out to the servants’ quarters. It is – it is like a smog!”

Cyril blinked. “You can see it?”

“Yes! It is horrible! I do not even have all the symptoms!”

Cyril could see how the malaise was affecting her. She was struggling to even draw breath between words.

“It is so quick, Your Highness! A few of the older servants have died from it already.”

“When did it start?” Eufrates was pale.

“I don’t know! Perhaps not even an hour ago! There are not many in the underground, no one noticed it. Oh, what should we do ?”

Eufrates looked at her like he did not know why she was asking him. At the same time, Tigris had gone to the window. Though dawn’s first light was not optimal illumination, Cyril still saw her eyes widen at the sight.

He followed her to the parapet.

What they were looking at was a plume of miasma, spreading outwards from the centre of the palace in an acrid yellow-green cloud. It just about smacked Cyril in the face with how unsubtle it was.

From his vantage point of the bird’s eye view, he spotted victims of the ‘plague’. A stable hand, dead on her way to her morning duties, pockmarked by pustules and so pallid she did not look human. A gardener, heaving over his blooms and sweating profusely. A courtier on an early-morning stroll, bent over on the ground, shaking with exertion.

Cyril did not need to look into the pattern to know this reeked of magic, but since he had been chastised so brutally for not doing it before, he tugged on the corners of the material plane and looked.

The threads of an alchemist were all over the palace, branching out of it like worm’s silk. Cyril remembered the book he had found in that library, a manual on how to sublimate an ingestible poison, transforming it into a gas. When he squinted, he could see the weave combined with some elements of transfiguration.

It hit him then that if it was this easy for Atticus Wulfsbane to conjure up a plague on such short notice, to control the elements and cause a shipwreck, he would have had more than enough resources at his disposal to send a whole kingdom, bit by agonizing bit, into dark-skied ruin. Into rot . He’d suspected, but the confirmation was such a relief it nearly threw him off kilter. That no matter what happened, no matter which of them survived this ordeal, if they could only deal with Atticus, at least Farsala would be spared a horrible fate.

“He is desperate,” Tigris said.

Cyril shook his head. “No. He’s finally playing his cards. He is ruthless.”

“What? No, Cyril, he has openly attacked us! There is no way he can spin his way out of the consequences, even if we are all dead. Who will believe this to be a natural disease?”

“He is an enchanter , Tig. He can spin flax into gold with a household bobbin if he wishes it.

“Atticus has grown tired of subterfuge.”

“Will the two of you stop debating what he will do once all of us are dead ?” Eufrates snapped at them. He had guided the maid to a chair and was giving her water.

“Oh, poor Larissa.”

Larissa! That was her name. He should have known Tigris would know everything about everyone in the palace. He mourned that she never got to be queen all over again.

“Call for Tantie,” Cyril told Tigris. “Wake her up. She will not be so angry if it is you.”

Eufrates shot him a look like he wanted to call him a coward again, but he was busy tending to the sickly woman on his chair. A smattering of angry, red blotches had begun to mar her skin.

Heléne looked very unimpressive, having just been roused out of bed at the crack of dawn. She had not made up her face, and her hair was wrapped in a bonnet. She wore a knitted shawl around her shoulders that made her look like someone’s kindly grandmother.

The way she moved, though, in such striking precision, one could have mistaken her for being half her age. She examined the maid, holding her eyes open and looking into her mouth, despite the protests that she should not be touched.

“Nonsense, child. It is not contagious. It only spreads to those who breathe in the miasma.” She turned to her ward. “Cyril, did you look at this pattern?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said very quickly.

She sighed. “Better late than never, I suppose. What do you make of it?”

“I–” He felt like he was being quizzed, and there was little time for that, but then he realised Heléne truly wanted his opinion. “It is complex, but it can be unwoven, for lack of a proper antidote. If we can manage it, the disease will fade.”

She hummed to herself, pensive.

“We do not have the time…”

“Tantie, if you suggest we destroy the weave again–”

“No! Do not be foolish, Duckling. It would only make things worse. We need a stopgap.”

Tigris jumped up onto a vanity to make herself heard. “What we need is to get to Atticus! Cut the problem off by the root!”

“No, that will not–” Heléne shook her head.

At the same time, Cyril said, “Yes… yes! He will keep sending mages to attack us if we do not. Tigris, you are a familiar. You are immune to the poison. I can create a similar immunity for myself and Eufrates. We will ride out and confront him.”

“And return to an empty, pestilent palace?” Eufrates snapped.

“No! No, it is like Tantie said… we need a stopgap. Perhaps if we froze …”

Heléne finished the thought for him. “Frost staves off disease. I will cast it over the grounds, and it will give me time while the three of you deal with that enchanter.”

“I had expected when we marched upon his palace we would have some kind of an army.”

“The barracks are on the ground floor, Tig. I don’t believe we have the luxury anymore,” said Cyril.

Just then, Larissa burst into a fit of coughs, culminating in her emptying whatever was left in her stomach on Cyril’s nice, embroidered carpets.

The silver lining of her drawing their attention to the floor, though, is that they noticed that once more the miasma was beginning to rise. Slow and steady, to fill Cyril’s living quarters.

“Alright!” he said in a panic. “We’ve got a semblance of a plan. Tantie, head upstairs and get started on the spell.”

Heléne nodded and climbed up to the topmost level of her tower.

“Eufrates, come here.”

To his credit, Eufrates did not hesitate to get close to him. He allowed Cyril to put a bubble over his head that would keep the miasma from penetrating.

“Larissa.” Cyril turned to the maid. “Has the plague affected any of the animals?”

“Oh…” She struggled through her words, but she answered regardless. “No… I guess it hasn’t.”

Cyril nodded and wove a bubble over his own head. He could not help Larissa, but he told her to stay very still and move as little as possible. Any exertion would quicken the effects.

“Good. We will return to Titania, then.”

“Titania?” Eufrates asked.

“One of Atticus’s horses. She’s very fast.”

Eufrates frowned but did not complain any further. They moved as one down the stairs, past the sick green of the miasma and the plagued denizens of Farsala’s palace.

As they were passing by all these people, Cyril noticed something. Heléne had begun her spell. He could see the white frosting the corridors and the people within them, but… it was not enough.

He grinded to a halt, skidding on his feet in front of a butler who was nearly all frozen solid, but the ice around their fingers, their face, was beginning to thaw. Cyril dropped to his haunches to feel their forehead, unconcerned with his own well-being. Their fever was climbing higher to combat the frost. Whatever this plague was, it was nasty and powerful, and he had grossly underestimated it.

Tigris stopped behind him, impatient. “What are you doing? Let’s go!”

“It’s not working.” He turned back and cast a desperate look at the Margraves. “Her spell isn’t working. It will not be enough.”

“What?” Eufrates’s tone was cautious. Like he knew what Cyril would say next and he was trying to make him not say it at all.

“I have to go up there. I need to help!”

“You will be trapped in here with everyone.”

“No! No, I will not. I will find a way to get to you, I swear it.”

“You want us to go on without you?”

He swallowed convulsively. “Yes.”

Eufrates still tried to reason with him. “Auntie is an accomplished witch. She will figure something out.”

“I am not running the risk.”

“You do not trust her?” This was meant as bait. A challenge with a clear right answer. Cyril chose to disregard it.

“I trust her with my life , Eufrates. I love her more than any excuse for a parent I’ve ever had. I am going up there and I am making sure she gets through this.”

Eufrates stepped closer, he grabbed Cyril’s arm with a gentleness Cyril didn’t think him capable of anymore. Not towards him. “Please don’t do this. It is a ridiculous idea.”

“Eufrates.” Cyril schooled his features into a wry, teasing smile. “Do not make the mistake of having me believe you still care for me.”

Eufrates let go of him immediately, his jaw was set into an unreadable scowl. “Fine. As you wish.”

“You promise you will meet us?”

“ Yes , Tigris, I would not let you two fight him alone. I swear it on my grave.”

“That means very little.”

“I swear it on your grave.”

“Better.”

As soon as she nodded, Cyril turned on his heel and sprinted back to the tower. He was out of breath by the time he reached the seventh storey, having climbed the spiral staircases leading up two steps at a time.

Heléne stood in the middle of the room, eyes screwed shut and brow furrowed in concentration. Only Ganache saw him and let out an agitated caw.

Her chambers had changed since he’d last been up here. She was clearly working on something. There were fresh notes and sketches of magic circles strewn about several surfaces. Research books piled high on her desk. He stifled his curiosity and marched his way towards her, taking her hands in his, but not disturbing her spell, instead helping her weave. Her eyes flew open, and he made sure to speak before she could raise her voice to scold him.

“It is not working, Tantie. They are thawing,” he said.

“You should not have come back here. I don’t need a fledgling mage’s help.”

“I will give it anyway.”

She shook her head. “No, boy. Your place is not here. I know exactly what I am doing.”

“And yet outside, your weave fails you.”

“I am building it up. The youth is so impatient.” Her voice held a note of annoyance, which Cyril expected. What he did not expect was the undertone of resignation, very like someone about to deliver crucial and, more importantly, parting advice. “But since you are here.” She glanced a second at her desk, at her mess of notes and papers. “Lend me your ear a bit, Cyril.”

Cyril chewed his lip, wanting to say no just so he did not enable these sudden whims of hers. In the end, curiosity got the better of him. He nodded.

“I have never had children of my own, you know. I did not care to have them. The opportunity did not come up. But, Cyril, you are mine .”

He heard the emotion climb up her voice. Never had she spoken to him like this.

“Tantie…”

“Sh. You are my child, Cyril, as humiliating as that may be for the both of us. A twenty-something and an old woman. Family. The only family we’ve got, as far as I’m concerned. And as my child, it was my duty to raise you. More than grand magistry, my only goal was to mould you into someone you were proud of.

“So, when you came to me and told me you’d lost Shoestring, I knew I’d failed.”

Cyril listened, so enraptured he surprised himself when he choked back a small sob.

She blamed herself. His own guardian, the woman he loved the most and had made suffer through his own foibles and horrible temperament. “Tantie, it was never your fault–”

“Let me finish. Duckling, I have been looking for a way to bring him back. Your familiar. Your heart. I have not discovered it yet, but I feel I am close, and I know you will be able to interpret my findings.”

His eyes went wide. He had a feeling this was coming, braced for it, but a part of him did not believe Heléne to be this sentimental.

“You are talking as though you are saying goodbye,” he murmured.

“It is a precaution, Ducky. The ice I will imprison us all in, I am not sure I will be able to withstand it without becoming feverish myself. And there is only so much a woman of my age can bear.”

He could not believe what she was saying to him. Heléne had slapped him across the head so hard he was still seeing stars not even a full twelve hours ago and now she was giving him an entire speech on self-sacrifice. He would not allow it. Tenderness and grief roared into a sudden, bubbling outrage.

“Bring my damned familiar back yourself, if you’re so worked up about it!” said Cyril.

“I have slowed the hands of time for myself far too many times. It is catching up with me.”

Cyril let go of her and looked around, desperate for some kind of way to prevent this. He could grab her. Stop her spell midway. But this would only spell the deaths of the people in the palace, and she would never forgive him.

The hands of time… slowing the hands of time. Cyril blinked, then looked around the room. It was a mage’s paradise. Perhaps he could do it. He had dabbled in time magic before, and that had been much more substantial.

But it had also taken him a month of preparation. He could not possibly draw a circle so big and so complex. By the time he was done with it, everyone would already be dead, even if he knew exactly what he was drawing – he did – and etched it out with unmatched agility.

Then he remembered Heléne. That night, when she had so effortlessly woven Tigris’s body into a delicate little bauble. She had told him she did not need circles. And perhaps, Cyril didn’t either. He had trained under her all these years, after all.

He closed his eyes, scrunched them shut and pictured the spell in his mind. A different kind of freeze. Not physical, but temporal. He would stop time on the palace grounds until he could return to take care of the pattern. And he would return.

He was going to save his aunt’s life. He was going to save everyone’s life, even if this spell had him spent and frayed and dying slowly by the end. He would not let himself perish until he did what he promised he had come back here to do.

And that was fix everything.

When he opened his eyes, he instantly felt dizzy and weak. The bubble around his head popped, exposing him to the stench of rot coming from the floors below.

But he had done it.

Heléne was immobile. Ganache, too, stood like a statue on her perch, mid-flap of her wings. He looked out the window and saw the servants had also entered some kind of stasis. Everyone had.

Except for the moving dot cutting through the woods, the Margraves, who had managed to clear the grounds in time.

Cyril breathed a sigh of relief.

Now all he needed to do was fulfil his promise.

He doubled back to the door out of the palace and instantly realised his predicament when he saw the cloud of poison wafting upwards to him, promising contagion. He had no way out. He had spent his magic on one singular powerful spell and even if he could recreate the bubble again, he would not be able to sustain it for long enough to run outside.

Cyril backed up against the balcony of the window and looked out. He could see Titania, moving at a glacial gallop as though waiting for him. The miasma had spread to immediate grounds, but it did not move upwards unless it had structure to engulf. He was so tired he certainly didn’t have the energy or focus required to teleport even such a short, visible distance away. He swallowed convulsively. There really was only one way out.

From all the way across the room, on shaking legs, Cyril sprinted to the window and took off in a running leap.