The Keepers' Evil

One: Such great lengths to tell her story without their knowledge

Song- Fuel to fire: Agnes Obel

"I don't understand why Isidora seems to have gone to such great lengths to tell her story without their knowledge."

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I couldn't say I felt different after letting the magic nestle in my system, rather more capable. Capable was always a strange word in my mind- I couldn't tell if it was positive or not. On one hand, capable meant drive, It meant you could handle it. On the other hand, capable was the bare minimum. It didn't signify strength and it certainly didn't explain the sacrifice it took to get there.

Being titled capable was something that could so easily be taken away. One slip up, one person to question you, and that title was stripped away as fast as it was plastered on.

Settling for capable was my first mistake.

I let the keepers plaster me as capable after allowing them the space to question my trustworthiness right from the very start. They stood towers above me, peering down at me like the tiny dot I was in a world I should've dominated. Once I had proven myself in their eyes, I had the deep burn of capable etched into my skin for them to check on whenever they wanted.

I housed my capable scar beside my good scar.

Isidora housed her capable scar beside her evil scar.

My point was, that both of us were more than capable, but not of achieving what the keepers wanted. In the short amount of hours that had ticked past, the magic had only taken hold of Isidora's mission- help, heal, right the wrongs.

I had come to find out that the keepers hid their need for control, their thirst for authority and their obsession with secrets behind a pretty mask that was adorned with those exact decorations:

Help.

Heal.

Right the wrongs.

But that was all that they were, convincing decorations that were itching to fall apart because they didn't- couldn't- mean it. Their real motives were too potent to hide, their truth too eager to escape. Isidora spoke those words with truth, she invented their meaning and she knew how to achieve them. She was capable of this, and so was I. I had to be.

I just needed more than the keepers' point of view.

If I was to continue the legacy that Isidora wrapped around my shoulders, to heal all of those people that the keepers told her she couldn't, to break more of the shackles that the keepers placed around her abilities, I needed her entire story, not just the fabricated half-truths that the keepers' memories had wanted me to believe. I needed her point of view, her memories, her story.

"I thought I might find you in here."

A broken heart.

I slammed my eyes shut at the sudden appearance and the calmness that enveloped his voice, maybe more specifically the shattered pieces of his soul that stuck out in his tone like a sore thumb.

"Sebastian, please."

Begging another broken heart.

The Sallow in Sebastian had never allowed him to do what he was told or to follow what he knew to be true. Sebastian knew I had shunned him deep into my mind, he knew I didn't want- need- to see him. At least not for now, at least not until I could look at him and say I did it, Sebastian, I can help Anne.