The Unwritten King

12. The Curse of the Faisans

Nicholas made eye contact with a marble bust on a podium and bowed his head in a way he hoped came off more deferent than dismissive. There wasn't time to worry about it. He navigated the halls quickly, all too aware he was racing against two tough, athletic, magic-wielding men. Malik had the advantage of encaline, the charmstone; it would lead him directly to the powerful charm that anchored the seer to Halcifer. Nicholas had the advantage of the shortest path and the journal in his hands.

In the chaos of the cave in, he had leaned into his own clumsiness, letting himself be jostled and thrown around as the ceiling rained over them. Malik, who had adamantly carried Nicholas' work bag (and not much else) throughout their journey, was in that moment too focused on surviving to notice Nicholas crashing into his side, let alone the hand diving into the bag's pocket. With a well-timed stumble, Nicholas had placed himself across the center of the mosaic just as the first fractures appeared in the tile.

Now, walking alone through a darkening castle with eyes in its walls, he contemplated hubris. He ducked every time he glimpsed a portrait frame, but many of them were faceless, washed out by the sun or destroyed by wind, rain, and alarmingly, claws. Three flights of stairs, two unfortunate bladder movements (for an abandoned castle, there really were a lot of noises), and one curved door later, he stood at the entrance to a tiny, hexagonal library.

He noticed, inching back into the doorway, that the paintings on these walls had hardly faded. There were no windows, only a stained-glass ceiling that probably didn't let in much sun in broad daylight; so close to dusk, the room was nearly dark. The walls and shelves were wrapped in crawling plants that shouldn't have been able to grow here. The floor was almost completely hidden - by more vines, but also cracking clay sculptures, tarnished statues, suits of armor, dolls, bones. Anything with eyes, or at least a space for them.

Nicholas let the door fall. Fighting the urge to check that it hadn't somehow locked behind him, he cleared his throat and said, "Hello? Miss Dalisay?"

The granite wall opposite him was carved in the likeness of a fair, strict woman from the shoulders up. It was a dedication to Halcifer's first headmistress, but Nicholas supposed that wasn't stated anywhere in the journal. For all he knew, in this version of things he was looking at Dalisay. He opted for that, if only for somewhere to aim his supplicating smile.

"You snuck in."

Nicholas whipped to his left and faced the seer. The witch, apparently, even if he hadn't written her that way (though, when he thought about it, he may have not written her any way at all. Maybe this was how the journal had filled the empty space around her existence, by creating a new branch of magic altogether).

She peered down at him from the portrait of a later, grayer headmaster. Its mouth moved when she spoke, its long beard dipping in and out of frame. "You snuck in. Tell me how, tell me how, tell me why I did not feel you, tell me why I can see you but I still cannot feel you, tell me how!"

Her voice wasn't so much a voice but the rustle of the vines along the walls, the scraping of metal against the shelves, the scattering of skeletal paws over the floor. Yet somehow the sound came directly from the painting's mouth, and somehow every syllable rang clear, and somehow he heard her in it, the witch, the woman.

"I'm...not sure. Sorry. But- it could be," said Nicholas, "I don't have any magic."

"Everybody has magic." Nicholas spun again, this time staring up at a portrait of a ghoulish old headmistress. "It is woven into the earth, fool, and our flesh is born from the earth, fool."

"Not mine." Nicholas held up the book for her to see. There was an unsettled swishing as the floor shifted. "I would like to ask, um, humbly, that you lend me your sight. Ma'am."