Fractured Infinities

Take a Chance

"Well, that was odd," Ben murmurs as soon as we're a safe distance away from Kestrel's tent. He pulls my mirror out of his belt. "Mary, why didn't you ask him about the stuff going on?"

I sigh. "Something didn't feel right. There's too much at stake, and I didn't trust him." I'm not sure I could point out any specifics, apart from that look of greed that I spotted briefly in his eyes, but there was definitely something off about him. He gave me the same sort of noisome feeling as some of my more powerful prior wielders have, as though his magic was rotting from the inside.

Ben glances over his shoulder at the tent, then moves a bit farther away. "I didn't like him either," he confesses. "But I thought that was just me feeling out of place, ya know? Like, maybe, that's just how all mages act, so it's nothing to worry about."

I tell my mask to shake its head. "Most mages are eccentric, but you can usually tell the good ones from the bad ones just like anyone else." They're still mortal, after all. They aren't like the fae, who can pretend to be your best friend while plotting your destruction.

"Huh." The huntsman pauses to think this over. "Now that I think about it, he reminded me of the Seneschal from back home. I don't know if ya ever met him, but he wasn't someone to cross. He'd be all oily and charming to the nobles, but he treated the rest of us like the scum on the bottom of his boots. He nearly broke a chambermaid's nose once, when she brought him the wrong thing for breakfast."

As it happens, I do know who he's talking about – though I've never met the Seneschal, the Queen occasionally ordered me to spy on him. He's a wizened older man with dark, beady eyes and a perpetual smirk, as well as a rather astounding collection of fancy shoes. I can never figure out how he pays for all of them; I halfway suspect that he's stealing from the Treasury on the sly.

I wouldn't have compared him to Kestrel, though, until Ben pointed it out. But now it makes a lot of sense. Kestrel's expression when he saw me was a perfect match for the Seneschal's expression whenever he received a new pair of slippers.

I inform Ben of this, and he guffaws. "Really? That's..." He shakes his head and quickly sobers. "Well, anyway, I guess we can agree that that was a dead end." The crowd thins for a moment, and he seizes the opportunity to begin walking. "So, what now, milady? Anyone else you want to see? Maybe this Rose person?"

The thought tempts me, but I shake my head. "We can't wait that long, unfortunately." While part of me wants to chase down this rabbit until it's finally within our grasp, the more rational side of me knows how foolish that would be. It might take weeks, or even months, to get concrete answers, and the huntsman simply doesn't have that much time to spare.

That realization sends a thrill of disappointment through me, which surprises me. Since when did I start desiring things that are clearly irrational? With my powers, it's easy for me to predict the most likely outcome of any particular action; indeed, that's basically my whole purpose. So when did I start wishing for outcomes that are clearly unlikely? Such desires are simply not rational. A simple cost-benefit analysis proves that our best course of action here is to return to the farseers and see if we can pry more information out of them, not spend weeks hunting for nebulous leads that may lead nowhere. So why does even a small part of me wish for the latter?

I push the unwanted emotions away. As much as I've come to enjoy his company, I think I've been spending a bit too much time with Ben. "I..."

The world comes screeching to a halt.

After an achingly long moment wherein I wonder if I've gone blind, the multiverse shudders into motion again, and I feel my connections to the world return. Vision, dim at first, begins to clear, allowing me to glimpse the market again. But my connections to the other worlds have thinned even beyond the tenuous tendrils that Goblin Market allows me to retain.