The Codex Lacrimae: The Book of Tears

Chapter 9: A Genie Out of the Bottle (or, The New Norns)

"You're the incarnation of what?" Alex interrupted, incredulous.

Clarinda stared at her friend with mouth agape. Had Genie just called herself a Norn?

Genevieve turned to Fatima. "To answer part of your questions, the Norn who's been speaking through me is Verdandi, the Norn of Constant Becoming, or what we'd call the 'Present.' The woman who uses you is named Skuld—she's the Norn of the 'Future.'"

"And Clarinda?" Fatima asked, digesting the information in her analytical way. It helped that Genevieve's voice held a surprising gravity.

"Urd, or Fate—the most powerful of us. Past, Present, and Future bound into her unique gift of Sight."

"Hold on, Genie—you knew?"Clarinda burst out. "How? When?"

"Only for the last couple days. Well, a couple days as we reckon time here. I came into your quarters on the second night of the caravan trip, and you'd just appeared on the middle of the rug. I pulled back through the tent flap before you saw me, but the next time Verdandi entered my mind, she saw the memory and brought me to Mimir's Well. They all decided that it was best to start training me also, even though they all felt that it was unlikely that Verdandi, too, would be slain by Morpeth. Mimir just kept saying, 'Something's wrong with the pool, all is in flux, I can't see ... blah, blah, blah!' You know how he gets: very dramatic, but cryptic all the time." The girl shrugged and smiled mischievously at Clarinda. "Don't act so surprised, Clare; it was only a day and a half ago, but you know how time passes in the Nine Worlds. We can be secret friends now. No one in Constantinople will believe it—of course, I can't tell anybody else because of all the covenants, but ..."

"You '... know how time passes in the Nine Worlds ...?' " Clarinda repeated, stunned. For all the stress and effort that learning to be a Norn had caused, she'd begun to take a particular pride in being singled out to take on the duties of Urd. A petty part of her couldn't believe that the same privilege had been accorded to her (up to now) completely irresponsible childhood girlfriend.

"Genevieve Stratioticus," she murmured, "Constantinople's original 'it's-only-one-o'-clock-in-the-morning-where's-the-next-party-we-can-get-to?' This can't be happening."

"Come on, Clare!" Genevieve said. "This is a goodthing. Verdandi introduced herself at exactly the right time. I was getting bored with all the drama and (if you can believe it) trying to figure out a way to get back to Caesarea— "

"Back to Caesarea?" Clarinda's thoughts simply wouldn't follow what the girl was saying. What had happened to her flighty, irresponsible, and fun-loving friend?

"At the time, all I wanted to do was go back to Guy of Lusignan's camp, and perhaps see that Aimery fellow again—at the very least, hide out where there was a beach until all this was over and we could get back to Constantinople."

"Hide out?" Alex exploded, finding something at last in his sister's words that he recognized as not seemingly coming from the mouth of a complete stranger. "Genie, that was a war zone, and Guy led an occupation force." His face turned red. "Not to mention that Aimery is married, and his wife was onto your flirtations."

"Well that was the old me," Genevieve said primly, her tone completely dismissive. She glanced at Marcus. "There are plenty of unattached guys my own age in the world, you know!"

"The oldyou?" Alex looked at Clarinda and then to Khalil and Fatima. "Didn't we just give her a potion and put her to sleep in a coffin this morning?"

"No, silly," Genevieve said, "I meant the me before a day and a half ago. Overnight here, I was in the Norn grottoes for almost six weeks."

"That's impossible," Clarinda said. "You couldn't have been training there at the same time I was ... could you?"