Link here to a general overview of the novel
Prologue, Chpt 1, Chpt 2, Chpt 3, Chpt 4, Chpt 5, Chpt 6, Chpt 7, Chpt 8, Chpt 9, Chpt 10, Chpt 11, Chpt 12, Chpt 13, Chpt 14, Chpt 15, Chpt 16, Chpt 17, Chpt 18, Chpt 19
Chapter Twenty
Sebastian
My Prince’s head is bent over a journal, his brow furrowed as his finger traces the pages quickly, skimming the text although I know he’s absorbing most of it. The man is wicked intelligent and while he doesn’t have a photographic memory, he can suck in words and their meaning like a vacuum. Albeit a sexy vacuum.
Next to us, Isolde’s on her device, fingers swiping and tapping at the screen. I’m assuming she’s smart enough to have eliminated any chance the phone can be tracked, what with the fucking superiority of Staltzian technology.
“Your name’s in the media,” she looks up to tell me. “Headline’s right next to breaking news about an unexplained massive sinkhole appearing outside the city.”
My mind’s wandering away from my journal reading task, and latches onto her interruption with interest.
“My name?”
“Yeah. Sebastian Marrow. There’s a tell-all piece about you, naming you as Daav’s companion.”
“Guess it’s the price of fame,” I say.
Daav scowls. “Who gave the interview?”
She looks down at the device. “Some man who says he knows Sebastian from a club, recognized you on the viral video.”
“We already knew we were outed,” I say, although gooseflesh rises over my arms.
She hands Daav her phone and he reads, as if she knows that he’s going to ask for it anyway. After making unhappy faces, he hands it back to her.
“The Stem and Thorn is not on my list of favorites,” he adds with a growl. “Let’s get on with this,” he orders me.
As if I’m the one who interrupted him.
Two dark heads both dip again over their work. And while their attention seems focused now, the squint of their eyes, the occasional uneasy shift in their seats, a brief moment when their lids close shut, lets me know there are undercurrents pulling them away from the information. Distractions plaguing hearts and minds.
Neither of them are comfortable, but as I watch them in this intimate proximity to one another and read their similar small mannerisms, I’m damn astonished at what’s happening before my eyes. There’s this increasing connection, a web silently weaving between these two. We only met Isolde yesterday, and we’ve spent little time with her, but each bell that rolls by something’s growing.
Maybe they’re more like two vines slowly creeping up from different locations on the ground toward the same wall. Their small, forward movements closer are in parallel, and I can taste the moment they’re going to meet, join to scale that surface and twine together to apply pressure. Both powerful, subtle but inevitable, inexorable.
They’d never met before now, but it’s like their roots have been buried underground, invisible to each other in the dark, but attached. And now that they’ve sprouted out of the dirt it’s impossible not to see they’re part of the same vine. Yeah, connected.
And it’s beautiful. Daav always has a home in me, but he deserves more, and needs to fit into his own greater place and identity in the world, to find his people. He holds back with the Cohort although he cares about them.
Maybe finding his literal family, that is, someone from it that’s not toxic or bent on killing him, but who also shares his blood, will help heal him enough to find peace and believe that he’s worthy.
Suddenly, violently, my fingers twitch and all I want is to grab my tools and sculpt. Wood of different size chunks sits under one of my tables. I want to pull them out, feed the craving to capture this, and uncover the heart of the blending I see in my mind’s eye. Two siblings, magic and science, merging together to become something greater. It’s like that often, this knowing that the sculpture sits in the heart of the block of wood or granite and I just need to uncover it and let it out. It exists whole inside the extra material, already perfect. I’m not so much a creator as an excavator.
The feeling squeezing my chest is huge and painful in its precious truth. It parallels the same knowing I carry that Daav must let our Verse touch. He’s scared, defeated, and sweet agony but he needs to let go of what he’s imagined all these years and roll with what’s being shoved in front of us. I’m scared, too, but that doesn’t mean I’ll ignore this imperative truth. I’ve always been willing to play with the dark and dangerous.
I need to get this party started.
“Hey Isolde.”
She looks up at me from her device. “Yes?”
“You’ve read all of these journals?”
“Of course.”
“What do you imagine we’ll find useful in them? There’s a shitload of entries here, from most of Crane’s adult life. Any guesses?”
She purses her lips. “You want to increase the power output of your Verse, your tangles, to have a chance against my father, but I don’t know the approach your Conclave takes with the mages in Orreance. Crane may write about something you haven’t learned, a new way of understanding the patterns you work. It already sounds like his letter mentioned background you’d never heard before.”
“And you understand the science he talks about?”
“As much as anyone. I’m a physicist by training.”
Daav, having listened to our conversation, leans toward her.
“A physicist?”
“Yes. I earned my advanced degree last year.”
“You’re young for that,” he says.
“Father fast tracked me. I began at age fourteen. I’m six years ahead of my age-mates with the way we structure education in Staltz.”
I rub my hands together and grin my wackiest grin. Have to give these two somber characters the benefit of my liveliness. “Your genius is our jackpot. You can give us the science highlights reel, like Verse physics for kiddies. We won’t appreciate what we’re looking for without some remedial education and Crane’s not a scientist even if he wrote about what he was able to learn from other countries. Physics isn’t taught much in our core science curriculum here. Biology, chemistry, and, yes, atomic level functioning to help us work the tangles, but nothing beyond that.”
She rolls her eyes. “The dark ages, I see.”
I wink at her. “Plus, I’m the artist type. Paint me the general picture, I do better with the feeling of something, not the specifics.” I tap the side of my temple. “Go slowly, use little words.”
“Bullshit,” Daav barks. “He’s a med mage, he gets biology innately, connects to it as easily as breathing. He was stellar in science.”
“You’re just laying on the compliments to get in my pants,” I answer, and blow him a kiss.
Isolde looks between us, trying to figure out our dynamic.
Daav puts down the journal he’s reading, leans forward, scrubs a hand through his hair then rests elbows on knees.
“I agree highlights will help,” he says.
“Wait. I do better soaking in details when my hands are busy.” I retrieve a thick rectangle of tree branch from the bucket under the table where I’ve thrown in random tree debris when a shape interests me. Then grab my whittling knife, and plop back down. I don’t have time to work a bigger chunk, but as I lift the section of limb, it feels right.
I wave my palm at her. “Continue, My Lady.”
She raises her eyebrows at the title, then blows out a breath. “Okay, I’ll try to stick to salient facts, give some background because I have no clue what you already know. Most of our research was done before my father’s rule. They were never sure if the asteroid was from our universe or some anomaly visiting from another. But the belief was that when it passed through the planet, it ripped small openings between our universe and other connected ones, like tiny fissures. You may understand them as parallel universes.”
“Ooooh, we’re one of many parallel universes. Are we Earth 347 here, or 5099 you think?”
Gabriel rolls his eyes at my interruption. Isolde valiantly continues on.
“We assume only a limited number opened,” she says, “because there are definite limits to the number of people able to access them, as if it’s predetermined. And if too many had appeared we’d likely be dead. That level of disturbance would have consequences.”
Daav’s attention is focused on her words despite his earlier protest. Like he could ever help himself, I think. I start to work on the branch, picturing the shape underneath the bark, and lay the flat of the blade against the surface, holding it secure with my thumb to create the perfect tension as I begin to peel off layers.
“But only some of us see them and not without finding our way in,” Daav says.
She nods. “The asteroid is assumed to have mutated or perhaps just triggered an effect within certain people’s genetic code. Our biologists had studied the brains of the few children with magic outside of Orreance before father shut the research down. There were similarities between them, although not well understood. At about five kids develop certain executive functioning skills. They can focus better, their memory and logic develop. They’re more aware of others’ feelings. And five is the focal age for developing the connection with a different universe, and when we learn a child is a mage.”
The shavings fall onto the floor beneath me as the life inside the wood directs my hands effortlessly. A calm enfolds me, the grip of the knife a comfortable weight in my grasp.
“Brains keep rewiring after that age until approximately age 25, which you celebrate with your quarter century testing. The assumption is that certain individuals with a genetic predisposition either have a wiring process that opens them up to perceiving another universe, an anomaly with their neural interactions or different chemical levels, but some sort of sensitivity either way. And when this difference goes active at five as the brain clicks into its new development, it keys into one of the rifts and uses the unique way data is processed to perceive the Verse with a certain branding. We understand each mage experiences their Verse in a different way, but that may be about the way they make sense of data more than what each universe is truly like.”
Daav nods. “Our eyes look gold.”
“Yes, although that’s not because of the melanin that colors eyes. We think it’s actually a reflection off of the other universe, some sort of light or energy it emits and bounces off the iris of the observing mage. Gold flecks show, but pupils also constrict, like they’re protecting the retina.”
True, although I never thought about our pupils shrinking and the Conclave education never mentions it.
“But I have a question of my own,” she says. “What does Crane mean when he talks about a mage’s training pathway to grow their magic? He mentions that it’s fairly private to each mage, but holds back details in his writings.”
My fingers still, and instead I look up at her, smoothing my thumb over the exposed sapwood with the first start of the curves of my design.
“Oh, Iso, you have no idea,” I say with a laugh.
“Iso? Earlier it was My Lady,” she comments.
“I’m a nickname kind of guy.”
“Clearly.”
Daav interrupts us and provides a brief, no nonsense description about how Mentors each choose a different practice when they take in baby mages to their households. He refers to the paths of physical exertion, logic, or music as examples, ones belonging to a few of our Cohort. And totally avoids the fucked up flavor for others of us.
“It sounds like the idea is to ingrain rote pathways in the brain for the anomalous neural activity or chemicals to grow along, repetitively challenging those areas as a stressor to growth. And you and Sebastian were raised following the same type of pathway because you shared the same household?”
“Yes.” He presses his lips together after his terse answer.
Tightlipped bastard, but I get it, why it’s difficult for him to talk about. Even our Cohort never asks us about it though they know. Few people are comfortable with the topic.
“And yours was?” Isolde prompts, all unaware.
But if I’ve learned anything from a lifetime dancing with pain it’s that it’s better to embrace it, hold it close and keep your eyes wide open as it snaps its jaws; better to be honest about it. So of course I answer her, pointing the tip of my blade in dramatic punctuation.
“Victor, our dear Mentor, chose a pathway of pain. He believed exposing us to pain grew power better than any other catalyst. Physical, emotional, any kind you can name, we suffered it at his crazy-assed hands. It fit nicely with his sadistic streak.”
“You’re kidding me?” Her eyes have popped wide, her mouth gaping open.
“It was simply the reality,” Daav adds, tone flat, although his look at me suggests my explanation to her is unwelcome. “Evidence suggests the approach worked. It’s irrelevant now, my concern is how we move forward.”
“But….”
“Isolde, drop it. That history leads nowhere. We have an important goal, Gil.”
Her own lips tighten as she examines my Prince. Her eyes soften, and there’s the same caring look she’s gotten when talking about her little brother. And like she wants to hug Daav. But I see her fold the impulse away.
“Okay,” she agrees softly. “I’m sorry. I guess we have more in common than I thought.”
She leaves it at that, her own pain is a dark patina over her soul. Fucking fathers, whether biological or adopted. I want to hug her myself.
She starts up her synopsis again and Daav’s rigid shoulders lower. His eyes follow her as her hands move with her story, her passion for the topic clear with her gestures.
“Okay, the basics. Keep in mind that despite research this is still hypothesis. We’ve known that each mage has a level of power, and that it varies. Current thought is that it has to do with the relative energy of each universe. New universes contain more energy, and however mages tap into it, the wellspring is pretty strong. And it’s the slide of our universe against the atomic reality of the other that we experience as the energy to be harvested, i.e. your tangles. So, get matched with a younger universe, inherit more oomph. The older a Verse is, the less oomph.”
She purses her lips, rubs the tip of a finger over the center of her forehead, a back and forth gesture before dropping it.
“Although maybe a more successful training pathway type is a factor. I’ve never had to consider that variable. The other competing idea is that it all depends on the level of the anomalous neural chemistry inherent in each child. Born to the strength if you will, and having nothing to do with the type or age of the other universe. Both ideas can fit nicely with the prophecy and a predestined savior of mage power. Again, that’s not my general belief.”
Daav interrupts. “The decrease in mage power is from the universes pulling away from ours?”
Isolde’s smiling at him, as if she’s pleased at his conclusion.
“Yes, correct. Time passes. It’s inevitable that the rifts would close. The fractures aren’t normal state and most systems prefer homeostasis.”
“So why Crane’s bleak prediction of something darker?” I ask. My fingers move steadily now to reach the design. “He sounds like he’s anticipating disaster.” There’s an energy moving my blade, and it’s important, the shape I uncover. I need it, want it born into this world.
Isolde sighs. “The man was dying when he wrote the letter and the emotion of it may have led to his dramatic tone. Although the later part of his journals dwell on a competing hypothesis not much embraced by scientists.”
“Which is?” Daav asks.
“That when the universes rip apart, the ‘holes’ for lack of a better term will lead to an implosion of everything. End of days type cataclysm for the planet and really the universe. Crane describes them as gaping wounds and predicts the world’s death.”
“Oh he was a cheery devil,” I say.
“Like I said earlier, the universe prefers homeostasis. This other sounds like the storyline to something in the cinema.”
Now my Prince stands suddenly from the couch, retreats to the supplies we’ve raided from the suite kitchen and retrieves a bottle of clemonclove juice from our box. He twists off the cap to take a long gulp and holds the glass barrel between his palms, rubbing it back and forth as he stares down at the drink. He leans back against the tabletop as he rubs the bottle like he’s trying to entice a genie out of a lamp.
The abruptness of it all is enough to have both Isolde and me staring at him.
“What?” I ask. The battle Daav’s fighting inside himself since the party is so twisted obvious, and it hurts me to watch it, enough to still my carving.
Then he looks up at Isolde. “I need you to be sure. Sure that this cataclysm isn’t the likely outcome if we leave the situation alone and let the Verse separate from ours.”
She’s shaking her head. “Science isn’t absolute. It’s a process by which we test educated guesses and watch to see if we can learn something and derive benefits. I can’t promise things, Daav.” She leans back in her chair. “Everything’s a calculated risk. Coming here, asking for your help was one. I’m not a mystic.”
“I’m not asking you to be, but I want to explain some recent phenomena in our experiences of the Verse. You let me know if it changes those educated guesses.”
I bite my lip and return to the wood, allowing my fingers to warm back into the movement.
It feels big, this moment before he starts to speak. Like he’s on the cusp of a decision, of taking his own risk about to dive off the edge. Yeah, it’s the smart thing to do, sharing information with the closest we’d ever come to an expert on this subject. But for Daav it means more.
My Prince lowers his gaze back to the juice as it sloshes inside the glass cylinder.
He tells her.
In more words than I’m used to from him he describes everything that’s happened to the two of us and to our Verse, to our power over the past three days. The increased call of our tangles to each of us as we go about our daily lives, how they’re intruding on us, both in normal life and sometimes in sex. My vision of Hannah’s orange-tinged, geometric landscape, our joint view of one another’s last night at the party, and Daav’s redirection of the burst of energy from it away from us and into the power grid. Then early hours this morning when he went to the lab and the surge in his power ending in the mind-screwing experience at the docks when his tangles resisted him, and made a choice of their own to create the energy reactions inside the boat’s gas tank.
“It’s all new, all sudden, and potentially dangerous,” he finishes.
She’s silent, processing his story I guess. Again she rubs the middle of her forehead with a few distracted strokes.
“I have to think about this,” she says. “I never gave credence to my father’s belief you were part of the prophecy, his obsession with you. When I found out about you and he let me in on his secrets I chalked it up to bruised ego, losing you to our enemy and thwarting his decree about killing all mages, combined with his growing madness. Sometimes I’ve even wondered…” She shakes her head to dismiss her unfinished thought and bites her lip. “But you think this is just happening to you? Not the other members of your Conclave?”
“To me, secondarily to Sebastian. But if it’s happening otherwise, no one’s saying.”
“You seem to be keeping the information private,” she challenges. “Others might, too.”
I snort. “Maybe, but I doubt it. Our Conclave head is itching for any signs of increase of power, most everyone else is panting for it, too. Johan would be crowing like a cock, sitting at the top of the barnyard if he even had a hint of changes to mage power levels. Probably have his cock out stroking it in public he’d be so excited. He’s good at his job. If he knew everything that was happening to Daav he’d have him in some dungeon with chains. Probably literally. As of this afternoon before we came here, there’s been none of that.”
Daav agrees. He’s still clasping the bottle, holding on. He’s brittle, and I’ll stand by him. But the fact he’s shared so much with his sister gives me hope he’ll let her support him, too.
I’m digging in between the delicate dips of the wood now, scrape out the last bit from a groove, and while it will take smoothing and more fine work, I hum with pleasure that I’ve unburied the shape from the chunk of branch. Just as it was meant to be.
“Hey, why don’t I go hunt up some more supplies for Isolde while she hangs here. We brought what we had, but there’s a few holes in the basics.” I rise from my seat and put the knife back with my collection.
“Sebastian, it’s not safe,” Daav grumbles.
“What is, Prince? I’ll be quick. We have Nueé’s car, not yours, and I’ll wear a disguise.”
“Sebastian.” It’s become a growl now.
“You two need to spend time together. Nothing like a good old globe shattering down to the wire crisis for quality family bonding time.”
“You are so transparent,” Daav answers.
“Good, I’m trying to be. You kids have fun. Read excerpts from the journals out loud in funny voices, or do tongue twisters.Those are loads of entertainment. I’ll be back soon, while you do some sibling speed dating to get to know one another before the next plot point in our intrigue slash action adventure.”
“Be back very soon,” Daav warns. “Be careful.”
“Yes, Prince.” I wink, grab the Bistral football club cap from a hook by the entrance, and swing open the door, walking out into the early evening. The breeze off the bay feels good.
The weight of the carving feels right in my hand. I stop and examine my creation. Three overlapping ovals with several round spheres along various lines of their solid curves. In the center of the ovals is a larger sphere. It’s the most basic representation of an atom, and a quintessential symbol of science.
Ostensibly, this shape belongs to Staltz, who commandeered it in their national flag like we’ve claimed the hexagram in ours. But this symbol is at the heart of what both our people’s embrace. We use tangles as catalysts to move and manipulate atoms and molecules in the ways we prefer. Staltz uses other means to do the same. Twined along the curves of the ovals in my design are miniature twisting vines.
Human beings are always making their own magic, we just call it different things. And if I have my way, Daav and I are going to make some of our own.
I unlock the car door, climb in, toss the wooden carving of the atom on the passenger seat, and start the car.
The green police tape and shards of debris are reminders of the stakes of our game. But sweet agony, I’m going to be turning the destruction into salvation.
Like I said, magic.