4.60: Marked

“So let me ask you again, Kayden: how are you able to find the Lake of Inquisition?”

“I don’t know.”

“I see. Well – ”

“But I could probably guess. It all comes down to what’s different about me, right?”

“I suppose. This was before the familiarity rite, but perhaps your spell – ?”

“Oh no, that thing doesn’t do anything.” I tapped the cup of tea in front of me thoughtfully. “I’m guessing you don’t know how they make high-ranking politicians immune?”

“No, it’s a secret. For obvious reasons.”

“Of course. Is it reversible?”

“… Reversible?”

“If Alania like, retires, or whatever. Can they reverse her access? Or is it permanent?”

“I… would assume that it would be revoked.”

“But you don’t know?”

“I don’t think it’s ever really come up.”

“Hmm. Well, I have a… theory.” It wasn’t a great theory. It barey qualified as a theory. The main point in its favour was ‘I can’t think of a better explanation’. But it was a theory.

“Go on.”

“The first time I found that place, I ended up in the lake, and the tentacle thing got me,” I explained. “I was rescued before I drowned, but that thing got its tentacles inside me. Started marking me up. Got quite a bit done, I think.”

“Ah. You think that being marked by the Lake is what allows you to find it?”

I shrugged. “Maybe? I mean, it stands to reason, right? It was built as part of the whole system, at the same time. It puts runes in people. It’s gotten me, and not you; I can find the place, and you can’t.”

“I… suppose so,” Fiore said, sounding doubtful. “I mean, in theory, I suppose that somebody could design it to work that way. It’s not how I’d do it.”

I shrugged. “It’s the only theory I have.”

“Hmm.” He didn’t sound convinced, but he didn’t press the issue. “Well, however it was done, it’s probably a big part of why Miratova’s invested in you – ”

“She just cared about her students, she isn’t specifically invested in – ”

“ – and she’s presumably informed the rest of the Council of the security flaw after the first time she found you, so the question is, when it comes to their investment in keeping you here versus giving Kylie to Fionnrath, is this in your favour or not? Does this make them want you here more or make them want you gone, do you think?”

“I really doubt that they know or care all that much. But does it matter? I mean, this is about Max killing Lydia, and Fionnrath wanting Kylie, right? The main thing is avoiding any kind of war or, like, massive political disaster. They wanted to protect Max, but now that he’s dead, that’s either going to be enough to change the minds of the Council or it isn’t. I don’t think bean counting whatever weird quirks Kylie or I might have is really a factor here, except for maybe the human familiar thing.”

“I think we need to push every advantage that we can if we want any chance of keeping you here,” Fiore said, “and that means knowing what our advantages are. I respect your decision not to go through with the adoption, but we have other avenues. You might want to reconsider Malas’ offer of apprenticeship, at least, and if your immunity to the security on the Lake of Inquisition is a factor, then we need to know what kind of factor it is, what causes it, and how to leverage it.”

Yeah, I wasn’t buying that. Fiore’s certainty on whether or not I was doomed to go to Fionnrath seemed to depend a lot on what he wanted from me at any given moment. This was probably an attempt to scare the truth out of me, so far as the Lake of Inquisition thing went.

Joke was on him – I had told the truth. If my theory wasn’t good enough for him, well, he could figure out his own.

“Even with Max gone,” Fiore pushed, “the fact remains that Fionnrath sent a Nic Fionn here, and she was killed by one of ours. He did the right thing, of course, but they’re furious. She was their sister; politics aside, emotionally – ”

“Hang on,” I cut in. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“What doesn’t?”

Socks jumped up onto the table, purring. I scratched her ears thoughtfully. I couldn’t believe it hadn’t occurred to me before, but Lydia had undoubtedly been a Nic Fionn. That couldn’t be some sort of lie; she’d tried to steal Kylie’s spell. She was undoubtedly part of the bloodline that qualified for Fionnrath’s Destiny.

But she’d come to the school. Meaning…“How long does it take before you can notice that a woman’s pregnant?” I asked.“Like, how long does it take to show?”

“Uh… it depends on the woman? Some go into labour without knowing.”

“What about someone with Lydia Nic Fionn’s build?”

“Are you suggesting that Lydia was pregnant?”

“Oh, no. Definitely not. But hypothetically, if she had been, how long would it have taken for people to notice?”

“Um. Well, she’s about my wife’s build, so… possibly three or four months? Although she did like to wear those flowy dresses that hide her form a bit, so if she wanted to hide it for a long time, she probably could have.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” I said. “With the timing.”

“The… timing?”

“With the supermoon and everything.” Socks insisted I rub her chin; I obliged. “I don’t think Fionnrath as a whole actually cares that she was killed. I mean, I’m sure her parents and siblings and people like that are heartbroken, but if Max hadn’t killed her, Fionnrath would have. They’re probably relieved that we saved them the job. Any outrage is fake, for political leverage.”

“What?”

“Okay, you know the whole deal with Fionnrath’s Destiny, right? Belonged to Fionn when he established the town, town became its locus after many generations, it never left until it went to Kylie. Most people think it can’t leave its locus, that it’ll return home to find a new host. But when we found out about Kylie, Max did some digging. Every single Mac Fionn who’s left Fionnrath died in some kind of accident almost immediately. Even Kylie’s great-grandfather faked his death when he escaped to Australia. It only takes hosts inside Fionnrath because the bloodline isn’t allowed to leave.”

“But they sent Lydia. Yes, that doesn’t make much sense… although I suppose that she could be infertile. ”

“Maybe, yeah. But I think another possibility explains her behaviour better. Do we know that they did send Lydia?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, Lydia showed up, and presumably had credentials for Alania to prove her identity, but when we met her, Alania seemed surprised and inconvenienced by her. She didn’t give Kylie any kind of heads up that she’d be there, and I think she would have if she could. We’ll have to ask Alania for details, but I think her arrival was a surprise sort of sprung on Alania – and she arrived alone. Wouldn’t somebody so important, somebody sent to train the bearer of their Destiny, have assistants or guards with her?”

“You think she came on her own, proved her identity to Miratova, and claimed to be sent by Fionnrath, and given who she was, Miratova had no reason to doubt her.”

“Exactly. See, here’s the thing; I never really understood why she tried to kill Kylie. I mean you could say she was power hungry and wanted the spell for herself and all that, but I don’t think that’s it. She wasn’t stupid, and her plan was massively risky. If she wanted power, then wouldn’t it be safer and better to be Kylie’s trusted mentor than pull such a stunt? Her plan was to take Kylie to live somewhere where she knew no one except Lydia, and me I suppose. She could’ve had all the power and influence she wanted, as well as the acclaim of being the person who successfully reovered Fionnrath’s Destiny. She didn’t need the spell – the smart move was to do what she’d tried to do at the start. Train Kylie, gain her trust, convince her to come to Fionnrath. It made no sense to give up on something like that after just a few months! She could’ve taken years at it if she wanted! The only reason to give up so quickly was if she was on some kind of time limit.”

“Because she was pregnant?” Fiore asked, clearly baffled.

“No. Because it was theoretically possiblethat she could be pregnant. Fionnrath want to hold onto their bloodline; Kylie’s family is already a major leak. Lydia left illegally, banking on returningwith Fionnrath’s Destiny, a feat that she probably figured would buy her forgiveness and more. But if they were paranoid about further leaks, and they probably were, she’d have to make absolutely sure that there could be no suspicion whatsoever that she’d let the bloodline escape again. The whole leaving thing would hang over her head forever, and if anyone could start rumours like that, it’d be a major problem. She had to return with Fionnrath’s Destiny – in Kylie or in herself – within a short enough period of time that she couldn’t possibly have had some secret baby outside Fionnrath. It’s the only reason for her to come here suddenly and alone, then give up so quickly and do something so dangerous. Desperation.

“If I’m right, then as far as Fionnrath is concerned, Max saved them some work. I’m sure her immediate famiy is heartbroken but any tears that the town as a whole is putting on are fake.”

“Hmm,” Fiore said, reaching across the table to pet Socks, who immediately trotted over to him, purring. “That is… extremely interesting. Although probably not useful.”

“How is it not useful? If they’re not actually angry, if the whole thing is posturing about – ”

“Their anger may be false, but their interest in Fionnrath’s Destiny remains extremely real. The issue is not precisely how wronged they may feel, but how wronged they can convince others that they were, and whether this is potentially the straw that can break the camel’s back and lead to serious discord between Refujeyo and smaller communities, and what Refujeyo is willing to do to stop that from happening. If you’re right in this, then that combined with the perpetrator being dead  means that they’ll probably be easy to placate if they get what they want, but since what they want is Kylie and you have to go with her, this only helps if we have some other way to give them their spell back.”

“Well, what are we supposed to do?” I asked, throwing my hands up in the air. “Dig it out of Kylie’s face?”

“That’s unlikely to work. Bloodline prophecies tend to be fairly stubborn about their chosen hosts.”

“Yeah, I know,” I grumbled. Even if it was easy to remove the spell, it probably wouldn’t solve anything. Fionnrath’s Destiny was smart so far as spells went, and it knew what it wanted, and it seemed to want to be at Refujeyo. Even if we could get it out of Kylie (a bad idea anyway; we needed it for the whole saving the world thing), it’d probably just pick one of her relatives as its best chance of getting back to Refujeyo. Fiore was right in that our best bet for reversing the decision of the High Council was to make ourselves as valuable as possible to as many powerful players in Refujeyo as possible.

The Acanthos family could go fuck themselves, though.

On the way back to my room, I ran into Terry and Mae, who wanted to invite me to some thing. I brushed them off and moved on. Kylie was in our room, not lounging back and on her tablet for once, but pacing restlessly.

“I assume you just got the same offer I did,” I said.

“What are they thinking?! They can’t just… he was… why would they think we’d ever…”

“I know, I know,” I said. “It’s like everyone we meet is trying to beat the last person’s arsehole record. Hopefully they’ll take ‘no’ for an answer and leave us alone.”

“It won’t matter for much longer, anyway,” she said. “We’re running out of time.”

“I know.” We needed to figure out how to save the world fast, or figure out how to avoid Fionnrath and buy more time. But we didn’t have Max, now. We didn’t have someone to use the tools and bring back the secrets we’d lost and just, just generally just tell us what to do.

And I didn’t know what the rest of us were supposed to do. I’d just… kind of been relying on Max to figure it out.

Without Max, what could we even do? Was the world just… doomed, now?

Nothing I could really do about any of that right away. I had homework, anyway. Kylie headed off to a Coven meeting that I really should’ve been a part of, but I just wasn’t feeling up to it. They’d spend a couple of hours talking to the witch initiates or whatever. I should do some of my homework. Or maybe get an early night.

I’d just gotten into some new graphing thing we were learning for maths, when there was a knock at the door. I opened it to find di Fiore watching me with all the contemplative intensity that his uncle had looked me over with during our meeting. (Usually, the two didn’t look all that closely related, but it looked like di Fiore had inherited Fiore’s scrutinising stare.) He had a backpack slung over one shoulder.

“Kayden,” he said. “Are you alone?”

“Uh, yeah. What – ?”

“We need to talk.”