At every meeting, Giselle was by my side, very agreeable, offering occasional suggestions about the route, or the number of men posted on guard, and I accepted all of them. After all, they were so reasonable.
She pretty much ignored me outside of that. I was glad about it. The more I knew the real her, the more unhinged I realised she was. The best way to survive her was to stay the hell out of her way. Still, I just knew she was planning something. I'd catch her scurrying around the castle, shoot fervid glances. Often, she was in the library. Not reading anything, but writing. Obsessively, sheaf after sheaf of parchment, covered in her loopy, florid handwriting, and strange diagrams. She wouldn't let me read it.
All I could do in the meantime is what she'd told me. I was trying to be more vapid, and callous. I stopped speaking up in Council meetings. I let Roger dictate my schedule. It barely bothered me. If I was going to leave this world soon anyway, what was the point of reforming Amacia? And I realised how much my survival rested on not rocking the boat. It was because of my brother Derek.
Derek flickered around the edges of my consciousness. I'd finally noticed how often his yellow eyes were trained on me, in my periphery, when he didn't know I was paying attention. He'd been watching me like this the whole time.
So he does suspect.
I couldn't give him anything to latch onto.
Two weeks before we would go on our Progress, Derek and I left the castle for the opening of a charity house for the poor of Alevia. It was my job to listen to speeches, then cut the ribbon. Then Derek would do a blessing or something.
I was doing my best to look bored. (It wasn't hard. There was a lot of talk about 'our duty' to the 'less fortunate'.) My brother was watching me again. He wasn't even trying to hide it. How would Amacia react? I stared right back. Stuck out my tongue. Derek rolled his eyes, and turned back to the crowds. I'd played it off nicely, I thought.
But then there was Ciel. I recognised her straight away because she looked exactly like her twin brother, only more than a foot shorter. Sharp-eyed and straight backed, her light brown hair was pulled into a neat ponytail, and she wore the uniform of a male servant, similar to my Roger. She'd seen me stick my tongue out and stifled a giggle.
A thought struck me. I leaned over to Kesper by my side and whispered a question. "Does Ciel regret not being a bodyguard, like the rest of your family?"
The answer Kesper gave was strangely rehearsed: "We choose who we serve. We do not choose how we are used. We have to earn our place in your households. Back in Lusile, custom typically ensured a position of prestige for a family such as the Wyles, but here in Alevia there is no such understanding. It is our duty merely to serve." The last sentence was flecked with a hint of smugness I'd never seen in him before.
Poor Ciel. Lacking her brother's strength, she was reduced to a mere attendant. At least that meant there was one less threat for me to focus my energy on. Because there was more than enough as it was.
All the time, at Derek's side were Mages, tall, strong men with scary sticks, embossed with golden symbols. He always had at least four, swishing behind him in their long white robes, looking to him before so much as moving, and never speaking. They had sworn a vow of silence. I wasn't sure what the difference was between a mage and a witch, and I didn't really want to push it and find out.
After I cut the ribbon, it was time for Derek to do the blessing. He lifted his golden staff high to the building, murmuring words I couldn't make out. Then he bowed his head and held out his other hand, turning it to face three directions. We all echoed his hand movement.
Nothing happened. No golden light; no electric current. Not like I'd seen from Giselle. No magic at all.
Everyone cheered. This was exactly what they had expected to happen.
Later, that night, Kesper came to find me in my study. He bowed quickly
"Giselle says she wants to see you now, in the library."
"Oh, right. I guess I'll go now."
He hesitated, scrunched his forehead up slightly. "Would you like me to accompany you?"
I shook my head. "I'll be fine."
Giselle was hunched by a window in the library, over a table piled with papers. As I approached her she snapped her lamp-eyes on me, lurching to her feet. Several parchments fluttered to the ground.
She gripped my forearms with hands stained with ink, leaning much of her weight on me. Her eyes were bloodshot, smudged with dark purple bags.
"We need to find the Demon that did this to you." Her words were hurried and her voice entirely unlike her usual dagger-sharp tones.
"Yeah. Of course."
She whipped out another sheet of parchment and brandished her quill. "I want you to tell me everything you remember about that day, again. What did they look like?"
"Everything was blurry. I didn't get a good look..." I didn't get any look.
"How many heads did you see?"
"At least... one."
"Right. So it couldn't have been the Headless One; or That who Walks without a Face... I think we're getting somewhere."
I didn't like the sounds of those names.
"Um... if I'm a witch, I swore my soul to a demon, right? So which one is connected to me? To Amacia? That could be a clue."
Giselle bit her lip. Then looked away, hair falling over her face. "That's not something I can afford to let you know."
"What about you? Who's your demon?"
She swung her head back to me, curling her upper lip into a sneer. "As if I'd tell you that."
"I think it had wings," I said.
"Oh! Good! That should narrow it down. A tail?"
"...I didn't see one."
"Right... right..." She continued scribbling, ceasing to ask me questions.
I took the opportunity to browse the shelves, looking for anything demon-related myself. The more I knew, the better I could bluff. And maybe, I could find a way out of it.
'Demons of Alevia - a Complete History.' That could be useful. I opened to the first page. 'Demons do not exist. They were made up by witches as a mask for their powers, that originated within themselves one thousand years ago. There is no being higher than us but the Trifold God, who is all-powerful and all-knowing.' I flipped through the book. It just talked about witches, how they were evil, and why they told lies about demons. It didn't even say what the lies were.
"You won't find anything useful here," Giselle said. "They destroyed anything but propaganda half a century ago. I'm going off my memory here," she tapped her forehead.
"How do you know all that stuff, then?"
She shrugged. "My grandfather. It was his job, back in the day. To remember. Before it was illegal."
She went back to scribbling, and I pulled another book off the shelves: 'Identifying Witches.' 'Every witch can be identified through a mark on their body. It may be hidden beneath hair or skin, but it will be there. Upon burning, the mark will be revealed, thus exposing the true nature of the witch.'
"They burn witches?" I whispered.
"Yep. Not just witches. Anyone who might be a witch. It's the only way to be sure."
A shiver rippled down my spine. So if they caught me...
In that book there were a list of symbols. Each one was a mark a witch could have. They looked similar to ones Giselle had been scribbling. I decided to copy them out. Maybe I'd find one on my body.
"Careful with that," Giselle said. "It'd look very suspicious, if anyone caught you with that."
"I'm not planning on anyone catching me," I retorted. "Look at your own writing, first."
"It's fine. I wove a ward into the paper. No one can take any meaning from it."
"I can."
"What?" She gathered her papers in arms, scanning them. She frowned. "They should... I'll be more careful. We can't afford to slip up now, not so close."
To what?
Giselle stood abruptly, papers pressed to her chest. "I'll put these somewhere safe. You - stop reading those spurious books. They won't get you anywhere but trouble."
I did what she said. But I took the copied symbols with me, tucked them with my other parchment. There had to be more truth to them than she said. One thing I knew for sure was that I couldn't afford to trust Giselle.
Soul Decimation Ritual. That's what she had written on the paper she didn't know I could read. I knew what that meant. I knew what it led to.
If bringing Amacia back meant killing me, Giselle wouldn't hesitate. Not for a second.
I understood completely. We weren't doing any of this for my sake. After all, I was alone here. I had to look out for myself.
If it came down to it, I wouldn't hesitate either.
With my parchment, lay another secret. The knife that had lain buried in this heart, when I first woke up. For the first time since I stuffed it there, in shock and terror, I picked it up. It felt unfamiliar in my hand, but I figured with some practice I could learn exactly where to stick it.
I would kill Giselle before she killed me.
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