She attempted to reach for Arris’s hand again but her cushion zoomed backward and now it was Demelza who sat beside him.
“And what do you think, Demelza?”
Demelza’s gaze flicked over his face. She did not look away from him as she said:
“Power is a matter of perception. In the end it’s what you believe that holds the most sway. All the rationale in the world might tell you that you are walking headlong into danger, but if you believe yourself an exception… if you believe that fate walks you down a different road despiteevery evidence to the contrary… then it is perception alone that rules you… nothing else.”
The evening ended soon after, and before Arris could attempt to speak to Demelza again, the toad-faced attendant escorted the girls back to the mushroom tower. Arris tried to appear engaged and polite as the girls made their farewells—or, in Zoraya and Cordelia’s cases, kissed him quite forcefully—but his mind was elsewhere. He watched them vanish down the pathway, swallowed up by the dusk in a final rush of laughter, whispers, and rustling silk.
Arris was not sure how many evenings he had left before the final trial. For the past few weeks, he had ignored most of his hobbies in favor of concocting something for Demelza in the kitchens and then spending his evening talking to her. He had not even noticed the passage of time…
As he stepped off the boat’s wing and resigned himself to an evening in his rooms, he saw a flash of movement.
“Who’s there?” he called into the dark.
The dark did not answer. A shrub of bruising holly—so named for its fearsome tendency to wallop strangers in the eye—trembled. A scaled and taloned foot pushed through the branches, followed by a body that was not a body at all… but a little marble table. The table scuttled to Arris and then it wobbled before him. It was only as high as his knees, and when Arris touched its surface, the table wiggled before staying put to scratch the ground with its chicken feet. Now that it was still, Arris could read its little golden plaque:
THE QUEEN OF YOUR HEART: A SELECTION OF SOULS
Upon the table were a number of perfume vials. One was shaped like an apple carved of ozorald. Another resembled an icicle and the liquid within sparkled. A lustreel vial hammered in the shape of a heart appeared molten. Behind a small gray pebble appeared a large glass bubble, while a topaz rose floated off the ground a few inches above the other selections.
Arris started with the rose, which smelled of sugared petals dipped through honeyed sunshine. It was so sweet it made his head spin and his teeth ache. But beneath the alluring scent lay an acidic sting. At first, unpleasant. And then, bright. Curious. Next, he flipped open the lid of the molten heart. The scent conjured a bouquet of midnight violets, each petal flecked with stars… but that was all. It was one note. A beautiful note, but dimensionless. The glass bubble summoned an image of lustrous sea pearls… and blood. The ozorald apple smelled pleasantly of a cooking hearth and a forest at daybreak. The icicle was a fragrance of fresh snow and the heart-skip joy of stumbling upon unexpected poetry.
They were all lovely and intriguing fragrances but none of them moved him. As Arris put down the icicle, his fingers brushed against the pebble. It glowed. Frowning, Arris picked it up. It was cool to the touch and smooth as the surface of a lake. When he looked closer he saw it was not a pebble at all but a polished, spherical mirror. He expected his reflection to warp upon its surface, but every time he tried to catch sight of himself, fog billowed across the exterior, as if he was a mystery to himself. The longer he heldthe stone, the more it softened in his hand until it revealed a small, silver clasp. Arris brought the little vial close and took a deep breath.
In an instant, his world stopped short.
“Yvlle! Wake up!”
His twin was already asleep and buried beneath her fearsome duvet, which had been enchanted into the likeness of a sylke serpent with emerald scales of velvet. When Arris entered her room, the blanket writhed and two huge yellowed eyes slit open, while the bed—which looked more like an iron cage than a place of rest—rattled and hissed. Lanterns placed along the wall suddenly extinguished and a cold wind—no doubt a winter wind she had trapped some months ago—screamed through the room.
“Yes, yes, all who disturb your rest shall never know peace et cetera, now wake up because I need you to smell this!” said Arris. The bed hissed once more. Arris yanked the duvet off his sister and the sylke crumpled into an indignant heap on the floor.
Yvlle lay like a corpse upon her pillow. A black sleeping mask covered her eyes.
“I seem to be enduring a ridiculous dream,” said Yvlle. “I will allow the dream to cease its nonsense and return my blanket or—”
Arris pinched her nose.
Yvlle squawked and pushed down her sleeping mask. “Have you gone mad—”
“Yes!” said Arris. “I have! Joyously so!”
Yvlle glared at him for another moment and then sighed. She clapped her hands and the screeching winter wind sulked back to its hiding place. Flames leapt once more into the wall braziers. The duvet, having recovered from the insult to its person, slithered back onto the mattress and coiled behind Yvlle.
“Very well, what is it?” asked Yvlle. “And what in the world are you carrying?”
As Arris explained the exercise of the perfume vials, he set down each of the fragrances before Yvlle. His sister touched them one by one. She arched an eyebrow and stared at him.
“You honestly think you have fallen in love with someone based off this?” said Yvlle. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Then smell them.”
He shoved the spherical mirror vial under her nose.
Yvlle took a whiff and nodded appreciatively. “Pleasant and intriguing… but not soul stirring.”
“Well, maybe not for you! But for me—”
