“I know it looks chaotic, but there is a structure to it,” Maelis quickly said, before I could get a chance to make a sarcastic comment.
Caelan dramatically fanned himself with his hand as if in shock and carefully maneuvered through the stacks of bookson the floor. He studied her set up with interest and nodded to himself a few times.
Instead of asking her questions, he turned to me.
“You let her get away with this?” Humor laced his voice.
I shrugged and got out of the chair.
“She presented a good argument and seemed to have faith in her methods. We will see how good she truly is” I answered, my voice a little gruff after not talking for a while.
Caelan turned around and we both looked at her expectantly.
“Do you expect me to have all the answers after studying this material for only a few hours?” Her grasp on the scroll in her hand tightened.
“Of course not. It took us nearly a decade to amass these documents and separate the helpful ones from the useless ones,” Caelan admitted.
“Though it would be interesting to hear what your first impression is,” I added.
She let out a deep breath, placing the last scroll, the infamous prophecy, in the middle of her carefully crafted arrangement of the floor.
“I didn’t have time to read anything in depth, so I tried to focus on the contents of the books and looked for things that stuck out for me. The prophecy is in the center, because every event gravitates around this one document, right? Theo’s birth, my birth, my powers, the rise of evil. Every thread leads back to it, the prophecy. The circles in which I have arranged the books around the prophecy resemble the different layers of our current unfortunate situation.”
She was silent for a while. I could see her brain working,trying to put her “intuition” into words. We stayed quiet, waiting for her to continue.
Tap, tap, tap, tap.
The movement was barely perceptible, but it was there. When she started talking again, her voice was filled with renewed self-confidence.
“The first circle contains the primary people involved. There is me, Theo, the Heralds, and the Fates. The second circle is the magic involved. There is my heka, which I don’t know much about. I assume you have magic too, Theo. The Heralds also had some type of magic available to them, although they were humans. There are many unclear positions in this circle. Mainly the question of how my magic is supposed to help you fulfill the prophecy.”
“The third circle is for the secondary people involved in this. I don’t know much about who and what we’re working with, so far it’s only Caelan, Lydia, and the Gods the Heralds want to raise. The fourth circle shows the locations we know are involved. Mainly the ones you showed me on our first day on that map.”
I nodded. Despite her not yet having read any of the papers I had compiled, she had a good understanding of where we stood with our research. I thought she was done, because no more circles of books remained unexplained, but she grabbed four pieces of paper and placed them at 9,12,3, and 6 o’clock around the outer circle.
“The last thing we need to put it all together is ‘motives,’” she explained. “We know what the Heralds want, we know that the Fates have their part in this, but we don’t know what exactly is motivating the Heralds to move forward with this plan. Understanding the motives for each of the players willbe crucial for our success.”
The room fell silent for a second, and for the first time since she had started working, she looked into my eyes. There was doubt there, but also pride and an almost child-like hope that what she had been working on mattered. I was not prepared for the vulnerability in her gaze and naturally, I responded poorly.
“I am impressed how quickly you connected the data. For a human,” I said, which earned me a groan from Caelan.
“What my socially impaired friend means to say, is that we are grateful for your help.”
Caelan raised his hand, going in for a high five with Maelis.
Not for the first time did I envy Caelan’s easy-going nature. He had always had a way of making people feel at ease around him and he knew when to be kind and when to be stern. But then again, he hadn’t been locked in a temple for most of his life… The bitterness rose before I could stop it, coating my mouth like old rust. I needed to get out of here.
“Yes, of course. Thank you, Maelis. It has been a long day for you. I think we should retire and pick this up another day.”
Maelis nodded and smiled back at me. “It was my pleasure. Good night.”
Her scent hung in the air long after she had left.
Chapter 13
Maelis
The weather turned significantly colder over the following weeks. From my window in the Lodge, I took note of the leaves changing from yellow to orange to brown, until the wind blew them away and exposed the naked branches beneath.
