She eased herself down on the rocky shore and motioned for Odette to join her. “If you would sit still for a moment, I’ll inspect thecurse.”
Angelique slightly curled her fingers, cupping them so some of her silver magic pooled there. It prickled slightly before it settled in, a cool sensation on her palm. Holding it, she peered at Odette, tapping her powers so the magic that ensnared Odette slowly burned through, appearing around her in red chains of symbols andmagic.
Angelique chose one end of the spell and started reading through it, determined to find a way to help Odette and her Black Swan Smugglers—and hopefully get some insight into the sorcerer’s mind in theprocess.
What she found encouraged, worried, and confusedher.
Chapter 17
Angelique raisedher gaze to the sky and blinked rapidly, trying to relieve some of the strain on her eyes after squinting at glowing spellwork in the middle of the night for hours. She caught sight of some of the smugglers, who wrung their hands and fidgeted while they waited for her to speak. “Rothbart tied your spells together,” she announced. “It is like a braid in a horse’s mane—the braid moves down its neck as new hair is added toit.”
“Do you know this for certain? Not all of the smugglers are present,” Odettesaid.
Angelique gave in to the temptation of rubbing her tired eyes. “I don’t need to see them all. I can see the spell woven among you—I can even see which directions it trails off, where I assume is the rest of your band. Rothbart intertwined the curse—and he did an unfortunately diligent job of it. If he were sloppy and there were loops that I could pick loose, I could have possibly dismantledit.”
Odette brushed a thigh bandolier that held more daggers. (She seemed to have an abundance of them—something Angelique approved of, which served to make her apprehensive because she didn’t quite know if that was something sheshouldsee as a positive or if it was the influence of her war magic.) “So, it was a poor thing to ask for?” the Swan Queenasked.
Angelique took one last glance at the curse wrapped around Odette before she released her magic—making the spell fade. “No, not at all. As it stands, I can quite easily add a modifier to the spell, giving you a way to breakit.”
The smugglers’ camp burst with sounds ofcelebration.
A large man picked up a young boy and whirled him around; a few smugglers clapped and whistled, and brilliant smiles were on every face. Even Alexsei, Benno, and Yakov joined in the racket, but Odette remained quiet—andfocused.
Angelique took in the rampant joy with a smile.This is how things should be. This is what the Veneno Conclave was made for—to help people. Not to scramble to fight back. It marks out just howwrongthe prevalent attacks by the dark magesare.
Angelique glanced at Odette, who was still quiet, though the way her head sagged on her neck said she was just as relieved and happy as her people. She watched her smugglers carefully and occasionally conducted a visual sweep of the area—alwayswatching.
She’s a good leader. She really cares for herpeople.
Angelique waited for the celebratory din to quiet before continuing, “There will be a few conditions to this modifier. Unfortunately, I’m rather limited in myoptions.”
She paused and forced a smile when she really wanted to sneer.Limited? Hah, that’s anexaggeration.
“For your particular spell, I think it would work best to use the same modifier I used on Prince Severin of Loire for his transformation curse: to break the spell, you must fall in love with someone, and they must fall in love with you in return,” Angelique waited for Odette to look at her, then clearly and loudly continued. “Let me be clear: love frombothsides is required to break the curse. Prince Severin had a great misunderstanding about that, and it caused him muchpain.”
I am not making that mistakeagain!
She waited until she saw a few head nods before she relaxed. “Moving on! I can only cast it on one individual. The way your spells are interwoven makes it operate like one big curse, so individual modifiers areimpossible.”
This was actually one of the parts of the curse that greatly puzzledAngelique.
Why would Rothbart intertwine the spells? It makes it far easier to break, for if you destroy the right link of the spell, the whole thing shatters. If he truly meant to be cruel, he would have kept themindividual.
“Can it be cast on anyone?” asked a malesmuggler.
“Unfortunately, no,” Angelique said. “As Rothbart has intertwined your curse, I need to cast it where it begins: on Odette or Zina. That’s the only way I’ll be able to break the curse foreveryone. If I place it on someone who was spelled halfway through, it will only break the weave of the spell for everyone who was cursedafterthem.”
No one questioned this specification of the spell—which relieved Angelique, for she didn’t know how to explain to the group that Sorcerer Rothbart had very obviously crafted the spell to—in a twisted sort of way—be easilybroken.
His work is complex but tidy. He clearly was creating and cleaning up these spells as he went. And they don’t contain chunks of ancient magic like some of the other curses I’ve come across. Moreover, he’s separated the part that makes them transform against their will from the actual swan bit of thespell.
Zina, the quiet but pretty young lady who had been cursed the same time as Odette—which was why Angelique had carefully combed through her spell as well—spoke up. “I believe you should place the modifier onOdette.”
Odette honked like a goose. “What?”
Angelique glanced at Odette, then Alexsei. “That is precisely what I was going torecommend.”
It’ll be broken in a few weeks—or less, given what I’ve seen these past fewyears.
