“So blue is your color for truth and orange for lies. What color did you see when Lady Cecily cursed you?”
I wished I couldn’t remember that moment so clearly. The flames licking at the paper. The pain that had followed. I shuddered. “Dark violet.”
“What does that color mean?”
I leapt away from the node, landing on the marble floor with a thump too loud for my small form. “How would I know? You just said blue is truth and orange is lies. What does that make purple?”
“It’s your mind’s interpretation of the magic. I can only compare the shades you described to the bells I heard during my experiments. You have to figure out the subtle variations for yourself. How much something is a fact versus an opinion, or if the speaker—or writer in this case—intended misdirection will all play a part. Here, watch this.”
She wrote another sentence and signed her name, then rose to reach into the node. She met my eyes and spoke the words she had written as the paper hit the flames. “My father is amazing.”
The node turned a murky dark orange. Not the same as the lie she had written before, but clearly close. “How were you able to say that? You can’t lie on castle grounds.”
“I didn’t lie. My father amazes me with his foolishness regularly. So I spoke the truth, even though the implication is false. As I told you before, truth isn’t black and white.”
“Apparently it is blue and orange.”
She smiled, and the expression cut right through me. Here, for this one moment, she had forgotten she hated me. Even as I watched, she caught herself, a scowl replacing those upturned lips. The loss of that smile sliced through me even deeper.
She crouched down to gather the supplies she had brought out. She didn’t look at me. “If you figure out what the magic was telling you, it might help me find a way to reverse the curse.”
“Leave those. The power of the castle will clean it up.” The odds I could change her opinion of me were slim, but I could still try. “I’ll introduce you to Marc. He should be in the archives by now.”
???
I led theway downstairs to the bottom floor of the castle. Isabel followed, silent.
To the south, this level was subterranean, dug into the hillside. The hill sloped downward at the back of the castle, however, allowing for windows high in the wall that actually offered glimpses of the sky. Most of the basement was one large room. We referred to it as the archives, but technically, only one corner housed the magically binding contracts.
The rest of the open space was taken up by desks used by the secretaries and clerks who helped keep Rose Castle running. I had sent them all to Leort and Haiwella after the curse. They could negotiate and copy contracts from afar, then send them to me to sign and pass through the node without the need for visitors to come to the castle. Only Marc remained, serving as my hands and as the messenger between Rose Castle and Leort.
Marc had claimed a desk under a window in the back of the room, near the refectory set aside for workers. With only us in residence, I had invited the secretary to use the main dining room, though I didn’t always join him. In the corner opposite from the refectory were the actual archives.
Shelves filled the corner, rising to just above my height—my human height—and arranged in a manner that drove the clerks wild. The bookcases weren’t in neat rows. They formed a labyrinth, meeting at odd angles, leaving narrow passageways that dead-ended, and confusing even those who had worked in the castle for decades.
Luckily, we didn’t need to hunt in the archives for Isabel’s contract. Marc had written it out twice, once for me to pass through the node, the paper destined to dissolve and become a scroll hidden in the maze of shelves, and once for my records. If Edwin had wanted a copy, we would have made a third for him, but he hadn’t cared.
Isabel followed me to Marc’s desk. The scribe looked up at her and smiled, and I had the sudden urge to swipe at him with my claws. By any objective measure, he was a handsome man, with golden hair, blue eyes, and refined features. He knew the effect he had on women and relied on it. I had almost forgotten that about him while we had been isolated.
Now I remembered why Marc had never been my favorite secretary to work with. He was too calculating. I never would have chosen him to remain in the castle and help me if he hadn’t found me alongside my butler, Berklay, after the transformation. Asking Marc to remain had seemed better than risking letting another person in on the secret that my node had been tampered with. With Isabel here, I was doubting that decision. She had learned more about my node in a morning than he had in months.
Marc stood up. “Isabel. Welcome to the Rose Castle archives.”
“Isa,” she said, ignoring his outstretched hand. “Only my father calls me Isabel.”
Isa. Yes, that fit her better than Isabel. Short and to the point, with no extra flourishes.
Marc’s smile grew, as if her offering her nickname made up for her refusal to take his hand. I figured it had more to do with a dislike of being called Isabel.
“It is nice to have another person here to talk to, Isa.”
Was my secretary going to pretend I wasn’t standing right there? I knew I was small and easily overlooked, but he had seen me at Isa’s feet when we crossed the room to his desk.
Isa shrugged. “You’ll change your mind soon enough. Most people decide they don’t care for my conversation before too long.”
I held back a snort.
“What man doesn’t want to converse with a beautiful young woman?”
