“If you really want to regain your human form,” Marc added, “You can speed the entire process up by stepping aside.”
“I think not. Fur and claws are preferable to getting locked up for crimes I didn’t commit.”
“You’ll be locked up either way,” Marc sneered. “But if you want to end up in a menagerie instead of a jail, so be it.”
I released my grip on the node, letting the power fade. “I don’t think I’ll be the one who ends up in a cell. You can’t honestly expect to get away with this.”
My former secretary took a step forward. “The truth is what we say it is now.”
He took another step, and I bared my teeth. I hadn’t looked in a mirror since changing my size, but Marc’s reaction assured me that my teeth had changed as dramatically as my claws. He froze.
I settled down. Now it was a waiting game.
???
The hours stretched. Cecily looked longingly at the chairs by the node and eventually settled on the floor. Soon she stretched out and fell asleep. Marc paced, but the late hour was getting to him, too.
I curled up in front of the node, my eyes narrow slits as I watched him.
Then I felt another presence at Truthhold. What was Isa doing back here? I unlocked the front doors, though it would take her a few more minutes to reach them. Had I summoned her? Damn it, dragging her back to Rose Castle in the middle of the night would not do me any favors with her.
With my attention centered elsewhere, I almost missed Marc’s charge. He shrugged off his jacket and ran at me with it stretched between his hands. “Cecily, now!”
I couldn’t watch Cecily as she shot to her feet—not asleep, after all. Marc lunged, attempting to wrap the jacket around me, but though he blinded me, he did nothing to restrict my legs. My paws. My claws.
I swiped out and felt cloth and flesh tear. The acrid tang of blood hit me, the warm wetness dripping from my claws to splatter against the marble floor.
Marc screamed and scrambled backward, the jacket falling from me. Cecily went white and halted her rush toward the node. It was hard to tell, with his hand pressed against his abdomen, but I didn’t think I had scratched too deeply. Not a life-threatening injury, but a shock of pain all the same.
He’d survive, and Isa would be inside within moments. If she summoned Marc and Cecily to a different room, we could lock them up and figure out what to do next.
Forty
Isabel
???
After my disastroussupper with the princess, I had listened to Felix’s report in almost a fugue state. What did it matter? We were out of time. I only hoped that he could convince Princess Charmina that his actions had been justified. The threat of nodes coming unlocked, the risk of wars over the pools of magic, ought to make her sympathetic to his plight.
Having my father sign a contract that forced me to Rose Castle was nothing when weighed against that. And Felix had done nothing else wrong.
Hearing Felix’s voice didn’t help tonight. Not when I knew the next time I heard it, he’d be forced to defend himself. Even hearing that he had located the scroll with the original wording of the curse couldn’t bring a spark of hope. Too little, too late.
Then he read the curse aloud, and hope was a painful knot in my chest. To break the curse, someone needed to admit their love for Felix. Had I ever done that? No equivocations, no doubts?
I whispered the words, knowing by now that they were the absolute truth. “I love Felix Truthholder.”
Through the mirror, I heard him bid me goodnight.
It wasn’t a surprise that nothing had happened. I wasn’t at Truthhold. Moreover, the node worked best through the written word. Perhaps it wasn’t too little, but it might still be too late.
I could wait until tomorrow, but wouldn’t it be better to transform Felix before the princess arrived? There was still time. Hours to go before morning. But Rose Castle was miles away. At the very least, I needed a mount.
I ran through the streets of Leort, not caring what people would think. Berklay was still at the Truthhold offices, and he didn’t argue about me taking Felix’s mare. He honored my sense of urgency, though I knew he wanted to demand answers.
I rode out of Leort before twilight gave way to true night, pushing Felix’s mount as much as I dared. I needed the mare to carry me to Rose Castle and back before morning. At first I had thought it would be enough to reach Felix and break the curse before Princess Charmina arrived, but the longer I rode, the more I realized that it would be a mistake to disappear and let her find me at the castle ahead of her. I wanted to allay her suspicions, not add to them.
The distance I had to travel was too far to gallop, or even canter, the entire way. It took hours before I saw the towers, the bits of glass not covered by roses glittering in the moonlight where they rose up from the hill in front of me. I pushed the mare for a last burst of speed.
