Chapter 108. The Ritual Did Not Ask Who Was Good, It Asked Who Would Learn to Offer

Chapter 108: 108. The Ritual Did Not Ask Who Was Good, It Asked Who Would Learn to Offer

I was shocked hearing that she knows me... like the real me, where I even came from.

I turned my head... with my face probably looking more shocking than ever. But I manage to play it coolly fast.

My eyes caught Elysandra still standing by the window with the bell in her hand, looking at me, and the light from the glass fell across her face.

She didn’t look surprised, or angry, or even particularly curious. She looked like someone who had known something for a very long time and was finally allowed to say it.

"I know a few other things," she said, "that you have told no one in this room."

"Like... what?" I said warily.

"You carried a small box of glass... It glowed with its own light, and you looked into it constantly, even in the dark."

I stared at her.

"You ate, nine nights in a row... a kind of noodle in a paper cup, with a fork made of white plastic."

"Okay," I said faintly. "That’s, uh... That’s very specific."

"And there was a woman," Elysandra said, "who shouted at you for a very long time, in a place with a great many doors, while three other women stood in a line behind her."

I put a hand over my face.

"I did not see all of it," she said. "I was not the one who looked... My daughter was... Aurelia."

’Daughter,’ I thought. ’Aurelia.’

"She is the one who called you," said Elysandra. "A ritual of summoning, very old, very costly..."

"She stood at the center of a circle for nine days and nights, and she reached across the dark... It took everything she had."

"And when you answered, for a moment, she saw your life."

"She... saw...?" I said.

"A little... She saw how you came to us."

I felt the blood leave my face.

"She asked me," Elysandra said, "not to repeat what she saw."

"I have honored that." She paused.

A strange, faintly twitching expression crossed her face. "She said only one thing..."

"When she finally woke up... she turned to me, and she said, ’Mother, he was wearing cat ears.’"

I made a noise like a strangled kettle. "NNGGHHH!"

I put both hands over my face. Oh my fucking god... this is even worse than I thought.

I wanted to die... I wanted to die again, properly this time, somewhere with a very large and very deep hole.

"What are cat ears?" Magnara demanded. "Like the one that the catkins have or something?"

"I will explain it later," Velora said, in a tone of iron.

"Is it a weapon?"

"No."

"A title?"

"Later, Magnara."

Sylvara had turned her face into her sleeve. Her shoulders were shaking.

Elsbeth was staring fixedly at the opposite wall with the stiff dignity of a woman who has just recalled something that she very much wishes she had not.

I lowered my hands.

"It was a costume," I said.

My voice cracked. "It’s a... long story... The truck was involved."

"Of course it was," said Velora.

I asked her why.

I’d been wanting to ask it since I’d walked in. I don’t know why it took me so long.

Maybe I was afraid of the answer. When the laughing had died, and the room had gone quiet again, I turned to Elysandra and asked it plainly.

"Why me...? Aren’t there anyone out there that probably has a pure heart more than me?"

She looked at me for a long, long time.

"The ritual did not choose a good man," she said. "Please understand that... It did not look for kindness, or virtue, or nobility."

"It chose a man who would become one."

"What...?" I frowned. "That... doesn’t make sense."

"The question it asked was not, Who is good?" Elysandra said. "It was, who will offer and not take?"

"I took," I said. "I took everything... That’s what I did."

"It’s the only thing I was good at."

"Yes... My daughter saw." Her voice was very quiet. "That is exactly why it answered."

"A man who has taken all there is to take, and learned, in the end, what it cost."

I couldn’t say anything. I stood there with my hands hanging at my sides.

"There is something else," I said, after a moment.

My voice came out rough. "Something in me... A thread."

"Sylvara found it... She said it wasn’t hers, or the Moon’s, or anyone’s she knew."

"It is not ours," Elysandra said, to my surprise. "It is not my daughter’s, nor the Moon’s, nor any that we have ever made."

"I have studied the matter... I do not know what it is."

I held my breath.

"Something older answered the call," she said softly. "Something that has been waiting since before the first Bargain..."

"I do not know its name... I only know that it is with you."

I thought about a cold, polite voice and a series of blue windows that had been following me around for weeks.

I thought about a line of silver script on a wall at the bottom of a pool. And I didn’t say a word.

’Something older.’ It didn’t make me feel any better.

"I want to see her," I said.

I said it flatly. I’d been holding it back for a long time, and now it came out of me like a blade.

"Aurelia... the one who called me," I exhaled. "I want to meet her."

Elysandra shook her head.

"Not yet."

"Huh? Why not?"

"Because she is asleep," Elysandra said gently, "in the Dawn Sanctum, and she must remain so."

"The ritual took far more from her than any of us expected... She has not woken since the night she called you."

"Her body is a husk that is slowly being mended."

I swallowed.

"The thread that binds you to her is very strong... If you were to go to her, it might wake her."

"And she is not ready to be woken with that condition... She could die." Her voice tightened. "And so could you."

I stared at her. A hot, helpless anger rose in my chest.

It was the same anger I’d felt at the Moon Font, the same one that had made me scream at a mountain.

"I need to know," I said. "I need to see her...!"

"She’s the only one who might understand what’s in my head."

"I know."

"Then let me..."

"Leon." Elysandra’s voice was soft and very firm. "I promise you that you will..."

"But I will not risk my daughter’s life, or yours, for a few days of impatience."

"You will meet her when the bright moon falls... Not before."

I closed my mouth.

It was then that I noticed something odd. I had been standing there with a tight, burning question in the back of my throat for several minutes, and I’d finally put my finger on it.

’Why didn’t I feel her?’

I’d felt Velora, a warm, steady beat.

I’d felt Millie, a faint, far-off pulse.

I had a thread to Elsbeth, and another to the woman who’d just poured out her heart in front of the fire.

But in all the weeks I’d been in this world, I’d never once felt anything that pointed me toward a woman named Aurelia Valecourt.

And as I thought it, a small blue line flickered at the corner of my eye.

[SSS-Rank signal: masked.]

I stared at it.

I looked up. Elysandra was watching me.

She didn’t say anything. But her mouth had curved, very faintly, in the corner, and I had the odd, uncomfortable feeling that she knew exactly what I’d just seen.

"I have hidden her," she said, "from every kind of seeking."

"For as long as you have been here... A thread like yours would have pulled you straight to her door."

She tilted her head. "I did not think you would be pleased to arrive unannounced."

I let out a slow breath.

"Fair," I said.

"Here is what I ask," Elysandra said.

She sat down at last, in the chair of Valecourt, a tall white throne with a single horn carved over the back.

She folded her hands in her lap. In the clear light, she looked suddenly very tired and very old.

"Bring Millie home... Restore your elder sister to her full strength."

"Then you will see my daughter... I give you my word."

I thought about it. I thought about Bonette, a silver knife, and a promise I’d made in a cold stone room.

I thought about a fierce, small voice saying, ’I believe in you.’

"Okay," I said.

"Good."

"There is one more matter," she added, "that I would like to put to rest."

She turned her head slightly. "Corra."

A thin, hunched lynxkin who had been standing very still at the back of the group looked up, startled.

"Yes?"

"You and the others who were freed from the gold will be cared for in the Hall of Mending."

"Marrow has prepared beds... You will be warm and fed and left in peace. " Elysandra’s tone was gentle. "I will not pretend that your healing will be simple."

"It will depend on the Moon Font and on a word that must be freely chosen... We shall speak of it when the time comes."

Corra nodded. She didn’t speak.

A small tear rolled down her cheek.

"Thank you," she whispered.

I thought that was the end of it.

I really did. I was exhausted.

My hands hurt... My head felt as if somebody had filled it with wet sand.

I stood there in the middle of the great round hall, in the shaft of daylight, and I thought about nothing but a cup of tea and a very long nap.

Then Elysandra said, in a quiet voice, "There is one more... thing."