Beauty and the Werewolf fhk-6 Read online

  So as the sobbing howls echoed up from below, she found herself crying with fear and loneliness, and this time actually wept herself into exhaustion, and from there, into sleep. The poor invisible tried to comfort her, but Bella was beyond comfort. It wasn’t that Sebastian was bad company; it was that she simply could not bear the thought of spending the rest of her life out here, never seeing anyone but him, Eric and perhaps Granny —

  Living a life of fear; fear that one day she might break loose and kill some innocent person, perhaps someone she loved. Fear that someone besides the Godmother and the King would find out about the little colony of werewolves and decide to take matters into his own hands.

  She could see that happening, all too easily. After all, it was possible to overlook Sebastian; he was protected by the King, he was of noble blood, he had not harmed anyone until he bit her, and he was carefully watched and guarded. But she was not protected by the King, she was not protected by noble birth, and although she was incarcerated in the same Manor and under the same circumstances — well —

  Eventually someone would find out. It could not be kept secret forever. A male werewolf and a female werewolf? Together? That all but shouted that there would likely be a family of the creatures before too long. No matter what their intentions were when human, when they changed, all that would change, too. And what sane person would want a breeding pair of monsters living within hunting distance of where he lived?

  They would both be hunted down and killed. She knew it.

  She dropped from weeping into nightmare, predictably an endless series of nightmares in which she was being pursued by a hunting party led by Eric, crying out for her blood.

  Nightmares in which she knew she had killed someone; she just didn’t know who.

  And nightmares in which she awoke out of a red haze of madness to find her father’s dead eyes staring up at her, his throat torn out. That was the worst of them. Those were the ones from which she woke up weeping until she could scarcely breathe.

  When the morning finally came, she felt exhausted, limp and disinterested in anything, even food, although she wrote out the menus for Thyme. The breakfast she forced herself to eat tasted like straw, and with an aching head, eventually she went back to bed, simply unable to face the day. Sapphire brought her snow packs to cool the ache in her head and soothe her sore eyes, and put hot bricks into the bed to keep the rest of her comfortable; she finally drifted into a dreamless sleep for a little.

  Sapphire woke her again at noon, and although she was still filled with melancholy, the invisible managed to coax her out of bed, into clothing and down to dinner. It was a dress she would not have chosen for herself; a silvery lavender, loaded with lace, it was entirely impractical for working in. It actually did take Sapphire to get her into it, for it had several petticoats, a whisper-soft undergown embroidered with little lavender sprigs and the lavender overgown that was gathered in complicated fashion to show the undergown. This was the sort of thing that the twins would have killed to own and she normally could not be bothered about. But Sapphire picked it for her and laid it out, and she couldn’t manage the effort to go to the closet and find something else.

  Sebastian was already there at the table, although he had not yet begun eating. So, to her surprise, was Eric. They both looked up as she entered, and Sebastian frowned.

  “You look terrible,” he said bluntly. “Are you all right?”

  She wanted to snap at him, to point out that she was still a prisoner, still didn’t know if she was going to turn into a raging beast, and on top of that, he had howled the entire night, keeping her up, giving her endless nightmares, and making her cry —

  But she didn’t. Partly because she was too tired, partly because it really would not do any good. He couldn’t control what he did as the wolf, and pointing out what he had done would only make him feel needlessly bad. One person at this table was already in such despair she wasn’t fit company. She didn’t need to make it two.

  “You need to get outside,” the Duke continued when she didn’t respond. “I always feel better when I can get outside for a while. I’m sure you have clothing fit for being in the snow, and a good walk in the garden will perk you right up.”

  He didn’t look particularly well this morning, either. The wolf clearly hadn’t slept at all, and the man was the worse for it. “I just didn’t sleep well, is all,” she replied, and she knew that she sounded sullen even when she was saying the words.

  Neither of the men commented on her tone, which was just as well; they just waited for the invisible attendant to serve them. It wore a yellow armband, which meant, according to her division of labor, that it was a household spirit rather than a kitchen spirit. Colors for household staff, herbs for kitchen. The leaves of trees for stable and other tenders of animals, food plants for gardeners. Not that the latter mattered at the moment, since she wasn’t likely to encounter either. She just hoped that everything would be all right, and she would never have to become familiar with them.

  Eric ate rapidly, but not noisily, and had better table manners than she had expected. “Well, now that the moon’s turned and I don’t need to patrol the forest, I’m off to get that riding mule,” Eric said abruptly, between enormous bites. “I’ll be back in a day, three at the most, depending on how fast I can find a decent one. Then I’ll take you for some good, challenging rides. You’ll be so tired you won’t have a choice but to sleep. Since you don’t like my way of frightening people out of the woods, maybe you can come up with something better and give me a hand with that.”

  “That’s a brilliant idea, Eric!” Sebastian beamed. “I know Isabella will feel better for getting out. Perhaps I can even join you.” His face took on a good bit more animation. “You know, maybe we can convince people that we’re evil sorcerers, or ghosts, or something. That would frighten them… I might be able to make just our heads disappear! We could be headless horsemen!”

  “Whatever, so long as they stay out.” Eric just shrugged, finished his dinner and pushed away from the table. “I’m off,” he announced. “I’ll be back when I’m back,” and left with what Bella was beginning to wonder was characteristic abruptness.

  Well, there was some improvement in that he didn’t seem compelled to make her feel as if she was going to owe him some sexual favor for the acquisition of the mule.

  “Here, this might cheer you up,” Sebastian said when he was gone, shoving a silk-wrapped square across the table to her. She opened it and frowned at the contents. Her own face was reflected up at her — and she did look horrible, pale, with dark patches under her eyes, and a crease of pain between her eyebrows. Even her hair looked lank. The lavender of her gown hid some of that, but not all. Even her blond hair looked colorless this morning. “A mirror?” she said. “I have plenty of mirrors — ”

  “This one is from Godmother Elena,” Sebastian said quickly, interrupting her, as if he feared she would toss the object into a dustbin otherwise. “This is what I promised you. She wants you to be able to be sure that the people you love are all right. It will show you your family. All you have to do is think of them.”

  She stifled a gasp when she realized what he had just given her. A magic mirror? The Godmothers simply did not allow those out of their possession very often. This was very powerful magic indeed, even if it was only one-way. Quickly, she rewrapped it in the silk and held on to it possessively. “Thank you,” she said, and meant it.

  “Thank the Godmother, not me,” he replied, and flushed a little. “Ah, what have you found out about the summoned servants? I see they are all wearing armbands now — which is an improvement over not knowing where they were, or even how many were in the room with you. Eric was actually pretty pleased, I can tell you. I think it really made him angry sometimes that there was no way for him to know where they were. He doesn’t like it when he thinks he’s being watched. He’s been that way for as long as I’ve known him.”

  “Who was watching him?” she asked c
uriously.

  “I have no idea,” Sebastian told her, shrugging helplessly. “I just remember him shouting at the regular servants, when we had human ones, and even me when I was a boy.”

  Well, that was curious.

  She explained to him what she had found out; he nodded thoughtfully several times, but didn’t interrupt her. “I honestly have no explanation for why there are more of them than I thought,” he said. “I thought I was being very specific…and I can’t imagine where the sheer power to bring that many came from. I’ve been very careful to use only the power that I can raise in my spells and not steal it from anything else. I shouldn’t have been able to do that.”

  “Perhaps they brought themselves,” she suggested. “Or do they breed? Or could they bring more of their own kind?”

  “I don’t think so. Nothing like that is in any of my books.” He looked extremely puzzled, though in a way that suggested to her that he was eager to find out the truth of the matter.

  “Your books said they were all quite mindless, too,” she pointed out.

  “True.” He glanced at the yellow band floating nearby. “You aren’t one of the smart ones, are you?” he asked it.

  There was no response. “Well, at least I didn’t insult it,” he chuckled. “I’ll have to borrow your Verte and start asking it questions. The thing is, Isabella, you just can’t bring those creatures across from the spirit realms without a lot of power, and that sort of thing leaves signs about. I’m rather good at seeing those signs, and I haven’t seen any indication that there is a magician around here but me.”

  “So what you are saying is they couldn’t bring themselves, and they couldn’t just invite others?”

  “More or less.” He nodded, and adjusted his spectacles. “Although in magic, intent is very powerful. I got so annoyed that I had to keep summoning more and more of them to replace the human servants that kept leaving that it might have been that intent that gave my spells the power to call up more of the spirits than I would ordinarily have been able to bring. I do know that at one point, I was so angry I could hardly speak — I distinctly remember thinking, ‘For heaven’s sake, let this finally be enough to get the job done!’ That was right after the stable hands gave me notice, and there I was with a stable full of animals and no one but Eric who knew how to tend a horse.”

  Her hands caressed the silk around the mirror. She was dying to take it to her room and see if it worked, but it would scarcely be polite to run off like a little child with a new toy. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t know,” she replied, apologetically. “The only magic person I know is Granny, and she never did any in front of me. I mean, I know there is a lot of magic in the city. Every shop I go to has charms to bring customers and curses against thieves on it, but…I’ve never really seen anything at work, much less seen anyone doing it.”

  He nodded. “And you won’t generally. Really powerful magicians are rare, which means that most magicians have to be very clever and careful, learn how to do the most that they can with the least power. For that matter, the only magicians who are profligate with power are the bad ones, because they just steal it from people.”

  “Why doesn’t everyone?” she asked, curiously. “I mean, if no one is using the power — ”

  “Because it generally kills the people you take it from, or makes them sick,” he told her bluntly. “Besides that, the best magic is unobtrusive. It just makes life go a little smoother. There still are thieves and they still will take things, and they have curse-counters to keep from getting hit by the curses that the shops have. But mostly, they get caught. Or the shop gets a reputation for paying for such good curses that it would be foolish to steal from it. And life goes on.” He sighed, with a glance at the floating armband. “If I had my way, there would not be a single spirit here. It would all be ordinary servants, getting ordinary wages. But things didn’t work out that way, and I’ve created something — well, let’s not mince words here — unnatural.”

  “Your servants aren’t unhappy,” she ventured. “They seem to enjoy serving you, in fact.”

  He smiled wryly, and a shadow crossed over his face as he pushed his spectacles up on his nose. “Yes, but did they have a choice in that?” he countered.

  She shook her head. “I don’t know what that means.”

  “Did they ever have a choice in whether or not they enjoy serving me?” he repeated. “I tried to make my spell noncoercive so that it wouldn’t force any of them here, but did it force them to enjoy their servitude once they were summoned?” He shrugged. “I don’t know. I can’t tell, and they can’t tell me. If they even know. That is the problem with magic — it often merely pretends to be doing what you want it to, when in fact it is doing what it wants to.”

  She blinked at him. “You’re talking as if magic is something like a person, with a person’s thoughts and feelings.”

  “And sometimes it acts as if it is,” he said solemnly. “I can’t explain it. I just know that it does. And maybe that is why and how the intelligent ones ended up here. They certainly are not what I asked for when I cast the spell. It has me baffled.”

  “All I can tell you is that the intelligent ones are as good as any servant that I have ever had,” she assured him. “And good servants are loyal. I must say…while I cannot swear that the best of my servants at home would have stayed no matter what had happened to me or what strange things came to inhabit my house, I would like to think they would have at least tried to accommodate everything before giving notice.”

  He hesitated a moment. “It wasn’t only that I changed, or that I started to have the invisibles about. I think there was friction with Eric. You know, he’s neither fish nor fowl nor good red meat, as the saying goes. If this had been a bigger household — or my father had taken more thought about Eric’s situation and done something to give him a defined place in the household…well, he didn’t. What’s done can’t be undone.”

  Her hands unconsciously cradled the mirror, and he smiled a little. “I know you want to run off with that to be private,” he told her, kindly, his eyes behind the glasses a little sad. “So go and do that. But…you are likely to find time hanging heavily on your hands. If you do, I wouldn’t mind you coming to my workshop while I try to figure out a curse-breaker for our condition. Actually, I would like your company.”

  “Wouldn’t I be disturbing you?” she asked. She couldn’t imagine why he would want her there. She didn’t know a thing about magic, and would probably only be in the way.

  “Not at all. It would be useful to have someone to talk to, and you ask very intelligent questions. In fact, sometimes you could help when all I need is an extra pair of hands. I would very much welcome you then.” He made a face. “I know that I have the servants to help me, but they are magic themselves, and sometimes it is not good to have magic creatures hovering about where magic is being done. It’s a bit like having a pot of oil boiling on top of a fire.”

  “Well…perhaps,” she told him, tentatively. “I’m still not sure I can be of any real help, and I might make things worse for you than if I wasn’t there. What if I did something wrong? Or what if something went wrong even if I didn’t do anything?”

  He scratched his head and looked rueful. “Well…I can’t absolutely promise you nothing would go wrong. And I can’t absolutely promise you that you would be safe. Magic has a lot of uncertainty…and as I said before, sometimes it does what it wants to, and not what you want it to do. It is true that the invisibles have their own sort of protections. I would try to keep you shielded from harm, but — well, I know better than to sit here and pretend that you would be as safe as if you were in your own room.”

  At least he was honest. “I will have to think about this,” she told him.

  He gave her a lopsided, rueful smile. “I understand. And I understand that you want very badly to take that mirror away and see your family.” He waved his hand at her a little. “Go on. You deserve more than that. Much more. I just wish I c
ould give it to you.”

  Perhaps it was rude, but she just couldn’t wait anymore. “Thank you,” she managed to get out, as she snatched up her prize and ran as fast as the gown would allow for her rooms.

  Once there, she made sure she was alone. She didn’t even want Sapphire around for this. Then she laid the mirror down on the desk, still wrapped, and carefully unwrapped it. Breathing raggedly she settled into her chair and stared down at her reflection.

  Father, she thought, fiercely. Show me Father!

  There was a ripple across her reflection, as if the mirror was water instead of glass, and had been disturbed.

  Then the surface fogged over — or was it the image in the depths that was fog shrouded? The whole mirror darkened, then slowly lightened. The fog cleared, and she was looking straight at her father, as if she was sitting in the chair across from his desk at his warehouse office.

  He looked haggard, as if he had not slept much more than she had. And he was working with the same dogged persistence she remembered from when her mother was dying, as if by burying himself in his work he could drive everything else out of his mind. That was always his response to trouble, to work three times as hard.