Sebastian.
Curses were nothing to be trifled with. Oh, people would joke about having been cursed, but a real curse, now — that was the blackest of black magic. Even the deathbed-curse of an otherwise virtuous person, because such a thing actually bound the spirit of the curser to the earth, to make certain that the curse came to pass.
Granny nodded. “Elena and I are absolutely certain. The magic is so insidious, and so subtle, that a curse is all that it could possibly be. She could not be sure it was a curse when Sebastian first changed, but now, with so much time having passed and a number of other interferences cleared out, we have been able to make that much headway. It is a very, very subtle curse, and a powerful one. What we have not been able to determine is what sort of curse it is.” Granny shook her head, as Bella nibbled on her fingernail uneasily. “The nature of curses is that they are so bound to the individual who is casting them that it is very hard to unravel them unless you know who the caster is — and even then, if the caster is dead, it may be impossible to undo. We are still left with a myriad of possibilities when it comes even to the nature of the caster. The only thing we have absolutely eliminated are the true Fae. There is, at least, nothing about this curse that resonates with pure Fae magic. At the moment, Elena is consulting with some gods to find out if somehow Sebastian fell afoul of one of their kind.”
Bell blinked. “Did you just say ‘gods’?” she asked incredulously. “You are quite serious? Gods?” There really were such things outside of tales and myths?
Granny waved her hand dismissively. “I’ll explain another time. Never mind that now. Suffice it to say that there are such creatures that mortals refer to as gods, and they can lay terrible curses and great blessings with little more effort than you or I would take to light a candle. If that was how Sebastian was cursed, that would be both good and bad. Good, because it means that what a god put in place, another god can lift. Bad, because they don’t like to do that. Undoing a curse that another god has placed can cause wars among gods, and that is generally terrible for all the mortals anywhere about.”
Bella shuddered. She had read enough of myths, where the lives of gods were talked about, but up until now she had thought they were just stories with no real basis in reality. Now she wondered how many of these so-called myths were actually as factual as any good history. It was unnerving. In fact, it made her a little sick inside merely to contemplate it.
But Granny smiled reassuringly. “Now, I don’t think it’s a god. We don’t generally have gods hereabouts. Gods are generally not shy about making their presence known, and even when they are in disguise, they create omens and portents all about them. There weren’t any omens and portents, and I would think that if Sebastian had done something to get himself cursed by a god, he would remember it.”
“I know I would,” Bella murmured dazedly. Considering that in tales, at the least, the uttering of a curse by a god comes with great bolts of lightning and enough thunder to deafen you.
“Now, to get to the point, so far as you are concerned,” Granny continued, her old eyes regarding Bella keenly. “The good news for you is that since we are sure this is a curse, it is, as I think Elena explained to you, extremely unlikely that you will be infected and become a wolf yourself.”
“You are sure?” Bella asked.
“Very. Only blood-curses can turn someone into the infective type of werewolf, and again, if someone had leveled a blood-curse on Sebastian, trust me, he would remember.” Granny nodded. “It’s rather difficult to miss someone heaving a cup of wolf blood at you, or painting signs on your door with wolf blood.”
Bella felt her heart racing.
“Does that mean I can go home as soon as the full moon is over?” she asked breathlessly, but to her vast disappointment, Granny shook her head.
“No, the King is insisting on the full three months. We tried to talk him into being reasonable, but he wouldn’t hear of it.” Granny made a face. “Stubborn wretch. Mind you, I can sympathize. I understand in this instance why he wants to be absolutely certain, but I am still annoyed.”
“So what does this mean, really, then?” Bella asked, her heart sinking again. “If the King won’t let me go, and I’m a prisoner here for the three full months — ”
“Mostly that you aren’t going to have to invest in silver chained bracelets, you silly girl, so get that heartbroken look off your face,” Granny snapped. “Huzzah! You are not going to break out in teeth and fur! I should think that would be excellent news for you.”
“But — ” she tried not to wail, but her voice crept upward, anyway “ — I want to go home — ”
“And I want a palace and a handsome, young prince who has an unnatural lust for old women, and neither of us are going to get what we crave, so let’s concentrate on what we can do something about!” Granny said sharply.
Bella hung her head, feeling suitably rebuked. Really, she had just been told that she wasn’t going to become a monster, after all, and she should be hugging Granny in gratitude.
Granny seemed to see what she was looking for in Bella’s chastised expression. “How are your magic studies coming with Sebastian?”
Bella bit her lip. “It’s not unlike what you were teaching me. There are a lot of formulas and — well, I think of them as recipes. There is one thing, though. I think I can see magic power. He said I might start to be able to, and I think I can. It’s like dust motes in sunlight, only it flows in little trickles and streams.”
“Really! That is a good sign!” Granny nodded approvingly. “I thought you might have the talent buried in you, but it looked to me that you were going to be a late bloomer and I was afraid it was going to wait to wake up until you were old enough to be a Granny yourself.”
“Wait…that can happen?” she asked. Somehow she’d had the impression that magicians were magicians almost from birth.
“It’s complicated,” Granny demurred. “There are things I can’t talk to you about that you will have to hear from Elena. After I am gone, use the mirror to talk to her, tell her what we talked about, ask her questions. Now, about this curse. As I said, it is subtle, it is powerful, and it seems to be almost the only thing that the caster has ever done.” She drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair while she thought. “Think of magic as being like water. It’s always about, but you have to work very hard to gather enough of it in one place to do anything with, under most circumstances. Now — you can spend your water in little dribbles at a time, and if you are clever about it, you can do quite impressive things with just a drop or two. Or, if you are patient and sufficiently motivated, you can save up your water for a very, very long time, and do something really big with it. If you are clever and crafty, part of that can be using the water to erase the signs of what you have done and who did it. And that, we think, is exactly what happened.”
