turn.”
“You expected this?” She felt her mouth falling open, and snapped it shut.
“Of course. Magic generally runs in families. Your mother had a touch and she would have been a witch. Sebastian’s mother had it — that’s why you feel so at home in her stillroom. His father did, too, but the old fool kept trying to repress it. That’s why Sebastian is as good as he is — he got a double dose.” She looked a little annoyed for a moment, and tapped one finger on the table in front of her. “Well, there is no help for it. I am going to have to tell you about The Tradition.”
“The tradition of what?” Bella asked, when the Godmother didn’t continue.
“Not the tradition of — not that kind of tradition. The Tradition. The force that makes puppets out of us all.” The Godmother smiled grimly. “Or it tries, at least.”
And so, as Bella sat there, feeling more and more stunned by the moment, Godmother Elena explained that everything she had thought she had known about how the world wagged was wrong.
As Elena related, calmly and clearly, that she and everyone else in the Five Hundred Kingdoms was being manipulated by a force that had will, but no intelligence, Bella could not believe that the Godmother could relate all this so calmly. This Tradition — it was a horror — a mindless pressure on every living thing to fulfill particular roles. Roles that were dictated…
“…by stories?” she repeated, feeling a mix of shock, outrage, disbelief and a growing anger.
Elena nodded, her own expression one of acute sympathy. “It’s hideous,” she agreed. “Completely unfair. Just because people start telling each other tales over a fire, why should that mean that ten years later, some poor lad or wench finds him or herself playing that tale out again? But that is exactly what happens — ”
“But what happens if the people aren’t what the story says? For instance, what if a stepmother is kind — or at least, not unkind? Does she get forced into being a viper?” Bella wanted to know. Because if that was true…it would explain quite a bit about Genevieve…
“Or for instance, what if the poor abused stepdaughter lives in a Kingdom with no free prince?” Elena countered. And then she proceeded to tell Bella exactly what happened to a girl in that position. “…and so basically, with all that Traditional power building around her, trying to force her into a Path, it either has to get drained off harmlessly so she can live a normal life, or something drastic will happen to her and it generally isn’t pleasant. More often than I care to think about, that ‘something drastic’ comes in the form of an evil magician. And at that point the best she can hope for is to be kidnapped and locked up to serve as a sort of — well — magical well-spring. But we’re getting off the subject, and I will be happy to go on about this in detail later. The point here is this. Keeping these nasty things from happening, and arranging matters so that people can go back to having ordinary lives, is what Godmothers do.”
“Oh.” Bella thought about this for a long time. Elena waited patiently.
“You wouldn’t be telling me this now unless you saw a potential for a bad outcome. Well…what story am I being forced into?” she wanted to know, after a very long moment while she sorted through the hundreds of questions she wanted to ask. “No, wait. Let me guess. The Monster in the Labyrinth?”
“No, although that is a good guess. Sebastian would be both the magician that created the maze, and the Monster. But no…we think, and by ‘we’ I mean a number of Godmothers and I, that you are being forced into one you might never have heard of. It’s a tale of a nobleman transformed into a hideous beast until a girl agrees to marry him of her own free will. Very popular in some Kingdoms.”
Bella snorted. “I very much doubt that you haven’t already tried having a young woman agree to marry Sebastian. You may be many things, Godmother Elena, but stupid is not one of them.”
“Thank you for the vote of confidence,” Elena replied, dryly.
“You’re welcome,” Bella said, just as dryly.
Elena scowled at her. “You want to watch that sense of humor, young woman, or you might find yourself apprenticed to a Godmother. Yes, of course, that was one of the first things we tried. So whatever it was that turned him into a werewolf, it was not The Tradition. The Tradition might be making use of him to put you through hoops and over hurdles, but does not seem to have a lot of interest in Sebastian.”
“Isn’t that comforting,” Bella replied sourly.
Elena’s scowl deepened. “It should be. There is no place in the Maid-and-Monster story for the Maid to turn into the Monster herself. None.”
“Oh — ” Bella replied, then “Oh!” as the import of what the Godmother had just told her struck her.
“Exactly. The Tradition will turn itself inside out to keep you from changing. Even if Sebastian had been infected by the common sort of werewolf, you are not in danger of being infected in turn.”
The news struck her like a blow, but one that brought joy instead of pain.
“In fact, I am going to advise that they not even bother to lock you up tonight, or at least, not in one of the cells.” Elena frowned. “I would rather you weren’t anywhere near him, in fact. I am very much afraid that if they do lock you up near him… Sebastian will be goaded into more activity than usual. You may not be in any danger of turning into a monster, but you are in danger of being eaten — or at least, having your throat ripped out.”
“Oh…” Bella gulped. “Is that the story about how the werewolf always kills the ones — ”
“Sebastian knows that one, too, which is why I am sure he is trying very hard not to like you too much.” Elena sighed. “Where are you in that mausoleum they call a Manor?”
“I’m down at the end of a murder-corridor with two other suites, both empty,” she told the Godmother.
“Pick up the mirror and take it out the door, and point it where I ask you to, would you?” Bella realized at once that the Godmother wanted to look for something, and obeyed without question.
To both their satisfaction, Elena located the trigger for lowering and raising a very stout grate of iron bars at the end of the corridor. “Drop that before moonrise tonight,” the Godmother ordered. “Just in case. I doubt he’ll get free, but there’s no harm in making sure you have an extra defense besides the door in place. Back to your room now. I have the salve, and there are a few other things I want to caution you about.”
Watching the Godmother push the jar of ointment through the mirror wasn’t as unnerving as Bella had
