She wanted to get back to the Manor fairly quickly today — there were two more of Sebastian’s components that needed some tending, and more important, the Godmother’s green-faced Mirror Servant had promised the results of his researches into the Traditional tales of protective were-creatures. If they couldn’t manage to break or counter the curse, this might be their only chance of turning it from a liability into something useful.
Something that even the King could approve of, in fact. It would be one thing for the King to grudgingly grant Sebastian the freedom to spend a few days a month at Court. It would be quite another for the King to decide that Sebastian — wolf or man — was an asset.
If someone wanted to trail her all the way back to the Manor, well, that was his time wasted.
Instead, she played the part of Abel to the hilt, whistling once she reached the actual road — she’d have preferred to sing, but her voice would definitely have given the game away. She remembered how angry it used to make her when the Housekeeper would waggle her head when she whistled as a child, and quote the old adage, “A whistling girl and a crowing hen always come to some bad end.” She used to counter it with the other adage. “A whistling girl and a wise old sheep are two of the best things a farmer can keep.” Then Housekeeper would frown and say, “Well, but your father’s not a farmer, now, is he?”
It was, as it turned out, a good thing she had learned to whistle. Especially as she was whistling “Little Ball of Yarn,” a bawdy tune no proper young lady would ever admit to knowing.
She still felt that “being watched” look as she entered the gate into the courtyard and one of the Spirit Elementals closed it behind her, then came to take the horse.
Reveling in the freedom that the breeches gave her, she ran into the Manor and straight for the stillroom.
After ensuring that the next stage of her concoction was well under way — cold-pressing, a long and tedious process, but one which fortunately only needed to be dealt with once every half day or so — she ran back up to her rooms, and impatiently sat before the mirror.
Just when she was getting ready to prod the recalcitrant Servant into appearing — her control of magic had progressed to the point where she was fairly certain she could do just that — his face appeared.
“Greetings, Isabella,” he said. “I have mixed results. I shall be as brief as one such as I can. In my researches, I have indeed come upon creatures who will act as Protectors and who switch from animal to human form. The difficultly lies in the fact that those creatures are invariably one of two types. They are either wholly magical in nature, such as the Fox-Spirit, the Rus Firebird or Zhar-Ptica, or they are, in fact, animals who have somehow gained the ability to become a human.” Even though he had no shoulders, she got the sense of a shrug. “It is as if, I fear, that while transforming from animal to human brings out the best in these creatures, transforming from human to animal brings out the worst in a man, unless it is the purely voluntary and magical Transformation spell, which most Godmothers and a few magicians have mastered — the one that does not require the shedding of blood, nor the belt of the skin of the creature you wish to become.”
She felt her heart sink, but the Mirror Servant was not done quite yet.
“Now, having said that, it is a fact that Sebastian has not killed anyone.”
“He hasn’t exactly had the opportunity,” she demurred.
“Pish, he could easily have killed you,” the Servant chided her. “If you please, I am trying to research a Path out of this dilemma, failing being able to break the magic on him. Now, may I continue?”
She apologized. He peered at her as if to determine whether or not the apology was sincere. When he decided that it was, he picked up where he had left off.
“You will recall that we had determined that this was done to Sebastian by means of magic — though whether it is a curse-spell, or an actual curse, which does not require a magician to set it. Correct?”
Since the face waited patiently after this, she assumed she was supposed to respond. “Yes, I have been told that this was a curse, and that you hadn’t — Wait, what is the difference between a curse and a simple spell?”
The face beamed. “Now, there you are! That is the real question, isn’t it? The difference, my dear sorceress, is passion!”
She gave this careful thought. The Servant allowed her to take her time. Evidently there was no one else clamoring for it — or perhaps it, too, had apprentices, who could take over the more mundane task of telling callers, “I am sorry, but the Godmother is unavailable. Would you care to leave a message?”
“Sebastian has been quite adamant that I am supposed to keep emotion at bay when I work magic,” she said slowly, “because emotion interferes with control.”
“Yes,” the face said, smiling genially.
“He’s right. When I get upset, or worried, I can’t concentrate.”
“Indeed,” the Servant encouraged.
“When Eric tried to bully me, just before I was bitten, I was truly angry. And it made me sharper. I knew exactly what to say, and how to say it. I was able to figure out from how he stood and the expression on his face what he was likely to do next. And when I was frightened, when those poachers attacked us, that made me very sharp, too. I knew instantly that I couldn’t get to my knife, and it wasn’t as if I even thought about it. My hand went right to the quiver, I got a crossbow bolt and I used it like a knife.” She paused. “I think I would have to say in both cases I was very passionate.”
The face bobbed. “And there you have it. Fear, anger, hate, pain — all these things can create a single- mindedness that surpasses everything a trained will can do. Not everyone has this sort of mental quirk. Many — I
