“Well?” said Ilsa when Jorn’s gaze re-met hers.
“Illuminating.”
“Who is my most powerful friend?”
“Young lady, do you want the answers you came for or the answers to my questions? We will be here a very long time and learn a great deal about one another if it is both.”
She bit back her exasperation as Jorn resettled in his chair. “So, you want to know about Cogna.”
“We don’t even know if they’re a man or a woman,” said Fyfe.
“Cogna is a child.” He left a long pause to relish in his guests’ surprise. “Neither a male nor a female child. They were born with a sex, like all of us, but they shed it like a snake sheds its skin. No use of it.”
“How old?” said Ilsa.
“Thirteen, I believe.”
Fyfe furrowed his brow. “How could a thirteen-year-old have mastered their talent?”
“Steady now. I have a question for you, boy.” His mouth curved cruelly as he studied Fyfe. “I would like to know about your first kiss,” he said, his tongue darting out to wet his lips.
“And what’s the use in you knowing that?” said Ilsa.
“Pay or don’t pay. That’s my price.”
Glowering, Fyfe extended a hand to Jorn. The touch was brief; the smile that spread across Jorn’s face, feline. “No? A dashing boy like you?” Fyfe let out a slow breath, but it did nothing to calm the blood rushing to his face. “You’re young. There’s time. Don’t despair.”
“Cogna,” prompted Ilsa. The word came out more forcefully than she intended.
“Yes, yes. Some think Cogna’s a god; others, a mere genius. We all develop early mechanisms to control our Sight to some degree; the strong of mind have more success than the dim, of course. Cogna’s control was powerful from the first. They sailed through the training. An unusual choice for the seership, I must say, but I believe it was thought to be the only way of controlling the child.”
“What do you mean?”
Jorn turned his attention to Ilsa. “What is the closest you have ever been to death?” Jorn asked. Ilsa was already holding out her hand.
He took it, and the wait was even longer this time. To distract herself from thoughts of days on end without a morsel of food or lashings that cut too deep, Ilsa hazarded a glance at Fyfe. His blush was giving way to a look of irritation to rival Eliot’s.
Jorn’s brow creased; it might have been sympathy. “Death is a dear friend of yours, it seems.”
“I like to think of him as an unwanted admirer.”
A laugh. “He’ll win you eventually,” the Oracle said. His gaze roamed over her again and she shuddered. “Cogna is an omnic.”
“A what now?”
Fyfe shook his head. “I’ve never heard of an omnic.”
“Because they are incomparably rare. Cogna is the first born in the city, or in Albia, or on the whole continent I would wager. An omnic Sees not only the future as it might be, but all possible versions,” said Jorn, spreading his arms wide.
“Don’t that defeat the purpose of a plain old Oracle?” said Ilsa. “Multiple futures and all that? I mean, I can see multiple futures. In one, Fyfe and I leave here happy because you’ve been helpful. In another, I smash your face in.” She smiled. “All hypothetical, ’course.”
Fyfe leaned towards her. “Didn’t we talk about not handling yourself?”
“It’s philosophy, Fyfe, it ain’t fighting.”
“No, she’s right,” said Jorn. “Put an omnic among the rest of us, and our Sight becomes laughable.”
“But you can still know the future, even as it changes, and Ilsa and I can only guess at it. What use is it to see all the outcomes that never come to pass?”
Jorn raised a hand and slowly curled it into a fist. “Control. An ordinary Oracle Sees only an eventuality, malleable and abstract. They cannot say what will change that eventuality, nor how. But Cogna – Cogna knows how to bring the future they want into being.”
Ilsa resisted the urge to glance at Fyfe. What eventuality was Cogna seeking by joining forces with Gedeon?
“It is why other Oracles cannot See the apprentice. The world around Cogna – its possibilities – shifts as Cogna does,” said Jorn, his white eyes narrowed at Ilsa. “It is the reason you are alive, fairest.”
Again, Ilsa’s mind went to her many brushes with death. “I weren’t even in the Witherward ’til a few weeks ago. What does Cogna know of me?”
“A good question. Perhaps your companion can help me answer it.” His gaze snapped to Fyfe. “Tell me, what were the last words spoken to the one you love?”
Ilsa snorted. “Bleeding hell. That’s really what you want to know most?”
“What can I say? I appreciate a mess.”
She didn’t know what to say to that, but Fyfe stared levelly at Jorn.
“There isn’t anybody,” he said. It was a lie.
“Let me be the judge of that.” Jorn extended a hand and, reluctantly, Fyfe took it.
Ilsa wondered idly, if she could look through all of Fyfe’s days and nights, whether she would be able to tell who it was he pined for. Yet it didn’t matter. Whatever was in Fyfe’s heart, he hadn’t shared it freely, so Ilsa didn’t want to know. She was just about to intervene, to propose some other secret, when the men disconnected, and Jorn raised his head. His grin was gleeful.
“You’re not his type.”
“Is this the price? Amusing you?” snapped Fyfe. Abruptly, he was on his feet. Ilsa followed. “If you would answer our question we’ll be on our way.”
Jorn continued to grin, and casually crossed his legs. “We have always known of you, Ilsa Ravenswood,” he said, even as his eyes stayed on Fyfe. “It would take more than the fabric between dimensions to keep you from the Oracles. It was Cogna who triggered the series of events that led to your attempted murder that night, as you know. But it was also Cogna who told the Changelings you were alive.”
Ilsa’s eyes
