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k_a_webb“Is there any way you could convince her you’re asking for yourself?” Peric asked, leaning his head on one hand. “Any words you can use that will make it obvious to her that anything she tells you will be entirely confidential?”
“Maybe.” Lucille bit her lip. “The subject is dangerous for anyone to talk about, because you never know who might be listening in, so she might lie even if I do use the right words. If I can get her to somewhere safe I might be able to get an honest answer from her, but I don’t know if she’ll even want to talk to me. We haven’t been on good terms for a long time, since I decided that I did want to become a Moonjumper, after she told me that it was a dangerous choice to make, that I didn’t know what I was stepping into, that it was different from what I was expecting it to be.” She shook her head. “Everything she said makes me think she was a true Moonjumper who was scared of what she was and she thought that it was something I would become if I did what she’d done.”
“She was right.”
“Yes, she was, and I wish I could take back some of the things I said to her over the years. Whenever we got together from the time I started my studies we ended up arguing, because she could never accept the choice I made and I never believed she could possibly be right about the worries she kept telling me she had. Now that I look back I realise I should have listened to her, so I could have learnt about what might happen to me when I stepped onto my first world, but even if I had I don’t think I would have believed her. Being a true Moonjumper was something I had to become to understand.”
“At least you would have been prepared,” Sal said.
“I’m not sure I would have been. We’ve been talking about creating a book that will help the unprepared if they happen to find that they can step through one of the doors, but there’s a big difference between learning about a world and actually stepping onto it.” Lucille looked around. “Learning about Quiar was something I’d always wanted to do, but the Council knows very little about this world and what they do know is out of date. By centuries. They know barely anything about recent history and even the distant past is something they’ve only been able to learn about by listening to conversations in coffee shops. Me being here, they hope it will change things, and yet my plan is to go back to Athare and lie to them, because I don’t want them to learn more about this world.”
“Writing about this world will put that all out of your control… and ours.” Meriwether sighed. “If even one Council Moonjumper gets their hands on the book then our lives are going to change. There’s not going to be a web war, but something will happen, and I don’t think I want it to, even though I want the book to exist.”
“There is one way of keeping it safe.” Lucille looked at Meriwether and Sal could tell by the way their eyes met that they knew exactly what the other was thinking. “One of the gifts of the fae was written magic and if we put the right spell on the book it will be impossible for the wrong person to be able to read.”
“Unfortunately finding someone with that ability is almost impossible, because that gift has almost entirely faded away. I haven’t seen anyone with that form of magic in centuries.” Meriwether rubbed his antler. “What we need to do is find Mab. If anyone has kept that ability it’s her.”
“Nothing like a nice simple job.” Lucille sighed. “Finding fae who don’t want to be found in hard enough. Finding reincarnated fae who don’t want to be found is going to be almost impossible, but then I was the one to suggest it, so I’ll have a chat with some of my contacts.” She blinked, looking as though she’d just realised something. “Carver… I think he’s met her… but he doesn’t know he’s met her. I’d put money on Azure being Mab.”
“Who’s Carver and who’s Azure?” Sal asked, feeling out of his depth.
“Carver is one of my closest friends and Azure was one of his. They disappeared together when it seemed like they were going to be arrested by the Council, because Carver was a true Moonjumper and Azure was a natural, but there was always something more to her secret, something she didn’t want to tell anyone, and now I need to find her.”
“Tracking spell?” Meriwether suggested.
“I don’t know. With Azure tracking spells sometimes didn’t work – I know that because Carver used to cast them if he got worried about her and three times out of seven it wouldn’t stick.”
“You’ve never used a fae tracking spell.” Meriwether smiled. “When I have a spare minute I’ll cast it and if she is Mab then it will work.”
“As long as you don’t tell her it was me who sent you after her. She disliked me enough before and if she knows I know what her secret is… that I think I know what her secret is… then I have a feeling she’ll dislike me even more.”
“Maybe she didn’t dislike you, Lucy.” Peric shrugged. “It was that she knew that you’d realised something neither Kai or Carver had and she was scared that you’d tell them.”
“Even though I didn’t actually know what her secret was – I just knew that she had one. As far as I was concerned she didn’t have to tell anyone anything she didn’t want to. It was the world we lived in, really, that made any secret a very dangerous thing, but if she is Mab I don’t understand why she rejoined the Council.”
Mirrored from K. A. Jones Writing.
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Date: 2013-10-29 01:15 am (UTC)That should say "is hard" above.
Also, I'd try asking the worlds. They might know.