Invisible Page 3

  “He didn’t taunt me,” Joy said. “This armored guy showed up after work and tried to kill me. When I ran into the woods, he threw that—” she pointed at the sword “—into a tree and blew it to pieces.”

  Graus Claude sniffed the blade. “Hmm. Definitely not a mere threat,” he murmured and placed the sword gently back onto his desk. “This was an uncommon weapon forged once upon an age, clearly fallen into disuse, but I cannot imagine how any might attempt to use it to circumvent the Edict. The protective safeguards would be enacted almost instantly.”

  “That ward was you?” Joy asked. “I thought that was Ink.”

  “Not I, Miss Malone,” the noble toad said. “But rather the Council. I am merely one of its members, the comptroller between worlds, hence my title as the Bailiwick of the Twixt.”

  Joy picked a flake of bark off the desk where it had fallen from the sword. “Well, I don’t know why you think that some Council ruling is enough to keep me and my family safe,” she said. “People break laws all the time.”

  “People do. Humans do. The Folk, however, do not,” Graus Claude said. “We aren’t subject to laws the way you are to yours. Human laws are collaborative suggestions that can be bent or broken, but our rules are absolute. Rules of magic dictate how our world works, irrevocably. It is part of the Twixt—we cannot change our true nature any more than our True Names.” Graus Claude spread his hands across the desk. “What the Council decrees are not mere words, Miss Malone. They are laws like sunlight and gravity. They are.”

  “And yet they say that I am safe from the Folk,” Joy said. “But I’m not.”

  “Let’s not be overly dramatic.” Graus Claude’s voice rumbled deep in his chest. “You are safe and sound. You’ve simply been frightened, and for that I apologize on behalf of the Folk. As you know, subtlety is not always a valued trait amongst my people, and they delight in pushing interpretation to their advantage.”

  “No, you don’t understand—if Ink hadn’t shown up...” Joy trailed off, realizing that she still had no idea how Ink had found her in the middle of the woods. She glanced at him. It was hard to tell if he was avoiding her eyes or not.

  Had she managed to call him without his signatura on her skin? Could that happen? Once she’d removed the mark of his True Name, Joy had severed the bond between them, much as she had cut the bonds that linked Aniseed to the millions she’d planned to kill with her magic-borne disease. Afterward, Ink had refused to redraw his mark, insisting that she was better off free, an unclaimed human, despite her asking. They’d decided to base their relationship on choice rather than magic.

  But then how...?

  Ink tapped the sword. “The question on the table is whether or not Joy is safe,” Ink said. “Currently, the answer is ‘no.’ This means that either the Edict has not been implemented, has been rescinded or is fundamentally flawed.” The Bailiwick’s eyes narrowed, but the Scribe continued, unshaken by his employer’s displeasure. “In any case, I would ask that you confirm its present state and status with the Council.” Ink straightened as he added a conciliatory, “Please.”

  The Bailiwick sat back and reconsidered the sword on his desk. He let out a long, slow sigh. “What you ask is fair,” Graus Claude grumbled. “And, in fairness to you both, I will investigate your request as well as offer you some information and advice.” He shifted in his seat much like a frog settling onto its haunches. “Once you exposed Aniseed’s plot to foster a Golden Age by mass human genocide, we found that, while we had apprehended many of her supporters, her guiding sentiment had gained popularity.” The Bailiwick coughed politely as if it could mask his distaste. “As a martyr, Aniseed’s death has given it voice.” He stuffed his fountain pen into its holder in disgust. “The Council has been forced to recognize a faction calling itself the Tide, whose representatives have invoked old precepts that would grant them formal audience as well as a seat on the Council.” He smoothed his four hands over the carved armrests. “If there were any who would be most interested in this sort of base revenge, it would be the Tide.” Graus Claude extended one pointy claw. “And they are most interested in you, Miss Malone.”

  Joy gripped her chair arms. “What? Why?”

  “As an extremist, separatist faction, they see you as the primary example of the danger posed by humanity,” he said. “Sol Leander, the representative of the Tide, accuses the Council of negligence in allowing you to flaunt their jurisdiction by wielding power without authority.”

  Joy gaped. “That’s not true!”

  “Actually, it is,” Ink said. “You ended Aniseed’s reign by erasing her mark as well as Briarhook’s signatura. As well as Inq’s. And mine. Such a thing has never occurred before, and certainly never without consequence.”

  “But I didn’t know—” she began, but Ink continued.

  “In addition, you continue to wield the scalpel, an instrument exclusive to the Scribes, without anyone being able to stop you or lay claim to you, since you are already protected under the Edict. You are what all the Twixt has ever wanted to be—both powerful and free.” Ink’s voice remained neutral, but Joy could tell that he said this with no small amount of pride. The dimples were back.

  Joy tried to put her thoughts into words. “So the Folk...are jealous of me? Or afraid of me?”

  “It is enough to make anyone afraid,” Graus Claude said. “Sol Leander enjoys reminding everyone that his commitment, his auspice, is to survivors of unprovoked attack, like everyone in the Twixt.” He tapped his pen with one hand as another gestured to Joy. Hands three and four held the armrests. “You have abused a system that you cannot possibly understand, and without Master Ink’s signatura, you currently exist outside our parameters, yet inside our protections, which does, indeed, flaunt the authority of the Council.” He lowered his head to Joy’s to impress the weight of his words. “To put it bluntly, you are considered rogue, Miss Malone.”

  He sat back with a satisfied air as Joy nervously tugged at her cuff. “And therein lies the heart of my advice,” he said. “I suggest that, for the sake of peace, you consider the following options—either return the scalpel that can erase marks to Master Ink, thus negating the concern of your power going unchecked, accept his signatura, which would bind you to the laws of the Twixt, or quit this world, Miss Malone.” Graus Claude folded his four arms together. “Walk away from this life and never return.”

  A heavy quiet made the room seem darker. The Bailiwick sat patiently. She blinked at him. What? Was she supposed to decide now? Joy staggered under the dual weight of Ink’s gaze and Graus Claude’s words. Had Ink known this was going to happen? Had she been blind not to see this coming? Or simply hopeful? How long had she thought she could go on without being forced to make a choice? The Bailiwick had warned her it was impossible to be of two worlds and, one day, she would have to choose.

  She took the scalpel out of its pocket. “I’ll give it back.”

  “You cannot,” Ink said. “It was a gift and I gave it willingly.” He turned to Graus Claude. “It is done and cannot be undone. Not even by the Council.” Ink cast a quick warning glance at Joy. Without the scalpel, the Folk might discover that the power of erasure lay not in the scalpel, but in her.

  “So you say,” the Bailiwick answered. “Yet ‘undoing’ seems to be Miss Malone’s specialty and expertise. Besides,” he said, “there are other options.”

  Joy held the scalpel, the metal warm in her hand. It was important to keep up the ruse, protecting her magic and her life, but it was also important that she keep other things, like being human. And being free.

  “Ink doesn’t want me to have his signatura,” she said.

  “Because it binds you,” Ink said.

  “Yes,” Graus Claude agreed. “Precisely its purpose, as a matter of fact.” The Bailiwick tapped his manicured claws against the wood. “Signaturae were developed to safeguard
against human entrapment, making slaves of the Folk under the yoke of their True Names. By transferring our magic to sigils, we have secured our freedom. The Scribes, Invisible Inq and Indelible Ink, were created for the sole purpose to mark humans with signaturae.” The great toad’s eye ridge twitched. “That is what they do.”

  “But it must be given willingly,” she said. “A signatura taken by force is powerless. So if Ink doesn’t agree, then that’s that.”

  “I believe you have remarkable talents of persuasion, should you wish to employ them,” Graus Claude said drily. “And it need not be Master Ink’s signatura. It could be anyone’s, but the bond does carry certain obligations and responsibilities that are essential to the Twixt.”

  Joy hadn’t realized that she and Ink had been bound to anything other than one another. When she had been marked as his lehman, Joy was considered to be his human lover/slave/helpmate. What other promises had Ink made by marking Joy? What did the Council know that she didn’t?

  “She is human,” Ink said. “And, unlike us, she has her freedom.” Ink placed a hand over Joy’s. She looked at their joined fingers: human and almost-human, wound together. “She should not have to give that up under pressure from the Council.”

  “Well, I’m not giving you up,” Joy said, dismissing the third option. She looked defiantly at Graus Claude. “I won’t.”

  The Bailiwick sighed around his chins. “One cannot have it all, Miss Malone,” he said, giving his head a palsied shake. “Every choice has its price.”

  Ink regarded Graus Claude coolly. “There must be another way,” Ink said. “And if anyone would discover it, I trust that it would be you.”

  The massive toad’s great eye ridge arced in surprise. “Flattery?” the Bailiwick asked, smiling. “That is a new trick for you, Master Ink.”

  Ink shrugged. “I am learning.” He touched the skin of Joy’s wrist gently, as if remembering how her touch was his first hint at being human, the music of fingers touching, skin on skin.

  Graus Claude rearranged random things on his desk before two of his hands opened a polished wood case and a third withdrew a set of gold-rimmed spectacles. “Very well. Leave me the sword—let me ruminate on the rest. See if I cannot invent some solution.” He nodded to Joy. “Miss Malone, I ask that you consider the obvious alternatives within the month. By then, the Council will most likely demand a formal audience with you, and while I have labored to shield you from them, I cannot sway them from such an action as it would be well within their rights. They will customarily ask you for your voluntary acquiescence to respect their ruling and it might be in your best interest to express a preference with humility and sincerity. The Council is more impressed with a show of vulnerability than strength.” He peered through his tiny lenses, his nostrils squashed flat against his face. “In the meanwhile, Master Ink has informed me that your home is still well fortified with wards of his design. You should be safest there. Wait for my summons, and we shall see what cleverness I can devise.”

  Ink tapped Joy’s hand, but she was the first to speak.

  “Thank you, Graus Claude.”

  “And thank you for your efforts to protect both our worlds,” he replied. “For anyone on the Council to condemn you without question is poor recompense, and I assure you that I, for one, will not allow it.”

  Ink stood. “We are in your debt.”

  Graus Claude speared the Scribe with a sharp glance. “Mind your debts, Master Ink,” he said. “I am certain your sister would counsel likewise.”

  Joy thought back to Inq’s centuries-old deal with Aniseed, the one that might have first inspired the dryad alchemist to try spreading her fatal disease through signaturae. That one tiny trade almost destroyed all of humanity and the Twixt.

  As if by magic, the doors parted and Kurt stood ready to escort them out. “Away with you, now,” Graus Claude said good-naturedly. “Master Ink, always a mystery. Miss Malone, always a pleasure.”

  Ink bowed. “Thank you again, Bailiwick.” He held Joy’s hand as they left the office, exiting into the now-empty foyer with its dark wainscoting, oil paintings and ivory-colored walls. Joy wondered what had happened to the frightened robed woman. Perhaps she’d grown tired of waiting? Joy was suddenly exhausted. An eight-hour shift plus a run for your life, a hot shower and a formal audience with an eight-foot, four-armed amphibian took a lot out of a body.

  “I think we’re starting to annoy him,” Joy said to Kurt as they approached the front door.

  “Nonsense,” Kurt said in his smooth tenor, which Joy still thought at odds with his heavy muscleman body. “The Bailiwick looks forward to your visits. He remarks that they are rarely dull.”

  “I’m so glad that my life is entertaining,” Joy said.

  Kurt bowed a fraction. “Most mortals’ are.”

  Joy considered his words and his carefully neutral expression. Kurt had been a human child who’d survived the Black Plague; his mother had called upon the Folk to save him and the Bailiwick had agreed in exchange for the boy’s servitude, extending Kurt’s mortal life so that he could work off his debt. Kurt had been Inq’s lover, yet never one of her lehman, dedicating his life to killing Aniseed and recently regaining his voice by breaking her curse. He had been trained in swordsmanship, marksmanship, magic, healing and service. His eyes looked old although his face barely looked thirty, and a long scar split his throat like a gruesome smile. Kurt’s life had been entertaining Folk for centuries. Joy wondered if he still considered himself mortal or not.

  “You sound like my sister,” Ink said.

  Kurt almost snorted. “A recreational hazard.”

  Joy smiled. “Please tell Inq hi from me.”

  Kurt placed a gloved hand on the doorknob. “You know she’ll take that as an invitation.”

  “She might, as well,” Ink said. “We would welcome her thoughts on this matter.”

  “I’ll tell her you said so,” Kurt said as he nodded his goodbye and, checking the perimeter, let them through the door.

  Flicking his straight razor, Ink slashed a gaping hole through the thick of the world. Black eyes hard, he shielded Joy from the open air and any who might be watching. Joy slid against his chest as he pulled her forward into nothingness.

  * * *

  Joy stumbled into her room, banging her shin against the side of her bed. Ink strode past her, emerging from the rent inside the closet to check his wards on the window and the door to her room before striding into the hall to examine all the exits. Joy trailed behind him, switching off the house alarm and flipping on lights. It had been barely a minute since they’d left. Time did strange things when she traveled by Scribe.

  “Everything safe?” she asked.

  Ink ran his fingers over the security keypad. “As safe as I left it, but not as safe as I would like.” He marched a quick circuit around the condo.

  “Do you think anything could happen here?”

  Ink crossed the room. “No. I placed enough wards to keep the Folk at bay. Only Inq or I can enter here.”

  “What about Folk like Graus Claude? Or Filly?” Joy asked, thinking of the last time the young Valkyrie had appeared in her kitchen, summoned by a trill of bells. Of course, that hadn’t actually been her kitchen, it had been an illusion, a trap, and, looking around, Joy doubted that the eight-foot-tall Bailiwick could even fit through the hall.

  “Not without your invitation,” Ink said from the den. “You are safe here.”

  “I’m not worried about me,” Joy said, even if it was only half-true. “Stefan is coming home for the last half of summer break, and Dad’ll be here, too.” The prospect of having her family home was both exciting and terrifying. When worlds collide... It was almost like the idea of having Mom and Doug meet Dad and Shelley. While she didn’t like the fact that her mother had left her father for a younger man and moved
out to Los Angeles, Joy now accepted that her mom still loved her, but Doug was something Joy hadn’t dealt with yet. When she’d gone to visit in March, he’d been conspicuously absent, which was fine by her. Baby steps. One conniption fit at a time. She took a deep breath. “My family can’t even see the Folk. How are they supposed to keep safe?”

  Ink unfolded his leather wallet on its silver chain. He tucked the razor back into its pocket next to the leaf-tipped wand and the empty compartment where the scalpel used to be, its shape still clearly visible, having molded into the leather over time.

  “I do not believe that they are in danger,” Ink said. “I have been thinking about it more. Elemental blades are most often used in ritual combat. They were once wielded against true elementals, the forerunners who ruled before there was the Twixt, back when the world was divided equally between humans and Folk. The sword we left with Graus Claude was crafted with fire and water, disparate elements—powerful, but unstable, much like its wielder,” he said wryly. “I do not think he was in his right mind. The weapon was not forged for use against humans.” Ink’s eyes sought hers. “Nevertheless, you could have been killed.”

  Joy sat down. “I wasn’t.”

  “No,” Ink said. “But you could have been. Easily. Far too easily. And yet he chased you into the woods—an aged soldier in ancient armor, waving an antiquated sword. He was old, and it had been a long time since he had seen combat.”

  He took her hand, forcing Joy to stop twisting her fingers in her shirt. “How do you know all this?”

  “I inspected that portion of the Glen, following his trail and deciphering his tactics,” he said. “And I was there, with you, at the end. His endurance was waning, his reactions were slow, his aim was poor and his teeth were blue.”

  Joy waited, but Ink gave no further explanation. “Um, what?”