VI

Lea was almost asleep when she saw something glittering in the window… something soft and golden. The light pulsed. All sleepiness in Lea’s mind ebbed away as the light drew her in. Moth-like she rose from her bed and muttered an incantation to keep her footfalls and breathing silent as she passed by her mother’s bedroom and out the front door into the forest-green yard.

The golden light continued to pulse from the corner of the fence. Someone was leaning against the fence—the shimmering reflected from his palm and onto her face. Lea cried out, as she thought she recognized the statuesque silhouette and the looming shadow that did not quite fit in with the rest of his body… like a pair of wings were stretched out behind him.

“Graeson!” Lea ran straight to the light and buried her face in his chest without a second thought.

The body underneath her stiffened and Sidyan laughed.

Lea felt a shiver disrupt her heartbeat. For a moment she merely kept still, then she attempted to scramble away from Sidyan, but he had his arms tight over her shoulders.

“Dearest sister! Why so frightened?”

“Let go of me!” Lea shoved hard against Sidyan and managed to duck underneath his arm and stumbled backwards into the grass.

Sidyan put the golden light—whatever it was—into his pocket, his wings were as impressive as she had ever seen, his smile mischievous and permanent, his hair was considerably shorter than Graeson’s, and he did not hold himself at all similar to the way his twin did. Lea realized that she had seen only what she wanted to, because this was clearly not Graeson, no matter that they were identical, to her, they were clearly different people.

“Don’t be like that Sealea,” Sidyan sighed heavily in annoyance as Lea jumped up to her feet and attempted to run to the house, she needed to warn her family. A long wing stretched in front of her and pushed her backwards to Sidyan again, like she was a mouse and he was just an overgrown cat playing with his food. “I came to talk to you today… of course, I wanted to get to know your family first-”

“-Leave them out of this!”

“Well, they seem to like me, even if you don’t,” and because Lea’s face must have looked confused, Sidyan expressed his exasperation with a roll of his dark eyes before his blackness dissolved into gold, his height receded a few inches and his features softened.

Horrorstruck, Lea stared at Sidyan, who had transformed himself into Hectyr with such ease that it was as if he had merely showed her an amusing card-trick.

“Y-you came into my house?” Lea hissed, “You ate with my family?!” she made it sound as if he had eaten her family.

“Yes,” Sidyan grinned with Hectyr’s perfect teeth as if he understood her terror completely, “Charming people… But you little sister, are really the person I wanted to talk to,” the golden armor clouded over with black again and the knight-puppet stretched back out into Sidyan, who leaned against the fence, looking pensive. “However, before we start talking about all of that… I’ve got to see something,” without warning the handkerchief that was wrapped around her hand flew off of her hair and landed in Sidyan’s waiting hand.

Lea squealed out-loud and for a moment tried to cover her horns, but then gave it up in futility. “It was an accident.” She muttered.

For ten seconds Sidyan said nothing, then he burst into a long, loud set of uproarious laughter. He was bent over clutching his sides, with his wings convulsing behind him. He was loud enough that she was quite surprised that no one from the house heard him.

After a moment he stood up straight rubbed at the pale skin below his eyes and said, “That’s wonderful. Really inspiring.”

“I can’t get rid of them-”

“-They’re cute! Why would you want to?” he chuckled.

Lea glared.

Sighing, Sidyan leaned against the fence, “You see Sealea,” his manner softened and he looked more like Graeson than she had ever known him too. “Recent events have caused me to reevaluate my life a little… before, it seemed… oh, I don’t know… unimportant, that I spent my life on pursuits that would result in my own pleasure while others suffered.”

Lea wondered if she dare make another bolt for the house, and as if Sidyan was reading her mind, a golden spike planted itself in the ground between them while he paused in his discourse. From the head of the spike sprouted a chain that secured itself around Lea’s wrist. She sat struggling with it futilely in the grass, while Sidyan paced in front of her, speaking calmly under the tranquility of the overcast night.

“The whole situation with my parents was really quite… unfortunate.”

Wide-eyed, Lea stopped pulling at the chain on her wrist for a moment and let her mouth drop while she beheld him speaking of the parents he had killed so casually. He was so callused.

“Oh, that is right, I did not tell you earlier!” Sidyan snapped his fingers and looked amused, “It keeps slipping my mind… you see, do you remember when we were dancing, and I told you for a split second that I had not killed my mother and father?”

“Yes, then you quickly told me the truth,” spat Lea.

“Hum…” Sidyan looked at Lea’s face. His crooked smile had gone away, “You’d better not speak anymore,” he waved his hand and Lea felt as if her lips had been sealed together. She tried to shriek, but Sidyan’s scowl became more pronounced and he said, “Don’t make me put your tongue in my pocket.”

Lea stopped whining and glared.

“Sealea,” he knelt down in the grass heavily, his wings relaxed against the dewy blades as he cocked his head at her, “I did not kill my parents.” He spoke very quietly, and with such intensity, that if Lea had not known better, she may have believed him. He took a moment to gather himself, then cleared his throat and continued in his usual jaunty manner, “Graeson thinks I did, and with good reason… I have never really gotten along very well with my brother—as you may have gathered already, or perhaps Graeson has told you… My fault, mostly. I rather liked to torment him when we were younger, and we grew apart after our first hundred years… it was inevitable that we would become enemies… I gained acquaintances among those whom I considered myself to be equals with… I was wrong, however. They were far inferior to me, and to my brother. They proved their stupidity when they killed my parents. I proved my power when I had vengeance,” his eyes flashed in the pale light. His gaze was made all the more intense by the shadows that flickered across his face.

Lea motioned to her mouth, she wanted to ask him why he had not told Graeson this, but true to his nature, Sidyan ignored her.

“I will spare you the details, since you are such a delicate little thing, but you must rest assure, I took the duty of murdering my parent’s murderers, very seriously,” the darkness had not left his face. It was as if all the evil she had seen in him before was merely playfulness. This was Sidyan’s true wrath, or at least, a shade of it.

Lea furrowed her brow and motioned to her mouth again.

“I probably should have contacted Graeson then. I should have told him what had happened and maybe even asked for his help in killing them. I did not need his help of course, but as they say, it is the thought that counts… I should have taken that opportunity to approach him and mend our relationship… But I didn’t. The next time I saw Graeson was three years later, after the rumours that I had been involved with the Elder Andwyrdens murder had reached him. He had time to deny the allegations, try to find out the truth for himself… he had time to let all this sordid evil fester inside of him. Finally, he had time to except that I was capable of such evil. He had time to wonder why I did not kill him too… our reunion was… violent.”

It now occurred to Lea that she should have screamed earlier. But it was too late to warn her family.

“The point is… I don’t want to fight with Graeson anymore. It is childish,” he shrugged, “And time consuming. I want to tell him my story, and hopefully begin to repair the damage between us.”

Lea raised her eyebrows at him.

“Because I have found that after eight hundred years… I think I love my brother after all,” he answered her unasked question so candidly and with such a sickly sweet air that Lea was a little stunned. She did not realise for a moment that she could speak again.

“Now, I need you to come with me. If I just show up he’ll kill me. Or try to, more likely… but, if you are with me, it should distract him, and hopefully soften his heart enough that he will listen to me. He’ll see that I have not hurt you, and what’s more, your belief in me should have some sort of affect on him,” Sidyan was bright again, “Unless he knows you’re very stupid.” he added, still looking very cheerful as he bounded up to his feet and caused the golden spike as well as the chain around Lea’s wrist to vanish.

“But—you want me to come with you?!” Lea cried. The idea of seeing Graeson again, was attractive to her, however, she was not looking forward to traveling anywhere with Sidyan.

“Certainly.”

“I cannot go with you! My family was in hysterics when I disappeared before, I cannot do that to them again…” Lea pleaded.

Sidyan looked at her in confusion, and perhaps, there was a little amusement shimmering through those grey eyes, “You mean, you are not frightened for your own safety? This is bound to be a long journey, and once we reach our destination… well, we shall be in the heart of the Sorcier Kingdom. You will look like some kind of plaything to the majority of the residents in November. But all you care about is worrying your mumsie?”

“I cannot leave them like this again.”

Sidyan surveyed her for a moment, with his arms crossed over his chest, and his eyebrows knit, “Well then…” he said slowly, “We’ll just have to take them with us.”

Before Lea could protest, a rumbled from behind her caught her attention. She turned around in alarm and screamed out-loud as she saw her house begin to collapsed and fold in on itself. The ground was moving like there was an earth-quake, and the house was crumbling into pieces though no debris was visible. The barn was disappearing too—Lea could hear the horses crying out from inside, but they were silence after a moment… everything was silent when the house finally vanished, and all that was left was a dirt path leading to an empty patch of ground next to a line of laundry that Prospera had forgotten to take in that evening.

“What have you done?!” shrieked Lea as she bolted up the dirt path and fell to her knees where her house should be. Hidden in the grass was a black and white checkered wooden box. With shaking hands Lea lifted the box up and opened it. It was a fold-out chess board, and inside were chess-men. “You turned my home and my family into a board-game!” Lea declared as she leapt to her feet and snapped the lid shut. It did not occur to her to be careful with the little wooden pieces until she had taken a few leaps forward and felt the chess pieces inside the box shift in her grasp.

Sidyan was walking toward the forest, leaving Lea to follow in his wake. She did so, after a moment of considering all her options. Sidyan’s legs were considerably longer than hers, and he was already half-way to the forest by the time Lea caught up to him.

“Put them right!” she demanded, “Turn my family back!”

“Don’t forget the horses and the sheep. They make up the Knights and Pawns.”

“Despicable!” Lea snapped in her rage.

Sidyan looked at her sideways as they walked, “You have never spoken to me like this before,” he observed in disapproval. “Aren’t you terrified of me?”

“Fix my family!” she yelled again and hit him in the arm. Sidyan barely took notice of the attack, but stopped walking as they reached the forest and pulled a pocket-watch from his coat.

Lea set the box down carefully and ran at Sidyan, who merely raised one wing lazily like a shield, and shoved her back a few feet, until she tripped over the chess-box and fell onto the grass.

“Little sister, please, control your temper. Your family will come back to themselves in their own due time. That is the way magic works… and that spell wasn’t very hard. It wasn’t anything at all like when Graeson trapped me in that clock, or when he locked The Queen into that mirror, I mean, even I will admit I was impressed by that little bit of Sorcieree.”

“How long?” demanded Lea, through a mouthful of feathers, as she continued to try to push her way past his wings so she could pummel whatever soft white part of his body she came into contract with first.

“A couple of weeks… maybe longer,” he shrugged. “Of course, there is always a prescribed countre-curse. If you could figure out what it is then you could turn them back yourself.”

“A countre-curse? How does it work?”

“Like a riddle, so I am strictly not allowed to tell you… the whole point of a countre-curse is wit and experimentation and using your own abilities. Whatever small thing you can do, to right what you think to be so very wrong,” he said the word like it was a curse, and then wiped his wing out of Lea’s face so quickly that the noise startled her.

Sidyan was standing beside a small black carriage drawn by a single black Friesian horse. “Step inside, dearest sister,” he opened the door for her and bowed a little. Lea had never seen anyone do this before it real life, though Old Papa had once shown her a daguerreotype of a fine woman in town being helped into a carriage like this one, but a footman in a low bow.

Lea blinked at him, struggling with herself.

“Hurry up,” said Sidyan in an impatient but sing-song voice.

She bit down hard on her lip, then sighed, gathered the chess-box up into her arms protectively and stepped into the carriage, wishing she had any other option in the world.