Bozer did a double-take as he grabbed the oats from the pantry.
(He, Mac and Riley had woken up far earlier this morning, and had decided to help Cage and Jill with breakfast.)
He was positive that the wheel of cheddar in the pantry was the exact same one as had been there the day before.
(Gargantuan wheels of cheddar did not appear out of nowhere overnight. Even, he was pretty sure, in magical castles.)
However, yesterday, he'd used a sizeable wedge of it.
But today…the wheel was whole again.
Magic, he knew, but why? And how?
(Food-conjuring magic was supposed to be essentially impossible, right up there with immortality magic.)
After breakfast, Beth led the three of them to the library, a cavernously-sized, yet comfortable-feeling room full of bookshelves and tables and chairs.
Mac, Bozer and Riley couldn't help but stare for a moment.
None of them had ever seen so many books in their lives.
Their guide smiled, and started pointing out the sections.
'Fiction is over there, and the cookbooks are on the shelves on the far left wall. Magic books are to your right, and the engineering ones are over by that window…'
She led them through the library, picking out individual recommendations for all three of them, and as she handed him a thick tome which she'd seemed to know exactly where to find, Mac's brow furrowed.
'How…' He gestured vaguely. 'How can you do this?'
She was up on a stepladder, reaching for another book, face buried in the shelves, so he couldn't see her expression, but he was positive that there was a tiny bit of sadness in her voice again.
'I've read every book in here at least four times, Mac.'
I estimate that there's over a thousand books in this library, and quite a lot of them are really, really thick.
I read really fast, but I think it'd take me a couple of decades to read every book in here four times.
How fast does Beth read?
The day after they'd spent a very enjoyable morning in the library, Bozer helped Beth and Jill alter some garments to fit himself, Mac and Riley, and sew a couple of new pieces.
They sat in the solar, all three working skilfully and efficiently, albeit at markedly different rates.
(Bozer had been known for his skill and speed back in his and Mac's old town, but Jill's magic was quicker with a needle and thread than he could ever be.)
He took a quick break from sewing a shirt for himself in his usual style, eyes falling on the shirt that Beth was altering to fit his best friend.
It was 200 years out of style (not that Mac would care; he dressed like his grandfather – who was from a different day and age and had never been fashionable himself – had and could not care less), much like the clothes of all of the castle's inhabitants, actually…
That was weird.
Bozer had always thought that castles and the people who lived in them would be on the cutting edge of fashion.
The goblets rotated around in the air, each pausing below the pitcher of water to be filled, before moving on.
When all ten of the goblets were full, they and the pitcher lowered themselves to the ground gently.
Riley smiled, proud of herself.
Jill grinned and clapped, while a small smile also graced Cage's face, as she nodded.
'Good job.' Something a little more knowing and wry slipped into her smile. 'Ready for another challenge?'
Riley's smile widened.
'…Come on, Patty! You gotta come meet them; they're great kids!'
Jack gestured broadly as he lounged in his favourite armchair in the Queen's study, his feet propped up on his favourite footstool (her very expensive coffee table).
She did this every time they had visitors; usually, she took meals with the castle's inhabitants (technically her servants, but Jack knew that she thought of them as family, even though she'd never admit it) most of the time, but when they had guests, she'd disappear into her rooms and have Jill bring up a tray.
Part of it, he knew, was the practical fact that she was the Queen of the Kingdom, and they couldn't exactly admit that without having to reveal and explain the whole curse thing, and they didn't like to do that to new guests.
It tended to shock them, and they also didn't want word getting out.
If it did, things could get messy.
Thus, standard procedure was to wait until the visitors worked it out for themselves. They always did, if they stayed long enough.
Now, Jack was all for sitting Mac, Riley and Bozer down and explaining the whole situation gently (he was positive that they'd be staying long-term; they had nowhere else to go, and they were making friends with everyone, except Patty, obviously, and besides, with brains like Mac and Riley's, it couldn't be long before they puzzled it out), but he respected his lady's wishes and orders.
The rest of it…well, that was just Patty being Patty, he knew. She was cool by nature, and had a hell of a lot of walls, but she really did care underneath it all, just as much as the rest of them did.
She didn't look up from the thick, leather-bound book she was reading.
'I know.'
There was too much in those two words for even Jack to tease it all out.
(Something sad, something regretful, something happy and maybe longing and so much else…)
Mac glanced between Michael and the slightly-smoking project he'd been working on that he'd just doused with a bucket of water (a few buckets were always kept on hand in strategic locations, just in case – the Engineer's wife and daughter insisted upon it).
'Sorry…'
'Don't apologize, MacGyver.' Michael smiled, both wry and reassuring. 'My mentor always said that if you don't blow something up or set something on fire at least once a fortnight during your apprenticeship, you're not doing it right.' The smile turned more sheepish. 'Uh…don't tell my daughter I said that, please; she's expressly forbidden me from formally asking you if you'd like to do an apprenticeship until you're fully recovered…'
Mac blinked, processing for a moment (a real Engineer wanted him to formally become his apprentice!), before he chuckled and nodded.
'…Most people's All Hallows Eve decorations are lame, you know, carved pumpkins just don't cut it, so one year, my cousin George and I, he's crazy, real crazy, went and dug up some old dead guy from the cemetery-'
Mac, Bozer and Riley just stared at Jack in disbelief. Bozer found his voice first and cut the older man off.
'Jack, you dug up a dead body and stole it?'
Jack pursed his lips and shook his head.
'Well, he'd been dead for ages, he wasn't really a body anymore, he was pretty much just a collection of bones, reassembling him was a pain, and we didn't steal him, we put him back after…'
Mac, Bozer and Riley didn't look very reassured, the blonde speaking.
'Jack, grave robbery is a crime.'
Jack waved his hand dismissively.
'Eh, those laws aren't really enforced.'
That didn't have the effect he wanted. Mac, Bozer and Riley still seemed astounded and somewhat horrified.
Cage, who was sitting at the dining table a couple of seats away, reached over and took a baked potato from the bowl next to Jack, shooting him an I-told-you-so look.
'I told you not to tell that story again.'
The morning that Beth declared Mac fully recovered from his injury, Jack plopped himself down in front of Mac, Bozer and Riley at the table, having strode into breakfast a little late, and pointed at all three of them after he'd had a sip of his morning coffee, expression serious.
'Meet me down at the training field by the guardhouse after you've cleaned up after breakfast for weapons training.'
'Weapons training?'
Jack nodded seriously in response to Bozer's question. Very seriously.
'It's my responsibility to protect everyone in this castle. That includes you three. And the best way to protect you is to teach you to protect yourselves.'
Jack's logic is sound.
It is important that we learn to defend ourselves, and it's very good of him to teach us.
Still…I don't like the idea of getting blood on my hands. I don't like the idea of killing someone.
I understand that one might find oneself in a situation where one has to fight for one's life or the lives of others, but I also believe that there is almost always another way. That that doesn't mean kill or be killed.
They say that the young are too often naïve.
I concede that maybe I'm idealistic, but I don't think I'm all that naïve, not after what I've lived through.
Mac glanced at Bozer and Riley, saw similar thoughts to his own in his best friend's eyes, and something very guarded that he couldn't quite read in Riley's (he could guess, though, could tell she must be recalling her father's death in her mind, and he was pretty sure he saw hints of both regret and acceptance there), then turned back to Jack, who was watching Riley with concern in his eyes, and nodded.
There is a difference between ability and action.
A massive difference.
For example, Jack could kill any of us quite easily, I'm sure.
But I'm even surer that he would never, ever hurt us.
When the trio of teens arrived at the training field, Jack and Cage were sparring with a half-dozen magically-animated faceless training dummies.
They watched as Jack beheaded one of the dummies with his massive longsword, hitting a second hard in the jaw with the pommel of his sword immediately after, while Cage kicked a third dummy away from her, throwing a small knife into its chest, then stabbed another with the larger knife she held in her other hand while she pulled another throwing knife from her belt.
Once all the dummies were down (and magically repairing themselves, which was a little disconcerting to watch), Jack and Cage turned to them, Jack grinning as he sheathed his longsword, then rubbed his hands together.
'Lesson time, kiddos!'
The three of them eyed his longsword for a moment, and Cage's mind buzzed as she summoned the knives she'd buried into the dummies, putting them back into their sheaths.
Mac was very reluctant to learn swordplay, knowing how difficult it was to avoid killing or inflicting near-fatal, crippling wounds, knowing how much skill was required to wield a sword in a non-deadly manner.
Bozer felt similar, if not somewhat more viscerally, tinged with a little more experience.
Riley knew that she would not have the physical strength to wield something like Jack's sword, even if Cage also knew she'd never voice that, and she held reservations about killing too, though a little different from those of the boys. Ones that drew more on experience. Regret, rather than just deeply-held ideals, morals.
Jack, too, seemed to pick up on what direction their thoughts were taking, because he waved a hand reassuringly, putting a hand on the pommel of his sword.
'Much as I love Ol' Faithful here, I'm not a one-weapon kinda guy.' He motioned towards the nearby guardhouse. 'Let's find you guys something that speaks to you…'
Jack led them into the armoury, which was full of a huge array of weapons, which he gestured towards.
'I can teach you to fight with anything in here, so look around, find the one that gets you like Ol' Faithful gets me…'
The first part of his sentence didn't sound like idle boasting. Not at all.
(Mac was a little sceptical about finding a weapon that got him – that seemed to require sentience, and even magic could not instil sentience.)
There are at least twenty different types of weapons in here, and then several variants of each type. Jack is a Knight of the Realm, one of the most elite warriors in Phoenix, and he's not exactly a youngster either, but still…that's a lot of weapons to have mastered.
Mac picked up one of the intriguing-looking blowdarts, about the length of his palm, with a very sharp needle and a tiny glass vial mounted on them, that were stored on a rack that he suspected was custom-built for them, bringing it carefully to his eye level and examining it.
They appeared to be expertly engineered to inject the contents of the vial into their targets. There was a little steel ball at the rear of the dart, the momentum of which would depress a plunger on impact, which would in turn force the liquid in the vial through the hollow needle and into the target.
'Mac, brother, what do you say to these?' Jack held up a longsword, slimmer and lighter than his, in his right hand, and a sturdy quarterstaff in his left. When he saw what Mac was examining, he put down the longsword and picked up a dart himself. 'They're pretty nifty little things, aren't they?' Mac just nodded, continuing to examine the blowdart's injecting mechanism. 'Beth's real good with 'em; if you resist proper medical care, she'll shoot you in the ass with one of them that's full of sedative, and you'll wake up in the infirmary getting that care…'
Jack sounded very much like he was speaking from experience.
For a moment, Mac was lost for words.
I know, I know, appearances can be deceiving. You shouldn't assume that someone is fragile or delicate or weak because they're small and female.
Not that I ever thought she was fragile or delicate or weak, though she's obviously small and female, just…well, you get what I mean.
A blowgun and injecting darts is a logical choice of weapon for a small girl who doesn't have physical strength or reach on her side and is a skilled healer, with an apothecary for a mother to boot.
And this also explains why she was so sure she could make me take care of myself if I didn't…I mean, I'm starting to think she could probably do it by sheer force of will alone, but being able to take me down with a single dart would also help.
Stay on her good side, MacGyver. Stay on her good side.
A little while later, Riley had a set of knives in sheaths attached to a special belt around her waist, identical to Cage's, except for the different pattern on the hilts and the different colour of the leather of the belt, and Bozer was holding a sturdy club (Mac was pretty sure his best friend had considered grabbing his frying pan and asking Jack to teach him to fight with that - Bozer was oddly attached to his frying pan – but had compromised with the closest thing to it in Jack's huge weapons arsenal), while Mac was familiarising himself with the balance of the quarterstaff that Jack had offered him.
He brought it up to chest level, carefully manoeuvring it to avoid hitting any of the weapon racks, and then, the idea hit him.
If he could create a suitable locking mechanism and combine it with the mechanism of a collapsible telescope, he could create a collapsible quarterstaff that he could wear on his belt…that would be so much more convenient.
'Jack?' The older man looked up from where he was inspecting Bozer's chosen club. 'Can I do some experiments on this?'
Two days, a very small fire, and three prototypes later, Mac unhooked his brand-new metal quarterstaff from his belt and extended it in one smooth, quick motion. He handed the staff to Jack, who took it, testing the balance, the weight, and the sturdiness. When he was done, he looked very, very impressed and handed it back to Mac with a smile, which made pride well up in the teen.
'That's some brilliant work, brother.' Jack smirked and led him out onto the training field. 'Now onto the best bit: the ass-kicking!'
Three days after Mac finished his quarterstaff, Bozer paused as he entered the pantry, then shook his head and retrieved the jar of pickles, which he'd used all of the day before.
(It'd appeared to be a bottomless jar of pickles, which he knew was impossible without food-conjuring magic, so to prove it to himself and verify he wasn't losing his marbles, he'd just used the whole lot, so he could see what would be in the jar the next day, if anything at all.)
He walked out of the small room, and held up the jar of pickles, which was decidedly not empty. In fact, it was full.
'Are we ever gonna talk about the elephant in the room or are we gonna just keep ignoring it?' Mac and Riley looked up from where they were, respectively, stirring the soup and buttering bread for sandwiches. (It was their turn to make lunch.) Bozer shook the pickle jar, then gestured to the kitchen in general for emphasis. 'The food never runs out.'
Mac stopped in his soup-stirring.
'Beth's read approximately 1400 books at least four times each.'
Riley put down the butter knife.
'And there's no way Jack can be so talented that he's mastered over twenty weapons in his lifetime.'
The three of them all shared a glance.
It doesn't need to be said aloud that there is something very, very strange about this castle and its inhabitants.
Something seemingly impossible.
There's only one logical conclusion.
If you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
We knew there was very powerful magic here.
But we did not think it could be this powerful.
AN: Ooh…they've finally caught on about the curse! Will there be drama to follow? Tune in in three days to find out! ;)
Remember what I mentioned about foreshadowing in the second chapter? One of the things I tried to foreshadow (possibly unsuccessfully) was what weaponry Mac, Bozer and Riley would take up using, Mac in particular (stick/broomstick/quarterstaff).