Chapter 10: The Tower Between the Lakes

Author's Note: Long chapter ahead, but hopefully the advancement of the plot feels satisfying. This chapter opens right after Chapter 9 left off, and then begins a two- or three-chapter exploration of what Odette has been doing for the last few months. At this point, some fans of the film might notice the absence of the animal companions. They will appear in the story soon, just not in this chapter. At least…two of them will. I haven't made up my mind about Puffin yet.

October, four and a half months after the Great Animal attack. Location unknown.

Derek stood in the grey stone corridor, where the middle of the afternoon had abruptly turned into the middle of the night, his arms full of a waterlogged princess.

"I thought you were supposed to be a swan," Derek said. Why was he cursed to say the dumbest things at the most important moments?

"I was," Odette replied. "But Lady Anisha threw a bucket of water on me in front of the window, and I changed back." Before Derek could think of a reply—was he supposed to just nod agreeably, as though any of that had made sense?—Odette stepped away from him and covered her mouth. She looked shaken. When she lowered her hands and spoke next, it was with slow, careful precision.

"The warlock Von Rothbart turned me into a swan using the Forbidden Arts," she said. "If I want to change back into a person, I need to touch water from an enchanted lake while the moon is shining on it."

Her hands flew to her mouth again.

"I can tell you! I wasn't sure if I'd be able to, but I can really tell you!"

Odette leaned against the stone wall and collapsed to the ground. She was laughing almost hysterically. Some part of Derek's brain told him he should find her behavior a little disturbing. But he also knew he had been doing the exact same thing just two nights earlier, when he'd read King William's journal and believed after months of dead ends, he'd finally found all the answers. So he did the only thing that made sense and sank to the floor laughing with her. They remained that way for several minutes, side by side in an incomprehensible state of relief, exhaustion and hysteria.

"Does it hurt?" he asked when they both had calmed down. "Turning into a swan?"

Odette looked first surprised, and then a little gratified, at the question.

"A little," she said. "The first two months were the hardest. Before all this." She made a vague gesture with her fingers at their surroundings. She turned to him with a serious frown.

"When you were in the portal a few minutes ago, did you see two paths?" she asked. Derek nodded. "What did you see in the second path?"

"I saw a lake. With a castle of black stone," he said. He hesitated before finishing. "And you. I… thought."

Odette closed her eyes again and nodded.

"Good," she said. "Good."

She was silent for several long seconds. Derek didn't know what else to do, so he took her hand. In response, she pulled his hand closer and held it between both of hers. It was enough, that simple gesture of reassurance. Even though so many questions were still whirling in his mind, with that small action Odette had wordlessly answered the most important one. Yes, I want you here. I want to figure all of this out with you next to me.

Without releasing his hand, Odette opened her eyes and shifted her body to face him directly again.

"The lake you saw is the lake where Baron Von Rothbart brought me after he killed my father," she said. Her voice had a curious flatness, as though she were trying to distance herself from her words. "If I want to become human, I need to touch water from that lake, while the moon is shining on it. And I can only stay human while the moon is on the water. The moon has always been the weakness of the Forbidden Arts. Even Rothbart can't change that.

"The portal you came through originally connected just those two lakes—Rothbart's old haunt on Nefynmor and his new one," she continued. "Rothbart created it for his own use. But the archmages of Merduin rigged the portal, so it leads here too—for me and anyone I lead in by hand. It's a sanctuary. What you saw with the second swan on the lake was an illusion. A failsafe."

"Slow down," Derek said. "I get that this portal has some…secret second door that lets you come here. But it's still the middle of the afternoon on Rothbart's lake. If you need moonlight there to be human, how are you…?"

Odette smiled primly.

"Loophole," she said. "Come with me. It will make more sense when you see it."

Odette rose and began leading him down the corridor, up a winding staircase. Derek could see clearly now the rows of stained-glass windows, decorated with runes and images of mages performing incantations. The windows, he noticed, showed the moon in different phases, from waxing to full to waning to new.

"This place is one of the wandering observatory towers of Merduin," Odette explained. Her voice was rising in excitement. "It follows the moon. It's always night here."

Derek let out a slow breath. He'd heard of the legendary magical towers that floated in the sky. The mages of Merduin used them for spells that required near-constant moonlight, starlight or sunlight. But he had never expected to set foot in one.

"And the University of Merduin gave you sanctuary here as a…gesture of good will?" Derek asked as they climbed the stairs. Before he could stop himself, he added, "And why didn't they just make a new portal for you to come here? Why did they have to use one of Rothbart's?"

Odette stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

"This place isn't free. They asked for a favor in return. And no, they couldn't use just any magical portal," Odette said. "I promise, Derek, I'll explain anything I can. But I can't do it all at once."

The staircase ended sooner than he expected for an astronomy tower—though perhaps, because it was already in the sky, it didn't need to be that tall. A nondescript wooden door waited at the top, marked with only two carved runes that Derek recognized as journey and moon. Odette pushed the door open.

For a moment, Derek could only gape in amazement. The chamber at the top had an unbroken view of the night sky, with a circle of floor-to-ceiling windows and a glass dome at the top. In the center of the room, an enormous marble pool filled with water rested on the floor. A reflection of the crescent moon beamed placidly on the surface. And then his mind put the pieces together.

"Is that water from…"

"It is, Your Highness." Lady Anisha Langley emerged from the far side of the room, holding a large wooden bucket. She wore a black tunic of mourning over grey trousers. "It hasn't occurred to Baron Von Rothbart that one could get around his spell by simply moving water from his lake somewhere else, where the moon is…nearly…always shining."

"Lady Langley," Derek said with a bow. Widowhood had put a few more grey hairs in her dark braid, and her face looked thinner and sharper, like flint. But beyond that, King William's horse mistress looked just as energetic as the day she had greeted him two winters ago in Cymdros, beside her husband, the late Captain Josiah Langley.

"Bromley told me it was you who buried the last clue beneath your tomato garden in Luthedain," Derek said. "He figured out what the fire market riddle meant. I'm sorry I didn't piece it together myself."

"That's nothing to apologize for," Lady Anisha said. "You chose your friends well. That's one of the most important things a king can do. Or a queen."

"Of course, this tower doesn't help when there's a new moon," Odette said, glancing at the sky. "But being a swan has advantages sometimes. It's how I followed you to Luthedain, and how I knew you were on your way to the lake at Nefynmor."

Derek turned to Odette again.

"I still don't get it," he said, nodding towards the pool. "If the moon's been shining here for…days, and you can touch this water whenever you want, why were you a swan a few minutes ago?"

"I wasn't supposed to be," she said. "We had a plan. I was supposed to come out and meet you on Nefynmor as a person and guide you to the portal. That's the only way I can let someone else in."

"A cloud passed over the moon here," Lady Anisha said in a clipped voice. "Just moments after Odette walked out of the portal. With no moonlight here, or on Rothbart's lake, the magic forced her to become a swan." Judging by the look that passed between the two women, Derek could tell neither of them believed that cloud had been a coincidence.

"Lady Anisha did some fast thinking," Odette said. "She knew I'd need to touch moonlight and lake water at the same time to turn back into a human and help you out of the fog in the corridor. So she scooped up a bucket of water from the pool and was waiting for me beside a window once the moon reappeared. Though really, you didn't need to drown me."

"It got the job done," Lady Anisha said brusquely. "Stop your complaining, princess."

A cloud, Derek thought. It seemed darkly humorous, that something so mundane could topple months of planning and magical craftsmanship. He stiffened as another chilling thought occurred to him.

"Do you think Rothbart sent the cloud?" Derek asked. "Is it possible he knows about this place?"

Odette frowned, but she looked skeptical.

"That's not his style," she said. "He's too flamboyant. If he could reach us here, he'd stage something more dramatic. And he'd make certain we knew it was him."

Lady Anisha nodded. "Baron Von Rothbart," she said slowly, "is the least of our problems. He believes he's mastered the Forbidden Arts, but in reality he is only their servant. He's a pawn in a much larger game than even he knows."

"Come downstairs," Odette said, taking his hand again. "There's a lot you need to hear. It may take a while, but there's a kitchen two floors down and we have plenty of pillows. When was the last time you had a hot meal?"

There it was again—the barely perceptible monotone in her voice, beneath a veil of kind pragmatism. Derek suspected that in her mind, Odette was already trying to distance herself from the memories she was about to relive. He reminded himself not to take it personally. It was her trauma, after all. Fifteen minutes later, the three of them were on the floor of the observatory's kitchen, sitting on piles of musty, nearly flat pillows with their backs against the stone wall. A kettle of hot cider and a pot of vegetable stew were beginning to steam on the stove. After months of riddles, mad ravings and willful misunderstandings, they could finally speak plainly. And they finally had time.

Baron Von Rothbart's enchanted lake; location unknown. Four and a half months earlier. June.

The attack was a shock, but the transformation was a relief. The moment Odette felt her arms morph into powerful, feathered wings, she felt as though an invisible burden had lifted off her shoulders. The waiting was over. The tension that had kept her awake for months, of feeling out of place in her own body, was gone. So was the guilt—the guilt of the survivor, spared by an accident of birth. She was going to join the other twelve lost swans. Her eighteen-year reprieve, bought with her father's privilege and power, was at an end.

So she was surprised, and a little disappointed, to find herself on a rather mundane-looking lake with only two people watching her from the shore. For the first several moments she was so disoriented, she only partially heard the warlock's first words.

"…doesn't even last a whole day. Once the moon comes up—"

The whirlpool that rose around her then, and the abrupt transformation that followed, disoriented her even more. Odette had not expected to turn back into a human at all, let alone after a mere five minutes as a swan. If the warlock had intended to throw her off balance, he had—to her chagrin—succeeded.

"And that's how it works," he said. He was no longer looking down on her, now that she had regained her human form. "You have to be on the lake, of course."

Odette straightened and studied the two figures on the shore. The scowling grey-haired woman was a stranger. But the woman's companion was a familiar figure. Broad shoulders beneath an arrogant mouth, and a courteous posture that could not quite mask the occasional twitch of insanity. She recognized him from pamphlets stashed away in libraries, from the early years of her father's reign. She reminded herself that she had been expecting this moment. She had prepared for this moment.

"Where are the others?" she asked.

"Others?" Rothbart said. "You're alone, Your Highness. There's no one here but you and me." Odette narrowed her eyes.

"Let's not play games, Baron Von Rothbart. I know for a fact I'm not the first person you've made disappear as a swan. I'm asking what happened to the other twelve children you stole."

"Children?" Rothbart was chuckling now, but he looked genuinely surprised. "I'm not a monster, princess. Well, I suppose technically I am, but I'm not that kind of monster."

Odette felt her heart flip painfully, as she realized that she believed him. He had no idea what she was talking about. Which meant that, less than a minute into their conversation, she had made the first mistake. Rothbart already had her at a disadvantage, and now she had given away information she could never get back.

"Though I suppose there's no need for introductions, since you already know my name," Rothbart continued.

"Of course," Odette replied. "Your failure was legendary. The sorcerer who spent months attacking sheep and horses, but when he attempted to seize a throne, he didn't have the chance to cast a single spell before losing everything."

"Brilliantly summarized," Rothbart said, honoring her with a mock bow. "Your father taught me a valuable lesson. And I've learned from my mistakes. Once you steal something, you spend the rest of your life fighting to keep it. I don't plan to be a king with a knife over my head."

"And where is my father now? Is he alive?" Odette asked. She hoped her voice did not quaver.

"It's possible," Rothbart said. "He would have grown frail indeed if merely being thrown from an unmoving carriage would kill him."

Odette swallowed the bitter taste that rose in her throat. From her vantage point inside the carriage, she had seen the talons that ripped into her father's robes, and the droplets of blood that spattered door as he fell. And she had felt those talons piercing into her newfound wings before she could even try using them. Rothbart knew as well as she did that wounds like that could prove mortal.

"So you've resorted to hostage taking," she said. "You plan to use me as leverage against my father or the Council."

"That would be one way, yes," Rothbart answered. "Negotiation is cleaner and more effective in the long run than an all-out attack. But I don't need to negotiate with your father or the Council, when I can negotiate with you." He extended one of his amber-gloved hands to her.

"With you as my partner, we could rule your father's kingdom legally," he continued. "We could even keep your father's dynasty intact. The Warlock King and the Swan Queen."

Odette stared at him for several long seconds. Rothbart met her gaze unblinking. He clearly expected her to give his proposal serious consideration.

"I think your courtship is off to a rocky start," she said finally.

"I'll admit, eighteen years of exile has roughened my manners," Rothbart said. "But think of the possibilities. When I bring eldritch magic back to Cymdros—I'm sorry, what your little kingdom calls the Forbidden Arts—I can make it the most feared and respected kingdom on the continent. Not the backwater afterthought it is now."

"And how much do you know about eldritch magic, Baron?" Odette asked. "Can you find your way through an eldritch mist? Can you tell the real voices from the false ones?"

"I don't need to. Eldritch mists never get higher than a hundred feet," Rothbart replied dismissively. "In case you hadn't noticed, I can fly."

"Can you cure someone afflicted with eldritch blindness?"

"Healing isn't exactly my specialty, Your Highness," Rothbart said.

"Can you channel water to irrigate a field or put out a fire? Or can you move enough earth to make terraced farms in a mountain?"

"Those would be elemental mages," Rothbart said, with a note of impatience. "May I ask what the point of all these questions is?"

"To find out if you have anything useful to offer Cymdros," Odette replied. "But it seems your only specialty is transfiguration. Can you even predict the weather?"

"And suppose I did learn everything you just named, and a few more useful skills. Then would you consider my proposal?" It was not a serious question. His smile indicated he was toying with her, the way an indulgent parent would play along with the games of a fanciful child. And Odette knew she had to keep playing this game; her only choice for now was to continue drawing this out.

"No," she answered. "I can already tell you would make a deplorable monarch."

"You're a disappointment, princess," he said. "You're as narrow-minded about magic as your Council. And here I thought your father had raised you to be a bit more open."

The barb about her father brought a fresh sting, but it kept her grounded. It reminded her of the sort of person her father was. And it reminded hre of what, in the end, truly mattered.

"You mistake me, Baron," Odette said coldly. "Your magic is irrelevant. You proved you'd be a terrible king when you said there were only two of us here." Odette glanced at the old woman standing in Rothbart's shadow. "A good king never forgets the people who support him."

The old woman blinked. But if Odette had been hoping to gain an ally, those hopes quickly evaporated. The other woman's scowl hardened into a glower. If anything, Odette's recognition seemed to turn her anger into outright loathing. Never mind, Odette thought, she could play the long game. Right now she would settle for having the last word. Turning away from them both, she began to walk into the forest beyond the shore.

"Where are you going?" Rothbart asked. He was chuckling again.

Say nothing. Keep walking. You are a royal of House Cygnus, Odette thought.

"Wander as far as you like," Rothbart said "Once the moonlight leaves the lake, you turn back into a swan. No matter where you are."

Odette felt her chest turn to ice, but she continued walking as though she hadn't heard. The news did not surprise her. Of course there would be a catch. But right now she needed a place to collect her thoughts.

She walked deeper into the forest, wondering if she had minutes or hours before the moon vanished and she would be forced to walk on webbed feet. As she walked, the wind began to sound like indistinct whispers, the whispers that had kept her awake for half a year—and kept her father awake for almost a quarter of his life.

In the back of her mind, she wondered how she could be so cold and cavalier, with her father almost certainly lying dead on Chamberg's capital highway, bleeding out beside an overturned carriage. The thought did not last long, because even as she thought it, she knew the answer. Numbness and inertia were propelling her forward. And they would fade. The grief would come, and when it did it would flood her mind and leave her a shaking, paralyzed wreck. But that moment was not now.

Her second transfiguration happened sooner than she expected. When it came, it felt like falling as her legs shrank and her neck, nose and mouth stretched to many times their normal size. Transforming into a swan, it turned out, was a little nauseating. When Odette glanced up, she saw a black cloud had passed over the moon. Apparently she wasn't even guaranteed a full night as a human.

But the whispers were clearer now, like wind chimes piercing the breeze. They had never been so clear when she was human. She could not count how many different voices she heard. Some were high and light; others deep and resonant. They were all achingly, terribly beautiful.

Welcome to our domain, little swan.

This is your domain? Odette thought. She could not speak with her rigid beak, but she knew from experience that thinking was enough for these conversations. I'm not even with the other twelve swans. What absurd game is this?

The warlock began the game. He tore a curtain he did not understand. We did not start the game, but we will finish it.

Is what Rothbart said true? she asked. Can I become human again anytime the moon shines on the lake?

Assuming you remember you are human. Some of your cursed siblings have forgotten they ever were.

Where are they now?

In our home beyond the faithless curtain, where the moon never shines and the white wood never burns. Where the wind brings whispers that drive mortals mad.

Not all mortals, Odette replied. A sudden warmth filled her chest. My father saw behind your curtain. He heard your whispers, and you failed to drive him mad.

The chimes that followed her retort sounded like laughter.

Your father was stronger than most. But we claimed him too in the end. Did you know he died a babbling dotard?

If he died, he died a king, Odette thought, even as her chest turned to ice again. What are you? Lackeys to a middling warlock? Doomed to help an upstart pretender steal a crown that was once yours?

Be careful with your mockery, little swan. We promised the warlock a crown. We never said how long he would wear it. The warlock is as expendable as you.

You're weak, Odette thought. You're barely even vapor. All you can do is whisper.

Yes—whispers. Echoes. Fragments. When the would-be usurper Rothbart first tore the curtain eighteen years ago, we could send only pieces of ourselves through. But one of us was already here. The Black Swan has been paving the way for us. We are the Masters of the Eldritch. The True Keepers of the Forbidden Arts. We are the Veiled Ones, and we are coming to take back what is ours.

The sound that followed was like the clear peal of a dozen bells. All the voices seemed to be laughing at once, as though they each wanted to share in the declaration of triumph. It was hard for Odette to think. But she managed one final question.

The old woman. Rothbart's assistant. Is she one of you?

The silence that followed stretched on so long, Odette believed they would leave her without an answer. When a reply finally came, it was hardly an answer at all.

Pity. You might have made a good Swan Queen after all. Take care not to fly too high, little swan. It is easy to lose yourself in the skies.

Then the chimes were silent again, and though she waited several minutes, they did not return.

Odette closed her eyes. She tried to pull her wings closer—in her swan body, it was the closest she could come to wrapping her arms around herself. She desperately wanted to imagine what her father would have done in this situation, but that was dangerous. She couldn't afford to break the dam holding back her grief and her fear. She needed to think of another mentor—someone who might still be alive. Her mind shifted to Captain Josiah, whom she had last seen slouched over his horse, riding at full speed toward Queen Uberta's palace.

Don't worry so much about thinking outside the box, little cygnet, he had told her once, during one of their fencing lessons. How old had she been—thirteen? Fifteen? Think about using the box in a way no one's thought of.

Rothbart assumed she was desperate to be human. He intended to use her forced existence as a swan to break her will, believing she would return to his lake every night just to escape it. But she didn't have to. With an aerial view and the power of flight, what couldn't she do? How hard could it be to scrawl a message on a piece of bark and fly it to Cymdros or Chamberg? The journey might take days or weeks—she had no way of knowing where she was yet—but she had nothing to lose. Even if the people who read her message couldn't break her spell, they would at least know where she was and what was at stake. Being a swan wasn't a liability; it was an asset.

Odette stretched her new wings experimentally. They felt stiff and awkward, but still immensely more powerful than her human arms. Craning her awkwardly long neck, she glanced up at the forest canopy, spread her wings and prepared to take flight.

Her feet remained stubbornly grounded. She tried again, standing on tiptoe and flapping her wings more rapidly, but still with no effect.

She paused. She would not get discouraged. She reminded herself that she was a large bird, and large birds often needed a running start before they could become airborne. She needed a flat surface and a high place to launch, where she could glide and take advantage of the updrafts. And while she didn't like it, she knew where to find one.

With her slow, ungainly waddle, the hike that followed felt like it took hours. The forest understory did her no favors either, cutting into her webbed feet and sometimes growing taller than her legs. But she made her way to the rock ledge above Rothbart's lake that she had spied out of the corner of her eye. The ledge offered a good thirty feet of distance for her to take off. She braced her feet against the ground and began to run.

The moment her feet left the ledge, her body began to plummet and no amount of flapping could stop it. The lake's surface crashed first into her tail feathers, followed by her back and her wings and her neck. For a few heart-stopping seconds she was completely underwater. Her webbed feet—finally in their natural element—paddled furiously until she was upright again, gulping in the night air.

Odette felt the first stirrings of panic grow inside her then.

I can't fly. I can't fly!

The wandering tower of Merduin. Present. October.

"Rothbart was the catalyst," Odette said. "He set things in motion, but he lost full control the moment he did, even if he doesn't know it."

"And we very much hope he doesn't know," Lady Anisha added.

Odette was pacing around the kitchen, holding a mug of cider in her left hand. She had never been a pacer as far as Derek could remember. But during the retelling tonight, she had alternated between padding across the stone floor and returning to sit beside him, with her shoulder resting against his. He wondered if this was a new quirk she'd developed after months of living as a swan. The simple act of walking was something she could only do comfortably as a human.

"You already found the Black Swan, didn't you?" Derek said. "That was you fighting her two nights ago, in the skies above Luthedain. I saw her tearing your wings."

Odette nodded. Lady Anisha folded her arms and frowned.

"You took on the Black Swan on the night of a new moon," she said acidly. "You know that's when she's strongest. You're lucky she didn't do worse. She could have clipped your wings permanently."

"I didn't choose the timing. It got the job done," Odette said in a tired voice. She turned back to Derek. "She pretends to be Rothbart's mute assistant. He calls her Bridget, but we believe her true name is Odile."

"The Black Swan has worn many faces," Lady Anisha said. "In one of her guises, she persuaded Rothbart to adopt her as his daughter."

"So she's the one who cursed our kingdom to hear no evil," Derek said. "Rothbart has no grudge against Chamberg. But my great-grandmother was part of Veiled Kings' War." Both women nodded.

"Odile is the last daughter of the Veiled Kings," Lady Anisha said. "She was left behind as a child, when your great-grandparents sent the rest of the Veiled Ones back to their own world. She's been trapped in our world for over a hundred years. She only wants two things: to be reunited with her true family, and to destroy both your houses for tearing her away from them."