The View From Castle Always by Melissa McShane

Author:Melissa McShane [McShane, Melissa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Melissa McShane

Chapter Thirteen

She read until the Castle retrieved the book, late that night. She didn’t try to hang onto it, but sat in her bed for a while after it had gone, thinking. Coren was right that the Castle acted on itself, manipulating the magic it was made of, or that had made it, but that didn’t explain how it had gotten the magic in the first place.

The author wrote of the limitations of spirits and their inability to work together, which meant even hundreds of spirits wouldn’t have been able to build something the size of the Castle. And she knew kerthors, while capable of working together well, needed to be able to visualize their goal in its entirety, and she didn’t think anyone could encompass the entire Castle in their mind. But she was only halfway through the book, and it was still possible the answer was in it somewhere.

She looked around at the lights burning around the room. She’d turned on all three of her lamps, as well as the wall lights, and any shadows cast by one light were eliminated by the others. The problem was she couldn’t turn them all off at once, and every night she dashed around the room to put out every light before the remaining ones could cast too many shadows. Some nights she just left them burning. Tonight, the thought of having to race the shadows made her angry.

She clutched the key in her right hand and imagined her hand on the switch of every light in the room at once, then twitched the fingers of her left hand.

The lights flickered, but didn’t go out. Ailanthe was so startled she lost the image. She glanced at the lamp next to her bed. She took a deep breath and tried again, laying her fingers on the lamp’s switch and pretending to feel its smooth texture with every imaginary hand. “The Castle could do this,” she said, “and so can I,” and pressed down on the real switch.

The lights went out. She felt a pounding ache begin behind her eyes, but she didn’t care. She’d made the Castle do as she wanted. She slipped out of bed and fumbled in the dark for her clothes. The door would open for her this time, she was certain of it.

She went carefully down the stairs in the blackness, afraid her lamp would do no more than cast a hundred vicious shadows. She had run up and down them so many times she had no trouble navigating the landings and the steps until her foot touched the cold tile of the ground floor. Trailing her fingers along the wall, she made her slow, groping way to the flagstones surrounding the Honor Hall, then over the tiny squares of the blue hall’s mosaic floor, and finally to the inner door of the Vestibule.

It was dark outside the little window, and she patted the door until she found the latch. “The Castle can open this,” she said again, “and that means I can too,” and pressed down on the latch.

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