In the past, before she’d met Lord Riven, she would never have thought to add that last point—but standing here, surrounded by all of these fascinating, compelling beings forced into hiding for no logical reason, she felt a sudden swelling of new purpose, even beyond the satisfaction of long-veiled truths uncovered and made clear.
Of courseher work could do real good, as he’d said. She simply had to aim and frame it a different way.
Until recently, her papers had all been published within the scholarly community alone, to be read and argued over by a select group of academic experts. When that final paper had been mutilated and spread across the world, all she’d felt was the frustration of seeing her careful and thorough academic work hopelessly misrepresented to create a scandal.
Suddenly, though, she found herself wondering if there might be an opportunity after all in her new notoriety. What if shecouldtry, from now on, to reach more people than only the well-read scholars she’d aimed to impress in the past?Theycertainly weren’t the ones with the most tangible impact on the population at large...
And without that general swirl of ignorance and fear, Leonie might have been able to return safely home after her transformation, to be embraced and comforted by her own family. Even in Britain, where the supernatural had been accepted in high society for centuries, Margaret and her husband had been first brought together by an unjust law recently passed by humans who felt threatened by the immortals in their midst—and had moved to limittheirrights in return.
“But...” Leonie shook her hairless head, red eyes shining with unshed tears. “I didn’t choose this life! I don’t want it.”
“I understand.” Every choking regret from their last conversation rose once more within Margaret, and she let out a long breath. “I won’t try to tell you how to feel about your own life and personal situation. That is neither my place nor my right, and I was wrong to do so before. I am sorry. But Icantell you, as a certain fact, that even if I did destroy that artifact tomorrow, it would make no difference to anyone who sits here now.”
“Certain about that?” Herr Fischer rasped, his dark gaze intent.
“Absolutely.” If the destruction of an artifact destroyed all of its creations, Margaret’s own husband would have crumbled into dust, and at least half the aristocracy of England would have been lost, along with the Rose of Normandy.
“Hmm.” Olga crossed her strongarms in the manner of one withholding judgment. “In that case...what exactly are you looking for?”
“Oh, it is afascinatingpuzzle.” Happily caught up, Margaret could have monologued for hours. It took all her willpower now to condense her summary of the various competing sources she’d uncovered, both at home and in the Parisian archives, and move swiftly to her current position. “So, I havethreedifferent accounts now,” she finished, “that all point towards the same significant key to discovering that origin artifact hidden somewhere within a ten-mile circumference of this inn.”
“A key?” Leonie had leaned forward with what looked like reluctant interest during Margaret’s summary. “Thatwas what you were looking for by the waterfall? A key hidden somewhere in the streambed?”
“Not quite—but that is an excellent question.” Margaret gave Leonie an encouraging nod, as she would to any new student brave enough to make inquiries in front of others. “Based on hints and allusions in all three letters, I believe this is a key in a metaphorical rather than literal sense—perhaps a landmark or some other natural object I’ll need to locate in order to find the primary origin artifact. The different writers each referred to it by different names in their different languages, but they all essentially translate toReflection’s Heart.”
“‘Reflection’sHeart,’” Olga repeated. “So, you’re looking for a natural object that offers good reflections?”
“Exactly! Based on the various hints I’ve found, I ought to be able to summon proper visions upon its surface as well,includingan image of the true origin artifact—which most references call ‘the Seed of the Forest’—wherever that may currently be hidden.” Margaret beamed with satisfaction. Who knew it could be so enjoyable to share the discovery process with others?
At university, her fellow students had all been pitted in official competition with each other—and as the only female student on her course, she’d been left out of all the cooperative study groups that had formed anyway. Now, she gestured enthusiastically with her hands as she spoke, inviting her fellow guests to share in the thrill of the hunt. “According to the oldest of the maps I’ve found, the stream where I came across Fräulein Leonie yesterday morning used to be called the Glass Bottle, so I’d thought perhaps that might be the one—but unfortunately, it’s so shadowed by the overhanging trees that it’s impossible to see any reflections at all. I suppose it’s possible that its surroundings could have simply changed over the centuries, but those trees look old enough that I wouldn’t count on it.”
“I’ve never once seen my reflection in that water,” Leonie said softly. “That’s one of the reasons I wash there every time I feed. All I ever see there is the fresh,cold water rushing over all the stones, making everything clean and pure again.”
“Oh yes, I know that waterfall,” Olga said. “Thatwould certainly add to the difficulty of seeing reflections, even without the issue of any overhanging trees.”
“Of course it would.” Margaret sighed. The flaws in her first theory felt all too evident now that she looked back on it after spending hours marching through the forest. “I might have thought of that ahead of time too, if only I’d done any recent fieldwork. Unfortunately, I’ve been limited to studying documents indoors for well over a decade and a half now. It’s been so long since my last proper exploration, I’ve forgotten far too many of the practicalities I learned as a child.”
Her parents would never have committed such a basic error. Randolph and Abigail Dunhaven had been famous and well-loved explorers and discoverers of the continent’s deepest secrets, familiar with every possible clue that could be inferred from patterns of moss, tree-scratchings, or rockfalls. However, they’d been so busy and absorbed with the grand mysteries that gripped them that, even though they’d brought along young Margaret and her nanny for most of their expeditions, they hadn’t found time to teach her many of the skills she would need once she was old enough to fully join in with their work.
Perhaps they’d expected to have plenty of time for that once she was older. In the end, though, even they hadn’t been able to anticipate the tragic cave-in thathad ended their careers and lives too soon, leaving Margaret a rootless and unsheltered child.
Still, she hadn’t wasted all that time she’d spent indoors from then onwards. She hadfarmore theoretical research under her belt than either of her parents had possessed at the start of their own adventures, and she’d only just begun. “Even if I cross off all of the waterfalls on my map, there are still plenty of lakes to investigate in this part of the Black Forest.”
Herr Fischer mumbled something too quiet for her to make out.
“I beg your pardon?”
The night raven twitched but raised his voice obediently. “Said...know a lake. Not too far. Reflects everything, even at night. Seen it many times.”
“You have? That’s wonderful!” That must have been while he was flying overhead. “Do you know its name?”
Wincing, he shook his head rapidly and hunched back in on himself, his left arm rising like a wing to shield his face.
“That’s not a problem. Do you think you might be able to find it on a map?”
One dark eye peered out over his raised arm, and he gave a jerky nod.
Ten minutes later, all the inn’s guests were crowded around Margaret’s collection of maps, spread out across multiple unused dining tables, while the inn’s owner, Herr von Krallemann, trotted off to retrieve his own most trustedmap from his private chambers. He returned soon afterwards with the map hanging neatly from his teeth, and he rose to his large and furry hindfeet to drop it onto an empty table, where Margaret received it with gratitude.
