CHAPTER 50 – To Live in Denial

They wandered the shore of the lake for an hour, Iolas listening as Saphienne recounted – in exacting detail – almost everything she had done to prevent their master from learning the truth. She omitted her last conversation with Taerelle, seeing no reason to worry him; and if the senior apprentice had betrayed her trust, Iolas would find out about it soon enough.

He spoke little, asking only a few careful questions. His silence worried her at first, but then she understood that he was thinking very deeply, and wrestling with both his instinct for honesty and his desire for fairness. Sharing with him made Saphienne feel better, for all that she was careful to add an uncertain, tentatively religious gloss to some of her comments about the larger situation.

“…And then Peacock left.” Her steps slowed as she reached the conclusion, and she looked up from the sand to see they had come back to where the water was overgrown with lilies, scanning over the treeless island nearby. “I would have asked my tutor in sculpture for advice about how to approach Almon, but they weren’t at the studio.”

Reaching down for a flattened stone, Iolas turned to skim it across the lake, but stopped as he noticed the island. “…I’m assuming you weren’t going to share everything with them.”

“No. They wouldn’t pry too far — they respect my privacy.”

He nodded, tossing the stone up and down in his hand. “Then why come to me? You have a better read on Almon than I do.”

“You’ve given me good advice so far.” Her lips twitched, her eyes rueful. “Including advice that I should have listened to. We wouldn’t be in this mess–”

“Not your fault.” He dropped the stone as he faced her. “Do you really want my thoughts on this? They’re not helpful.”

Sensing that he was judging her, Saphienne folded her arms. “…I do.”

“Then I’ll say this: Hyacinth isn’t a good influence on you.”

Hearing someone else use the spirit’s name gave Saphienne pause; she realised she had shared it without noticing. “She’s been helping–”

“No.” He was quite certain. “I think she’s using you. If our master had traced the blood back to you, and the story had come out that way, it would have been worse for the spirits than for the rest of us.”

“We would have lost our apprenticeships.”

“You don’t know that for sure.” He sat down on the sand, unlacing his shoes as he challenged her. “You weren’t the only one being compelled, remember. I think there’s every chance Almon would have went to Celaena’s father before reporting back to the Luminary Vale. Politics might have kept the two of you out of trouble.”

She frowned as she watched him taking off his socks. “The situation would have been too unpredictable. And even if we were excused… would he have excused you?”

“Who knows? Does that really matter?” He looked up, his eyes mirroring the green-blue of the lake. “Hyacinth has drawn you right into the middle of things. You have to know that she’s stripped you of your only defence, right? You can’t say you weren’t in control when you spoke to him. If you’re found out now…”

Considered from his limited perspective, Saphienne had to admit that everything Iolas said was correct. He didn’t know that – for all Saphienne had been manipulated – she hadn’t been compelled to break the tree. To him, Hyacinth was making her wilfully complicit in hiding the spirits’ shame. “I had to do something.”

“Did you?” He rolled up his leggings. “And if so, did it have to be deceit? If you had come straight to me, we could have talked it over and found another solution, one that didn’t involve you lying to his face.” Iolas leapt up and waded a short distance from the shore, picking his way through the bobbing plants. “Did you ever stop to think that covering it up could be worse for your apprenticeship? He might have forgiven bad judgement, but bad character–”

“I had good reasons–” she snapped “–and if you’re telling me I’m a bad person for trying to cover this up, then you’re a hypocrite. You were prepared to deceive everyone through your silence — even Thessa.”

He stopped moving. When he looked back at her, the thin line of his lips showed his displeasure. “Don’t bring her into this.”

Saphienne approached him with gathering wrath, her hands clenched by her sides and her voice cold. “‘A lie will always remain a lie.’ We all agreed to lie about it: I’ve just been honest with myself. You’re uncomfortable with subterfuge, but you’re playing along all the same. And you’re right,” she finished, splashing into the water in her anger, “this isn’t helpful.”

Iolas and Saphienne studied each other, both bristling with resentment.

Then, sighing, Iolas inclined his head. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

His apology brightened the green in her gaze, and as the heat went out of them she became aware of the water soaking into her socks.

A blush crept onto her cheeks. “So am I. These are good shoes.”

Iolas snorted… and then grinned as she smiled back, until the two of them were laughing together — and Saphienne promptly splashed his shins, causing him to flee through the knee-high water until she chased him onto the island.

 

* * *

 

“So what the fuck do I do, Iolas?”

They were sat together on the far side of the isle, near where a swan was warming her eggs: the pen was unconcerned by the presence of elves. Saphienne had taken off her shoes and socks and set them down on the grass in the vain hope they would dry out, and she had wrung the hem of her skirt until it was damp, aware that the greenish stain would take magic to remove.

He leant back on his palms and studied the restless sky. “I don’t know. If he knows you lied to him, I can’t see this ending well for us. But if he doesn’t…” He glanced at her, tongue in his cheek. “…You could always challenge him to a calligraphy contest? That won me around, after a bad first impression.”

She rolled her eyes. “Taerelle said he likes arguing, and I know he cares about the truth, so there might be a way to push him into keeping me on…”

“By coming clean?”

“No.” Refusing to commit felt more dangerous than keeping to the path, however narrow. “If he doesn’t know what really happened, I’m not going to make things worse for you and Celaena by telling him. No,” she convinced herself, “he likes to be right, but he has to believe he is right for it to count. My only hope is to convince him that he’s wrong to end my apprenticeship.”

Iolas sucked air through his teeth. “…I don’t know how you would make that argument. I’d end our apprenticeships, if I was in his shoes. We’re only a few days in, and neither of us has acted very wisely.”

“That might be my argument — that it’s very early on.” She mulled it over. “How are we meant to learn, if we aren’t allowed to make mistakes?”

“I could see that working with my old master,” he admitted, sitting forward, “but not Almon, at least not from you. Maybe if he liked you as much as those senior apprentices, things would be different.”

Saphienne leaned her head on his shoulder. “I wish we had a different teacher.”

“No point in dreaming.” He accepted her leaning. “I think you just have to rove out into the forest and see if it’s on fire. If he denies you the path of wizardry… I don’t know. What else do you want to try? You’d be a master calligrapher.”

Her gaze was lost in the reflection of the sky. “That isn’t enough; that won’t be enough.”

“I know.” He leaned his head against her for a moment, then nudged her away. “Whatever happens… we’ll probably look back on this, one day, and laugh about how important it all seemed at the time.”

The thought amused her. “Do you think we’ll still be friends, when we’re full adults?”

“I don’t see why not.” He smirked at her. “You know, the day after our trip to the teahouse, I spoke to my mother about you. I was feeling self-conscious — I don’t have any other friends your age.”

Curious, but feeling a little vulnerable, Saphienne brought her knees up to her chest, reading his expression as she leant her head against them. “What did she say?”

“She told me we’re the same age.” He chuckled at her confusion. “A few years between us seems a lot right now… but ten years from now? Fifty? One hundred? Gods keep us well — a thousand?” His smile was exasperated. “The longer we live, the more trivial the gap between us will become. She told me that, as long as I made allowance for your current age, and set appropriate boundaries, no one would think it strange.”

“That’s ironic…” Her mind was on Tolduin. “…An elder assumed that Faylar was interested in me.”

“He’s really not.” Iolas had correctly read their relationship. “He doesn’t look at you like– he doesn’t see you that way.” And he’d also noticed how Faylar felt about Celaena.

“Speaking of how people see me,” Saphienne said, straightening up as she changed the subject, “what’s so remarkable about my hair? Is it because I don’t braid it? Lots of people tie theirs back.”

Iolas was surprised, and there was quiet joy in his voice when he answered. “Saphienne… I’m not making fun of you, but do you really not know?”

Glancing from her brown, springtime tresses to his, she shook her head.

“Your hair has waves.” He traced a finger down his own, utterly straight hair.

She blinked.

“You’ve never noticed the difference? How often do you have to brush it?”

Her mother had the same hair as her, Saphienne realised; she never knew the waves in their hair were unusual. “…Daily, but only so it sits well. If I leave it for a week it starts to tangle. Is that strange?”

“It’s distinctive,” he admitted. “Some people would guess it comes from a distant ancestor who wasn’t an elf, but my father says that’s seldom true — that there are plenty of small differences between people. He said there’s even some elves with facial hair–”

“You’re joking!”

“Really!” He rubbed at his chin. “He told me half-elves sometimes have it, so it’s commonly shaved off, but there are elves with well-attested, clearly recorded lineages who have facial hair. He said there’s even a god who’s sometimes depicted with a beard, though he couldn’t remember which one.”

Her lifelong feeling of standing out was, to a minor extent, beginning to make sense. “I don’t know who my family are on my mother’s side. Maybe I am descended from a half-elf…” She found herself grinning as she wound a rivulet of her hair around her fingers. “…That would be amazing.”

“So long as you don’t age like one,” Iolas agreed.

Her delight drained away… yet, for reasons she couldn’t explain, the thought of her growing old and dying wasn’t what leeched her joy. “I suppose that would be awful, wouldn’t it?”

Before Iolas could say more, Saphienne climbed to her feet, lifting her shoes and socks. Conveniently enough, another swan – the cob mated to the pen – was serenely approaching from out on the lake, territorial.

“We should head back to Thessa,” she announced. “And I should stop putting off the inevitable.”

Saphienne could tell that Iolas had read the change in her mood… and that he mistook her impending meeting with the wizard as the cause. Thankfully, he said nothing as they picked their way back through the water, Saphienne balling the hem of her skirt in one hand as she held her shoes in the other. She had enough to think about, without trying to explain the feelings that–

Her sudden dart forward drew his attention. “Saphienne?”

She stood ahead of him among the lilies, grinning at the long-tailed amphibians retreating from her feet. “Frogs… maybe even toads… I didn’t see them last time.”

Iolas caught up and peered over her shoulder. “Closer to tadpoles right now; they’ve only just begun their metamorphosis. You like them?”

Saphienne was glad he couldn’t see the heartache in her face. She took a moment to decide, and then a moment more to find the words and steady her voice. “…I had a friend who liked them.”

“No one’s ever too old to like animals,” Iolas misunderstood, reassuring her with a pat on the shoulder as he slipped past. “Thessa’s always sketching the wildlife, and she loves squirrels.”

Though slow to follow him, when she eventually did, Saphienne’s steps felt lighter than before.

 

* * *

 

As it turned out, Thessa also liked to draw figures: she had composed a view around the scene of Saphienne and Iolas sat together on the small island, her elven eyesight able to discern them clearly against the glare. Yet she had left off any identifying features, such as Saphienne’s hair, depicting the swans with more fidelity.

“A bit sentimental for your work, isn’t it?” Iolas teased his sister.

“I liked the juxtaposition. Anyway, shouldn’t we give people what they want?” She tapped her cheek with her charcoal, unconcerned by the shadow it left behind. “I might make it romantic when I paint it — put a couple of adults there, set it in summertime, that sort of thing.” She glanced to where Saphienne was lacing her shoes. “If you don’t mind? Sorry, Iolas is very used to me using him for reference. I’m not implying–”

“I’m studying sculpture,” she replied, “so I understand. You work with what you have in front of you, which isn’t the same as what it becomes. Paint what you like.”

“You know what? I like you.” Thessa enjoyed her own pun.

The three made small talk for a few minutes, and then Saphienne took her leave, heading south with a clearer head.

On her journey home from the lake, she realised that Faylar’s other birthday gift was far more valuable than her first book — and that he would probably make fun of her, should she share that. She resolved to tell him anyway, assuming she ever found a good moment.

But even if good moments still lay ahead, first she had to survive her meeting with Almon.

 

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* * *

 

Dressed now in her apprentice’s robes, perhaps for the last time, Saphienne approached the towering tree as though heading to war. She arrived as the sun contemplated a descent toward evening.

Yet when she entered the parlour, her master was absent. Peacock occupied his favourite perch upon the high-backed chair, and gave an elaborate whistle to announce her entry. They watched each other awkwardly while she waited.

“Saphienne.” Almon called down to her from upstairs, his voice loud but without inflection. “You can come up.”

Whatever he was planning, his familiar gave nothing away — Peacock only pointed to the stairs with his wing.

Adjusting the strap of her satchel, Saphienne bowed to the bird before she went over to the curving staircase. She ascended in steely readiness and hushed curiosity.

Only Celaena had been beyond the classroom, and she had never described what lay overhead. What Saphienne found was anticlimactic: the stairs came up through the floor into a sitting room, lavishly appointed with thick, braided rugs and two comfortable armchairs. More bookshelves were set into the walls, and also under the ascending staircase that lay opposite where she emerged. Myriad volumes with colourful covers were arranged upon them… and only there, the wizard’s sitting room much neater than his classroom.

“Make yourself comfortable,” Almon called again. This time his voice travelled up from below, another set of steps descending to the right, presumably down into the kitchen that adjoined the back of the tree.

Wary, Saphienne calmed herself by checking the bookshelves — her brows rising as she realised they were filled with works of popular fiction. The wizard appeared to read widely, without much regard for sophistication in prose, the many works of adventure, mystery, romance, and horror all falling far short of the high, literary writing that Filaurel had led Saphienne to reflect upon as she prepared to study magic. Then again, the librarian had always warned her to never judge a book by its cover, and good stories were still good stories, worth enjoying, even if they were plainly written and unambiguous in meaning.

Drifting toward the nearest chair, she noticed a small table placed between them, a chess set laid upon it — and a game in progress. Saphienne scrutinised the triangular central board, then the three, tiered boards that encompassed its edge, unable to make sense of what she saw.

“Do you play?”

The wizard had risen into view, two teacups in hand.

Thrown by his civility, Saphienne shook her head. “I never learned.”

“A shame; I expect you would be quite good at chess. Please, take a seat.”

Wondering whether his words were a subtle barb, Saphienne sank down onto – and into – the plush cushions. Her master offered her one of the cups, which she accepted, noticing that a painted, starry coaster had been set on the arm of the chair in advance. She surreptitiously examined her brew, recognising black tea with oat water.

He noticed her disquiet. “A petty divination,” he explained. He was silent as he sipped on his own cup, staring out the far window as he marshalled his thoughts.