Page 27 of A Treachery of Swans

There’s a muted splash, pulling me from my thoughts. I look up to see Swan-Marie staring at me intently, her breast nearly touching the dock. To say she looks skeptical would be an understatement.

I quickly wipe any uncertainty from my face. “I know what I’m doing.”

She makes a noise that sounds almost like a snort.

Slowly I focus on the goddess-gold, finding the little ball of magic stored within and tugging it to the surface. The spell appears around the pendant in a tangle of a thousand threads, golden and shimmering like spider silk at sunset.

Something inside me quivers at the sight. This spell is nothing like the one on Buttons—that one was far less intimidating, every thread clear and legible. This is more of a cobweb, an unforgiving knot of crisscrossing lines.

“See this spell?” I say to Swan-Marie, because talking distracts me from the unnerved somersaults of my stomach. “My father wove it. Each thread means something else. By pulling the right one, I can undo the curse he placed upon you. So remember whose mercy you’re at,” I add, because I can’t help myself. “If I’m feeling cross, my fingers might slip. Instead of a human, you might wind up turned into something horrible, like a toad.”

Steeling myself, I hover my fingers over one of the farthermost threads. It glows brighter, and the taste of magic coats my tongue. My mind fills with a thought: not quite an image, not quite a word, but a loose suggestion, a concept.Borrowing.Like a coin passing from one hand to another, meant to be repaid. I pull away, reach for another.Replacement.A guardsman takes the place of his comrade as he finishes his shift.Fledged.Feathers sprouting over delicate skin. The rush of air over wings. It intersects with a thread that ringsnoblewoman,makes me feel the weight of invisible skirts around my legs.

Confusion swamps me, and my heart beats frantically. Could it be one of these? But what if I’m wrong?When you touch a thread, your will becomes tied to it,Regnault had said.Even a stray thought can change its meaning or render it incoherent.

So how do I make sure that doesn’t happen? How do I ensure I don’taccidentallyturn Marie into a toad… or worse?

I rub my temples, trying to keep any frustration I feel off my face. Then I go over the threads again. And again. And once more, my impatience growing, my composure fraying. I should have found it by now. Why can’t I find it? The right thread is here somewhere, yet none of themfeelright, and there are somany—

A flash of white in my periphery alerts me to Marie, stretching her wings to get my attention. There’s an inquiring look in her eyes. She inclines her head toward the threads and the pendant in my hand. I’m hit with a sudden memory of a much younger Marie sitting cross-legged on the bank of the lake, trying to teach me how to solve her wooden puzzle toy.

“No,” I snap. “This is sorcery, not some paltry riddle.”

She sighs.

“I know what I’m doing,” I repeat.

She shuffles her wings in irritation.

And, because the sunrise is drawing closer, because I am already tired of sitting here staring at magic strings, I give in. “Fine. But if anything goes wrong, you’ll only have yourself to blame.”

I pass over the threads again, explaining each one. I know it’s dangerous to make Marie aware of the magic binding her, but it’s not as though she can change the spell on her own. And I needthe information she possesses. For the Couronne’s sake, and my brother’s.

“Thishasto be it,” I say at last, pointing tonoblewoman.But when I reach for it, Marie extends her neck and bites me.

I yelp, dropping my hand. “What was that for?”

She glowers, then eyes another thread, one passing just beneath the intersection ofnoblewomanandsongbird.I hadn’t paid it any heed before: it’s the shortest of the threads, so fine, it’s nearly invisible. My attention had skipped over it previously, but now I reach for it. This one is perhaps the most abstract of the spell-threads so far: I feel the passage of day into night, the cracking of a caterpillar’s chrysalis after a long slumber.

Metamorphosis.This is the one—there’s a rightness to it I hadn’t felt with any of the others. I should be relieved, but instead, my cheeks grow hot with anger. Somehow, Marie saw what I could not. How is it that a red-blooded, pampered princess—trapped in the body of a swan, no less!—found what I was looking for, while I did not even notice it?

But of course. Of course. Is this not just typical Marie d’Odette? Even now, she must remind me how perfect she is, how terribly inferior I am. I might as well be thirteen again, cowering in a dusty stable as Marie abandons me to my fate, the feeling of her hands on my throat still lingering like a burn.

Well, there is one thing I can do that she can’t.

Morgane,I think,wherever you are, do me a favor and don’t let this end in disaster.

I touch the thread once more. This time, I hold the images it forms in my thoughts, let them wash over me. Then I imagine them unraveling. Dawn returns to night, butterfly to chrysalis, swan to girl. A reversal, an undoing.

My fingers tingle, my body hums. I squeeze my eyes tighter,focusing fiercely. A trickle of warmth pulses from the threads into my body. Then another. Then a third, this time more painful. I gasp—it feels almost as if my very blood is aflame. It is painful, yes, but also pleasant somehow. Like the burn of a long-unused muscle.

I open my eyes to see the thread shimmering in the moonlight, flickering like a distant star. For that brief instant, excitement surges through me. Is it working? Could it truly be this simple?

Then the flickering stops. The thread returns to its usual steady glow. Before me, Marie remains unchanged, still watching me through the dark eyes of a swan.

My stomach drops. It didn’t work. I’m doing something wrong. But what?

I close my eyes again, this time trying to think of one thing and one thing only: Marie as she had been before her transformation, with pearls in her hair and her sky-blue gown. She leans over the railing of a theater box, eyes moon pale and bright with wonder. Enthralled. Ethereal. As though she were standing on a precipice, longing to take flight.

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