Page 198 of A Winding Wave of Magic
“You may have just stumbled upon the solution to your quandary, my dear,” Rachel said gently.
We all looked back at the innocuous-looking scrap.
“You think it’s a code,” I said with new understanding. “Borrowed—or maybe evolved from—the last coded language? Linear B?”
Rachel grinned again and shrugged. “A mere hypothesis. But this parchment does provide a step in the evolutionary chain.”
“So what does it say?” Jonathan pressed. “Can you read it?”
Dr. Cardy gave him a look. “I’m a Celtic scholar, Jon. I’ve got Ancient Greek and Latin for my work, and, yes, some familiarity with Linear B. Perhaps with time, I could?—”
“We don’t have time,” Jonathan interrupted. “Cassandra has to appear before the Council tomorrow. And they are certainly going to ask about that. The question is if we really need to protect it.”
At that news, Rachel reared. “The Council? Are you joking? The girl hasn’t even manifested! They can’t possibly?—”
“She’s Penelope O’Brien’s heir,” Jonathan said quietly. “And they figured that out.”
At that, Dr. Cardy exhaled a large breath, like a deflating balloon. “My goddess. And the Order? What do they say?”
“Well, I’m here, aren’t I?” Jonathan said gruffly. “Robbie too. We’ll get her through it as best we can, but?—”
“Wait,” I said. “The Order. That keeps coming up. What is it?”
Dr. Cardy and Jonathan traded unreadable looks. “You might as well tell her,” she said. “You can’t keep secrets from an oracle. No one can.”
I blinked. “You knew?”
She turned her blinding smile on me. “Darling, I knew when we met. As will many others as your power grows.” She gave Jonathan a look. “You should have been far more discreet with her travel.”
Jonathan sighed, then turned to me. “I can’t tell you much—secrecy is the law. But there is another organization, one thatI am a part of, as are Robbie and Rachel, which is why I knew we could trust her. Like the Council of the Magi, we are also sheltered by an organizing institution. You may have heard of it—Accademia dei Lincei.”
I frowned. “The Lincean Academy? Isn’t that an Italian society for science?”
“Of knowledge,” Jonathan corrected me. “But the Order of the Lynx functions separately now, though with the similar goal of fostering the growth of knowledge and offering the protection of any fae who seeks it.”
“You sound like Caomhán,” I said.
Jonathan didn’t answer, just tipped his head.
“He’s in the Order too?”
“Just a very handsome ally, like most of his kin,” Rachel replied, earning a glower from Jonathan. “Don’t look at me like that, Jon. You’re mated to one of them, so obviously you know what I’m talking about.”
Robbie snorted, and I had to chuckle. There really wasn’t getting anything past her.
“Why is the Order necessary?” I asked. Something wasn’t adding up. “What’s wrong with the Council’s protection?”
There was another round of shared looks. Robbie heaved a heavy sigh.
“For you, it’s sort of like the difference between the ACLU and the Department of Justice,” Jonathan explained. “Both organizations seem to be interested in the same thing on the outside. But sometimes they fight each other. And one has become increasingly corrupt as it gained power.”
“And they are fighting about what?” I pressed. “This…parchment? Gran’s Secret?” I stared at the parchment like it might reveal the whole back story.
Jonathan worried his jaw for a moment. “Cassandra, when Penny contacted me to be the executor of her estate, she asked for the protection of the Order. Until then, she was a Council member. She believed secrecy was in the best interest of the fae world.”
“But…why would she come to you, then?”
“Something changed her mind.”
