Therisia's Arc

Chapter 2 of 4

The contract held, but the trapped face still moved. Therisia watched her own reflection in the glass point one finger at Sable's sleeve. She had bound the likeness as property. She had not bound what it could do. It could still gesture. It could still tell. And it had just told the truth about the mark hunting the scribe who saved her. Sable pulled her sleeve tight over her wrist. The glow bled through anyway. "It knows," she said. "It's answering something. Fix your clause, or it keeps talking." Boots crossed the timbers above. The old wanderer came down through the broken floor, his gnarled staff first, faded ribbons trailing from the wood. He had traveled with Sable, and on the road she guided and he followed. Now he stopped short. He stared at the glass, at the frozen face pointing. "That thing is aimed at her wrist," he said. He tapped the stone with his staff. "Stone dulls the mark. It doesn't dull that." He muttered low, and for a breath his voice split, as if two men argued in one throat. "Seal it. Fast." Therisia knelt over the paper. Her old clause named the likeness as property, without will or voice. But she had left its hands free. She had thought of it as a thing she owned, not a thing that could still move against her. She dipped the pen. "Property doesn't act," she said, half to herself. "So I forbid the act." She wrote fast, the way she made others sign too late. "The likeness herein shall hold no motion, gesture, or sign, and shall reveal nothing of the undersigned or her company." She pressed her thumb to the cold glass. She read the clause aloud, quick, no pause for breath. The reflection's arm dropped. The pointing finger fell to its side and stopped. The eyes went flat. It became a plain image again, only her face, still, giving nothing away. The candle steadied. Sable let out a slow breath and eased her sleeve back down. "It's sealed," Therisia said. Her hand shook. She had bound herself twice now, tighter each time, and each seal felt less like winning. The wanderer wasn't looking at the glass. He crouched by the wall, ear to the stone. "Too late," he said. "It already pointed once. Once is a signal." He looked at Sable. "Something out in the reeds felt the mark flare. It's moving again." Sable dragged a rolled map from her satchel and spread it flat. "Then we don't wait here." She traced a line through inked channels to a small mark far off. "We go now, between the stone places, while the walls still hide us." Therisia looked at her silent reflection. She had shut its mouth. But its one gesture had already carried into the dark, and now the hunt was coming to her tower.