“If I wanted to get asked questions I don’t know the answer to,” I say, “I’d wait until my next etiquette lesson.”
“It’s a rhetorical question that I’m about to answer,” Esther says impatiently.
“If it’s rhetorical, can you answer it?” I muse.
Esther’s nostrils flare. “You’re being difficult, and it’s making this conversation harder.”
I hold up a hand to indicate that I’ll try to show some restraint.
“Magic is what lets us read people’s memories, sense their auras, and make them see and feel things.”
“The tattoo, right?” I say.
“That’s what we like people to believe,” she says. “But magic is much more complicated than that. A long time ago, magic was an object, or really it was a substance. It had this very hard-to-pronounce name, with a silent k, I think? Kvaight? I don’t know. Putting aside the particulars, magic was this substance. The abilities of the sovereigns in the fourteen cities are different, but all of them come from the same thing: that magical substance. Magic used to be wild. It wasn’t tied to any place or person like it is now. It was dangerous, and it was the cause of most wars in the previous thousand years.”
“What happened?” I ask. “Just because people were using it doesn’t mean it was bad, right?”
She gives me a knowing look. “That’s exactly what the sovereigns said. There were a number of different territories, and when they finally sat down to do something about the problem of magic, there were fourteen of them. They decided magic was too dangerous to let it run wild. They wanted to contain it and protect people.”
“And make it so they were the only ones with magic?” I say.
“Yes,” Esther says, “unfortunately. But binding all of magic was complicated and intricate. It literally shaped the world we live in. I don’t know how they figured it out, but you notice how all of the cities have the same shape? Maybe you’ve noticed their arrangement across the continent. It wasn’t by accident.” She points to a map framed beside the vanity mirror.
“Someone really liked hexagons?” I offer.
“Yes, in fact,” Esther says. “When magic was bound, it came with very specific rules. They bound magic to black ink. With it, they wrote the fourteen treaties and created these ink tattoos. So the magic lives in these crowns on our arms, but it also lives in all fourteen treaties across the cities. It’s what binds magic to the cities and to the sovereigns! They spelled out the rules in the treaties, which is why we haven’t had a war since. And…it answers one of the biggest questions.” She trails off, unsure she wants to continue. Her aura is still, like a heavy window curtain.
“What biggest question?” I ask, but even as I speak, I realize what it is.
“Why magic doesn’t affect the Nameless,” Esther says.
I stare at the treaty. I don’t understand a single scratch of the ink, but I recognize the difference between the lines of neat text in the center and the fourteen signatures that surround it.
I run a finger along the edge of one of the names.
“I don’t think it was their intention to create a divide,” Esther says, “but when they signed their names, they bound the magic tattoos to them as sovereigns, and they also bound it to every named citizen of the city. That’s why our abilities only affect named citizens. It’s why magic has to be passed on by the speaking of a name. It’s why when someone is exiled or born Nameless, they aren’t part of the city’s magic anymore.”
I stare at every unrecognizable curve of the signatures. This treaty is the reason for everything I’ve never understood about the city and magic. Maybe even about myself. It’s why people like Belrosa would rather see us dead than in power.
“But why do you and I both have the tattoo?” I ask. “And how can I have one if I don’t have a name? I don’t understand.”
She bobs her head. “I can show you a memory I have of my father. Rather, you’ll be able to see it because of your abilities, and I think it’ll answer some of those questions. But it may also create some more.” She looks afraid. Ashamed, maybe. Almost sad.
“I have the strangest feeling,” I say as I study the downward pinch of her lips, “that you’re about to break my heart.”
She smiles sadly. “I hope that’s not true. But maybe.” She sits down on top of the pillows and puts out her hand, palm up. It makes me feel like a child, taking her hand like this, and I sink down to my knees beside her.
“Are you sure?” I ask, my hand hovering above hers. I feel the heat radiating from it. “Whatever this is, I don’t want it to…hurt you? I guess? I’m worried it might, from the way you’re acting.”
She offers a faint shrug. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”
I place my hand over hers, and like lightning being drawn to metal, I am pulled sharply into her memory.
It’s like a dull pressure against every inch of my body, and then I open my eyes and I’m sitting in a green fabric chair with the cool touch of fabric armrests against my skin. Or, Esther is. I am.
I see the memory from her perspective as she squirms in the chair. She pushes a curvy wave of hair out of her face, and her hands are small and smooth. She’s young.
Fallow sits on the edge of his bed, rolls up his sleeve, and shows Esther his crown tattoo.
“You know this tattoo, miya?” Fallow says, and he pats his arm.
Esther nods.
“I want to tell you the story about what happened to this tattoo one generation ago,” he says. “My mother was a great queen, and she saw a future for Seriden that was grander than anything we’d seen before. When my brother and I were born—you know Uncle Charlie, right—we were twins. And my mother was clever. She gave us both the same name, and then when she died a few months later, she spoke our shared name. The crown tattoo was given to both of us. We both have the same name, Parson Rejoriak Fallow, but he went by Charles Hamish Fallow.”
Esther nods again, but confusion and intrigue swirl through her like gusts of wind.
“My parents were foolish,” Fallow says. “They wanted Charlie and me to be twin kings! But as we grew, Charlie didn’t want the throne and wasn’t suited for it. He wanted nothing more than to continue living a charmed life. When Charlie grew sick last year, we fought. I told him how disappointed I was that he hadn’t embraced his abilities and power. I called him a derelict for not wanting the throne.”
Fallow’s eyes turn weary and sad. “I was angry we didn’t get to spend our lives ruling side by side. But having two crowns in one city is in violation of the treaties. We are weaker individually than the other sovereigns, but still stronger when combined. It’s an unnatural imbalance. If word got out, it would have caused war between us and the other cities.”