Those clear, bright tones were utterly without pity, and Rose felt very sorry for Jason. Bad enough to know that was the case, but to hear it from such a being—that was hard, hard indeed.
The light above the altar brightened, and Rose's eyes began to water in reaction. And yet, at the same time, she could not bring herself to look away. The light drew her, even as it became impossible to watch.
"I have fulfilled your request, O maiden," it said, in a voice of deep formality, and she felt its calm regard pressing upon her again. "I thank you for the Summons, and for the feast. And now—fare you well."
There was no sound, nothing to mark the moment that it departed. The light simply vanished so abruptly that the room seemed dark in comparison. She rubbed her eyes, which were still watering, and suddenly realized that she felt physically drained and exhausted, as if she had been working very hard for most of the day. And she wanted to see, so badly she shook with the need for clear sight. She reached out her hands, impotently groping for her spectacles, even though she knew that Cameron had them.
Jason was at her side before she realized it, as if he understood all too well her fear of sightlessness—of course, he had been only a few feet away, and no longer needed to worry about erasing the chalk-marks by striding directly across to her. "Here," he said, pressing the spectacles into her hand, as if he had sensed how imperative her need for sight was. "Are you tired?"
"Very," she admitted, fumbling the spectacles into place, and seeing the room leap into focus again with a surge of relief. I would rather almost anything than not be able to see....
"It was the Unicorn, I think—" His voice sounded thoughtful. "I did not experience this myself, but the Unicorn I Summoned was not as powerful as this one, and it never said a word about a 'feast.' I believe that his 'feasting' was not entirely metaphorical, that he 'fed' upon your spiritual energy."
"My what?" she gasped, She turned to him with alarm, and he made a soothing motion.
"Don't worry, this has happened to me with other creatures, just not a Unicorn. I promise you, he hasn't taken anything irreplaceable; by his nature, he can't. In fact, he didn't take it at all; if you think about your quatrain, you offered it to him as a free gift. But energy has to come from somewhere, as the mathematicians say, and very often the Elementals find the energy we produce preferable to their normal fare." He chuckled a little. "Perhaps the reason that my Unicorn never 'feasted' upon my energies was that I was not sufficiently pure for it. You were obviously more to its taste."
"I suppose I should feel flattered," she said, hesitantly. "And if it really hasn't harmed me—"
"It hasn't," he reassured her. "You'll feel better after a short rest and a little food of less ephemeral nature."
She sighed, and gathered up her skirts. He offered her his hand in a particularly gallant gesture.
"You performed wonderfully, my dearest Rose; stronger Apprentices than you would have bolted from the room at the first signs of the Manifestation. I am very proud of you." He chuckled a little. "If my lady would care to return to the study with me, I believe my Salamanders have brought us just what we need." She sensed, rather than saw, that he smiled, and she was a little surprised that he should offer her so much physical contact. Heretofore he had avoided it, perhaps sensitive to his own appearance. She took the proffered hand, and once again felt that tiny electric shock pass between them. But this time, his paw-hand no longer felt so odd holding hers. She decided not to be annoyed with him. It might have been just as well that she could not see; if she had, she might have been too tongue-tied to make the proper responses.
Once they were inside the door of the study, he dropped her hand and plucked a warm and heavy brown plush cape from a hook beside the door. "I thought you might be cold after all that," he said, handing it to her, as he hesitated a moment, then resolutely pulled the hood of his robe back down onto his shoulders. "And there are two pairs of slippers warming beside the fire. I think you will know which pair is yours."
She wrapped the cape around herself, grateful for the warmth, and went over to the fire. It did not take the mind of a genius to deduce which pair of sheepskin-lined slippers were hers; she doubted that he could squeeze his feet into the smaller of the two, nor would he likely sport a pair of woolen slippers embroidered with white roses. She bent to pull them both on her half-frozen feet, and took her accustomed seat on the sofa, curling her legs up underneath her, just as the clock above the mantelpiece chimed midnight.
A moment later, he joined her, seating himself in a chair across from her, followed by a levitating table and floating tray, each accompanied by an attendant Salamander. The latter held covered dishes and service for two, and she was not at all loath to see them.
"A Christmas Eve dinner of the English sort for you, my lady," he said gravely, "courtesy of the Palace Hotel. Beef Wellington, roast carrots and potatoes, and plum pudding, of course. I can flame the latter, if you would like, but that is a custom I don't particularly care for. I've never found it improved the flavor of a dish, and it often makes sweets so hot that one runs the risk of burning ones mouth."
"I believe I'll decline," she replied cheerfully. "I think we have quite enough flame as it is." She waved her hand at the Salamanders, who danced in response to her sally.
He handed her a plate without further comment; his dinner, as usual, was rare (or raw) meat. It no longer disturbed her to see him consume it, since he had taken to cutting it up and eating it in a civilized manner. She had hot spiced cider to drink—probably a wiser choice than wine, as tired as she was. Again, as usual, he had a glass of milk, and a cup of Master Pao's tea.
Meat at last! I thought I was going to perish of longing for it before the three days were over!
She was too hungry to press him for his reaction to the result of their efforts, but as soon as she polished off the last of the plum pudding, and poured herself a second glass of the cider, she saw that he had finished his own dinner and was regarding her with an expectant air.
"Well?" she said. "Was it worth the effort?"
He nodded, slowly. "Quite worth the effort," he replied. "I was astonished at the strength of the apparition, to be frank. The ones that I Summoned appeared for only a moment or two, uttered a few cryptic words, and vanished again. This Unicorn practically engaged us in conversation, and it very clearly gave us all the information it was permitted to give us."
"Permitted by whom?" she asked. "That was what I wanted to know."
He shrugged. "When one deals with creatures like the Unicorn, one acknowledges the fact that there are higher powers ruling them. What those powers are, I have never attempted to discover. Because they are burdened, or gifted, with more knowledge than we, they are constrained more directly by those higher powers than mere mortals."
He stared down into his cup, and she said nothing, remembering what else the Unicorn had said. Finally, he shook his head, and looked up again.
"The important thing is that we know now that there is a solution to my problem, and what is more, the Unicorn made a very significant omission." He swirled the tea in his cup and drank the rest of it down, with his usual grimace. "Yes, it said that the means to reverse my condition existed in a manuscript. But it did not say that we would be unable to deduce those same means from our own researches, if we put enough effort into the task."
She bit her lip, and looked into his eyes. "You're right," she agreed. "What is more, it did say that you would find your answer by your own efforts, if at all. But are you not going to pursue the manuscript?"