Invitation || Selina & Kingsley
She answered dryly, because her mouth had lost its moisture and returned only words turned wry from the effort of speaking them. “The fewer letters the better, you once said, or something like it–I’ll entrust my communication to you rather than her from now on, then, if it’ll ease your weary mind.”
The penultimate word was intentionally stressed. It amused Selina, that Kingsley would call his mind weary, as though she were a child who required his attention and care. She could have said that she left, in part, because Septima had spent so much of her time with Alyssa that it seemed she was no longer needed for company; jealousy had fueled Selina’s decisions nearly as much as it had Kingsley’s, without her knowledge. Her return had been no better: Septima had taken light interest in the artifact, but her stepbrother’s presence had dominated the conversation and Selina had been rankled ever since.
She thought too much about it, she knew; but Septima had always been her close and intimate friend, and that a girl should absorb so much of Septima’s attentions made her feel hollower. “I apologize,” she said suddenly, after a silence had fallen over the two; she winced at her formal word choice (Kingsley, being ever-proper, had a way of rekindling the formalities her mother had tried to instill in her). “I’ve had some trying experiences lately and have been taking it out on you. This is not a subject I should be coy about, especially with you.” The admission came uncomfortably, and thus short and brusque, but her voice was pitched higher now, softening some of the awkwardness. “Septima has not been as much help as I had been hoping.”
“Letters of a sensitive nature are to be avoided,” Kingsley agreed. Intercepted correspondence was one of the primary reasons the lot of them had been taught to communicate via flowers–each of the Lotus children, the youngest generation, poring over ancient tombs explaining how different red was from pink and from white. Merlin knew they stole enough parchment to make a library of their own strictly devoted to stopping the damned war. “Letters of a sentimental nature…” He paused, tongue touched to the backs of his teeth as he thought. “We might use more sentimentality in such trying times, Selina.”
Selina. How foreign did the familiar name taste upon his tongue. She was Sapworthy, forever an aloof and unobtainable ideal. To speak her name felt as if to sully it. He hurried to down its echo with other words.
“Out with it, then.” His hands flattened against her tabletop, dark fingers spreading near as wide as dinner plates in an uncharacteristically excited motion. Rarely did Kingsley make a show of his size–even rarer did he do it so thoughtlessly. “With what can I help? What have you learned?”
She gave a start, almost surprised by his interest while her mind had been processing his previous words. Sentimentality rarely existed in her relationships; even with Septima she rarely broached the topic. Selina’s friends were not blessed with sentimental impulses, and whatever tendencies she had toward the emotion were often tamped down before she expressed them. She supposed that communicating in flowers was a version of sentimentality, but it was a necessity to keep their messages private. Intricate notes could be spelled out with the petals of different breeds, and only the informed would be able to decode. There was a certain level of intimacy in the language of flowers that may have fueled her reluctance to make Kingsley the recipient. If she was reading him correctly--and she rarely did--he was requesting it.
But he wrenched her back on topic and she shook her head to clear it. She’d learned a good many things, not all of it useful or practical. But it all linked to a secret Selina had been keeping for a significant amount of time, and she’d been dreading having to unveil it to Kingsley. She began, “the artifacts I found in the East are not complete, but they seem to point to a twin prophecy, or myth, or historical event long turned legend. The story of a boy born to become a king, who led a rebellion and saved a race--but he never became a king, nor is it certain he ever existed. And there are so many of these stories, many men called prophets or saviors, that it’s a wonder we’re only just discovering ours.”
She gestured to an indistinct part of the house, looking nervous. “I’ve done experiments. Without the full prophecy, we can’t know for certain what Trelawney might have foreseen. She has relatives but none who have the Sight, not legitimately. But Cassandra left behind some unfinished works, a book on Divination she worked on in her last years. She knew that the Sight was becoming increasingly rare and that our educations did not encourage its development. Sight is no longer dominant; it is a latent ability more commonly attributed to luck or coincidence. Trelawney developed methods of Divination that did not require the Sight, ways to bring out the gift in those who had any trace of it. Two copies of the book exist, to my knowledge: one belongs to the Trelawney family, and I believe it is in the hands of her great-grandaughter of some degree, a woman of no great talent who styles herself a Seer. The other is in my possession. The knowledge of related prophecies and the artifacts confirming their existence could help us fill in the missing pieces.”
