The Art of Transmutation
“You… turned my little sister into a cat?” William repeats, just to be sure he heard correctly.
“Er, yes.” Elwyn looks a bit sheepish. “Accidentally!”
“Well, I would certainly hope it was an accident.” William rolls his eyes a little at the other man, turning his gaze to the sleek-haired black cat sitting on Elwyn’s workbench with an air of stoic disinterest. “Perhaps I should rephrase: how did you turn my sister into a cat?”
“It’s a bit complicated,” Elwyn hedges, sharing a decidedly shifty look with the cat.
William crosses his arms over his chest in the way he knows makes him look quite intimidating, though the thought of trying to intimidate Elwyn—someone who could shoot fire and ice from his fingertips and apparently turn people into cats—is a rather ridiculous notion.
Still, the other man does look slightly cowed. “It was meant to be a simple glamour, to make her look different to certain people,” Elwyn runs a nervous hand through his perpetually messy sandy hair, the tips of the strands brushing across his jaw. “But, I may have misread the spell. Just a little.”
“Misread the—” William breaks off, squinting at the sorcerer. “Where are your glasses?”
“Oh, I misplaced them a few days ago. I can see fine without them.” Elwyn winces as he bumps his hip into the corner of his worktable on his way to the bookshelf. He scans the spines of the many tomes housed there for several minutes and William snorts.
“So this glamour,” he says, striding over to get a closer look at the cat. “What was it for?”
“Well, I’m not sure that’s my place to divul—“
“Elwyn. She’s a cat. I think we’re past the point of modesty.”
“She, er, came to me last night to ask if there was a way to make her look unpleasant in the eyes of… King Tamain.”
“Ah.” William sighs. “And you entertained her ridiculous request because…?”
The cat hisses and swats William’s hand, leaving behind three thin stripes of blood. “Ow! Don’t you start! You are in so much trouble when mother and father find out about this.”
The cat hisses again, turning around to present her back to William, haughty as ever.
“Oh, dear,” Elwyn pulls a large leather-bound book from the top shelf that looks like it weighs more than he does. He shuffles over to the worktable, a cloud of dust forming as he drops it on the wooden surface. He sneezes. “Here, let me see your hand.”
“It’s fine,” William assures him but places his hand within Elwyn’s anyway. “See? Just a scratch.”
A little wrinkle creases Elwyn’s brow as he concentrates, his palms glowing with soft golden light as he murmurs something, low and exotically foreign. Slowly, the glow fades to nothing, and Elwyn runs his thumb over the unmarred pink skin left behind. “There. Like nothing ever happened. Feel better?”
William flexes his hand, marveling at the healed scratch. “It feels much better, yes. Thank you, Elwyn.”
Elwyn’s cheeks darken with a blush, and the cat lets out what sounds like an amused snort. William shoots her a stern look, a clear indication to mind her own business, feline or not, but her miraculous animal transformation hasn’t made her any more agreeable, it seems.
He gives the cat—Vivien, he corrects himself, even though thinking of the furry creature by his sister’s name doesn’t quite feel right—one last look before he pads over to the other worktable, where Elwyn is thumbing through the yellowed pages of his book. “I still cannot believe you went along with her mad scheme, Elwyn,” William reproaches. “Do you have any idea what might have happened to you if Vivien was found in your rooms in the middle of the night?”
Elwyn gives him a blank stare.
“You cannot possibly be this naive. She is a princess. A young woman of nobility. They might have thought you were—” William feels his own cheeks grow warm. “Well, you know… doing something inappropriate.”
Elwyn’s mouth drops open just as Vivien lets out a yowl that is clearly meant to be a guffaw. “What? That’s ridiculous! Why would they think I’d want to do… that with your sister?!”
William huffs. “I repeat: princess, young woman, nobility. No one would believe you wouldn’t want to.”
Elwyn wrinkles his nose. “The only royal I’m in danger of despoiling is you—”
“Yes, thank you,” William interrupts, loudly, as Vivien yowls again. “They don’t know that, obviously. I’m just asking you to be more careful in the future.”
Elwyn shrugs, a bit helplessly. “King Tamain is supposed to be here in two days. I couldn’t just send her away when she might be forced to marry him. He’s nearly twice her age, William! It isn’t right.”
“I know,” William says, laying a hand flat between Elwyn’s shoulder blades. “I don’t believe my father would agree to the match, but—it is a possibility.”
Elwyn lets out a long breath, mouth taking on an unhappy tilt as he goes back to flipping through the book.
“How long will it take to find a spell to change her back?”
“I already have one. That isn’t the issue.”
“Oh. Then what is the issue?”
“She wants to stay a cat.”
William groans. “And you’re not planning to change her back, are you?”
Elwyn turns another page. “Who am I to say she can’t be a cat? It’s her choice. As other things should be, but I suppose we magic-users have a different perspective on personal autonomy than the courts.”
“Exactly how long does she want to stay this way?” William asks, a clear diversion into safer conversational territory.
Elywn shrugs. “However long she needs to avoid King Tamain?”
“So she’ll have paws until I assume the throne?” William feels himself warming up to the idea. “Excellent, that’s at least ten years without her biting commentary on my marksmanship, hair, or sense of fashion.”
“Well, not exactly.” Elwyn gives him an apologetic smile. “She can still talk.”
“I can,” Vivien confirms. “And now I can comment on your choice in bed partners too. A sorcerer, William? Really?”
William resigns himself to a long, long night of ridicule ahead of him. Perhaps a long lifetime of ridicule, knowing Vivien. “I knew it was too good to be true. You wouldn’t happen to have a memory charm in one of those books of yours, would you? Just a little one? I’m sure she wouldn’t even notice a missing hour or two…”
Elwyn pats William’s shoulder—an empty consolation.
William sighs. “It was worth a try.”
