[Belin]

She stood there, and, trying to be calm, she stood as still as she could, although she felt that there was something odd about her feet. Anna was watching her. Calimiel was staring at the walls of the trap in what looked like growing panic.

“My fault?” She moved toward the cube, walking (it seemed to her) more smoothly than she had ever before, and watching the maid’s strange-familiar face carefully. She was once again mistress of her voice, and of her dignity. “My fault, more than yours? I did no more than hope for what you have accomplished. My fault.” She smiled scornfully. “Maladil has the right of it; it’s you, hypocrite. It’s both of you.”

Celumëomaryu grasped the bars of the cell, as well as she could. It was very nearly time for her to be pacing again, and the urge had not been as strong as this for quite some time. If only she could go pace she would know everything…but they might escape. Or they might speak of her. But it was time...No. She had something to say.

“The Butler is wrong, of course. Maladil could not free you if he would. You are not his prisoners, you are mine. But he knows better. He is angry, he is angry, he is with me.” She was smiling. For anybody, let alone Maladil himself, to take her part was a very remarkable thing, and in all her ghostly existence she had not felt so vindicated.

“You underestimate Maladil’s sense of kinship,” answered Anna, palely.

“You underestimate simple logistics,” sneered Celumëomaryu. But her mind was on the library, where she should be walking behind the shelf that had once held her belongings, and where she could no longer go. Fool that she was, could she not have offered him the papers alone?

She turned suddenly. Down the stairs and through the hall. Yes. That, at least. She’d return soon enough, but for now... Celumëomaryu paused. She was forgetting something. She looked over her shoulder... ah, yes. The secret door. With a smirk, she walked past the cube and closed it securely before heading down the stairs.

Only part of her usual route of pacing lay ahead of her, she reflected with a sigh, but after all, perhaps she could speak to the Butler, or to Maladil. One or the other of them could surely help her.

[ January 18, 2003: Message edited by: Belin ]