Julia

Amie decided to spend the rest of her time confined to her room like she had always supposed to have been. She was exhausted from the excitement and wished to have some time to reflect. There had been a lot that happened in such a short amount of time and Amie hadn't had the chance to process any of it. She thought she would be alone, but Julia made an unexpected appearance the morning after Jacques warned Amie of King Javert.

The moment Julia walked through the door, Amie jumped up from her bed, "Julia?"

Julia had guilty look on her face, "Amie...I'm sorry for yelling at you."

Amie shook her head. She was upset Julia had accused her of such awful things, but at the same time she felt guilty for not telling her anything, "No Julia, I'm the one that needs to apologize. I've attacked you, I've kept secrets from you, and now I've even lied to you. I feel terrible."

Julia grew concerned, "So you really are with Jacques?"

Amie's face contorted, "You really do think that low of me don't you? Well, I guess I deserve that for not telling you what's actually going on."

Julia was now confused, "I think there is quite a bit of explaining you need to do."

Amie nodded, "Come sit, I don't think I have a lot of time, so I'll just tell you the major things."

Julia moved to sit on Amie's bed. She waited for Amie to speak, but Amie appeared unsure of how to proceed, "Amie, just start from the beginning."

Amie took a deep breath, "Right. Well first, I'm sorry for acting bizarre after you told me Dr. Sybil was executed."

Julia responded, "Amie, you don't need to apologize for that. You had a head injury, I knew you weren't in your right mind. I wasn't angry with you, I was worried about you and was upset to see you in that state. It was terrifying to see your normal self disappear... I would also like to apologize to you for leaving you alone with Jacques. I thought he was helping you, I should have known better."

Amie started again, "Well... he didn't leave me alone, but I think he was helping himself to grieve more than he was helping me to heal from my head injury... Julia, I think you should know everything that has happened since King Javert banished me to my room."

Amie proceeded to tell Julia what happened from the moment she met Dr. Sybil to when Jacques warned her of King Javert. She left out the part of meeting the river goddess Sequana. She still hadn't processed the memories she had seen and wasn't quite ready to talk about it just yet.

Julia was overwhelmed with all of the news, "So... you're a mage... and you're alive because Dr. Sybil, who is also a mage, performed magic on you... and you've been spending more time with Jacques because he is also a mage?"

Amie replied, "Well, that started happening after I was injured. We've been travelling quite a bit together so we've just naturally been spending a lot of time together, but he's also developed a bad habit of sneaking into my room to talk to me."

Julia didn't quite know what to make of the situation, but she was concerned for Amie's well being, "Amie, please be careful, so far everything you've told me sounds like Jacques is using you for something and I'm very worried about word getting around that you're a mage. I hate to bring up Dr. Sybil again, but-"

Amie cut Julia off. Reaching to hold Julia's hand to reassure her, she said, "The only two living people that know I'm a mage are you and Jacques. Like you said, Jacques is using me for something, so I doubt he will tell anybody. At least for now, that is... Anyways, I trust you with my life, so I know there is no way you would tell anyone."

Julia nodded, "Amie, I'm still worried about you. Please be careful, especially around King Javert."

Amie hugged Julia, "Don't worry about me Julia, I'll be fine. I'm not planning on using my powers anymore for as long as I'm in this palace so as not to draw suspicion. You need to be careful, however. I don't want you coming here unless you absolutely have to, at least for the time being. I don't want you to have a target on your back just because I do."

Julia returned Amie's embrace, "I'm so glad we're back to normal, Amie. And again, please, please, please be careful."

Julia left shortly after their conversation ended, leaving Amie alone in her room to reflect on her experiences. Talking with Julia helped her put some things in perspective, but she still felt she needed time to herself to think.

***

Amie spent the rest of her day relaxing with nothing else to do but reflect. She thought of Jacques' words and the puzzle, but she couldn't quite figure it out. Jacques still thought he needed her and the puzzle seemed to be unusual. The more Amie thought of it, the more Amie wondered if there was a different solution to the puzzle, something she hadn't noticed before. Perhaps there was something wrong with how they chose to solve it. Amie also wondered why the mist attacked her seemingly the more Jacques read the tome. Several ideas came to mind for Amie, but she realized she could not test a single one of them until she saw Jacques again.

Her attention switched from the puzzle to the maps she had hidden underneath her bed. Amie hadn't had any time yet to look at them, and with nothing else coming to mind from her adventures, she decided to pull them out and examine them. She thought maybe they held some clue to an ancient mage society. At the very least, it was a form of entertainment she could use to enhance her geography skills.

Amie opened the first map and started studying it. It wasn't her first time looking at maps, but for some reason she couldn't figure out the one in front of her. It wasn't making any sense at all. The cardinal directions were reversed and no matter how many ways she turned it, the landmasses didn't match anything she'd ever seen before. While she knew ancient kingdom borders would be different and roadways would probably have changed, what she was looking at didn't even feel like it was from the world Amie lived in.

She started opening up all of the maps to see if any of them had similar geography to what she knew, but there was nothing that matched. Amie thought that perhaps she was misremembering things and surely she would know where these places were after seeing a modern map. These maps were more than likely hundreds of years old, so cartography techniques could have changed over time as well. There might be some hidden magic places in the world as well that only these ancient maps knew the secrets of how to get to them.

Realizing there was nothing she could do until she was allowed out of her room, Amie tucked the maps under her bed and decided she was going to call it a night. The day was far more eventful than she intended and she found she now only had a few days left to rest and recover before being thrown back into her regular duties.