Harley Merlin 4: Harley Merlin and the First Ritual

by Forrest, Bella

  “I had a feeling that’s what you wanted to talk to me about,” I muttered, feeling sheepish. I was in the wrong here, too. “To be honest, I’m surprised we didn’t have this discussion earlier. I knew you must’ve known about it—it’s not as if people can just wander about this place without you knowing what they’re up to, right? Since you didn’t say anything, I figured you must’ve had your reasons for letting me get away with it.”

  “Like the Reykjavik information, you mean?”

  I shrugged. “It helped, didn’t it?” I was bordering on belligerent, but that was just my embarrassment talking. I’d been caught with my hands in the cookie jar, and there was no wriggling free of this one. Time to face the music and dance.

  “You got lucky,” he corrected.

  “Pretty handy fluke, though, you’ve got to admit?”

  “Like I said, you got lucky. If Salinger had thoroughly read the documents he sent through, chances are he would never have allowed us to have them,” Alton said firmly. “The New York Coven doesn’t want us to succeed in this. They’ve got their popcorn at the ready, eager to watch us fail in our mission. By going there and not informing me of it, you could have jeopardized this part of the investigation. We might never have managed to get our hands on this intel.”

  I sighed and sat down in one of the armchairs. “So, you’re pissed at me—is that it? Do I get a slap on the wrist?” I’m pissed at you too.

  “I’m not angry with you, Harley, but I am disappointed that you didn’t come to me first. That is what I’m trying to get through to you. If you had spoken to me before you went through the mirrors, I would have given you my approval. I would’ve understood entirely. Heck, I might’ve even helped you,” he replied. Where have I heard this before? Wade popped into my head, the words almost identical to what he’d said to me. “As for not broaching the subject earlier, I’ve been waiting in the hopes that you might come clean to me. I wanted you to, but you have forced my hand.”

  I stared at the swirling disc, unable to take my eyes off it. “I’m sorry about not coming to you before I went to New York and Purgatory, but I didn’t think you’d understand why I wanted to go. I thought you’d try and talk me out of it, and then where’d we be? That information from Reykjavik only came through because of what I did, and Salinger probably didn’t read the documents because he was too embarrassed about the state he was in when I met with him. I wouldn’t be surprised if he just sent them on in case I told you about it. Plus, I was worried you might try to stop me from visiting my parents’ Grimoire. Everyone gets a little weird about it, as though I might lose it completely.”

  “Are you talking about your first visit to the Grimoire or the second?” he asked, with a knowing look.

  I grimaced. “I had to see it that first time, Alton. It was like a compulsion.”

  “That’s what worries me.”

  “Why? Why does it keep worrying everyone? Isn’t it perfectly natural to want to see something that belonged to your loved ones?”

  He smiled. “Of course it is, but you aren’t like normal people, Harley. You can’t just do these reckless things without thinking properly about the consequences.”

  “What consequences?” I asked innocently, testing the waters of his knowledge. Clearly, he had guessed I’d snuck into Special Collections on that first visit and stolen a glance at my parents’ Grimoire. He could read me like a book. He knew I’d spoken with Salinger and that information had been gathered about the Merlins and the Shiptons. Those folders had been passed on to him by Wade. But did he know what I’d done when I saw that Grimoire for the first time? I doubted it, though a spike of fear hit me regardless.

  I’d thought about going the Erebus route to find out more about the Children of Chaos, and how Katherine might use them for her own ends, but the prospect of actually summoning him was way too deadly. He’d take a life if I did, and I wasn’t about to have that resting on my conscience.

  “Fortunately for us, there were no consequences to your visits,” he said. “However, what I’m trying to say is, there might have been. We still don’t know the limits of your abilities. Anything might have happened while you were in there with your parents’ Grimoire. It could have had a nasty effect on your affinities, or even on your general well-being. I have heard of people falling sick after just touching certain Grimoires.”

  So, he didn’t know about the whole summoning thing, or my ability to read unfinished Grimoires. I heaved out a sigh of relief, knowing that was a good sign. Regardless, I wasn’t about to talk to him about it now. There were some things I couldn’t come clean about—not to him, anyway. After all, I was still scared that he might send for the men in white coats and have them lock me up for having too much power. It’d be “for my own good” no doubt, just to add the cherry on top of the crippling-terror cake.

  “Well, you don’t have to worry because both visits went just fine,” I said coolly.

  “Are you sure about that?”

  I nodded. “Positive.”

  “You put Santana at risk, too. If you’d been caught, it would have been her reputation on the line as well.”

  “She insisted on coming along,” I replied quietly. “It wasn’t like I invited her. She wanted to keep me safe, that’s all. She’s nice like that.”

  “Nevertheless, if anything had happened, you could have risked her life as well as your own. I do think it a little suspect that she Purged so violently, so soon after returning from New York with you. You didn’t have any part to play in that, did you?”

  My mind jumped toward the first lie it could find. “I made her use her abilities to trick Salinger. She didn’t want to, but I forced her into it. I’m not proud of it, but I was desperate to see that book, and I didn’t think the New York Coven would let me if I applied. Anyway, it looked like a pretty draining spell—maybe that’s what tipped her over the edge.” Wow, Harley, way to throw your pal under the bus. I hoped that, by laying the blame on me and telling Alton that I made her do it, I might take some of the heat off Santana.

  He tutted. “You can’t do whatever you feel like, without thinking of the outcomes first. You understand that, don’t you?”

  “Please don’t go all Spiderman on me.”

  He frowned. “I don’t follow?”

  “With great power comes great responsibility, right? I know that. I really do know that. It’s just that, when it came to seeing that Grimoire, I couldn’t help myself. I had to know what was in those pages. Nothing else seemed to matter.” I took a shallow breath. “I know that sounds selfish and stupid, but I don’t have anything of my parents. I wanted to be close to something that had belonged to them, you know? Does that make sense?” I wanted to confront him about his ruling on my father’s death, but I swallowed the words. What good would it do now? It’d only make him more ‘disappointed.’

  The weight of the pendant around my neck gave me some fleeting comfort. Now, I had a replica of a Merlin heirloom, something close to my family. Still, it wasn’t quite the same. I’d have exchanged it in a heartbeat for that Grimoire.

  “It does make sense, Harley, though you have to assure me that you’ve learned your lesson. If you can’t be trusted with the freedom of this place, including the mirrors, then certain restraints may have to be placed on you.”

  I nodded slowly. “I’ve learned my lesson, Alton.”

  “Is that why you stole a spell from Special Collections and used it to repair your Esprit?” he asked.

  I gaped at him. “How do you—”

  “Tobe traced a glitch in the Bestiary circuit back to the Luis Paoletti Room, where I found the remnants of a reparation spell. An old one, at that—ancient and powerful. There’s only one place that has spells of that magnitude, and that is the New York Special Collections.”

  “Okay, so I’ve learned my lesson now.” Guilt twisted in my stomach. I’d caused that glitch.

  “Fortunately for you, that blast wasn’t the cause of the disruption,” he
said.

  “It wasn’t?”

  “No—that was caused by our reptilian escapee,” he replied. “However, this is what I mean about consequences. You can’t steal spells and hope for the best, not without speaking to someone first. I could’ve told you that the power surge of your Esprit stones reconnecting would have been immense, but you didn’t think to ask.”

  “I spoke to Imogene,” I murmured. “She told me to look for the spell, and she didn’t mention anything like this could happen.”

  “Well, you ought to have double-checked with me first. Old spells can be very temperamental.”

  Relief and guilt sparked through my veins. I hadn’t caused the blast, but I’d still gone against the rules, and I definitely hadn’t checked in with Alton.

  “It’s not as if I had any other option, though,” I said. “I’m sorry for stealing the spell, and I’m sorry for not coming to you about it first, but you didn’t offer me any suggestions about fixing it. In fact, when I showed you the damage, you told me I’d have to train with Nomura until an Esprit repairer could be sourced for an Esprit like mine. No timescale, no cost; you just said I’d have to wait indefinitely. Do you have any idea what it’s like to be told that, when you’re already waiting to have a damn Suppressor taken out of you? It didn’t exactly fill me with hope.”

  I thought he was going to yell at me but, instead, his expression softened. “That is my error, Harley. I should have realized how exasperating all of this must have been for you. You’re right; when you came to me with your broken Esprit, I didn’t give you much to go on. I should’ve done more. However, that doesn’t—”

  “It doesn’t excuse my behavior. I know. I really am sorry for the trouble I’ve caused, but I needed to fix this Esprit, almost as much as I needed to see that Grimoire.”

  He glanced at the jewelry on my hand, his brows pinching together in a frown. “Has it changed color or do my eyes deceive me?”

  “No, they’ve changed color,” I admitted. After all, with him in a generous mood, I figured he might be able to help me. “They’re new stones, but they’re darker than they were before I started the spell. The Air and the Earth stones, anyway.”

  “Oh, dear…”

  “You think I’m crossing over to the Dark side, Vader-style?”

  He smiled tightly. “It would suggest that the way you conducted the reparation spell has tipped the balance slightly, though I don’t suppose you’ll feel it much with the Suppressor still working away inside you. Indeed, you probably drew more upon your Dark affinity to fix the stones into place, which has caused this… and likely those two huge blasts, also.”

  “Can I do anything to get the two sides back in balance?”

  “This is near-untrodden territory, Harley,” he said thoughtfully. “Although I recall reading about one spell, some years ago now. It was a Sanguine spell, if memory serves. A terrible business, but it had something to do with combining powerful Light and powerful Dark to restore equilibrium. Preceptor Nomura is the expert on this, rather than me. He is familiar with Suppressors and their various quirks, and I believe he’s studied extensively in Sanguine spells.”

  My curiosity was piqued. “Equilibrium is exactly what I need…”

  “I’m not saying that such spells should ever be attempted, mind you. The Sanguine spells are banned for a reason. In fact, I shouldn’t have mentioned it at all. I don’t even know where you’d find a spell like that these days. They’ve likely all been destroyed, which is a good thing if you ask me. Terrible, awful spells. Yes, good riddance.”

  He covered himself quickly, evidently realizing he’d said too much to the girl who broke rules for breakfast. So, Nomura was the one to speak to—he was the one who might be able to tell me how I could use Light and Dark to fix the division inside me, once the Suppressor was broken and all hell broke loose within me. This little tidbit was way more valuable than Alton understood. Now, all I had to do was get Nomura to spill a few beans.

  It gave me a renewed sense of hope, though it also made me more afraid of what breaking the Suppressor might mean for me. If these Sanguine spells were banned, then what if I couldn’t get my hands on one? What if I couldn’t fix the divide? Even so, I was determined not to live within the artificial bounds I’d been given. In the fight against Katherine, we needed all the power we could get. With the Suppressor gone and my affinities living in harmony, I could become our not-so-secret weapon against her. I just had to decipher what Alton was leaving out.

  Sanguine… that’s to do with blood, right? So, what Alton was trying really hard not to let slip was that the blood of a Light magical and the blood of a Dark magical might somehow fix the mess that the Suppressor would leave behind. That was my guess, anyway. Like Alton had alluded, Nomura could clear up a few of these aspects for me. If I went in there all confident, with this information already under my belt, maybe he’d be more inclined to give me the rest of the information that I wanted to hear.

  “Yeah, you’re right,” I said. “That sounds awful. Blood makes me squeamish.”

  He gawked at me. “Blood? Who said anything about blood?”

  “Isn’t that what Sanguine is about?”

  “Ah… I see. Yes, very astute. Not that you should trouble yourself over it.”

  “Anyway, I really am sorry about using the mirrors without your permission. It was wrong of me to do that stuff without telling you. It won’t happen again, I promise.” Well, I half-promised. Me disobeying the rules was wholly circumstantial.

  “I won’t be so lenient on you again, if I discover that you’ve done something like this after today—is that clear?”

  I nodded. “As crystal. Although you’re not really one to lecture me on leniency.” The words tumbled out before I could stop them, and I’d been doing so well, keeping my emotions back.

  “Excuse me?”

  Well, you’ve done it now. “What you told me about my dad’s execution. That wasn’t exactly true, was it?”

  His face paled. “No… No, it wasn’t.”

  “I just want to know why you lied, that’s all.”

  He exhaled heavily. “I… I didn’t want you to turn away from the coven, just because of a mistake I made so long ago. I was younger then, and more foolish. I listened to those around me, and made a judgment based on the opinions of others.”

  “He could’ve lived if you’d voted another way.” I held on to my emotions, refusing to cry. My anger thrummed through my veins.

  “I know, and I’ll forever be sorry for that. I didn’t know he was cursed. I did what I thought was best, so he couldn’t hurt anyone else. Hardly anyone breaks out of Purgatory, but he had Katherine Shipton on his side. She was a snake, even then—slithering out of danger.” He paused, his shoulders sagging. “If I apologize now, it would seem insincere, especially in light of what you discovered—the tattoo and punctures on his neck. However, I really am sorry for not telling you the truth. Would you believe me if I said I was ashamed?”

  I stared at him in surprise. I hadn’t expected that. I’d expected defensiveness and denial, not an apology like this. “I… uh, I think I would. It wouldn’t change how I feel, though.”

  “I know that, but I would still ask that you believe my words. I am more ashamed than you know, and if I could change the past, I would. But none of us can do that, Harley. We must all live with the choices we have made.” He looked genuinely upset, confusing my brain. “Still, I am sorry—for what I did, and for the lie that I told. I hope that you may find it in your heart to forgive me.”

  I swallowed hard. “Do you… Do you understand how painful it is, to know that he could’ve been saved if one vote had swung the other way—your vote?”

  He nodded, pursing his lips.

  I shook my head. “No, you can’t. It’s like having him snatched away, all over again. And it’s even worse, now that we know he really was cursed. He could’ve lived, Alton. He could’ve lived if you’d just…”

  He dipped his he
ad. “I will apologize as often as I must, to get you to forgive me. I ask only one thing of you. Please don’t leave the coven because of this. I lied, and that was wrong of me, but this place is your home now. That is what I wanted for you. If I had told you the truth… who knows where you might be.”

  “You deceived me,” I said.

  “I did it for your benefit, though my apology remains,” he replied.

  A mixture of emotions coursed through me. I couldn’t forgive him, not yet—maybe not ever—but he was right about one thing. This place was my home, and his lie couldn’t change that now. The SDC was embedded in my heart, and it would hurt like hell to break away now. My friends were here. Wade was here. Very clever, Alton. Maybe he knew I’d find out one day, but he wanted it to be a time when I was settled. A time when I couldn’t leave.

  “Just understand that things have changed,” I said stiffly.

  He nodded. “I understand. I can’t blame you for your anger.”

  “You shouldn’t have lied.”

  “No, I shouldn’t.”

  “Do you accept responsibility for his death?” My eyes narrowed.

  “I do. I bear it each day.”

  I cleared my throat. “Then maybe, one day, I’ll find it in my heart to forgive you. Just not now. I can’t do that now. It’s still too fresh.”

  “I understand.”

  A tense silence stretched between us, neither of us knowing what to say. I scanned the room, desperate for a way to break it. He’d apologized, which didn’t fix everything, but it was a good start. Yes, it’d warped my image of him, and knocked him off his pedestal, but did that make him a bad guy overall? No, probably not. He’d made a terrible mistake, but he wanted to repent for it.

  I looked at the golden medallion, finding my icebreaker. I was still angry and bitter, but that wasn’t going to help anyone right now, not with Quetzi on the loose.

  “What about the beacons?” I muttered. “There really hasn’t been anything at all?”

  “There really hasn’t. I’ll send word to you as soon as they’ve found the whereabouts of Katherine’s people,” he answered. “It looks as though it may take some time to discover every coordinate, as they don’t appear for long.”