“What are you doing in Londinium?”
“I was looking for someone.”
“Who?”
“I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”
“To hurt us?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“The girl I was looking for was not a citizen.”
“A Briton?” Marcus tone sharpened. “In the city?”
“Yes.”
Marcus snorted his frustration. “Why would she be in the city? Has she committed a crime?”
“No crime. She did nothing to hurt your precious city. She was simply stolen.”
“How does anyone steal a person?”
Devyn stepped forward, his face inches away from Marcus, barely contained anger seeping from him.
“When they are a defenceless baby. A baby whose mother has just been killed by your thrice-damned sentinels. A baby whom they… killed.”
“You’re looking for a baby who was killed? What?” Marcus was clearly confused, while my heart broke a little as Devyn finally faced the truth.
Marcus stopped and looked at me, clearly running the calculations in his head, his clever mind piecing together the tiny slivers of information he had been given.
“Cassandra,” he breathed.
“No, it’s not what you think. I’m not her.”
“But this Briton thought you might be.”
I couldn’t deny it. I realised I didn’t want to.
“Yes.” He’d thought I was a missing Briton girl and it turned out I was. Just not the one he was looking for.
“Why did he think that?”
I opened my mouth to defend myself against his challenge. He knew I was adopted; I had reminded him of this and that my own heritage might be questionable not so long ago. I closed my mouth, raising my chin as I met his eyes. I would not deny the truth.
Marcus shook his head as he took in the realisation that our match was not what he had believed it to be. I was not who he had believed me to be. And that the very blood that ran in his own veins betrayed him. I knew all too well how that felt. I took a step towards him.
“Marcus.”
He raised his hands to fend me off. “This is over. I don’t know how you’ve managed to live here undetected all this time but we are not a match. It never felt right. You don’t want… I am not marrying a Briton.”
Devyn moved beside me, his body curving protectively in front of me. Marcus’s eyes flicked to take in his position and his eyes narrowed. I pulled the promise ring from my hand and put it down on the table beside me.
Fidelma stepped in between us all.
“All righty then, why don’t we try taking this down a notch before we attract an audience.” She walked over to Marcus and laid a gentle hand on his cheek. “You, my boy, are in need of my help. Now. There’s no time to waste. All of these other matters can wait.”
Marcus brushed her hand away, though he had looked momentarily as if he’d wanted to lean into it. Despite the outward appearance of his charmed life, Marcus really hadn’t experienced a great deal of affection.
“I’ve heard enough. I do not want or need your help. Thank you for your kind offer.” He moved stiffly towards the door which audibly clicked as the lock was turned.
Marcus continued to stride to the door and attempted the handle but to no avail. Inhaling, he turned to face the room.
“Unlock this door.”
“No. You do not seem to understand your situation here.” Fidelma manhandled him in front of a mirror. “You are a doctor, I’m told, a healer. Like your distant granduncle, whom I served for many years before he died.”
“I thought you were from Kernow,” Devyn interrupted.
“I was married to an Anglian,” she said tartly. “Why? Does it matter?”
“I don’t know,” Devyn said, eyes narrowed. “Does it?”
“I’m risking my life here by trying to help you,” she said, dismissing him and turning back to Marcus. “Look at yourself, child. Look with a healer’s eyes. You are draining yourself. Whatever you have been doing, we want to know, we need to know. We have a treatment that works but some of our people are dying too. And if I don’t do something for you here and now, you will be dead before the end of the month.”
I waited, watching, while Marcus shook off his anger and truly saw himself: the grey shadows under his eyes, the yellow tinge around his irises.
“A month?”
“Less,” Fidelma corrected, not entirely without sympathy. “Whatever you’re doing is tapping into a part of yourself you should not touch when healing others. It is your own reserve.”
Marcus acknowledged that he had heard her while turning to look at me.
“Listen to her, Marcus,” I pleaded. “You know something isn’t right.”
“You’re exhausted, drained?” Fidelma asked. “But no fever, cough, shakiness?”
“I don’t have the illness,” Marcus answered.
“But it started at the same time?” she guessed. “Or have you felt this before?”
Marcus inclined his head, his lips a thin line. “I used to take something for it. With the outbreak I was busy and missed some. I thought nothing of it at first but maybe I did feel that I was better able to help people when I wasn’t taking it.”
Devyn’s eyes met mine. Marcus had known on some level that he was using magic if he stayed off his medication. Just like I had.
“Sit,” Fidelma ordered. “I need to look at you properly. You certainly have the height of the Plantagenets.”
All the fight seemed to have gone out of Marcus and he folded in on himself as he followed her orders.
“You know members of the Plantagenet family?” he asked.
“Tsk, yes. I served the late King Richard XI of York, weren’t you listening?” Fidelma reminded him.
“I’ve had a lot to take in,” Marcus said, looking from me to Devyn, who had moved to the other side of the room in an attempt not to derail Fidelma’s intervention.
“That you have, boy,” she agreed, tilting his head back to look in his eyes before feeling around his lymph nodes. “That you have.”
Her eyes, filled with concern, caught Devyn’s across the room.
“Can you get him out of here if he loses consciousness?”
“What? What are you planning on doing?” This was not part of the plan. “I thought you were going to tell him a few tricks or something. What are you doing?”
Fidelma had her palms placed on each side of his head and Marcus was visibly sagging.
“Help me get him on the chaise longue behind that screen.” Tiny Fidelma was trying to support him and I rushed to help her. Devyn’s attempt to aid us was met with the last of Marcus’s strength.
“Get away from me or I leave now,” he said as he pulled himself together to walk as much under his own steam as possible.
As Marcus lay back, I turned to Fidelma and Devyn.
“Wait, wait a minute.” I held my hands up in front of them, palms facing outwards. “You can’t knock him unconscious. How will we get out of here? We’ll have to do this some other time.”
“There is no other time, Cass. Fidelma will be gone with the rest of the delegation tomorrow,” Devyn reminded me.
“Then we’ll figure something else out. It’s too risky. How will we explain why he’s unconscious?” I argued.
“There’s no time for something else,” Fidelma said as she hustled me out of her way. “We do this now.”
I looked to Marcus, who nodded weakly. Whatever Fidelma had already done to him to make him sluggish, clearly he could feel its benefit already… even though this was the last place in the world he wanted to be locked in with three Britons, one of whom was about to practise magic here in the very heart of Roman rule in Britannia. There was no way to make it worse.
“Fine.” I moved away as Fidelma again put her palms to the sides of Marcus’s head. Almost immediately, Marcus’s eyelids fluttered closed and ten min
utes later he was completely unconscious as Fidelma started to move her hands slowly down his body.
I stepped outside the delicate partition that stood in front of the chaise longue, crossing to where Devyn waited on the other side of the room.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“For what?” I asked tiredly.
“I was so focused on what I wanted that I never stopped to consider the impact all of this might have on you.”
“You feel bad that I won’t be Papa’s little princess anymore?” I was aiming for humour but it fell pretty flat. Marcus knew now and he’d made pretty clear how he felt about our match.
“You’ll always be a princess to me.”
His aim, also for humour, felt similarly hollow.
“Sure. I’m not your mystery girl. And it looks like I’m not your way in to Marcus anymore either.” I finally looked directly at him. “I don’t know what I am.”
He took a step towards me as if to embrace me. I waved him back. I had never wanted to be in anyone’s arms more but I couldn’t. I was on my own.
“It doesn’t matter if you are a citizen, a Shadower, or a full-blood Briton. You are you. Damn everything else. You can be whoever you want to be. You’re not tied to the future they made for you anymore.”
I gave him a small smile.
“Neither are you.”
His dark eyes widened as he contemplated his own future, the new one that had opened up in front of him. His life’s mission had unravelled. He had finally accepted that this girl was dead.
“Right.” He was completely stunned by the realisation.
A knock sounded on the door. We didn’t answer, hoping that whoever it was would move on. Another jangle as the handle was tried again. Voices in the hall.
“Cassandra?” It was my mother’s voice. How did she know I was here?
I looked at Devyn in alarm. “She must have seen us leave. She watches me all the time. What do we do now?” I whispered frantically.
More voices in the hall. Footsteps.
“They’ll be going to get something to force the lock,” Devyn guessed.
I hurried over to see how Fidelma was doing – her hands had barely moved below Marcus’s shoulders. Fidelma shook her head. She needed longer.
“What do we do? They’re going to discover us.”
Devyn dragged me over to the couch in front of the door.
“Not if they never look any further than us,” he announced moving behind me and starting to unlace my dress.
“What are you doing?” I pulled away.
“The one thing that guarantees your mother keeps this quiet,” he said, continuing to attack the laces. My mother would go nuts if she came in here and discovered me half dressed—
Oh.
The laces gave and I turned and started to undo the buttons on his shirt, gnawing at my lips with my teeth in order to provide them with a fuller, reddened appearance.
“If we’re going to have to serve the time, we might as well do the crime,” Devyn grinned as he noticed what I was doing and claimed my lips for himself.
His lips moved over mine with purpose at first, firmly ensuring that there would be no mistaking the reason we were in the room alone together, rubbing his early stubble over my exposed shoulders before kissing his way back up to my lips.
My fingers brushed through his dark curls, tousling them as they had a thousand times in my dreams. I forgot about the people outside and got lost in the moment.
His kiss came again, claiming me in a way that had nothing to do with the people outside and everything to do with the revelations from earlier. Our tongues danced together, the rhythm at once questioning and reassuring, communicating without words in a way we did so much better than when we were actually speaking.
I should have been worrying about the impending doom clattering in the hallway, about Marcus unconscious on the couch, about Fidelma who was risking her life to help him, and what would happen to Devyn when we were discovered. Fidelma and Marcus had a chance of going undiscovered once my mother came through the door and I became the scandal of the city but Devyn would be completely exposed. Devyn, who of all of us needed not to be put in the spotlight. Fidelma, Marcus, and I all had protectors who would help us. Devyn had no one and he had so much more to hide.
The masks. I pulled out of his embrace and dashed across the room behind the screen. It wasn’t there and I scanned the room in a panic, holding my dress up with one hand. Where was it? There, on the couch by Marcus’s jacket and distinctive shoulder scarf. I grabbed his jacket and the mask. Comprehension dawned and Devyn quickly took off his own jacket.
He grinned as he shrugged into Marcus’s jacket and sash.
I poured water from the jug on the sideboard into my hands and ran it through his hair, taming his tangled curls into a rough approximation of Marcus’s hairstyle. I’m not sure how we would explain it looking like he had just stepped out of the baths but with his curls smoothed and suppopsedly darkened from the water, if no one looked too closely we had a chance.
“Come with me.” His midnight eyes gleamed.
“What?” I didn’t follow; go with him where? I could hear keys being tried in the door by my parents and whoever else was outside. I smoothed his hair one more time.
He grabbed me about the waist and pulled me to him.
“Come with me.” He kissed me, the merest brush of the lips. “There’s nothing here for you now.” He glanced at the door. “I’m not sure what I’ll be taking you to. But come.”
I smiled back. He was crazy, but I kind of liked it.
I kissed him once more then pulled back quickly. He donned the mask with only seconds to spare before the door finally opened.
My mother and father swept into the room with a senior council member.
“I told you,” my mother pronounced, almost delightedly, her every expectation that I would disgrace the family satisfied in one fell swoop.
“Thank you, senator, we’ll take it from here.” My father blocked the entrance so the guards could not see beyond the door and ushered the elder statesman back out of the room. Having seen enough to have a tale to tell, the man was graceful enough in his departure.
I stood holding my dress up, my bee-stung lips and general dishevelment speaking for themselves.
“Papa—” I started.
“Cassandra, pull yourself together. It’s time to go home.” His voice was heavy with disappointment.
My cheeks glowed as I started to cry, my embarrassment and general frayed emotions giving me ample ammunition to let the tears flow freely – and helpfully covering any noise from the far end of the room as my fake Marcus retied the laces he had hastily undone only moments earlier. I donned my mask gratefully as I headed for the door, with Devyn in Marcus’s costume a step behind.
“Have you nothing to say for yourself?” Camilla addressed what she thought was Marcus and he merely shook his head. Hopefully my sobbing also covered the sound of his teeth grinding together.
My mother didn’t wait for any further response. She simply grabbed my hand and dragged her disgraced daughter down the hallway. Back in the ballroom, things were much the same as we’d left them – a little louder maybe as the party got into full swing. My eye caught the flash of long black hair as a girl in Celtic dress pushed through the dancers.
Almost at the exit, Camilla came to a stop as our path was blocked by the same tall Briton who had spoken to me earlier. His eyes blazed behind his golden mask as he quickly sized up the situation.
“Ah, Lord Courtenay, there you are. Might I have a word with you?” he said, his eyes glacial as he spoke to my masked partner in crime.
“Your Highness,” my father said and inclined his head. My mother’s grip on my arm tightened as the Briton I had spoken to earlier was identified as the Mercian prince. Ha. Was she afraid his mother would strike us from her lair in the north for talking to him?
Devyn shook his head.
My father lo
oked at him aghast.
“I’m afraid I must insist.” The Briton reached out and took Devyn’s elbow, pulling him aside, and with an elegant bow he indicated to my mother that we should progress. “Donna.”
My mother continued to drag me forward, my father bringing up the rear. Devyn was still attempting to free himself until a few curt words from the tall Celt stilled him. His rigid posture betrayed his agitation as I was dragged unceremoniously from my first ball.
Chapter Nineteen
In the days that followed I was kept under house arrest as I waited for the axe to fall. My mother barely spoke to me but it was my father’s reaction that hurt most. He barely looked at me.
I had no doubt the scandal of my hustled departure from the ball was the talk of the city, if my parents’ reaction was anything to go by. The scandal of a girl caught making out with her match before the handfast. If only they knew the scandal that awaited them.
I’d had no word from Devyn, of course, and even when I had access to comms it was no help as he didn’t use them. Now that I was stuck up in my tower, there was no way for me to know what had happened. At least his Briton friend had had the sense to pull him away as we had made our way through the ballroom. What on earth had Devyn been thinking following me, each step bringing him closer to discovery? Unmasked – not just for not being Marcus, but potentially also as a Briton. As a spy. Who had knowingly entered the city and lived here for years illegally.
Sooner or later I was going to be exposed for what I really was. While nobody could say I had intentionally broken the Treaty, my life as I knew it would be over.
I had no word from Marcus either. The Briton delegation had left the city the morning after the ball. I hoped whatever Fidelma had been doing to him had worked. I was shocked at how genuinely ill he had been, at how close to death he had been.
But the one thought that I circled continuously was Devyn’s invitation to leave with him. He was right, there was nothing for me here. I had been trapped in a cage that wasn’t even mine. Now I was free.
Free to explore the world beyond the walls. The world to which Devyn belonged. He had friends there. Bronwyn. The blond Briton at the ball. At least, I presumed they were friends, though maybe not… What interaction I had seen between them, as brief as it had been, hadn’t felt very friendly somehow. Devyn had known the prince though. And his swift intercession had been timely to say the least. Devyn had not wanted to obey the order to walk away from me, but whatever had been said had apparently been effective.
Secrets of the Starcrossed Page 24