by May Dawson
“You should teach me,” I say, and her eyes widen.
I glance toward Mycroft to see if he’s overheard me. I shouldn’t talk about my magic so frankly. I was just trying to make small talk with the kid, to make up for scaring her.
But still. Lies haven’t made Avalon a better place yet, and we’ve all been trying for years. Maybe we should all tell the truth.
“Tera,” Mycroft calls, with warning in his voice.
I start to tell him that everything is fine, but the world shifts around me.
Chapter 9
Mycroft
When the two strangers walk in, I glance at them and then away. Airren and Cax can take care of them. I’m worried that kid isn’t what she looks like, that Tera’s going to find herself in trouble.
“In for some more memory root?” Dax asks the newcomers cheerfully. “I’ll help you in a minute. Got some new friends here looking for someone.”
The two are massive guys—brothers, probably—and one of them stops and stares at Dax. “Memory root hasn’t worked yet.”
My intuition prickles. When my nostrils flare, I breathe in the scent of dark magic. It clings to that one, the angry one, but I don’t think he’s using it.
Dark magic wafts from his skin like a sickness, stinking of sugary rot.
“Don’t be like that, Loren. We’re going to beat this thing eventually.” His brother pounds his shoulder. “All right, Dax, we’ll come back later.”
“Don’t go yet.” Airren’s voice is soft and dangerous now. “I think I recognize your face.”
“This guy?” The brother pounds Loren’s shoulder even more dramatically. “Sure, you might. He’s the best barkeep in town.”
“The thing is,” Airren said, his gaze swiveling to Dax, “I think you sell a lot more than trinkets and jewelry.”
My head’s suddenly dizzy, and the room too bright, as if I have a hangover. I shake my head, trying to clear it.
Dax shakes his head dramatically, at the same time as he protests, “Who are you, anyway? I don’t need any trouble in my shop.”
“Crown Marines,” Airren says casually, and Dax’s face pales.
Airren plucks a relic off the shelf, hefting it in his hands, and then lets it fall. It smashes against the worn wooden floor.
“Oops,” he says. He picks up another relic, turning it over in his hands. “Inside some of these things, I think you’ve got a bit of Earthside. I heard you’ve made a job of smuggling black market goods back through the portals.”
“No, I wouldn’t do that.”
“I don’t care,” Airren says. “Time spent dirtside is its own punishment. But you helped people get over there, didn’t you? Helped forge papers to give them an excuse to travel through the portal?”
Dax shakes his head dramatically.
My vision fades black at the edges. I lean against the shelves behind me, carefully pushing my shoulders against them to hold some of my weight. My magic’s being sapped—what’s left of it—and the drain is taking my energy with it. I’m barely holding onto consciousness. I jerk my jaw at Cax. His eyes shift with recognition, and he comes to my side.
He follows my gaze down the aisle to Tera, who’s talking to the kid still. At least she’s out of the line of fire.
“That guy’s being poisoned,” I say quietly to Cax, and he follows my gaze to Loren. “Someone used some powerful dark magic on him.”
“That’s a pity, but I’m more worried about you holding up that wall.”
“The dark magic’s making me sick.” I’m used to pulling in all the magic around me, feeding off it. It was a gift when I was a kid, the trick that made it possible for me to rise to the top in school, to fight back in the mines. It’s a habit now that I can’t turn off.
Which is fine, when I have my own reservoir of powerful magic.
Right now, I’m sucking in these waves of dark magic that tighten my chest and make me want to choke. I want to run, but I won’t leave Tera and Cax behind.
Cax pushes on my shoulder. “Get out of here. We’ll follow you right out.”
I nod. I’m no good to them right now. I’ll make sure that later Loren gets the chance to get free of the dark magic holding onto him. How has no one else noticed, helped him?
Still, I want Tera to come with me. I don’t want to leave her alone in here.
I fade in and out of the conversation as I stumble for the door, trying not to draw attention to myself.
“I think he’s looking for Moirus!” Loren says brightly. “We just saw him!”
My hand is on the door and I’m just drawing in fresh, sun-soaked air, the kind that doesn’t carry the putrid scent of magic, when I feel the shift in the room behind me. The sudden crackle of violence and magic is like a whip’s strike through the room.
I’ve got no defenses, but I’m not leaving Tera—or Cax or Airren—without backup.
I turn as the room lights up with arcs of battle magic, crackling through the air. Dax runs for the back of the building, perhaps to roll the dice on a shift to a new location, a shift that any human inhabitants of the building may or may not survive. Or maybe he’s just going for a dirtside weapon. Airren and the other man are trading blasts with their wands. Crackles of magic burn in the air, releasing the same scent as lightning on a clear night.
Loren’s eyes lock on mine. Incoherent rage floods his face.
“I’m not your enemy,” I tell him.
I almost lose my footing as the building shifts between us. Tera and Cax run back down the aisle, slipping as it seems to only grow longer. I reach out and catch their hands. I can feel Loren’s magic building, a hot wave of rage and darkness that presses against my already-spinning head. I have to get them out of here.
I yank them forward desperately, spinning them toward the door, putting my back between them and Loren. The flames of his magic slam into my shoulder, hot enough to singe my shirt, and the scent of burnt fabric and skin rises in the air. I stumble forward, throwing my arms around Cax and Tera to shield them.
The three of us roll together, carried by my momentum, against the wall of shelves. Behind us, Loren falls to his knees. He looks around in confusion as if he doesn’t remember where he is or why he was fighting us to begin with.
“Get out!” Airren yells, locked into combat with Loren’s brother. The two of them struggle hand-to-hand now, each trying to slam the other into the long glass cases.
Tera launches herself past me while I’m still struggling to my feet, my legs weak underneath me. I reach out to grab her waist, but I’m too slow for now.
She snatches an old Briton axe off the wall, grabbing just below the cruel curve of the blade. She slams the axe handle into the head of the guy fighting with Airren. He stumbles back.
Without hesitating a second, Airren grabs her wrist and tows her with him. Cax pushes me ahead of him as we all make a frantic run for the door.
We stumble out into the street just before the building behind us shimmers and disappears, leaving behind an ugly pocket, like a missing tooth, in the middle of the row.
“Let you do the talking,” I grumble. “See how that worked out.”
Airren turns to me, with something smart to say, no doubt, but I get the last word. My knees fail me, and I crumble into the street.
“What’s wrong with him?” Tera cries.
Cax swears. “He took a big blast of dark magic. For us.”
I knew what it would do to me, but I couldn’t let Tera get hurt.
I breathe in the hot, sandy scent of the street, and raise my hand. My fingers barely flicker. So much for that gesture. “I’m fine,” I try to say, but the words come out slurred.
“We’ve got an awful lot of onlookers,” Airren says urgently. “Let’s get him up on the horses and find a quiet place to heal him.”
Heal me. Like it’s going to be that easy. I absorbed a whole lot of dark, twisted magic back there, and all Loren’s pain that was born from it.
I drift in and
out as we travel by horseback. Later, I drift awake on the bank of a river. The constant low rush of water reminds me of how parched my throat feels, but I still lay there for a while, too exhausted to move. The grass is soft and comfortable, except for a rock under my left shoulder blade, but I don’t care enough to move away. I’m bone-tired, and I want to drift back to sleep, but they might need me.
Magic can be a punishing thing.
Tera’s face hovers over me. Her lips are moving, but I can’t hear her. She’s asking how I am.
I have just enough strength to wrap my arm around her and pull her into my side. For a second, there’s surprised resistance. Then her head nestles into my shoulder. Her fingers knit around mine.
“We’ve got to get him back up,” Airren says impatiently. “Getting him to the palace is the best place to find a healer who can deal with this.”
“You didn’t tell me this might happen to him.” Cax’s voice sounds accusatory. “He shouldn’t have left Corum.”
“Save it, Cax,” Airren snaps.
“Wait,” Tera says. “What’s wrong with Croft? Why shouldn’t he have left Corum?”
I pat her side, trying to soothe her. She doesn’t need to worry about me. I’ll be fine. But I barely manage to move my hand.
Airren says tersely, “Cax is just frustrated because he cares about Mycroft and he doesn’t know how to keep his feelings separate from what needs to be done. Mycroft will be fine. He’s tougher than any of us.”
My head is pounding so hard that I can barely think, but I’m going to have to remember he said that. I’ll definitely bring it up again at a later date.
Cax stares at Airren, his jaw working back and forth. He turns to Tera and says, “Mycroft can store magic in a way the rest of us don’t. That’s what makes him so gifted.”
Good, Cax. Swallowing his feelings and his ego to protect the girl.
That’s what we’ve all got to do.
“So what does that mean now?”
“It means he took on a whole lot of dark magic,” he says. “A lot of poison.”
Poison. I hadn’t thought of it that way, but it does feel like poison boiling through my blood. My head aches. I shouldn’t leave them, but my lashes drift shut, and I give in. Just for a few minutes. Soon, I’ll make myself get up and get moving.
The darkness claims me again.
Chapter 10
Tera
To reach the prince’s castle, we have to head steadily uphill. Of course he lives high above people like us. White stone and gold glint at us, blindingly bright, through the trees as we climb laboriously ever higher through winding switchbacks.
Cax is furious, or maybe he’s scared. Either way, he’s quiet, far too quiet for Cax. I try to draw him into conversation, and he answers me readily enough, giving me his usual easy smile, but then falls back into silence. Airren’s lips are tight above his jaw. He’s worried too, not that he’ll give voice to it. Tension shimmers in the air between them.
We reach the edge of the woods and travel a sun-soaked road toward the palace, past a village with small two-story stone houses and clothing hanging from lines stretched between the trees. Then we turn up the long, winding trail across green lawns and gardens to the castle still half-a-mile away. The sun is beating down now, surprisingly hot for late fall; it’s burned away the morning mist. The horses’ shoes clap slowly and steadily against the ground.
Seemingly out of nowhere, guards materialize around us.
“Good morning,” Airren says mildly, raising his hand.
“What’s your business here?” The guard that steps forward speaks curtly, but although he’s tall and muscular, he looks young. There are pimples across his rounded cheeks. It’s hard to reconcile his big body and the wand and sword at his waist with his baby face.
“We have an invitation to the palace.” Airren nods at me.
My hands shake pulling the invitation out of my bag, and the guard eyes me suspiciously.
Then he turns that suspicious look toward Mycroft, who hangs forward on the horse, his arms enchanted so that he clutches the horse’s neck. “What’s wrong with him?”
“He needs a healer,” Airren says.
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
Airren’s smile is tight and dangerous. “I think it does.”
The guard barely glances at my invitation. “Where’d you get this?”
“From one of the royal messengers.” Airren answers. “Don’t you all talk to each other? Is there a daily briefing? You should be prepared for visitors for the prince’s ball.”
He’s using that condescending tone of voice again, the lazy aristocratic drawl that I imagine makes people want to punch him in the face. I love him, and it kind of makes me want to punch him in the face.
“I don’t think so,” the guard says. “You can turn around and ride away with your actor friend.” He squints at Mycroft. “Or maybe he’s drunk. Anyway, you can ride away or you can come to the palace brig.”
For a second, I can imagine how he sees us. We’re all battered from the fight and the journey, our clothes torn and dirty. Airren is high-handed and rude, like you’d expect from a noble, but we probably look like a pack of conmen or thieves trying to talk our way into the palace.
Conmen, thieves, spies, what’s the difference, really?
Airren doesn’t have such a sympathetic imagination. “Sure, I’d love to go to the palace brig. I guarantee I won’t be the one staying there, son.”
He’s broken out the son.
We’re at Condescending Level Nine Hundred.
“Off the horses,” the guard orders.
As I slide off the horse, Airren’s already off, holding out his wrists for the cuffs. He appears unruffled. It makes me feel slightly less terrified.
Slightly.
“You are so rude,” I mutter to him. “I’d handcuff you too.”
“I’m going to kill this kid,” he tells me.
“Don’t.” I brush my shoulder with his. “I adore you, Airren, but you are a total prat.”
He quirks one eyebrow above those beautiful blue eyes.
I nod. I’m not backing down from my assessment.
His lips turn up, and he’s so damn cute I could kiss him, right after I punch him. He says, “So you admit you adore me.”
“I cannot make small talk with you when I’m in chains,” I say, despite the fact that I am, as a guard snaps cuffs around my wrists. “Good grief. Look at all the trouble you’ve gotten us into.”
He shrugs. “We’re going to the palace. We’re going to get Mycroft to the healer. It’s all good.”
“This is about how I thought I’d arrive at the ball,” I grumble. “No fancy parades and carriages for me.”
“Take their horses. You, walk.” After a second’s hesitation—“Leave the drunk one on his horse. Alert the healer.”
“Thank you,” Airren says, a bit belatedly finding his polite inner core.
“Don’t thank me,” the guard says. He crumples up my fancy-paper invitation, tucking it inside his vest.
Let’s hope they keep a guest list somewhere. It’s not like I have an Avalon driver’s license to whip out. Look, I really am Tera Donovan.
Not that being Tera Donovan is something that I usually brag about.
“Put the girl in cell 32,” the guards say when we’ve passed through a servants’ entrance and descended down a long series of stairs that make me think dungeon. Dungeon is a very old-fashioned word, but apparently not old-fashioned enough of a concept.
“Thirty-two? Who needs thirty-two cells?” I wonder out loud, but no one answers me.
Being in chains makes me anxious. It reminds me of my many times in handcuffs since I returned to Avalon, being suspected as a possible murderer. But what’s far worse is being separated from my men.
I turn my head over my shoulder to watch as Airren carries Mycroft, draped over his shoulders. As tall and muscular as Airren is, Mycroft’s massive body dwarf
s him. Airren’s knees seem to buckle with every step, but he’s carried Mycroft down all those stairs without faltering.
“There are forty-eight,” Cax tells me cheerfully. “I had a holiday tour here a few years ago with my mom. Charity thing.”
“There was a holiday tour of the dungeon?”
“No, the tour was mostly centered around the art and the gardens and whatnot, but I thought this part was more interesting, and I snuck off.”
“Find someone who remembers you, would you?” Airren asks. “I would imagine you were annoying enough to make an impression.”
“Funny,” Cax says.
The three of them disappear into a cell behind me. A guard steers me into the next cell. It’s dimly lit by the light from the hall, but clean, with a plain concrete floor, a bed, a table and chair. There’s a sink and toilet in one corner, clearly visible from the barred window in the door. Well. I don’t much care for that idea.
I pull back the covers and flip the mattress. It’s clean, and so I gratefully sink onto the bed to relax. My back and legs ache. Most of all, I’m troubled about Mycroft. He’s always so strong—a rock—and it’s hard to see him in pain, drifting in and out of sleep. I don’t understand what happened. Some kind of magic hurt him in the pawn shop, but Mycroft is the strongest of any of us.
The memory of the way he clutched me to his chest like he needed me will stay with me for a long, long time.
Time passes slowly. When there’s a knock at the door, I think it’s going to be our release. Instead, when the door opens, it’s a guard carrying a tray.
“Even trespassing roustabouts get dinner around here,” the guard says cheerfully. He’s dressed like the others, wearing the same white-and-gold robe and light chain mail, which has to be a pain in the ass in the summer. A sword and wand hang from his belt, the sheath of his sword buckled by a leather strap to his muscular thigh. His voice feels familiar, and I study his handsome face below ruffled brown curls. I can’t place him.