Blood of the Fey (Morgana Trilogy)

by Alessa Ellefson

She pulls on Gauvain’s jacket, letting it fall to the ground.

  “You don’t, do you?” she says. “What a beautiful dress, quite unlike any I’ve ever seen.” She walks behind me, trailing her fingers up the back of my right arm, along my shoulders, then back down my left arm before facing me again

  “Where did you get it?”

  “I got it as a present,” I say, holding myself back. This girl may not be a proper knight, but her earrings and ornate necklace are filled with oghams, which means I stand no chance against her.

  Her fingers linger on my collarbone. “Such fine work, so thin and soft at the same time, yet I wonder”—she leans into me, slowly, like she’s afraid to scare a bird away—“whether it’s Fey.”

  A quiver of fear runs down my back. Jennifer feels it and, in one swift move, rips my dress apart.

  I yelp in surprise and dive down to grab the discarded jacket to cover myself up.

  “Traitress,” she hisses. “So it was you all along, wasn’t it, convening with them? The banshee event was a cover-up too!”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” I say.

  “Get yourself and your filthy dress out of my sight,” Jennifer spits, her face scarlet, “or I’ll find a way to get rid of you, you little tramp!”

  Feeling the sting of tears prick my eyes, I hurry away as a wave of cheers rises from the crowd in the arena at the appearance of KORT.

  The door slams behind me, cutting out all the outside noise. Why does the school have to be so centered on hierarchy? I’d love to give Jennifer a taste of her own medicine.

  Looking down at the tattered remains of my dress, I heave a mighty sigh. That’s twice now that I’ve received a present in my life, and twice it’s been taken away from me.

  The fresh evening air wafts in through the thin windows, brushes against my exposed skin. I rub my arms for warmth, and my hand grazes the old scar on my left shoulder—a raised cross that seems to have marked me for martyrdom from infancy.

  My footsteps falter as I reach another of the slitted windows out of which I can hear the spectators’ excited cheers. If a seat at KORT depends on skill and ability, there’s also a factor of chance. Which means Arthur could technically be dethroned. I wonder how much Jennifer would enjoy having her fiancé ousted.

  I force myself to turn away from the window and head deeper into the school. If it weren’t for Jennifer, I would be out there like the others, cheering on the different knights. Like Percy, or Lance.

  You’re so overly dramatic, you know. You could go back out now. Bet that girl isn’t even there anymore.

  I glower, if you can glower at an inner voice. “Have you even seen my dress?” I mutter.

  Nothing’s preventing you from getting changed.

  “Look, if I wanted to be rational right now, I’d be rational. Can’t a girl be moody in peace?”

  Come on, my guardian angel continues, don’t you want to see them fight? You could learn a thing or two…

  “Just leave me be!” I nearly shout, scaring a servant boy away. “I’m not going to go back out there tonight,” I say, much lower. “And there’s no need to wheedle me into doing it. I’ve made up my mind.”

  My guardian angel lets out a sigh of exasperation. Sometimes I’m amazed at my ability to keep myself company. Other times, like tonight, I wonder if it isn’t a sign my mental health is deteriorating.

  A low purr resonates around my ankles, and I find a pair of golden eyes staring up at me, as bright as the torches down the hallway.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask, petting the black cat’s furry head.

  With a meow, the cat lets me pick it up.

  “You look awfully familiar…” I pause. “You’re not…You couldn’t be…”

  The few hours spent in Avalon, which now seem months away, come back to me.

  “Are you Lugh’s cat?” I ask. “Are you following me?”

  I laugh at the craziness of this until the cat claws me. I drop the feline to the floor and clutch at my hand; four parallel scratches are now etched into the back of it, deep enough to show blood.

  “You stupid thing!” I hiss as it licks its paw disdainfully. “I don’t care where you’re from or who you belong to. Just…stay away from me!”

  The cat looks decidedly unconcerned. Before I walk away, however, it tenses and sniffs the air. Then, staying low to the floor, it slinks away through a door to the inner courtyard.

  “Good riddance!” I yell after it, closing the door on the cat so it can’t get back out again.

  But I remember the hundreds of rare and precious plants kept by Professor Pelletier, some of which are poisonous. If the darn creature’s dumb enough, it might get killed, or, worse, it might pee on all the plants and kill them instead!

  I crack the door open again and call out.

  “Here, kitty, kitty,” I say, making kissing noises.

  But the dark garden remains quiet, except for the soft cooing of a couple of doves in the fruit trees that border the building, and the occasional wisp of music carried by the light wind from the festivities. For a split second, my hand clenches around the door handle. The tournament must be nearly over now, and I’m stuck here, still in my torn-up dress, looking for some dim-witted animal.

  With a heartfelt grumble, I let go of the door to comb through the small pathways, peering into the bushes and around plants and trees in search of the annoying cat.

  “She’s always watching, always, and there’s nothing I can do about it!”

  My hand freezes on a low-sweeping branch—sounds like someone’s having a lovers’ spat. I hear a soft voice reply, too low for me to make out the words.

  “No, I can’t stop her!”

  The barely contained anger ends with a heart-wrenching cry. I jerk back in surprise, letting go of the branch, which snaps back into my face. I clasp my hand over my stinging mouth, and right on time, for the darned cat chooses that moment to brush past me, toward the angry couple, and nearly makes me scream.

  “I don’t know how much longer I can keep doing this,” the man says. “It’s tearing me apart from the inside, and every day she grows stronger…”

  “Cat, come back here,” I whisper harshly. “Cat!”

  I stop at the edge of the pool of light thrown by a round lantern hanging from the branches of the massive apple tree. Within the amber glow is a woman sitting on a stone bench, a man lying down with his head in her lap. Definitely not a fighting couple. I remain transfixed as the woman makes soothing noises, brushing the man’s light brown hair back from his troubled face. From the long tresses and her midnight blue gown, I know it must be Vivian.

  I take a few steps back, afraid of getting caught like some grubby old voyeur, then hurry away as quickly as possible, giving up on my hunt. I nearly make it to the building when I catch a furry backside a couple of bushes down.

  Very slowly, I tiptoe up to the creature, then pounce on it.

  “Got ya!” I say as my hands grab the furry beast.

  Except it’s fatter than I recall, and a lot heavier. I turn toward the light to get a better look.

  “Puck!” I exclaim, so shocked I almost drop him.

  The little creature burps in my face, letting me know he’s recently had a mixture of sweet milk and blue cheese.

  “Lovely,” I say, wrinkling my nose as I gently set him back down on his bum.

  Puck jumps back up on his tiny hooves and runs around me in close circles that prevent me from going anywhere.

  I chuckle. “Stop it, Puck. I need to get out of here, and I’d rather not trip on my way.”

  But the little hobgoblin won’t quit his antics until I stop moving entirely. I cross my arms and tap my foot.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  Puck stops his insane twirling and hops up to grab my hand. To my surprise, he leads me back toward the apple tree, but before we reach the bench on which Vivian and that man are, he veers left.

  I soon find myself faced with a wall of tangled root
s, the kissing hedge, but Puck doesn’t stop there and instead bounds between two wide shoots. After a moment’s hesitation, I follow him. I’ve always avoided this section of the garden before, and I catch myself growing embarrassed at the thought of getting caught here.

  As I make my way through the maze of gigantic roots, I feel the ground shake underneath me and have to hold myself to stop from falling. To my utter surprise, I realize that the roots are shifting beneath me to make a very treacherous-looking set of stairs that lead below ground.

  “I don’t think this is such a good idea,” I tell Puck in a loud whisper.

  Yet I keep going down, one step at a time, farther and farther into the ground, until my feet reach a patch of soft earth. I stop before a wide archway gaping at me like a toothless mouth. The air here is much cooler, making me shiver.

  Before I can backtrack, Puck rams into the back of my legs, forcing me forward.

  The moment I step through the threshold, my skin tingles as if I’ve just walked through a giant spider web.

  “Where are we?” I whisper, terrified to make another movement.

  When my eyes adjust to the dimness, I realize that I’m inside a small, barren room.

  “I don’t know why you wanted me to come here,” I tell Puck, feeling brave again now that I find we are alone down here. “There’s no milk, no cheese or cookies, nothing.”

  A slight rustle reaches me, like drapes made out of beads being pushed back, and a small glow appears in the back of the chamber.

  “What the—”

  I cross the alcove toward the light and find it’s coming from a small round bowl of black polished stone.

  I reach for it, feeling the runes carved in its rim with my fingertips. The glow emanating from it makes the stone seem translucent. I clutch the bowl to my chest, and the roots that had been hiding it from sight fall back in their original place.

  “You shouldn’t do that!”

  I stop breathing, heart hammering, my hands holding the vessel closer to me. I slowly turn around, but I’m well and truly alone in this tiny room.

  “Don’t tell me what to do,” Jennifer’s voice answers, muffled.

  I instinctively recoil from them before I realize there’s a small door hidden behind the curtain of roots dangling along the curved wall of the chamber.

  I press my ear to the door. What is Jennifer doing down here, and who with, when she should be at the party with Arthur?

  Every still-functioning cell in my brain is firing signals that tell me this is none of my business, but the dumber part of me, the one that always wants to know what’s going on, tells me I need to find out what other evil plan the Queen of Hell has hatched.

  The small door swings back at my touch without a sound. I let my eyes adjust to the sudden flickering light of torches before I edge forward into what I find is the vast cellar.

  “You see how she is, simpering in front of everyone else like she owns the place,” Jennifer continues, talking to some unknown guy. There’s no doubt in my mind who she’s talking about, however.

  The door closes behind me, blending in so perfectly with the rest of the wall, I can’t see it anymore. I have a second of panic before I realize that nobody’s seen me come in, and I’m perfectly out of sight.

  My dress rustles about my ankles as I step around the ceiling-high rows of barrels to get a better look.

  “Anyway, we shouldn’t be meeting here anymore,” Jennifer says. “It’s too dangerous. We could get caught.”

  “It’s safer,” the boy answers. “You saw Rei. You don’t want that to happen to you as well, do you?”

  Jennifer snickers. “Please, with her here, I say it’s probably safer out there. And don’t tell me you actually like her.”

  “I never said anything,” the guy says back. His voice sounds familiar, though I can’t quite place it.

  I crane my neck around another barrel of alcohol, but the next row is empty as well.

  “You know, there’s something awfully strange about her,” Jennifer says.

  “What do you mean?” the boy asks.

  “Well, for one, why make her come here now? I mean, they’ve kept her away all those years, why bother bringing her here at all? I’m telling you, there’s something wrong with this picture.”

  I hold my breath as the two of them speak. Despite my abhorrence for her, I have to concede that Jennifer’s got a good point, one I’ve asked myself a gazillion times.

  “Perhaps it’s because her abilities were latent,” the boy says, calm.

  “Please, she didn’t even know how to do any kind of EM when she got here,” Jennifer says.

  I lean against the wall of casks, doing my best not to make a sound.

  “But she comes from a long line of strong blood,” the boy continues. “It would have been stranger if she hadn’t been able to use elementals. Besides, you saw how much she’s improved in so short a time—she was able to get herself to the surface without anyone’s help.”

  “Stop defending her!” Jennifer says, her tone as sharp as a samurai sword. “About that, you never told me how you ended up being the first one to save her.”

  For the first time since I’ve been eavesdropping, the guy lets out a sigh. Frankly, I’m surprised he hasn’t been annoyed with Jennifer sooner.

  “I couldn’t very well explain why I was outside the school walls, could I?” he asks. “It was either that or have us exposed, and I would never let that happen. Besides, it was my duty as a knight, and would you like me as much if I turned away from my vows?”

  With a jolt, I finally realize who’s been talking to Jennifer all this time. I stoop down so my eyes can peer through the holes left between the stacked barrels and hold back a gasp.

  A few feet from me are Jennifer and Lance, standing so close to each other that if one sneezed, the other would be sure to be covered in spittle. My hand clenches convulsively around the stone bowl as I watch them embrace. I guess Lance is no robot after all. Then the second shoe drops. That little tramp! How dare she fool around with another boy, however pretty he may be, while she’s engaged to Arthur?

  Something grasps my hand, and in the next second, I feel tiny, sharp teeth sink into the meat of my thumb. I scream and fling the bowl aside, sending Puck flying into a cask. He hits it so hard one of his horns sinks into the wood and gets stuck.

  “Who’s there?” Lance calls out.

  There are some hurried footsteps, but I’m too concerned with the blood flowing freely down my hand to pay much notice. I wince as I prod the wound; this is definitely going to need some stitches. I just hope I’m not going to catch leptospirosis29 or some weird Fey disease.

  “You!”

  The cry of outrage gets me to look up as Jennifer advances toward me like a banshee.

  “How dare you spy on us!” she yells. Her blond hair is unusually disheveled, and her alabaster skin shows red spots of anger; even in enraged she manages to look pretty.

  “I was here first,” I say. “What were you doing here? Oh wait, never mind, I already know.”

  I look pointedly over her shoulder at Lance, who’s turned a few shades paler, but doesn’t look away. Jennifer slaps me, her blow stinging my cheek with such force that it echoes in the cellar.

  “Jennifer, you should calm down,” Lance says, finally approaching us.

  “Don’t tell me what to do!” she yells. “I’m sick and tired of everyone dictating my every move, my every word! I won’t have any of it from you too!”

  Puck manages to extricate himself from the cask, his horn coming out of the wood with a pop. The wine pours out of the new hole like a fountain, flooding us. Jennifer squeaks as a burgundy wave hits her dress, splattering her and Lance together. Using the diversion, I run away as fast as possible.

  The morning bells draw me away from my dream—a boggy mess where I’m caught fighting Jennifer, who turns out to be a monstrous Fey in disguise, while trying not to fall in the ever-widening hole that’s opened at
our feet.

  I make a final punch, my fist getting caught in my covers, and end up falling face-first out of bed.

  “Better hurry,” Keva says, already decked out in her pristine uniform. “This is the last day of fun before we have to go back to the everyday drudgery of school.”

  I grunt, sitting up like a mummy.

  “At least my parents aren’t here today,” she says, “so I’ll be able to actually enjoy myself.”

  I rub at my eyes before the pain in my sore hand reminds me of the previous day’s events, and how much I hate parties.

  I take my time to extricate myself from the bedding and put on my last clean uniform. Then we go find Bri and Jack who are waiting for in the hallway.

  “What’s the matter with you guys?” Keva asks as we drag our feet towards the staircase like we’re going to a funeral instead of a fair.

  Daniel barrels through us, knocking Bri down. Jack and I both catch her before she can plummet down to the bottom of the stairs.

  “Watch it!” Jack yells.

  “Sorry,” Daniel sneers. “Didn’t see Crazy here.”

  “She’s not crazy!” Jack retorts, shaking with rage. “So shut it.”

  “Well, her twin’s in the loony bin,” Daniel says, “and you know blood doesn’t lie.”

  With a chuckle, he rushes down to the ground floor, Ross and Brockton laughing at his heels.

  “I swear,” Jack mutters, “if he says anything more to you about…I’ll—”

  “Get pummeled into mincemeat,” Keva finishes for him. “Not a very wise choice, I’d think.”

  “Let’s just get going,” Bri says, sounding tired.

  Subdued, we make our way to church while everyone around us is laughing and making plans for the last day of the festival which is to consist of games and contests.

  “I don’t know how to break this to you,” Keva says in a listless tone, “but you guys are really no fun right now. So once Mass is over, I’m gonna explore the fair on my own. Deal? Great then.”

  I ignore her. Keva will never change and will always place her own interests first.

  “How is your brother?” I ask Bri when we get inside the church.