by Rin Chupeco
Some of her incredulity must have shown on her face. “Stop looking at me like that,” Cole said, clearly irritated, turning the spit holding the chicken over.
“I just…you don’t look like a cook,” Zoe blurted out, immediately feeling foolish.
“I don’t. I normally get by with drinking the blood of children, but I thought you wouldn’t approve.”
“You’re like Marlon Brando playing Julia Child in a movie.”
“Thanks.”
“I meant that as a compliment.” The vegetables were delicious, tangy. Zoe’s main contribution to the food had consisted of poking through the rest of the bottles in the witch’s pouch, trying to find something to add to the meal. The one marked Cake had been briefly tempting, but the contents of the flask had been decidedly liquid-y, and neither of them could afford an experiment. She had made Cole take a drop or two of the one marked Painkiller, and they had both doused themselves with the one marked Antitoxin, just in case anything poisonous from the swamps lingered in their systems. She felt remarkably fresh and energized, all things considered.
“How did you learn to cook like this?”
“Loki would have done just as well, if they had a kitchen to raid.” Cole settled by a large rock across from where Zoe sat, as far away from her as he could while still within range of the campfire. This was the longest discussion they’d shared without getting into a fight, and she suddenly realized that he was trying just as much as she was not to fall back into their old habits.
“No, really,” Zoe insisted, looking down at her meal. Now that she was clean and full and feeling just a little lethargic, her guilt returned to gnaw at her, like she shouldn’t be clean and full at all when everyone else might still be in danger. The succession of firebird feathers had given her some much-needed hope, but…
Fear has never been your enemy, Zoe Fairfax. It has always been doubt.
She hated that the Ikpean priestess was right.
She’d been so thrilled when she’d been singled out to head the mission. The Ogmios is more than just a weapon, the Cheshire had told her. Once, it was the mark of leadership, conferred only to those worthy of that title. Ogmios himself was noted for his eloquence as much as his fighting. All those who wield his whip make for worthy leaders.
All she had to do was see everyone safely back to London. Instead, they had wound up in Avalon, separated from the others with the prince in even more danger. And then here was a boy she had little reason to trust, who had wound up rescuing her. Some leadership this turned out to be.
Zoe liked constructing pro-con lists. Facts were good, and facts were particularly attractive when organized in charts, measured and analyzed. The current arguments for and against in her head ran thus:
Pros for Trusting Cole:
• Been alone with him for nearly a day, and he hasn’t once tried to sabotage anything.
• Saved me from giant marsh frogs. (This sounds so weird on its own if not taken in any context.)
• Was injured too badly to be pretending anything else.
• Can cook. (This is not a good pro reason, but not being hungry is a good thing.)
Cons for Trusting Cole:
• The Nottinghams have a reputation and a history that prove they can’t be trusted.
• Cole has a reputation and a history that proves he’s a jerk.
• Dislikes me.
• Dislikes Tristan.
• Affiliation with wolves still highly suspect.
• Has a habit of showing up shortly before something undesirable is about to happen.
• The Dame of Tintagel made mention of a traitor; seems the most likely suspect. (Note: Prophecy is not necessarily concrete proof of anything.)
• Dante’s Divine Comedy is a totally valid piece of literature, and he is wrong about everything.
The cons far outweighed the pros, but Zoe was honest enough to admit she was biased to start. In any event, the list made it perfectly clear there was no evidence of Cole being guilty of anything other than the mentioned jerkhood.
“This is very excellent.” The words lingered in the air, a peace offering. “Did you cook a lot back home? In, uh…” The name of the Nottingham stronghold escaped her for the moment.
“In Nibheis? No. I learned in New York.”
It took a moment for that to sink in. “What?”
“Lived in New York with my mother and sister for almost half my life. Didn’t even know we had a title until I was almost nine.”
“Oh. In…Manhattan?”
His mouth lifted. “No. A tenement in Monticello. South Bronx.”
The Nottinghams were one of the richest families in Europe, so Zoe was having a hard time figuring out why Cole had lived in the poorest section of NYC, but he had already turned back to his meal, a clear signal that her short interrogation was once again over.
She remembered her first meeting with Cole at the Cerridwen School for Thaumaturgy in Iceland. Only fourteen, then, she’d stumbled into a fight between him and Tristan; it was something that happened often between the two, she was told later. Students weren’t allowed to brawl outside of practice and definitely without instructor supervision, but despite the crowd that had gathered to watch, no one made a move to intervene. Zoe, new to the place and wanting to impress her teachers, felt like she had to do something before anyone else got hurt.
She remembered how they looked; both boys streaked with dirt and grime, dueling in a secluded part of campus. It had been a fairly even match. Both were skilled combatants, and both used wooden swords. They at least had the common sense, Zoe had thought sourly then, to fight with weapons that wouldn’t get them expelled should they actually get caught.
That hadn’t stopped it from being a bloody brawl. Both swords had broken at some point and the two had continued with their fists.
Zoe wasn’t technically supposed to be using her segen either, and she was all the more pissed at them for making her. “Stop!” she burst out, and Ogmios struck at the open space between the two, the accompanying sound of thunder causing silence to fall across the courtyard. “Fighting isn’t allowed on campus!”
Tristan’s handsome face turned to hers, and even with the cuts and faint bruises marring the overall aesthetic, she remembered how her heart had fluttered when those green eyes looked back at her. “I’m sorry, milady,” he said, courteous even then. “But this is between me and Nottingham.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Zoe hissed, looking fearfully back at the main doors where she knew the sword captains liked to idle by. She had been an A student in New York, and was determined to be the rough equivalent of it at Cerridwen. “The masters-at-arms are already on their way!”
Her lie did the trick; their audience scattered. Tristan took a step back, torn between continuing the fight and not wanting to be found out, eventually capitulating to the latter.
“All right.” His hand closed over Zoe’s, much to her surprise. “I’m sorry. May I see you safely out?”
“S-sure,” Zoe stuttered, now a little flustered, almost forgetting he was the reason she needed to be accompanied safely back to wherever.
Tristan turned back. “This isn’t over, Nottingham.”
Cole made no reply. The boy’s face fared no better than Tristan’s, nicked with bruises and cuts, but his gray eyes were trained on her face. While she could understand his anger, she couldn’t understand that brief flicker of resentment in his expression as he watched her leave the courtyard with Tristan, almost hurt, like it was she who had betrayed him somehow, despite never having met before.
She’d put the incident quickly out of her mind until her first literature class a week later, discovering that she shared it with Cole when the boy strode in twenty minutes late. He soon wasted no time informing her and the rest of the class that T. S. Eliot was an overrated ass, and things h
ad gone downhill ever since.
There had been more fights between Tristan and Cole over the next year, though Zoe was always only informed about them after the fact, with the duels often ending in draws. She’d gotten closer to Tristan despite that; like her, he was a model student save for his clashes with the other boy, though he’d never given her a reasonable enough explanation for their mutual loathing beyond that their families had been at it for generations.
Zoe changed tactics. She sensed somehow that it was approaching territory where neither of them were willing to go just yet, given their newfound…friendship, or truce, or whatever this was.
“So, I’ve already seen you talk to wolves. Can you do the same with ice wolves?”
Cole smiled suddenly. “What would you do if I said yes?”
He was trying to intimidate her, Zoe thought, or at least trying to see how far she could be intimidated. Miffed, she was ready to put him in his place, but he withdrew the challenge just as quickly and answered instead. “No. Using Gravekeeper is the closest we can get to that, and never willingly on either side. Maybe if you’d thought to ask me all these questions back at Cerridwen, we wouldn’t be fighting as much.” He still wore his crooked half-smile, but some of the guardedness that marked his expression was gone. “Your turn.”
“My turn for what?”
Cole helped himself to another piece of chicken. “I’ve answered your questions. Only fair you do the same. New Yorker yourself?”
Zoe made a face. “There isn’t much about me to talk about, but yes, from Chelsea. My father’s an architect. My mother’s the one with the French peerage. They met, married, had me, then divorced when I was fourteen which, coincidentally, was also when I was sent to Cerridwen. I spend my time between France, with my mother, and New York, with my father. That’s about it. I’m nobody special.”
“The Cheshire wouldn’t have chosen you, if you were ‘nobody special.’”
“Maybe if you’d thought to ask me all these questions back at Cerridwen,” Zoe said, throwing his own words right back in his face, “we wouldn’t have been fighting as much.”
Cole shot her a startled look, and then actually laughed. “Point taken.”
Zoe bent and settled her feet against the ground, so she could hug her knees, stretching each leg in turn. He was right, in a way. It had thrilled her immensely when the Cheshire had chosen her. The only downside had been the argument with Tristan she knew was coming. Tristan hated Zoe doing anything potentially dangerous, and Zoe always resented his presumption that she had no say in the matter.
“He wanted to come along,” she said aloud.
“Who?”
“Tristan. His father told him about the Cheshire’s plan, and he was mad that I didn’t.” She eyed him warily, not sure how he would react upon her mentioning his rival, but that didn’t seem to bother him. “The Cheshire specifically forbade him from coming, and he thought I’d put him up to it. We’d argued about that before I left. And your bandages need changing.”
“I can do it myself.”
Zoe placed her hands on her hips and glared. Cole hesitated, then finally made the smarter decision. He tossed the remains of his dinner into the fire and settled back down.
“And that’s why I had no idea how you did it,” Zoe continued, as she gathered up the clean linen and some of the medicine, moving to seat herself beside him. “The Cheshire was very clear about keeping Tristan out, but then decided to invite you out of the blue.” She unwound the dirty bandages, was relieved to find that the wound on his side looked better, with no signs of gangrene. The village priestess’s medicines must have been more potent than she thought.
“Maybe you should ask him about that,” Cole said, wincing.
“I plan to. And then there’s Alex. Tristan never told me anything about their relationship.” It was her boyfriend’s right not to tell her, of course. Zoe could already imagine the possible political ramifications of that, not to mention the social scandal it would cause. It explained why Tristan’s mother had so very loudly and so very erroneously called her Tristan’s fiancée almost immediately, knowing others would do the same.
But according to the chronology of events she’d mapped out in her head, they’d started dating right after Alex had left the Locksleys’ protection. This wasn’t Tristan on the rebound, was it? She wasn’t his rebound relationship, right?
Right?
She was angry, and hated that she was. “I need to have a talk with him once I get back. A long talk. I suppose people have tried foisting fiancées on you too?”
“You need to be a certain kind of person to marry into my family, and even then, they find it more trouble than it’s worth.”
“I don’t understand. What kind of person?”
Cole’s gaze met and held hers. “Smart and brave enough to look the dead in the eye, for one thing,” he said softly, with a hint of defiance. “If I told you all the rumors about us were true—that we bear the nightwalker taint, that we could raise the dead—would you even consider it?”
The dead shall rise for you, little girl. The dead shall rise.
The Dame of Tintagel had spelled out the exact same doom another seeress had prophesied on her naming day.
Zoe’s gaze dropped back down to the bandages she was winding around his waist.
“Didn’t think so,” Cole said, but with neither anger nor satisfaction. The bitter smile on his face didn’t feel like it was at her expense. “I’m going to stand guard for a while.” His hand found Zoe’s and deposited it back onto her lap, gentle despite the brusqueness in his voice. Moving to stand, he stepped toward the small brook, leaving her alone in the circle of camp light.
Cole offered very little in conversation the next day, and Zoe couldn’t help but feel insulted. They’d almost been friends the night before, and he was now back to being rude as he always had been, answering her with curt, monosyllabic replies.
For what felt like the eighty-seventh time that day, Zoe was tempted to turn back around and return to the swamps. Guilt and fear for what could have happened to the others plagued her again, but she forced them aside. They’re alive, she told herself firmly. They’re alive, and once we enter Maidenkeep, we’ll find them all there; Ken yelling at us for being late, and Loki and Tala and West and Nya.
And Alex. Alex, and whatever secrets he was still keeping from me.
As if on its own accord, her hand reached into her small bag to feel for the firebird feather. She could almost swear it had a life of its own, pulsing gently around her fingers with a warm, comfortable heat.
31
In Which an Explosion Has Three Points of View
This is unnecessary,” Ryker said for about the twenty-eighth time that day, shifting his bound hands.
“I disagree. This is totally necessary.” He was right, though. Tala knew he could freeze the ropes off in five seconds flat, but she was hoping five seconds would be enough for her to get away if she had to, if he’d been lying this whole time. Despite her earlier protests, she knew she couldn’t let him leave her behind, and this was her way of exerting some control over their current situation.
They were almost at Lyonesse. While the frozen city had seemed majestic from miles away, Tala now saw the signs of hard fighting that had taken its toll as they drew nearer. The gates leading into the city had fallen, wrecked beyond repair, and they had to step carefully through the debris to gain entry. The houses, too, were completely covered in ice, with the doors coated in impenetrable layers and the windows frozen solid. Even the ground had a thick sheen of permafrost, and she had to be careful over where she set her feet. As she had feared, there were no signs of life anywhere.
But even without inhabitants, some of the spells that kept Lyonesse running were still in evidence. Bright sizzling balls of light hung suspended above their heads, serving as lampposts to guide their way
despite remaining unmanned for close to a dozen years. Tala stared, fascinated, at one of the glowing spheres that had dipped lower than its fellow beacons, her hand reaching out to touch it. It fizzed against her fingertips, like a warm ball of static, then lost its color and dropped to her feet.
Right. She shouldn’t be touching anything.
In the wake of all the stillness, Maidenkeep loomed over them. The stones were carefully whitewashed to gleam, though the thick ice clinging to its walls made that point moot. To her inexperienced eyes, it appeared capable of withstanding a long siege, though the ripped, mangled banners draped across its turrets and the thick rust on the lowered bridge’s hinges indicated it had not been used for that purpose in a long time. Looking in, Tala saw a small compound marked with a high enclosure separating it from the rest of the city.
But the castle had fared worse than its surroundings. A good chunk of the outer walls had fallen, as if blown apart by some immense force. At least one tower had been destroyed, and a big swath of the courtyard lay under piles of rubble. How had Alex escaped all this? Tala wondered. Contemplating the extent of the carnage, she wanted to weep.
There was a feeble protest from inside the backpack she carried, and the firebird poked its beak out into the cold night air.
“Just a little longer,” she promised, gently tapping the beak back in. “Let’s not advertise your presence yet.”
The firebird grumbled but retreated, its restlessness channeled into a small seeping ring of heat that surrounded her, keeping Tala warm even as the snow picked up and the clouds darkened overhead, poised for another storm. Even with the firebird’s skill, her breath left her lips in thick puffs of air.
“Has it gotten colder somehow?”
“I’d be surprised if it hasn’t.” The firebird hadn’t provided him with the same degree of heat, but Ryker was unperturbed by the chill. “I’m told Mother unleashed the strongest of her magic here. This was where the frost began and first spread, so it only makes sense for the worst of the cold to linger.”