“Who let that creature through?” Irene snaps, motioning for the guard to take Puck away.
The hobgoblin’s head pops up above the platform’s wooden base, dazed, then splits into a beatific smile at my sight. As Puck struggles to pull himself onto my stand, I watch with some apprehension as the guard hurries over. But before the man can reach him, Puck hops into my arms and I hug him protectively.
Irene stands up in anger. “Drop him!”
“No,” I say, squeezing Puck closer to me.
A fat and cold raindrop splatters against my cheek, quickly followed by another, and I look up in surprise as the sky-lake bursts open in a fierce rain. Behind me, the stands erupt in panicked shrieks as the crowd struggles to disperse and find shelter.
“The sky is broken!” someone screams.
“The whole lake is going to fall upon our heads!” someone else shouts.
My gut clenches into a tight knot—did the attack on the school weaken it so much that the barrier keeping us safe from Lake Winnebago’s waters is failing?
I glance over to the makeshift dais where the jury is and, squinting through the sheets of rain, find that none of them have moved. I exhale softly as the stands behind me quickly empty themselves out. People are just being paranoid after the attack, but this isn’t anything more than a passing storm. Except that I’ve never seen one in Lake High before.
Puck snuggles closer to me, using my hair as an umbrella, before looking over his shoulder at a glowing shape moving towards us.
“Peace,” I hear a soft voice whisper, carried over by the whistling wind.
Slowly, the rain clears up to reveal Lady Vivian, the school’s principal, standing between me and the jury members. Her burgundy dress whips about her legs in an agitated fashion, the cloth as dry as the rest of us are drenched.
“You did that on purpose!” Irene accuses her, her mascara dripping in black streaks down her pale face.
Lady Vivian waves her hand dismissively. “I thought I’d clear the air a little,” she says. “Nothing like a good rainfall to wash out the dirt, though it’s not always entirely successful.”
Irene’s scowl deepens. “I knew having that filthy vermin show up here was a bad sign,” she mutters, loud enough for all of us to hear.
The judge clears his throat self-consciously. “Let us get back to the matter at hand, shall we?” he says.
“Yes,” Lady Vivian says, “let us. I came to hear the Gorlois heir’s account of Carman’s escape.”
“We hadn’t reached that part yet,” Luther says with a sneer.
“We were going over the Sangraal affair,” the elderly judge adds.
“Very well,” Lady Vivian says.
She snaps her fingers together and the wind picks up again, shooting straight for her. Her skirts twirl as the breeze gathers behind her, then Lady Vivian sits down and remains perched in the air.
“Please proceed,” Lady Vivian says, a small smile playing at the corners of her lips.
I stare at her, mouth wide open—I’ve never seen her use any kind of Elemental Manipulation before. I always thought she was another layman, like Miss Laplace or Miss Pelletier. Frowning, I scan her now still figure—her ears, neckline, and hands are devoid of any telltale jewelry that would indicate the use of oghams. Nor did she call any elemental name.
I let out a small gasp as understanding dawns on me: Lady Vivian is a Fey!
But having a Fey hold so much power over the school—a school dedicated to eradicating her kind—makes absolutely no sense. She must have some oghams tucked out of sight inside her dress somewhere, and learned to call upon their powers without speaking their names out loud. Except I’ve never heard anyone mention that was possible. Even Arthur can’t manage that feat, and he’s supposedly one of the best knights seen in ages.
Puck suddenly grabs my chin in his tiny hands and forces me to look up. I find the presiding judge is staring at me expectantly and I realize he must have asked me a question.
“Yes, Your Honor?” I ask, feeling myself blush. If Arthur was hoping for me to give a good impression, I’m afraid I’m doing a terrible job at it.
“Carman?” the judge asks, rapping his fingers on the wooden desk.
“Yes, she’s out,” I say.
“Thank you for stating the obvious,” Irene snaps. “We want to know how she did it, and what your role was in it.”
I pause. In my week spent in the cool of my prison cell, I’ve had plenty of time to consider this very question, and only one explanation’s come to me over and over again.
“Reverse engineering, I believe,” I say carefully. “According to the song, there were twelve people who sacrificed themselves to put Carman underground. Four men, four Fey, and four—”
“Nephilim,” says the rotund woman sitting next to Father Tristan. “We know the myth, but that doesn’t explain how she got out of there.”
I scowl at her, then remember Arthur’s words and try to smooth my expression into something more neutral and less likely to get me incarcerated again.
“From what I saw,” I say, “Dean killed twelve people to undo what had been done.” I start counting off on my fingers. “There were those people on the island who disappeared, our knights, Fey…” I shiver as I recall the ground slowly swallowing Dean up before the last of the standing stones rose in his stead. “He also used my blood on the central stone—”
“Gorlois had warned us against that,” Irene hisses, interrupting me. “We should’ve killed her when we first got our hands on her!”
I wince at her tone, though I shouldn’t be surprised by the venom in her voice. She’s never shown me a pinch of affection before, even when she was posing as my mother. But what gets my heart speeding is the mention of my father’s name.
“It seems your account of his words has changed over the years,” Lady Vivian says.
“His words are the same,” Irene says, “it is my interpretation of them that’s wizened.”
My hands clench instinctively around my chains. If Irene saw my father before he died, perhaps he also told her about my mother. Somehow, I need to find a way to question her, and the only way I can do that is if I’m out of these fetters.
“Enough,” the judge says. “I will not have speculations thrown out here, especially not vindictive ones.”
“Miss Pendragon,” Lady Ysolt says, turning to me, “did Dean or even Carman herself say anything to you? Anything that would elucidate his actions or hint at Carman’s plans could be of tremendous help to us in our efforts to rid the world of that abomination.”
“He was her son,” I say, enjoying despite myself the sour looks that cross both Irene’s and Luther’s faces.
Considering how long Dean worked for them, it’s no wonder they both look constipated. I wouldn’t be chirpy either if I was a Board member and found to have harbored one of the most dangerous demons around.
“Impossible!” the fat lady blurts out. “Her sons were defeated shortly after her demise centuries ago!”
I bite back a scathing retort. I need them to believe me, to trust me. Otherwise, they’ll throw me back down in that lightless cell for the rest of my life. And then I’ll never find the truth about my parents.
I think back on my time with Dean. Though I’ve known him all my life, the moments spent with him were few and far between, except during the last few months. I know now that it was only to keep an eye on me so he could get me to Island Park when the time was right. He sure wasn’t happy when I skipped out on him and he had to go looking for me all over the place…
A thought strikes me. “I did catch Dean talking with someone down here during the battle,” I say. “A man. Perhaps he would know something.”
“Down here as in Lake High?” Luther asks, his eyes narrowed in suspicion.
I nod eagerly.
“Are you implying there’s a traitor among us?” Lady Ysolt asks.
I see Father Tristan straighten up from his slouched posture.
/>
“I’m not sure he was a traitor,” I say tentatively. “They had an argument and then Dean knocked the guy down. He may even have killed him.”
“An argument?” Gauvain asks. “What about?”
I frown with the effort of remembering every detail of the scene spied in the cellar between Dean and the unknown man.
“I’m not sure,” I say at last, “but they seemed to know each other and the man said something about Dean missing an ingredient.”
“Who was it?” Father Tristan asks, leaning forward.
“Dean called him Myrdwinn.”
Puck suddenly yanks down on my hair and I yelp out in pain.
“Are you sure about that?” Father Tristan asks, a note of excitement in his voice which he usually reserves for his sermons.
“Yes,” I say, finally managing to rescue the remaining strands of hair out of Puck’s sticky grasp.
“What did he look like?” Father Tristan asks and, despite the distance, I can see the feverish gleam in his eyes.
“Young, brown hair… I didn’t really get to see him properly, since Dean went straight for me after attacking him, but I thought perhaps he was the director’s grandson.”
“The child is obviously lying,” Luther says dismissively. “We all know Myrdwinn, and the man is old and senile.”
“You’ve got to believe me!” I say. “Someone must have seen him around, or at least found his body in the cellar, and—”
“There was no body in the cellar,” Irene says curtly.
“Maybe the man woke up,” I insist. “Maybe he’s somewhere else around here and—”
“Enough,” Lady Vivian says, rising from her seat of air. She turns to me with a severe look. “Need I remind you that you are here on trial, and that you are bound by your blood oath to tell us the truth and nothing but the truth?”
I flinch and take an involuntary step back. Lady Vivian has never spoken to me that way before. In fact, when I last saw her, she was taking my defense against Irene…
I look pleadingly at the priest and the KORT knights, the only ones who’ve taken my words seriously so far. But Father Tristan’s sudden interest seems to have fled just as quickly, and none of the knights are meeting my eyes.
“I see that we’ve exhausted Morgan’s knowledge on Carman and Dean,” Lady Vivian says. “Thank you for letting me listen in.”
She nods towards the judge then exits from the arena, her steps so light she doesn’t leave a trail behind on the sandy ground.
I let my shoulders droop. Everyone I know has turned against me, so what’s the point in continuing this charade?
“Let’s go back to the Sangraal, shall we?” the judge says once Lady Vivian is gone. “When you first found it, did you perchance see any evidence of Excalibur as well?”
“I beg your pardon?” I ask, startled out of my own dark thoughts.
“Excalibur,” the judge repeats. “A Fey weapon that went missing around the same time as the Sangraal.”
I shake my head. “I don’t know anything about a weapon,” I say. I look up sharply, hope blossoming one last time in my breast. “But I can show you where I found the cup if you want.”
“Please do,” the judge says, standing up so quickly everyone else around the table scrambles to follow suit.
◆◆◆
As he unchains me, the guard tries to pull Puck away from me, but the hobgoblin hikes around my neck and hisses at him. The man throws me a dark look, giving up, then yanks on my restraints to get me off the podium. I shuffle towards the jury members assembling by the entrance, feeling apprehensive.
“Where to?” the large woman shouts over to me, wobbling down the steps of the dais, her large belly jiggling before her like a hyperactive jellyfish.
“The inner courtyard,” I say, pulling hard on my chain to make my guard stumble.
As we proceed out of the arena, I find myself the subject of intense scrutiny from a small group of students who have decided to brave the rain and watch my trial. Sitting in the very center of the small group is a girl with hair like spun gold. My mouth twists downward as I meet Jennifer’s eyes.
The girl looks much improved from the last time I saw her: The black veins that had covered her body are gone, giving her skin a diaphanous look, and the eyes that once were closed to the world are now open and filled with an intense hatred. I grimace—guess she’s as unhappy as I am about me saving her ass.
As I pass along the wall beneath her section, her squire Sophie flicks her finger and a large pothole suddenly opens up at my feet. I fall onto my face, cutting my lip open on my manacles, and the group of onlookers roars in laughter.
The guard pulls on my chain, and I let out a strangled gasp as the metal collar bites into my throat.
“Up!” he growls.
I push myself back up, Puck struggling to stay on my shoulders, and find Jennifer smiling at me. I lick the blood off my already healed lip then grin back at her.
If ever I get out of this alive, I silently promise her, I’m gonna make you pay.
Jennifer quickly looks away, her azure eyes looking troubled.
“Get moving!” the guard barks, prodding me with the tip of his steel-toed boot.
With a final nod in Jennifer’s direction, I resume my forced march towards the school. As we reach Lake High’s northeastern entrance, I can’t help but notice that the massive door’s once beautiful carved tableau of nymphs is now marred by deep gouges. A parting gift from the horde of Fomori that attacked us while Dean was up on the surface freeing his mother-dearest.
Percy, in the lead, pushes the heavy door open and we engulf ourselves in the darkened hallway in pairs. Our footsteps echo back to us as we cross the building, mixing themselves to the whispers of students watching us go by. Finally, we stride past the herbarium and find ourselves in the school’s inner courtyard.
The gardens look peaceful, untouched by all the death and destruction left by the attack. Standing tall in the middle of the courtyard is the giant apple tree, its branches heavy with apples.
“I can’t believe it was in the school,” the fat Board member huffs. “All this time we’ve been looking for it and it was right under our noses?”
“Makes you wonder if someone didn’t purposefully hide it from us,” Father Tristan says.
“We all know Gorlois did it,” Irene says. “No need to rehash useless facts.”
“Or the girl’s lying,” Luther says again.
“And now, child?” the judge asks me.
I point to the center of the courtyard with my chin.
“The Sangraal was in the tree, of course!” Father Tristan says, drawing a formidable roll of the eyes from Sir Boris.
“No,” I say, “the makeout—I mean the hedge hides a staircase that takes you to a small room below. That’s where I found it.”
Father Tristan pushes the other Board members out of the way in his rush to get to the wall of roots that stretches from the apple tree’s massive trunk all the way to the school’s inner wall, forming a small maze where couples at school like to snog all day long. Within seconds he’s disappeared inside, leaving the other jury members to examine the hedge from the outside.
“You’re not making any of this up, are you?” Arthur whispers in my ear.
“Why would I do that?” I ask.
“You were under a lot of stress,” Arthur insists. “A hallucination—”
“I know what I saw!” I snap.
Although, as I watch the others inspecting the area without success, I’m starting to doubt myself.
“Perhaps we should cut our way through,” Percy says, drawing his sword out of its sheath.
He raises the blade up then, with a practiced movement, swings it down. The sword slices through the thick roots like butter, but before he can take another swing, more vines move over the shorn area, thick black thorns sprouting over them like a hedgehog’s prickly back.
Irene yanks on my chain until my head is level wit
h hers. “Explain,” she says, her breath tickling my chin.
“The roots move away when you get close to them,” I say. “You saw what they just did. Except, opposite.”
“Then show us,” Irene says, dragging me behind her like a dog.
But despite us getting closer, the wall of roots remains inert. I frown, idly scratching Puck who’s now cradled in my arms. “I-it worked before,” I say.
“I said she was lying, didn’t I?” Luther says. “I hope it’s evident to everyone now.”
I feel my cheeks burn. “I wasn’t lying! I came here, and the wall moved away to form a staircase. Even Puck knows about it, he’s the one who showed it to me!” I wrench the hobgoblin away from me and hold him before the hedge. “Show them, Puck,” I urge the small hobgoblin. “Show them where the staircase is.”
But Puck just looks over his shoulder at me and lets out a loud burp.
“See?” Irene says scathingly. “She’s nothing but a filthy, two-tongued little—”
“There’s no need to lose your civilities, Lady Irene,” the presiding judge says.
“What is more,” Gauvain says, his French accent thick, “Fey don’t lie.”
“She’s part human,” Irene retorts. “It could make her capable of falsehoods.”
“Says the woman who’s lied to me all my life,” I mutter, facing the hedge again.
Sweat pools under my armpits as every gaze is back on me, waiting to see what I’m going to do next. I wave my arms before it, my heavy chains clinking together. Then, as I don’t get any response, I push my hand through the wall of roots. Maybe I can force the vines away from the passage…
But as I try to clear them away, the roots suddenly tighten around my wrist, a long thorn embedding itself deep into my hand. I bite on my lower lip to refrain from screaming, tears springing to my eyes as the thorn keeps pushing itself through my flesh. I reach in with my other hand to free myself, but more vines creep over my arm, keeping me locked in place. A knife suddenly flashes in my vision before attacking the hedge.
“Hurry,” I whisper to Arthur as a blood-red flower blooms at the thorn’s base, a drop of nectar beading at the tip of its long pistil.
Morgana Trilogy Complete Series Page 42