Spellbinder

by Thea Harrison

  After having been without for so long, she felt overwhelmed, and tears prickled at the back of her nose again. She forced them down.

  Thickly, she whispered, “This is amazing. I-I don’t know what to say.”

  “No need to say anything. I’ll have to take the water flask with me when I go, but you can eat the evidence of the fruit and bread. I dumped out the water cup they gave you on the tray, wiped it out and put fresh water in it. That’s safe to drink too. I wouldn’t trust the food or drink they give you. It’s not very sanitary, and it could make you sick, especially since you’re not used to it.”

  She had eaten so little, her stomach must have shrunk, because the soup had completely filled her up. Still, she rested her fingers lightly on each gift. With real nourishment, she began to feel stronger and more clearheaded than she had for quite some time. Not exactly steady, not yet—the abyss of despair she had fallen into was still too close for that. But still… better.

  “You’ve helped me so much, and I don’t even know who you are,” she whispered. “What’s your name? Where are you from?”

  He took in a deep breath. Like everything else, it was a quiet sound, but something about it made it seem as if he braced himself. “I can’t tell you that.”

  She considered that. “Can’t?” she asked. “Or won’t?”

  A small silence fell. Without sight, everything felt extra weighted, especially significant.

  Then he replied, “Won’t.”

  That shook her. She wasn’t even sure why it rattled her so, but it did, and her imagination careened from thought to thought like a car hurtling down a mountain without brakes.

  Why wouldn’t he tell her his name? What was constraining him from helping her to escape? Who was he? Why was he here?

  She had relaxed with him, and all because he had healed her hands. She had eaten the food he had given her, but what if it had been drugged or poisoned? What if he worked for the Queen, and this was all an incredibly cruel ploy? What if—what if—

  What if they had healed her fingers only to come back and break them again?

  The blackness pressed down all around her. Suddenly it felt crushingly heavy, almost as if it were a live creature intent on suffocating her. Her breathing turned short and ragged as panic closed her throat.

  “Easy there,” he whispered.

  Fingers touched the bare skin of her forearm. Flinging the food and water bottle, she scrambled blindly away from him, scuttling on hands and knees. Pain exploded in her head and one shoulder as she slammed into something hard. Reeling back, she reached forward with both hands and felt rough stone. She had run into a wall.

  Firm hands came down on her shoulders. The man whispered, “Stop before you seriously hurt yourself.”

  Still in the middle of panic and driven by instinct, she slammed her elbow back, collided with hard, packed muscle, and twisted away from his touch.

  He emitted a quiet, strangled moan. It sounded odd enough that she paused uncertainly, but this time he didn’t follow or try to touch her again. His breathing had turned ragged.

  After a moment, he gasped, “I understand you are… under extraordinary stress, but I am… not entirely well. Don’t do that… again.”

  The stress in his breathing and whispered words snapped her back to herself. Twisting on her knees, she groped her way back in the direction of his voice, one hand outstretched. Her fingers collided with clothing. Lightly, quickly she ran her hands over the outline of his body, and he did nothing to stop her.

  The impression she had gained from his hands held true. He was big, much bigger than she, on his knees with broad, hunched shoulders. He listed a little to one side, and she skimmed her fingers up the side of his neck to touch his face, briefly, before snatching them away again. His skin was slightly clammy.

  “I didn’t know,” she whispered. “I was just trying to get away. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  “I know you didn’t,” he said shortly.

  “It’s just—you won’t tell me your name or who you are, and this unrelenting dark is driving me crazy, and I thought, what if the food was poisoned? I don’t know you. I just ate it without questioning anything, and what if… what if they c-come back and break my fingers again?”

  In a sudden, strong movement, he grasped one of her hands and held it tightly. Like before, everything else fell away—the chilly dampness, the darkness, and the only thing that felt real or solid was the warmth of his hard fingers pressing into hers.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “I get it.”

  She gripped him back just as tightly, hanging on for dear life. “I hit you in the ribs twice. Are you all right?”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m fine.” His breathing steadied. “Listen to me. I am not going to tell you who I am, because ignorance is your only defense if they discover your injuries have healed and they question you.”

  She hung her head. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  He continued, “Chances are, Isabeau has thrown you in here to rot, and if nothing else happens, she’ll forget about you, but you can’t count on that. One day, she might want to see for herself how miserable and sorry you are. If anyone asks how your hands got healed, tell them the truth—you don’t know. You fell asleep, and when you woke up, you were healed. You don’t know how it happened, and you don’t know who did it. That’s all. Don’t offer them any information. I’m assuming they know you don’t have magic?”

  “Yes.” She should let go of him, but she couldn’t seem to make her grip loosen.

  “Good. Isabeau is one of the most bigoted racists you could ever meet. She equates a lack of magic to a lack of intelligence. If she finds out what happened, she’ll be furious that someone defied her orders enough to heal you, but it won’t occur to her that you might be able to evade her truthsense.”

  Now that the panic had lessened, she was able to think again. His strategy was also the only way to protect him from Isabeau’s anger. What Sid didn’t know, she wouldn’t be able to tell anyone.

  “Okay,” she whispered. “I understand.”

  At that, his grip loosened. He would have let her go, but she held on.

  “Why have you helped me?”

  He sighed. “It’s too dangerous to tell you anything. I know it must be very nearly impossible, given the situation you’re in, but if you can, just try to trust this one thing: I mean you no harm, and I will help you as much as I can.”

  He seemed to have forgotten that she still held his hand, and she wasn’t about to let go. Thinking back to the beginning of this whole nightmare, she said slowly, “I was kidnapped by a creature that wants to cause damage to the Light Fae.”

  “You talked to him?” His whisper sharpened.

  “Yes. He was strange-looking, like a thin teenage boy, until you looked into his face. And he could shapeshift.”

  This time the man’s sigh sounded heavy. “I know who he is.”

  “He ambushed my car, and we crashed. While the others were either hurt or unconscious, he took me,” she whispered. “And when I gained consciousness again, he cried. I thought he’d been stalking me, but he said he had been stalking someone else. A man, he said, that kept going to my concerts. Since this man was interested in me, the creature took me and gave me to Isabeau. I thought he was insane. But he wasn’t, was he?”

  Through her grip on his hand, she could feel the tension in his body. “No. Robin is dangerous and very damaged, but I don’t think he is insane.”

  He knew the creature by name. She swallowed past a thickness in her throat. “Are you the man he was talking about?”

  “Don’t ask me that question, Sidonie.”

  The man’s use of her name, when she hadn’t told it to him or to anyone else in Avalon, sent a fresh shock through her system.

  She had already known the answer before she had asked it, because who else in this godforsaken demesne would care at all about what happened to her, heal her hands, bring her food, and offer c
omfort?

  Squeezing her eyes closed, she concentrated on trying to breathe evenly, while tears slipped down her face and she held the hand of the man who was responsible for everything terrible that had happened to her.

  When she could control herself enough to speak, she whispered, “So, you like my music?”

  “Like is not the right word for it.” His words came slowly, his unwillingness to answer evident. “Your music hurts, the way sunshine hurts when you’ve existed for a long time in darkness.”

  She thought of the unbearably fierce torchlight when the guard came. Even though she knew it was unlikely he could see her, she nodded and wiped her face. Okay.

  Her grip loosened, and she let him go.

  There was a slight rustle of clothing as he moved around. He must have stood, because when he spoke next, it was from above her head as he pressed the water bottle into her hands. “Drink as much as you can. This, along with what is in your cup, is going to have to last you all day. I’ll get the grapes and bread. I doubt anyone is going to bother coming into your cell, so if you lie down on the cot, you should be able to hide them between you and the wall. If you’re worried about them for any reason, you can either eat them before the guard gets here or throw them down the latrine.”

  He was getting ready to leave. She didn’t know how she felt about him—she hadn’t had any time to process the fact that he was the reason why she was in this hellhole—but the thought of him leaving her alone again brought the panic back. It beat through her veins, shook through her body in tremors, and shortened her breath.

  She couldn’t force herself to swallow any water until his hand came down on her shoulder and he held her again in the same kind of steady grip as before. It grounded her in a way that helped to beat back the panic. Then she upended the bottle and drank until it was empty. When she was finished, she handed the bottle back to him and hugged herself.

  “I will come back, Sidonie,” he said.

  “You’re sure you won’t just leave me here?” Her voice shook as badly as the rest of her.

  Because he could. He could walk away and never come back, and while it was an unbelievable miracle he had healed her hands, she was still trapped in the cold and the dark, still caught in this unending nightmare.

  “I promise you, I will never just leave you here.” He stepped closer until she could feel the brush of his clothing against her arm and feel his body heat. In the calm, confident way he had reassured her about everything else, he said, “It’s nearly dawn, so I must go for now. In less than a half an hour your cell will lighten, and the guard will come through with food and water. You need to start throwing the food they give you down the latrine, or they’ll expect to see a dead body in here eventually. After the day passes, and they have come through on their evening rounds, I will be back. I will not abandon you.”

  Breathing hard, she focused on soaking up his words. When he was finished, she forced herself to say, “Thank you. For everything.”

  She was rather proud that she had kept herself from pleading for him to stay, since he couldn’t anyway, and she would not let herself sound so irrational again.

  “Don’t thank me.” His whisper turned harsh. “It’s the least I can do. See you this evening.”

  But what if he didn’t come back? People promised things they couldn’t deliver. What if he changed his mind? What if, through no fault of his own, he was detained?

  The way her kidnapper, Robin, had talked, this man and Isabeau were responsible for a great many deaths. Just because he had helped her didn’t mean he was a good man, or trustworthy.

  Clenching her fists, she pressed them to her temples. The doubts and worries were going to drive her crazy.

  There was another slight rustle of clothing, and the smallest creak of metal. The air around her changed and became cold and empty, and she knew he was gone. Carefully, she held the food he had given her.

  One small loaf of bread.

  Thirty-two grapes. Thirty-two.

  Thirty-two.

  * * *

  The pain from the new knife wound in Morgan’s side was unrelenting as he eased his way down the prison tunnels. Sidonie had gotten in a few solid blows. He was glad she had so much fight in her. She was going to need it.

  Despite the darkness, he could see well enough to pick out where he was going, and he knew the route like he knew the back of his hand.

  Isabeau’s castle had been built on a rabbit warren of natural tunnels that had been turned into a prison over a thousand years ago. Some parts had been filled in, while cells had been carved out of others, and shafts had been dug in order to provide ventilation. Without the indirect daylight from those shafts, Sidonie’s cell would never lighten to gray and she would have been in perpetual darkness.

  The prison guard rooms and barracks lay just above the cells. That area had several openings to above ground. He avoided it altogether and wound his way farther down, to a tunnel passageway that had been part of the area that had been originally filled in.

  A very long time ago, when Morgan had begun to realize he was not going to break free of the geas, he had turned his efforts to creating his own private spaces in Avalon.

  Working with earth magic to shift rock and shale, he had cleared out a few of the ancient passageways and kept them hidden with sheets of rock covering their entrances. This tunnel was only one of several secret ways he had of moving in and out of the castle.

  The first time Sidonie had hit him had been an annoyance, but the second time she had struck directly on the new wound. He had felt something tear, a few of the stitches, no doubt, and wetness had seeped through the bandage.

  He kept pressure on the wound, and when he lifted his palm away briefly, his skin felt sticky and wet. He would have to suture the area again before he could rest, all while avoiding detection from anyone else so Isabeau could not force him back to her side.

  In the normal course of things, hiding from the Light Fae was relatively easy. They had keen eyesight and hearing, and many of them were proficient in magic, but none of them were as proficient as he was.

  This time wasn’t in the normal course of things. Once he’d made the decision to return to Avalon, he’d raced back as fast as he could. With the fresh silver poisoning his system, Morgan was much weaker than normal, his magic was dampened, and he hadn’t had time to recover the way he’d planned.

  Healing Sidonie’s hands had taken everything he had and then some. To make sure he did the job properly, he’d had to use several healing potions to supplement the meager trickle of his own returning Power.

  Not only that, but Isabeau’s Hounds were lycanthrope, just as he was, and they had the ability to track him by scent.

  He had prepared for that eventuality by using a chemical hunter’s spray developed on Earth that helped to eliminate scent. If worse came to worst, and Isabeau tried to have one of her Hounds track the person who had broken into Sidonie’s cell and healed her, they wouldn’t be able to glean any information.

  He hoped he had brought enough of the spray to last for a while, because he couldn’t think of any way to make Sidonie’s situation better. While he could take her food and supplies and offer healing and whatever comfort she might accept, he couldn’t release any prisoners, or aid in their escape. Isabeau had forbidden that a long time ago when she had first ensorcelled Morgan.

  Thrusting aside the memories, he focused on the challenges of the present. As he eased through the narrow opening he had hidden long ago with subtle concealment spells, he looked up at the lightening sky grimly.

  He hadn’t expected to find Sidonie so badly injured, and he had stayed with her longer than he had meant to. The tunnel exit lay deep in the shadow of a stone buttress, but he needed to cross an open area of ground that was clearly visible in the growing morning light, all the while bleeding and drained of Power.

  His other option was to hide a few yards inside the mouth of the tunnel, but the passageway was too narrow for someone
of his bulk to fold his legs to sit down. He needed to get to his supplies to suture his wound again, plus he needed to eat something himself, take pain meds and antibiotics, and rest. His headlong dash back to Avalon from London had taken its toll, and he felt feverish again and as weak as a newborn kitten.

  There was no other real choice. He had to dredge up Power somehow. He had such a wealth of war spells in his knapsack he could destroy the entire demesne if the geas would only let him, but the one spell he needed was the one he hadn’t thought to cast into a magic item.

  Digging deep, he wrenched Power out through sheer force of will and cast an aversion spell over himself. Then, as rapidly as he could, he crossed the open area. His muscles shook with the effort to hold a spell so simple a magic student could throw it, and for a moment he was tempted to let it drop. The morning was early yet, not quite dawn, and there would be few people about.

  Just then, a young voice called out and another answered, and two youths dashed toward the kitchens. They might or might not notice him, but if they did, he was highly recognizable. Gritting his teeth, Morgan held onto the casting.

  As he reached the stables, he knew he wasn’t going to make it to his destination. Slipping inside, he let the spell go as dizziness overtook him. Reeling, he almost went down but managed to catch himself on the closest stall door.

  Unsteadily, he made his way past the most spacious stalls, which held the nobles’ mounts and Isabeau’s own white destrier. He wanted to make it to the back of the stables where he knew there were empty stalls, but as black dots danced in front of his eyes, he changed course to slip into the stall of the gray dappled gelding he used when he was in Avalon.

  A soft whuffle greeted him, and the gelding nosed him, looking for treats. “Sorry,” he whispered. “Nothing for you today.”

  Catching the scent of fresh blood, the gelding pulled back and stamped its hooves uneasily. Morgan managed to latch the stall door, then the world went gray and formless, and he felt his legs buckle underneath him.