Spellbinder

by Thea Harrison

Sid made good her escape. Quickly she made her way to the night market and threaded through the growing crowds, searching for the metal smiths. She found them clustered at the other end of the market.

  Perusing their stalls, she looked through the array of weaponry. There was everything imaginable on sale—swords, maces, pike axes, throwing stars… now that would be handy to learn… bows and arrows, and knives. Plenty of knives, and in all sizes and shapes, housed in a variety of scabbards.

  The vendor of one stall watched her for a few minutes, then approached with a smile. “Is there anything in particular you’re looking for?”

  “I don’t want something too big,” she told him. She held up a small knife in a square piece of worked leather. “What’s this?”

  “It’s for your arm. Look.” He helped to wrap the leather around her forearm, threading a leather thong through loops and tightening until the knife fit snugly along the inside muscle.

  “Oh, I like that.” She held up her arm to study it. Her tunic had long sleeves. When she shook the sleeve down over the scabbard, the knife was completely hidden from sight. The hilt lay downward, close to her wrist.

  Reaching for it with her other hand, she drew it. Sheathed it again. Drew it, and sheathed it. There was a satisfying snick when the knife hit home in the scabbard. It was well constructed, so the knife wouldn’t slip out by accident.

  The vendor grinned. “Smooth as butter, eh?”

  “It is.” She drew the knife again. “My only question is, should I buy one or two?”

  He took her seriously, as he should. “Are you good at knife work with both hands? Because otherwise, there’s no point in wasting your money. Those are good blades, and they’ll cost you.”

  She narrowed her eyes as she considered. She didn’t have any knife work with either hand, but she was predominantly left-handed with most things. “I’ll stick with just one.”

  “Aye, that’s a smart choice. You can always come back for another if you change your mind.”

  “I will, thank you. How much is it?”

  He quoted a price that made her swallow, but the handiwork was of clear quality, and with some haggling, she got him to go down a little in price. Paying him depleted her stash by quite a bit.

  If she survived for very long, she was going to have to play for money again, soon.

  If she survived. If she were attacked, and if she told the truth after she killed him.

  If, if, if.

  Had this all come about because of her prayer to Lord Azrael?

  Maybe. Maybe she would never know. Maybe they had skirted along the edge of calamity for so long, something like this was inevitable. All she really knew for certain was that she had gone through enough, and she wasn’t going to be a victim any longer. Not if she had anything to say about it.

  As she turned away from the vendor, she wore her new purchase. Now where should she go?

  The answer to that question, when it came to her, seemed inevitable. She should go back to the music hall, of course.

  She walked up the road to the castle. At the gate, the guard glanced at her indifferently. She recognized him from previous trips. He asked, “Back twice in one day?”

  “I need to practice,” she told him.

  He waved her through, and she made her way to the music hall.

  The evening wasn’t late enough for the inhabitants of the castle to have settled for the night. She passed clusters of people, some of whom smiled and nodded to her, while others studied her curiously.

  Back in the large, familiar room, she left the doors open, lit a fire in the fireplace, and also lit several candles in nearby candelabras. Picking the lute up from its cradle, she plucked at the strings and adjusted the frets until she was satisfied with the tuning.

  Would he come? Did he dare?

  If he did, and she killed him, it was going to look premeditated. There was no hiding the knife she had strapped to one arm, or taking back what she had said in the inn.

  So be it. This was now the pair of dice she had to throw.

  Settling on the footstool, she began to play, easily, gently, the kind of songs one might choose to play for practice, if one needed to practice. Angling her head, she listened for sounds outside the door.

  She heard people pausing to listen, comment to each other, and then move on. Nobody stepped inside the hall to disrupt her at her music. That was okay. She wasn’t in any hurry.

  Then there was a single pair of footsteps that stopped outside the doors. They didn’t move on.

  Like the afternoon, a shadow passed over her again, and the light from the fireplace and the candles dimmed. A dark, gentle voice whispered, He will be faster than you, and stronger. Be ready.

  She caught her breath. Now she knew for a certainty Lord Azrael had heard and responded to her prayer.

  She had set her telepathy earrings aside, so that Morgan couldn’t distract her from her purpose if he found her. Still, she reached out to the dark voice, whispering back, I’ll be ready.

  The darkness settled around her like a cloak of shadows. It was a hell of a thing to know a god had taken the time to notice you. Her fingers shook, and she had to concentrate fiercely to steady her playing.

  Valentin walked into the room, and unhurriedly, he closed and locked the doors behind him. Taking in deep, steady breaths, she told him, “You’re not welcome here.”

  “I am welcome wherever I choose to go in this place,” Valentin responded. “You speak above your station, musician.”

  Strolling toward her, he looked the epitome of Light Fae entitlement, confident, arrogant, and relaxed.

  Anticipatory.

  Her muscles tightened. He was not the only one who was anticipating the encounter. She murmured, “If you don’t leave now, this will turn out badly for you.”

  “So much cockiness for a human,” he said, circling around her. “How could you possibly think this might go badly for me? I am stronger, faster, and far older than you. I am trained and experienced.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, she gritted her teeth and set the lute aside. While not her instrument of choice, it was still far too beautiful to allow it to be ruined. Standing, she turned to face him.

  “So you rape,” she said. “You are a rapist. You believe you have the right to take anything and anyone you want. To force your will on them. To make them do your bidding. To deny them their own free will.”

  He smiled. The light from the fireplace glittered in his eyes. “You protest too much, my dear,” he told her. “This doesn’t have to be an unpleasant encounter. I believe you will enjoy this far more if you simply let yourself go.”

  She tilted her head as she studied him. “You know, I think you’re right. Come take me if you can.”

  “You are a true delight.” He laughed. “And, oh yes, I can.”

  When he walked toward her, she strode forward to meet him.

  * * *

  Morgan was glad to leave another frustrating day behind as he climbed over the rooftops to Sidonie’s room. That afternoon he had finished going through the last of the texts. There hadn’t been anything useful to use in summoning Azrael, and he continued to fail to create a summoning spell himself.

  He had tried various tricks, but nothing worked. He couldn’t even successfully create a general summoning spell for any god. The geas had clamped down, disrupting his thought patterns and hampering his Power.

  Despite their best-laid plans, he might have to go to Earth after all to search for a spell. Isabeau could have something useful in her personal collection, but she had never allowed him to see her books on magic, and she’d expressly forbidden him from accessing the library. Maybe when Robin returned, he could sneak in to look at the titles to see if she might have something they could use.

  Sliding down the iron pipe attached to the inn’s gutter, Morgan leaped over the balcony railing. The rising moon was only half-full, but the pale square of the note pinned to the balcony table was immediately apparent. He d
idn’t have to glance inside to know the room was empty. He could sense it from where he stood.

  Striding over to the table, he snatched up the note.

  Go back. I can’t see you tonight.

  Wrongness curled around him like the smoke from a burning building.

  Sidonie didn’t write that Isabeau had asked for her hour of music late in the day. She didn’t ask him to wait for her. Instead, she told him to leave. Why hadn’t she asked him to wait?

  The balcony doors were closed and locked. Looking in the room, he saw the sheets had been stripped from the bed, and a cleaning bucket sat on the floor by the door.

  She had washed the room clean of his scent. She hadn’t asked for him to wait, because she wasn’t expecting to come back.

  Placing the flat of his hand against the balcony door, he tilted his head as if to listen to whatever may have happened inside that would have made her leave.

  It wasn’t something Morgan had done. He would swear to it. If he had done something, Sidonie would think through the issue, then talk to him about it, carefully hitting all the important points. Besides, when he had left her early that morning, she had been sleepy, relaxed, and affectionate.

  No, something had happened during the day, yet she’d had enough freedom to clean the room and leave the note. She’d felt secure enough to write the note, and confident enough that he would find it, but she still hadn’t offered any explanation. Why?

  Because she didn’t want him to know what she was going to do.

  His hand tightened to a fist as he pressed it against the door.

  She didn’t want him to know, because what she was doing was dangerous. She would have told him virtually anything else. She would have told him if it was something they could do together.

  She would have told him if it was something Morgan could have fixed, but there were two things constraining him—the geas and his dwindling supply of hunter’s spray.

  And anything related to those two constraints led back to the castle.

  He didn’t have to waste time tracking her. He didn’t know why, but he knew where she’d gone.

  If he followed her, he would be using the last of his hunter’s spray to avoid detection. She could have warned him to go home for that reason alone. But as he glanced back into the room, at how carefully she had left everything, the sense of wrongness washed over him again, and he knew that wasn’t true. Again, it was something she could have told him.

  And going back to his cottage wasn’t an option, not even if he lost the last of his freedom that night.

  Digging into his supply bag for the spray, he used the rest of the bottle to douse himself thoroughly, then he slipped his lump of beeswax into his pocket. Afterward, he threw the bag high onto the roof, settled his sword scabbard between his shoulders, cast a cloaking spell, and climbed down to the street.

  Setting off for the castle at a sprint, he thought through possibilities.

  Where would she be? Not the servants’ quarters. If Isabeau had simply ordered her to return to the castle, Sidonie would have told him that too.

  He would start with the music hall and work his way through the castle from there.

  Layering a spell of aversion over the cloaking, he slipped like a shadow past the guard at the gate and through the castle halls. A feeling of urgency drove him forward. Even though he had brought the beeswax, he didn’t use it.

  Instead, he listened keenly to everything around him. The snatches of conversation he caught from courtiers as they passed by seemed untroubled. Warrick and Johan lingered near the great hall, flirting with two of the court ladies. Their demeanor was relaxed as well. Whatever had compelled Sidonie to act the way she had, it was a private matter.

  As he drew near the double doors of the music hall, he heard a loud thump from inside the room. Springing at the door, he found it locked. A quick spell unlocked it. As he slipped inside, he saw Valentin backhand Sidonie.

  She reeled from the blow, but instead of crumpling, she used the momentum of the movement to spin around, jump, and land a flying kick to his jaw. It was a spectacular move, full of elegance and speed.

  Valentin’s head snapped back, and he staggered.

  Breathing hard, she hesitated.

  It was a rookie mistake, that hesitation. Morgan would have drilled that out of anyone on his training field. As Valentin recovered, he grabbed Sidonie by the throat.

  Baring his teeth, he snarled, “It would have gone so much better for you if you had just submitted.”

  By then, Morgan had already begun his lunge across the room. His focus narrowed down to one thing—the hand Valentin had around Sidonie’s pale throat.

  He was fast, so much faster than either Valentin or Sidonie, yet he was still too far away when he saw her reach into her sleeve and draw out a knife.

  She slashed Valentin across the jugular.

  Eyes bulging, he let go of her and grabbed at his own throat with both hands, vainly attempting to stop the bright crimson arterial spray.

  Morgan reached Sidonie’s side as Valentin sank to his knees. She stared at Valentin, her face ashen. When Morgan grabbed her by the shoulders, she started wildly and bit back a shriek.

  Dropping his cloak and aversion spells, he snapped, “What happened?”

  Her gaze clung to the dying man. Her eyes were dilated, and her lips looked bloodless. Droplets of Valentin’s blood stood out against her white skin. “He threatened to rape me. He’s been at the chambermaids. And I wasn’t going to be raped.”

  “You should have come to me!” he hissed. Fury boiled over. If Valentin wasn’t already dying, Morgan would have gutted him.

  Her gaze snapped to his face. She hissed back, “You shouldn’t be here! I told you to go back to the cottage!”

  He barked out an angry laugh. “That was never going to happen, Sidonie!”

  “I was trying to save you from getting involved!” she snapped. She was shaking visibly. “You’re too close to exposure as it is!”

  She was the one who had been threatened, yet she had tried to protect him. The blood pounded in Morgan’s temples. He held so much rage in his body, he didn’t think his skin could contain it.

  Grabbing Valentin’s head, he gave it a sharp, vicious twist, breaking his neck. Then he let the body fall. As Sidonie stared at him, he said, “I killed him, not you. Remember that. Now, give me your knife and get out of here.”

  She stammered, “I-I have his blood on me. Morgan—whatever you’re trying to do, it’s not going to work.”

  Then a new voice entered the tableau.

  From behind Morgan, Warrick said, “What the fuck, Morgan. You and the musician know each other?”

  Morgan grabbed the knife out of Sidonie’s hand and cast a death spell on it.

  As he whirled, Warrick added, “The Queen wants to see you right away. Now that you’ve killed Valentin, that should be a hell of a reunion.”

  Morgan had already flung the knife, but it was too late.

  Even as the blade buried itself in Warrick’s throat, the geas flared to life and he was caught.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  When Morgan went to Isabeau, she wouldn’t see him at first.

  Instead, she ordered him to wait in the great hall. He stood in stony silence, arms crossed, and watched as the castle guard ignited the witchlights and brought in first Valentin’s body, then Warrick’s.

  The last to arrive was Modred, who escorted Sidonie. He held her with one hand gripping her biceps. Locked in the privacy of his mind, Morgan watched the two. He wanted nothing more in the entire world than the chance to gut Modred and cut off the hand that touched her.

  Modred looked ironic, as he so often did when events turned unpredictable. Sidonie’s expression was set, jaw tight. Where Valentin had struck her, the side of her face had begun to turn purple with bruises.

  When Modred paused on the other side of the bodies, Sidonie looked at his hand on her arm, then up at him. In a tone both weary and scath
ing at once, she asked, “Where do you think I could possibly go?”

  Modred’s jaw flexed. With a curt tilt of his jaw, he acknowledged her point and lifted his hand away.

  Then Isabeau stalked into the hall. She wore a black dress without any other adornment other than the knife on the gold chain at her waist. She had pulled her hair back into a plain knot, and her face was lined with grief. It looked so real, so poignant.

  Her gaze fell onto the bodies and flared with fresh emotion. Flying to Morgan, she slapped him as she shrieked, “What did you do?!”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Sidonie shift suddenly, but he couldn’t look at her. Instead, he kept his expression stony as he answered, “I found Valentin attacking this woman, and I killed him. Warrick must have interrupted the scene.”

  “He wouldn’t have done that!” she cried hoarsely. “He loved me!”

  “You know I told just you the truth,” Morgan said, his voice hard. “You can hear it in my words. He attacked her. I killed him. End of story. You don’t tolerate rape in your kingdom.”

  She whirled to face Sidonie. “You!” Her voice was filled with loathing. “You did something to provoke him, didn’t you? How could he possibly have wanted you?!”

  Eyes widening in outrage, Sidonie exclaimed, “What could I have done to encourage that kind of crime? He wanted to rape me. He talked about it. He really liked the idea, and he looked forward to doing it.”

  Modred spoke up unexpectedly. “Remember, Izzy. I did try to warn you, but you wouldn’t listen. He has hurt other women in the castle. All you have to do is ask Myrrah and the chambermaids.”

  Pressing both clenched fists to her forehead, Isabeau screamed wordlessly.

  Modred went to her and clasped her by the shoulders. When she looked up at him, he said gently, “Hard as it is for you to accept, my love, Valentin’s crimes and death are the least interesting thing about all this.”

  That was when Morgan knew they weren’t going to get away with it. Isabeau was overwrought, and when she got in that state she grew sloppy and overlooked details. But Modred never did. Modred was always thinking things through.