by Tracy Deonn
I release a steadying breath. “ ‘… taken into custody and brought back to the Lodge. Once their memories were altered, Ms. Carter and the others were monitored in chapter custody for one day to assure the mesmer had taken, and released. As with the other witnesses, Ms. Carter will be monitored during her time on campus by Order members and assigned a field Merlin when she graduates.’ ”
“What’s the rest?” Sel points to a table under the written summary.
I realize what the table is almost immediately. “Check-ins. They’re all dated like a log, with columns for date, time, location, and a short section for notes.” I point to one of the early rows. “ ‘May 1, 1995. 10:31 a.m. Undergraduate library, UNC-CH. Working with Ms. Carter on a group project final for our LING 207 class. Have spent several hours with her this week. Even with some gentle probing about campus events, she does not mention or recall last month’s attack.’ ”
Sel hums. “They didn’t just watch her, they tested her. How many entries are there?”
I flip the page. And flip again. And flip again. “There must be dozens of pages here. At least one entry every week for the first year, then once a month after graduation… They kept tabs on her for years.”
“Witness protection,” he murmurs. “Sort of.” He clears his throat and takes the stack from me, thumbing to the very back. “Let’s see what the last entry says.”
I swallow around the lump in my throat. “Okay.”
Sel pauses, his finger resting on the final slip of paper in the back, and dips his head to catch my eye. “This is the last page,” he says, but I hear the meaning behind the words. I know what he’s really asking me: Are you ready?
My heart pounds in my chest, and blood rushes in my ears like an ocean. Am I ready? I’d started this whole mission worried about finding the truth and convinced that nothing could be worse than not knowing. But now?
Sel’s eyes are patient but wary, and no wonder; he’d just learned his own horrible truth.
“Read it.”
“ ‘May 13, 2020. 9:18 a.m. Bentonville County Hospital, Bentonville, North Carolina. Ms. Carter was killed in a hit-and-run near her home at 8:47 p.m. last night, May twelfth. I was alerted to her death by a Vassal working in the local police department. In order to confirm Ms. Carter’s death, I assumed the identity of an officer. She leaves behind a husband, Edwin Matthews, and a teenage daughter. As recorded in the enclosed logs, Ms. Carter has never shown any evidence of her memory returning or knowledge of the incidents. As such, she has not, in the past or currently, given cause to pursue containment steps. This is the final entry in Witness Eleven’s file.’ ”
Sel passes me the paper, but I wave it away. I can’t touch it.
I can’t breathe.
“Is this the Merlin you saw?”
I drag my eyes back to a small photo clipped to the back of the file. In a single rushing moment, I’m back at the hospital with new details filling in the blanks. Thin mouth, bushy brows, blue eyes. His badge flickering in the light.
Everything inside me pinches and recoils, twists and tightens, until it feels like my entire body is a knot made of lead, heavy and poisonous. A low, pained whine escapes me, ending in a choking sob. I can only nod in answer.
Sel reaches for me, but I squeeze my eyes shut. After that, he doesn’t try to touch me again. “I’m sorry, Bree.”
“That’s it,” I say wearily, a strange numbness flooding my body. A humorless laugh leaves me in a low huff, and I open my eyes. “Now I know.”
I thought that once I had the truth, it would get better. That things would feel right. But they don’t. Everything’s just as wrong, all over again.
I stand and start toward the door.
“Bree, wait.” Sel follows me. “You can sense aether, you can see it, feel it, but you also resist illusion. If mesmer doesn’t work on you, maybe it didn’t work on your mother, either.”
“Yeah.” My throat is tight. “Already thought of that.”
“And?”
“And?” I whip around, fighting back tears. “Don’t you get it? She did the smart thing. The thing I should have done in the first place. She hid. She hid every time one of those Scions or Squires pretended to be her friend and ‘tested’ her. She hid what she knew from everyone for twenty-five years, so this medieval boys’ club, this feudalist fever dream, this whole… fucked-up world of yours could never find her!”
Sel looks like he wants to say something but thinks better of it. Good. Nothing he could say could make this moment better.
My chest feels like it’s imploding. “She hid it from me. Or she tried to. But it didn’t work, because I’m a selfish daughter and I had to come here and dig.”
“Bree, you’re not—” Sel starts, but I don’t let him finish.
The words spill out of my mouth in an angry, sobbing rush. “She didn’t want me to find the Order”—I turn, snarling at Sel—“because she didn’t want me to become your target, but I did anyway.” He flinches, but I don’t care. I tug my shirt down to the still-healing purple bruise on my collarbone from tonight’s trial. “Didn’t want me to get hurt, but I did anyway. I had to barge in with the barest shadow of a plan and no clue what I was doing—” My voice breaks off.
I see words of comfort and repair hovering uselessly on his lips. He wants to help me, but he doesn’t know how.
I do.
The idea unfurls in my mind like a matted, frayed rope thrown down a well. I know, logically, that climbing that rope is a mistake, but in this moment, anything is better than staying here. Anything.
The words fall from my mouth in a desperate whisper. “Take her away.”
Sel looks bewildered. “Who?”
I step toward him. “I don’t want this anymore.” I take another. “I don’t want to feel this anymore.”
Understanding floods his features, and after it a pained, sickened expression. “Bree, no.”
I plead with him, “You can do it. Please. I won’t break the mesmer. I’ll—I’ll let it happen.”
When I reach him, his lips curl in something like disgust. “Don’t ask me that.”
“If I can’t have her, I don’t want to remember her.”
“You don’t mean that,” he hisses.
“Yes, I do!” My eyes swim with tears.
He takes a deep breath, holds his ground. “Even if I wanted to—” He shakes his head. “I’m not powerful enough. The older or more traumatic the memory, the stronger the replacement has to be. Like for like. ‘Memories of equal weight.’ ”
Memories of equal weight. There are no memories that could equal this weight. And the last hour has just made them heavier.
I break then. Snap. The tears run hot down my cheeks, and my breathing comes in ragged sobs. Sel watches me with a sad, helpless expression. Almost like he’s worried for me, hurting for me… but if that’s true, it’s another truth I can’t handle.
I open the door and run into the hallway, letting the door slam shut behind me.
Sel lets me go at first. I make it all the way to the foyer and front door before he catches up. I can feel his gaze along the back of my neck. “Leave me alone, Sel.”
He grasps my left shoulder. “You aren’t in any shape to walk home alone.”
I jerk back, but we both know the only reason he lets me go is because he chooses to.
He stands there in the grand foyer, a shadow with searching eyes, and suddenly it all becomes so clear. He was born to this world, for better or for worse. And Nick and the Scions and the Squires and the Pages… they grew up living inside the Order’s legends. Suddenly, all I can see is the hundreds of years of history that don’t belong to me. A war that doesn’t belong to me.
“I never should have come here.”
“Bree—” He reaches for me again right as I open the front door—and come face-to-face with Nick.
40
IT ONLY TAKES a second for Nick’s eyes to take in my tearstained face, Sel’s hand
on my shoulder, and Sel standing behind me. Russ and Felicity peer around Nick with wary expressions just as Sel’s hand falls away.
“What the hell is going on here?” Nick demands.
My breath falters at the look in Nick’s eyes. In them is the small beginning of some strong, sharp emotion, straining outward like a blade against cloth. “I need to go home.” I make as if to move around him, and he catches me around my good elbow before I take two steps.
“What—why?” He looks between me and Sel’s stoic expression, directs the blade of his anger at his Kingsmage. “What did you do to her?”
“I didn’t do this,” Sel says wearily. “Not that you’ll believe me.”
“He didn’t—didn’t do anything,” I confirm, and slip out of Nick’s grip. I push between him and Russ and move down the stairs.
Nick follows me. “Then why are you crying?”
I whirl around. “I need to go home. I can’t be here right now.” I catch Felicity’s eye. “Can you please drive me home, Felicity?”
“I can drive you home,” Nick insists.
I can’t look at him. “Felicity? Please?”
She glances between Nick and me, back to Sel, then to Russ. “Russy, can you get my car?” Russ doesn’t hesitate. He jogs down the stone steps toward the Lodge garage.
“Bree!”
“Let her go, Nick,” Sel says from the doorway, and Nick and I both freeze. “Nick.” Not Nicholas. Sel’s eyes find mine. Our eyes meet—for half a heartbeat, so quick—but Nick catches it. In that split second, he sees something new between me and his Kingsmage. Something I can’t explain right now, not even to myself. When Nick turns back to me, the raw confusion and hurt in his eyes crushes my heart.
I stammer, try to start several sentences, but none of them take hold in my mouth. The words are caught in a jumble, and I don’t know where to start. I stare at him without an answer. Finally, I utter the only thing that could make him understand, my voice cracking on every word.
“It was just an accident.”
It’s the wrong thing to say.
Nick takes a step closer, his voice soft and pained. “What was just an accident, B?” He doesn’t know I mean my mother. He thinks I mean the something with Sel.
Oh God. No. That’s not—
There’s movement inside the Lodge. Behind Sel, I see Tor and Sar, both in pajamas. A crowd is gathering. They’ll all know. They’ll all see me like this.
I tear my eyes away and back to Nick, take a shaky breath, and try again, because he needs to understand. “The car,” I whisper, fresh tears burning at my eyes. “That night. The hospital. No one… just… an accident.”
As understanding passes through him, the blood drains from his face. The devastation I see there is all for me, all for my pain. But if I accept it, if it touches me, I’ll shatter. I know I will. He reaches for me, but I raise both palms, and his hand falls. That simple gesture—pushing him away—looks like it breaks him as much as it breaks me.
“How? How did you—” He stops. Turns again to the Lodge doorway where Sel is watching us, his face unreadable. This time when Nick faces me, his eyes hold stony accusation. “With him?”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, walking backward on the lawn. “This was all a mistake.”
Tires over gravel. Russ pulling up behind me in Felicity’s Jeep. Nick shaking his head no.
The car idles, loud enough that the Legendborn in the foyer can’t hear me. But Nick can… and so can Sel. “I can’t be here anymore.”
The air leaves Nick’s chest in a broken rush. He knows I don’t mean tonight. He knows I mean forever.
“No, wait!” He shakes his head, desperation making his eyes bright. “Please. I need you. You have to know I’d choose you. I want you, Bree. If Camlann is coming, I want you.”
The lead in my stomach turns hot, melting into all of my limbs. The words feel heavy and thick at the back of my throat, but I say them anyway.
“No. You don’t.”
I climb into the car and leave him behind, standing alone in the gravel as we drive away.
PART FOUR SPLINTER
41
MY PHONE DINGS so many times that day and the next, that, after a while, I just block Nick’s number.
Then Sar tries. William. Greer. Whitty. I block all of them, one at a time. It hurts, but the pain feels right. Necessary. Like I deserve it for wasting their time.
I’d taken Nick’s necklace off as soon as I got home and buried the chain and coin under some socks in my drawer.
I’d thought myself brave for facing the Order. For chasing down the truth. But every time I close my eyes, all I see are the faces of the people I’ve lied to in order to find it.
My mother didn’t pursue the Order and its war.
My mother didn’t share her Rootcraft. Not with me and not with anyone else.
The least I can do, after defying her in so many ways, is finally follow in her footsteps.
* * *
The next days pass in a blur because I force them to. I focus only on what’s in front of me.
Classes, studying in the library, meals with Alice, sleepless nights. Repeat.
I take the sling off in public, so no one asks questions. Alice asks questions anyway. I tell her I fell during initiation.
Patricia made good on her promise to call my father and tell him we weren’t a good fit, that she wishes me well. I know she said that last part because he calls me to ask if I’d like to talk about it. I say no.
I walk the campus half expecting Nick or Greer or even Sel to jump out at me from behind a line of students or a tree. Not that they ever have; I think it’s a Legendborn rule to avoid one another on campus. But they could find me… if they wanted. It makes it much easier on me that they don’t.
I can do what my mother did, I think. Live oblivious in the world the way that everyone else does. Maybe our paths were different, but my mother and I came to the same conclusion.
I have to forget them, because remembering is too dangerous.
* * *
“… Maybe after class?”
“Mm.” I chew absentmindedly on my blueberry jam–smothered biscuit as I read the DTH. I didn’t even know until this week that Carolina had a school newspaper.
“Bree.”
“Yeah?”
“You’re making a mess.”
“What?”
Alice points at my lap where three warm pools of butter have expanded into lakes that stretch from the horoscope section to an article on student body elections. A biscuit crumb falls from my hand into the center of a butter lake and promptly drowns. “Damn.” I push the paper away while she covers a laugh behind her coffee cup.
I’d let Alice drag me out of bed earlier than was strictly necessary, at least by my own standards. “So we can actually eat breakfast” is the type of reasoning that only sounds reasonable if you’re Alice. Alice, whose parents get her up at six thirty a.m. even on weekends.
“Did you hear anything I just said?”
“No…?”
She puts her cup down and gives me a long stare. A clunk-clunk-c-c-clunk reaches us from across the dining hall, where students are dumping used and empty food trays onto a conveyor belt with varying degrees of care. “You’ve been weird all week.”
I poke at my bowl of cheesy grits and shrug. “Just focusing on school stuff. I got a C minus on that English test, so it’s clearly warranted. What were you saying?”
“A C minus? Matty, you’ve never gotten anything below an A in English in your life. What’s going on?” Alice tilts her head and fixes me with a stare. I stare back. After a moment of silence she sighs, wrinkling her mouth and nose together. “I said I know you don’t have a dress for the gala thing this weekend. We should go shopping after class. There are a ton of boutiques downtown, and I saw some sales.”
I look away and gnaw at the inside of my cheek. “Yeah, about that. I’m not going.”
Alice rears back, gawking at m
e like I’ve grown scales. “I’m sorry, what did you just say?”
I blink. “I decided not to go through with that group. So, I’m not going—”
“Hi, yes, hello. I regret to inform you that you’ve had a temporary lapse in judgment. These things happen, and I’m going to try not to make you feel too badly about it. But you’re going to that gala.”
I groan. “Alice, I don’t want to go.”
“You are going to that gala, Matty, even if I have to force you into one of Charlotte’s dresses!” Alice says, her eyes gone flinty behind her frames.
I sigh and fold up the greasy newspaper as neatly as I can, then toss it onto my tray. “You don’t understand.”
Alice crosses her arms over her chest. “I understand you’ve suddenly stopped talking to a hottie-hot boy who adores you, and you won’t explain why, and it sounds like he did nothing wrong. I understand you have an invitation to a black-tie event that you seem to want to toss in the trash. And I understand that I begged my parents to let me stay on campus this weekend just so I could help you get ready, and honestly, Bree, we were way too nerdy in high school for me to let you throw this opportunity away!”
I gape at her. “What’s gotten into you?”
“Sixteen years of Disney movies that I know you watched just as much as I did, so what’s really going on here?”
“I don’t want to go!” I’m loud enough that Alice flinches, and the two girls sitting beside us turn their heads in our direction. I pull my bag out from underneath the table and start zipping it up. “And I need to get to class.”
Alice watches me, shaking her head. “This ain’t it, Matty.”
“What’s not it?”
“This.” She waves her hand at me. “A couple weeks ago you were all over this group, texting this Nick kid all the time, going to therapy, staying out late. And this week all of that’s gone? You get back to the room earlier than I do? Spend more time studying than I do? Read the school newspaper? And I know you’re not sleeping.” She shakes her head again. “This ain’t it.”