by Ryan Graudin
My attention, however, is completely gripped by the Ad-hene’s magic. He seems to have no trouble holding the invisibility spell. It’s stronger, more potent than last time, dripping over me more wholly than the rain. My new hair is already sopping wet. Even my bones are chilled.
“You really think the Black Dog is still around here?” Kieran asks.
“This is his territory,” I say over my shoulder. “There’s no reason he shouldn’t return to it.”
We cross to the east shore, where the London Eye spins round and round. I loop all the way down to where a tunnel stretches under the Westminster Bridge. Blæc’s lair.
“Wait!” Kieran’s hand falls on my shoulder, a startling, physical weight. He holds me back just steps from the tunnel’s entrance. “I should go first.”
I’m not sure what’s worse now. The feel of his magic or his touch. They’re almost one and the same. Both root into me, raw, feeding power and possibilities. What might have been. What could be . . .
No! Richard is my future. My center.
Isn’t he?
Kieran steps forward; his eyes bore into the tunnel entrance. His hand reaches out, pauses in the air. “This is your magic!”
He’s right. One of my old enchantments is still in place. A blocking spell, meant to keep mortals from entering the Black Dog’s main tunnel.
“It was a good spell.” He goes on, his fingers dancing through the air, plucking at webs of magic I can’t see.
“Was?” I say stiffly, tasting what’s no longer mine.
“It’s broken. Someone tore through.” The Ad-hene’s fingers become a fist, pull the remnants of my magic away like a bothersome cobweb. Pieces float past like dandelion seeds. I hold my breath until the traces of my old spell fade altogether.
This tunnel is blacker than midnight. Kieran strides in—arms up and ready—prepared for the Black Dog’s teeth. The mark of his arm is all-dark, his steps full of hunter’s stealth. I follow, bracing myself for the sudden snarls, the flash of demon eyes.
But they never come. Kieran halts in the middle of the tunnel. We both wait, still and tight in the silence. One minute. Two. Three.
We are alone.
Kieran’s scar flares through the dark. The walkway burns to life: stark black and white, like a film negative.
My throat catches.
Runes. Everywhere runes. Written out in black marker, covering the tunnel’s white tiles like a madman’s scrawl. Harsh, angled lines strung together like a physicist’s equation. Too clustered and tight and ancient to be graffiti.
I stare for a long time, trying to understand the sheer number of these symbols. Many of them look familiar, but I know this only because I saw them chalked inside a cell on the Isle of Man.
Kieran’s staring too, stunned. His mouth is cracked open, lungs swelling.
The marks are on the floors too, running like ants along the concrete all the way to the center of the tunnel.
My muscles seize tight when I see the Black Dog on the floor. Blæc’s legs are curled up, almost as if it’s sleeping. But Black Dogs don’t sleep.
This place isn’t a tunnel. It’s a grave.
There are no markings on Blæc’s body. No blood. The beast’s fur has lost its gloss. Those burning acid eyes are closed. Never to open again.
Kieran crouches down by the Black Dog’s body, threads his fingers through its bristly black fur. The tendons of the Ad-hene’s hand cord tight.
“A fresh death. Very fresh.” Kieran looks around. As if the killer might still be lurking behind us.
I feel it, suddenly rising and swelling around us. The prisoner’s magic rushes through the tunnel like a wave. I spin around, but the space behind me is empty. My eyes snap back to Kieran. He’s still hovering over Blæc’s body, watching its carcass crumble to pieces. Reduced to a pile of ash in seconds.
“How . . .” I look back over my shoulder. The burst of magic is already fading. Gone. Just like Blaec’s body.
“The runes.” Kieran points to the ground, where the Black Dog’s outline is crowned by symbols. “I think the magic is inside them.”
“Belle was right,” I whisper.
The Ad-hene looks up at me. His fingers trail through the ash.
“A mortal did this. That’s why they tore through my spell at the door. They had to. They couldn’t enter otherwise.” I kneel down, placing a hand over the symbols on the floor. There’s nothing but the chill of concrete under my palm. “The runes are spells.”
Kieran’s hands sift through the ash, edge closer to mine. Our fingers are almost touching. Only a few symbols apart.
“All mortals needed something to conduct their magic.” Except Arthur. I make a mental note to strike him off of the list of possibilities. “The runes—this writing is that channel!”
“A mortal,” he repeats softly. “A mortal with magic. Like the princess.”
“Someone from the Camelot days.” I let my voice rise, hopeful. “Perhaps you remember . . . it would be a prisoner brought in around the same time as Guinevere.”
“I have no memory of those days. I was in the Labyrinth’s darkness then. It clouds many things. Erases them.”
“You remembered me,” I tell him.
“That’s different.” His finger slides forward, touches mine. “You’re different, Emrys. You intrigued me from the first. You have a way of shining.”
My heart stutters. My palm presses hard onto the dead runes. Kieran’s touch is the only warmth there is in this damp riverside tunnel. His magic is still everywhere, hiding me from all eyes but his. Even though I’m draped in a veiling spell, I feel more exposed than ever.
“You don’t know how deep your darkness is until there’s a light.” His eyes flicker to the tunnel entrance, back the way we came. Then forward again, to me. “I think I’m beginning to understand.”
I don’t think I can understand anything anymore. Why the mortals I fought so hard to protect are torching effigies of me. Why Titania has left us to fend for ourselves. Why Richard pulled away. Why he was taken. Why my dreams relive heartbreak, night after night. Why my fingers are still touching the Ad-hene’s. Why my eyes burn into his. Why his face is suddenly so close to mine. Why I stay still, my breath quivering in the air. Waiting.
Somewhere above us a horn blares. The sound sweeps across the river, rattles the tiles.
The moment breaks. Shatters like an undone spell.
I pull my hand away. There’s ash on my fingertips.
“He’s not your only choice.” Kieran’s words are as soft as the feathers in my pillow. Complete with prickling quill ends. “Remember that.”
“We found the trail.” My voice is ice, but my insides are flaring. I have to get away from him and his pulsing magic. I have to get away from whatever has taken root inside me. “The Ad-hene’s oath has been fulfilled. You’re free to go. Queen Titania and her Frithemaeg can track it from here.”
Kieran stays crouched over the pile of ash. All danger, power, and curiosity.
“This is no trail,” he says, nodding at the marked walls. “It’s a taunt. If this magic works as you say it does . . . then we have no way of tracing it. If it doesn’t flow in its worker’s veins, it’s not a part of their aura.”
I edge away from Blæc’s remains until my spine curves against the wall’s arch.
“Where is the Faery queen? Where are the Frithemaeg?” His questions echo through the tunnel, come back to haunt me. “They’ve left the princess completely unguarded. It does not seem to me that Titania is your strongest ally. You still need me. Unless you wish to reclaim your magic.”
And lose Richard forever.
He’s right. The Frithemaeg aren’t coming back to London. They’ve abandoned us. I’ll need more than a pile of ash and some scrawls on a wall to convince Titania to return.
Dead ends everywhere. Trails which tangle up inside themselves. Endless looping circles, just like the silver lines on the Ad-hene’s arm. And, just like inside th
e Labyrinth, Kieran is my only way out.
Nineteen
The sky is the same color as Kieran’s eyes: brimming with silver storm glow when we arrive back at the house in Chelsea. It’s not until the door yawns open and heat blasts around my body that I realize just how cold I was. Every inch of my skin is glazed with rainchill. My fingertips have a lavender tinge; the rain slapping against the window sounds heavy with ice.
Kieran rubs his hands together, whispers that infamous fire to life between his knuckles. He offers some to me with open palms. I shake my head, stick my own hands into my pockets. They still sting from the last open flame I handled.
“Where the hell were you?” Anabelle’s greeting is quick and brutal. “Get out of the doorway before someone sees you!”
Kieran looks startled. His flame vanishes, smoke braids through the air. Gray as Blaec’s ashes.
“I’ve been worried sick for the past hour. I was half expecting your mug shots to flash up on the news! You could have at least left a note!”
Looking at the princess I doubt she’s even been up for an hour. Her appearance has the irksome fresh of morning. Rose-powder pink tingles her cheeks. Her hair is pulled back in a long ponytail, but a few angel wisps have escaped, gold playing against the tilt of her cheekbones. The almond of her eyes. The same features she shares with Richard.
Kieran studies her too, his head tilted like some curious, cautious panther. “You’re angry?”
“Ye—” Anabelle catches my stare, sees how I’m tensed and waiting for an outburst. Another broken vase. “No. Just worried. I thought you’d left.”
“Only for a short time,” the Ad-hene says. “I would not leave you without saying good-bye.”
Silence falls over the foyer, but it still feels like they’re speaking. Pouring through entire conversations with their eyes. The quiet stretches on and on: wasting more seconds and minutes.
“We found a clue,” I say when I can’t stand it any longer.
Anabelle looks away from Kieran, her brown eyes sparkling with hope.
“It’s not much. . . .” I try to counter her excitement. “We found the Black Dog which attacked the carriage, but it was dead. The prisoner found it first. You were right, Belle, a mortal’s doing this. They’re using magic through runes.”
Anabelle’s breath is sacred and quivering. “Runes?”
“Yes. There was writing all over the tunnel. . . .” I trail off when the princess turns. Her bare feet pad on the wood floor as she runs to the grand piano, snatches up some decorative sheet music. “What are you doing?”
But the princess is all mumbles, searching through every shelf and drawer in sight. “Pen. Pen. I need a pen.”
We follow her into the study. A room of leatherbound books and mahogany. The air smells distinctly of pipe smoke—sweet cloves and tweed.
“Belle, what’s going on?”
The princess doesn’t seem to hear my question. A plump black fountain pen has captured her attention. She leans over the desk she found it in, glides its elegant arch tip over the back side of the sheet music. Skitters and scratches crowd the page like claws.
Finally Anabelle steps back, wipes that crown of angel hairs from her face. “The runes. Did they look like this?”
My heart snags at the sight of black ink on paper. The princess’s rendering is softer than the tunnel symbols, filled with more bend and curl. Even so the etching is undeniably similar, a fragment from the long nightmarish web Kieran and I were just caught in.
I snatch the ruined sheet music from Anabelle’s fingers. Its edges warp in my trembling hands. “Where did you see this?”
“Last night,” she answers. Her voice is nearly as shaky as my hands. “On the television. It’s Julian Forsythe’s tattoo.”
“Are you sure?”
The princess nods. “The cameras didn’t stay on it for long. I just remember thinking it was odd. That’s why it stuck with me.”
“But—but you said he went to Oxford. . . .” I trail off as the complete oversight of my statement rings through my head, showing just how much my mind has settled into the mortals’ thought patterns.
This is a land of magic now. Full of shape-shifters and spells which can alter your appearance in an instant. The man standing on the podium looks like the Julian Forsythe who walked the halls of Oxford, but that hardly means he actually is. A sorcerer could have easily killed the young politician and slipped into his skin, his life.
I think of that night in Windsor Castle’s ballroom. That eerie smile on Julian Forsythe’s face. The scathing, surgical precision of his eyes. The cool lilt of his words: We don’t have to be enemies. The way I see it, you and I have a common goal.
Who’d really been speaking that whole time? Mordred? Lancelot? Merlin? A soul I’ve forgotten entirely?
“It’s him, Emrys. It has to be.” The gleam is back in Anabelle’s eyes. Lighting up her words.
My insides are all dread—thinking of those blue, blue eyes and that dark, dark cell and the rage which lurks inside each. Now that the prisoner has a face, I’m even less certain I can challenge him as I am.
“So what now?” The princess asks after a pool of silence.
“We should tread softly,” Kieran says. “It’s an adder’s nest. This magic is too potent and untested for my strength alone. Even without magic, this man wields a good deal of power. The mortals drink his words like mead.”
Anabelle’s face scrunches with frown and thought. “What about Queen Titania? The Frithemaeg? They can help us!”
I shake my head. “She won’t come. Not without solid proof.”
“So we get it.” The princess takes back the paper, stares hard at the letters. “If Forsythe is the one behind all of this, there will be more than just a tattoo. More runes. Or evidence that he orchestrated Richard’s kidnapping.”
“What are you suggesting?” My words dance on eggshells.
“I know where his office is. I sent a coronation invitation there.” Anabelle’s eyes go sharp. She’s looking at Kieran. “We’ll go at night, when he’s gone. Use veiling spells. Be quick. Find some evidence and present it to Titania. He’ll be back in the Labyrinth before he knows what hit him.”
My stomach plunges at the thought of what she’s suggesting. Whoever is staring out from behind Julian’s sapphire eyes has spent countless years plotting. They stole a king out from under the eyes of an entire kingdom. Pitted mortal and Fae against each other with clever speeches and damning evidence. Took thinly veiled prejudices and worked them in their favor, blinding Faery queens and human governments alike.
It seems almost too simple, walking into this soul’s office. Finding what we need and leaving. Just like that. I can’t help but think that maybe, just maybe, this is a trap.
“I don’t know,” I begin. “It will be dangerous.”
Anabelle puts her hands on her hips. “Do you have a better plan?”
Not without reclaiming my magic. I look back at Kieran. He leans in the doorway, lithe and brawny, so I can’t help but notice the muscles gathered under the cling of his thermal shirt. His power fills the office, pedals my weary heart. Chains it through the moment under the bridge: our fingertips touching, words he said, things I felt . . .
“Emrys?” The princess snaps with fingers and voice and I’m back in the office, trying my best to think of a better plan.
“Kieran can only veil one of us without risking exposure,” I think aloud.
“So teach me,” Anabelle says. “You said you would.”
“I think maybe Lady Emrys is right, Princess.” Kieran pushes off of the doorway. Night curls spill and spool against his regal brow. “Searching through this soul’s office will be dangerous. It might be best if you stayed here.”
Hurt flashes through Anabelle’s face. “You’re the one who told me I shouldn’t be afraid. I’m not getting left behind this time!”
Kieran frowns. His shale eyes cut over to where I stand.
We’ll be
alone again, if he has his way. He’ll call me Emrys instead of Lady Emrys. His voice will dip low and I’ll have trouble remembering what Richard’s touch feels like. I’ll start to think more and more about the futures Kieran pried open with five small words: He’s not your only choice.
I can’t let that happen.
“All right.” I nod at the flustered princess. “I’ll teach you.”
I take her to the rooftop, where we have the least chance of her spells deflecting and collapsing a wall. The rain is lighter now. Clouds hang low over the city, drape over rooftops and weather vanes. I can barely see past the next house as I face the princess.
“First you have to focus. Center yourself.”
Anabelle nods. “Kieran says it’s like staring at a pinpoint of light. Or concentrating on a candle.”
“Well, Kieran isn’t here right now.” A fact I’m more than thankful for. I’m not sure if I could concentrate under his gray stare. “But yes. That pull, that energy you feel inside you is what you must concentrate on.”
Anabelle shuts her eyes. Draws several deep breaths of frost-laced air.
“Veiling spells are tricky,” I explain. “They have a lot of different layers and details, depending on who you want to see you. We’ll start with a very general one. It will hide you from everyone.”
It feels strange, trying to put into words something that’s always been so reflexive. Like teaching someone to walk. Or speak a language you’ve known all your life. So much of it is innate, beyond explanation.
I try my best anyway. “Keep concentrating. Now I want you to take that energy inside you and twist it into this word while you speak it: behyd.”
Her eyebrows furrow together. The word rises up and out of her. As naturally as a breath. “Behyd.”
She vanishes—a shimmer and gone—like summer heat rising. I blink, but the air in front of me is only swirling mist.
Kieran’s right. She is a quick learner.
“Good job,” I say, even though I don’t really mean it. Not in my deepest of hearts.
