I watch, transfixed, as a strange orange halo grows him. The man’s jabbering to me now, but no sound’s coming through. I see him duck, the image going blurry for an instant, and I realize the glow behind him is the result of explosions.
“Help!” I cry out, touching the mirror’s surface in a desperate attempt to turn on the sound. “What’s going on?” I ask more loudly, my gloved fingers now tracing the gilded frame’s intricate woodwork. “Where are you?” I ask louder, helplessly.
The man in the mirror suddenly turns around, his back taking up most of my view. My hands clench around the mirror until it’s shaking.
“What do you need?” I shout, but the man can’t hear me.
Something or someone’s there with him—I can see a blue shadow growing on his other side, then the man’s projected backward, into the mirror, shattering its surface.
I scream as the man’s limp form falls back down, out of sight, and the blue shadow draws nearer. A face forms inside the fragmented image, one I have no trouble recognizing.
“Mordred,” I whisper, unable to move.
The blue-tattooed Fey’s predatory smile reflects through the shattered pieces like in a kaleidoscope. Then his lips draw together, forming a word.
Soon.
“Morgan?”
I wheel around at the unknown voice, almost expecting Mordred to be standing there. I let out a choked sob as I realize it’s only a middle-aged man hurrying over, his military haircut emphasizing the squareness of his jaw. The man glances at the mirror now only showing our own reflections, the pink light above it dark.
“What happened?” he asks.
It takes me a few tries before I can answer him. “Th-they got him.”
“Who got who?” he asks tensely.
But my vocal cords seem to have gotten all tangled up again and I shake my head.
The man’s eyes soften. “Let’s get you seated so you can calm down some,” he says, leading me away, “then you can tell me what you saw.”
The corridor opens up into a large room, mirrors of all sizes hanging by solid wires from the domed ceiling in different clusters like hundreds of windows giving out onto different parts of the world. People dressed in white lab coats move from one to the next, plugging strange, coppery stethoscopes to the mirrors then taking notes on their clipboards. Huddled around a large, multi-sided panel set in the middle of the wide room, more people are analyzing the data and piecing together the constant flow of information.
“Sit,” the stranger tells me, pushing me down onto a metal chair. “Now tell me what you saw. In detail.”
“A man,” I say, my mouth dry. “He was killed in front of me. He…he tried to say something but I”—I lick my lips—“there were explosions and…there was a Fey….” I shake my head, sniffling, then wipe my leaky nose on Arthur’s jacket.
The man’s face grows paler. “Margueritte! Emmerich!” he shouts and two of the people at the giant pinboard turn around. “Mirror sixty seven went down. Fey attack. Go check it out!”
“But that’s Newgrange, sir,” the woman, Margueritte, says with a hitch in her voice.
The man who found me nods. “Have Lamorak go on location to check it out ASAP. It seems Darragh tried to contact us before going down.”
“Yes, sir!” Margueritte and Emmerich say in unison, before dashing away in opposite directions: Margueritte back down the hallway we came from, Emmerich to a simple, rectangular mirror standing in the nearest corner.
I watch as he grabs his strange-looking stethoscope from around his neck, puts the eartips in then plugs the other end into the bottom of the frame. He then grabs a large copper cone attached by a tube to the stethoscope and puts it up to his mouth. Runes around the cone’s surface glow briefly and, a second later, the mirror’s surface shimmers and I know he’s scrying someone.
“Are you feeling better?” the square-jawed man asks, drawing my attention back onto him.
I nod slowly, the shock of seeing Mordred kill that man receding enough to make way for an increased sense of unease at being found in a place where I obviously don’t belong.
“I’m sorry you had to witness such a sight,” the man says. “But in times of war….” He frowns, his voice trailing off, lost in dark thoughts. “Things might’ve been different if they hadn’t insisted on having this mockery of a parade upstairs this year again. But politicians always think their first priority is to reassert their sense of dominance by prancing about like peacocks instead of working toward a solution.” He looks down at me then, as if suddenly remembering I’m there. “At least it has given me the opportunity to finally meet my niece.”
My stomach seems to drop somewhere below my chair. “You’re my…uncle?”
The man nods. “I’m Sir Cade,” he says, then drops his voice to a whisper, “Gorlois’s brother.”
My lungs seem to have forgotten how to work, making me dizzy. “How come nobody’s ever told me about you?” I ask.
“I’ve made it a point to hide the fact,” Sir Cade says bluntly. “You see, our father, bless his soul, had a wandering eye. I happen to be the product of one of the wild oats he sowed. I don’t even think he knew about me, or he didn’t care. Either way, it’s your father who came to find me, when I was half your age.”
I swallow hard. I want to ask him why he’s decided to tell me all of this now, but instead what comes out is, “What was my father like?”
“Impetuous, strong-headed, somewhat cocky,” Sir Cade says, something I have no trouble believing considering what I’ve just read about him. “But he also had a strong sense of what was right, and he had the art to make all of us feel like we were at the same level as him.” He brushes his hand through his short-cropped hair and I wonder briefly if my father had the same habit. “In fact, that’s why I asked to meet you tonight, to discuss the matter of his legacy, and yours.”
“My legacy?” I ask, getting more and more confused. Surely he can’t want to talk to me about my father’s money like that Abigail girl.
Sir Cade casts a quick look at the large grandfather clock behind his desk. “Let’s get going. It’s past ten fifteen and we’ve got an appointment to keep.”
We cross the room, passing first behind a man talking excitedly into his mouth piece to what appear to be a couple of Tibetan monks, then by a short woman entrenched behind a screen of black. As we walk by, the image in her mirror erupts in fire, and for a second I fear that it’s from another Fey attack.
“Don’t worry, it’s just an oil field,” Sir Cade says, forcing me to increase my pace.
“They set fire to it?” I ask, unable to tear my eyes away from the mirror’s now bright surface.
Sir Cade’s face remains impassive. “If we control the amount of oil production or, in this case, that of our competitors, we control its price.”
“You’re burning up somebody else’s oil?” I ask, as we engulf ourselves into a narrow corridor. “But that’s stealing!”
“It’s how we make our money,” Sir Cade says, his voice cold and businesslike. “Think of it as the stock market. Except here, instead of manipulating stock prices, we’re going straight for the commodities. No middleman, so to speak.”
“It still doesn’t sound right to me,” I mutter, not sure I like my uncle after all.
Sir Cade shrugs. “It’s how the families have made and kept their fortunes over the centuries. Defending humanity is costly, Morgan.”
“That’s a stupid reason,” I say. “Slavery was also a tradition passed on for centuries, but people finally got their heads screwed on right and abolished it. Besides, I heard those evil scrooges on the Council, and they don’t want to spend a penny if they can’t see a way to make themselves profit from it.”
“You sound like your father,” Sir Cade says with a light chuckle.
“He tried to stop all that?” I ask, jerking my head back towards the Hall of Mirrors.
“He did, despite his own fortune’s origins,” Sir Cade says, a
nd I feel a burst of pride. “But his death put an end to his motion to stop the use of Fey as slave laborers.”
“You mean—”
“Those fires you just saw?” Sir Cade says as the floor suddenly dips. “Caused by Caorthannach, the fire-spitter. Gnomes make for excellent miners, perfect for mining ore or hitting the right pockets of oil. Of course, we switch elementals depending on the job at hand. Works like a charm and the lay authorities never doubt a thing. Although Carman’s release has made things a tad more difficult to control lately.”
We stop in front of a small door. Set above it is a translucent glass bowl inside which I can distinguish the outline of a salamander, its small body inflating and deflating with every breath, making the light suffusing the corridor pulse.
Sir Cade pulls out a large ring from under his lab coat and proceeds to tap it to the door, on top of a seal burned into its wood where the lock should be.
“Thurisaz,” he whispers.
There’s a dark blue flash and the door opens with a soft click.
“Welcome to my humble abode,” Sir Cade says, revealing a tiny room with but a bed, a chair and a small desk above which is a single painting of a pale woman dressed in somber clothes.
All that security for a monk’s room?
“Just in time,” Sir Cade says, going straight for the portrait which has started glowing.
But when he takes the painting down, I realize the light is coming from yet another mirror, an old, wrinkled face already waiting for us within its polished copper surface.
A feeble voice that seems to be coming from everywhere at once wheezes, “Did she come?”
“She’s here,” Sir Cade says. “Morgan, I want you to meet Sir Joseph, your father’s former squire.”
He pushes me closer to the mirror and I find myself shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the next as a pair of brown eyes peers at me from under bushy brows, a spotted hand stroking the long, silver-white beard that grows thickly under a beaked nose.
“Gorlois’s heir, at long last,” the scratchy voice says.
I make a small curtsy—probably the only thing I can do without making Sir Nigel blush with shame.
“You are the last in your line,” Sir Joseph continues, “and as such it is my duty and honor to serve you, Your Grace.”
It’s now the man’s turn to bow deeply, but the movement seems to unsettle him and he ends up suffering from a severe bout of coughing.
“Sir?” I ask, wondering with a sudden panic if he’s on his deathbed.
“Your father,” the old man wheezes, “came to see me before you were born.” He leans out of sight and I hear the distinct sound of someone expectorating, before his lined face comes back into view. “He sacrificed himself to protect you, Your Grace.”
“I know,” I say, with a pang of sadness at the uselessness of my father’s death, and I close my hand over my scar. “But they still managed to free Carman with my blood.”
“Through no fault of yours,” the old man says, coughing.
“Well…,” I start, for I don’t feel entirely blameless in this matter as there’s an infinitesimal chance that, had I listened more closely to Arthur’s orders—however distasteful they may have seemed to me at the time—things might have unfolded differently.
“Thankfully, Sir Gorlois had anticipated such a calamity might unfold and took some measures to try to curtail the damages, which means there’s still hope.” Sir Joseph draws nearer to me so that all I can distinguish are his eyes, set deep above his crooked nose, and the single, yellowed tooth protruding from his lower lip. “Excalibur,” the old man breathes, fogging his side of the mirror.
I try to hide my disappointment. Why is it everyone keeps thinking I have that stupid sword? “Like I’ve said before,” I say, trying to remain calm, “I don’t know where he hid it.”
“Your Grace,” the old man says, wiping the condensation down with the dirty sleeve of his shirt, “your father hid Excalibur with you.”
I can’t help it. I laugh. The old man must’ve completely lost his marbles. But as I wipe the tears streaming from the corners of my eyes, I see Sir Cade looking at me sternly.
“I’m sorry,” I say, growing serious once more, “but, like I just said, I don’t have the sword my father stole. Never have.”
Sir Joseph spits again, though this time he doesn’t hide himself to do it. “You can’t steal what belongs to you in the first place,” he says. “That weapon has belonged to your family for centuries!”
“We know he didn’t hide it on you,” Sir Cade says behind me. “But we believe he left you with a way to find it again. A clue, if you will.”
“Somewhere only you could find it,” Sir Joseph adds.
“I’ve never seen anything remotely close to a sword near me,” I say. “I mean, except for the regular ones at school and Arthur’s private collection.”
“His Grace was very adamant,” Sir Joseph says. “He told me the sword rests with both you and the other.”
“The other?” I ask, finding this whole conversation more and more ludicrous. “What other?”
“We think he was talking about your mother,” Sir Cade says.
I take a long, deep breath to stabilize myself and stop my thoughts from tumbling over one another. Does that mean they think the sword’s with her?
“Sorry to burst your bubble,” I say at last, “but I don’t know where she is either. Or who she is, for that matter.”
“Which is why Arthur’s latest attempt to rekindle our ties with the Fey must succeed,” Sir Cade says. “It would give you the perfect opportunity to find them both.”
“Arthur knows about this too?” I ask.
Sir Cade hesitates. “We didn’t think it wise to tell him, considering who his father is.”
“You need to do everything in your power to find the sword, Your Grace,” Sir Joseph insists. “Before anyone else does, or we’re doomed.”
“But Arthur’s working on another prison to stop Carman,” I retort. “He found a book that explains how—”
“It will fail,” Sir Joseph says, sounding certain. “That demon witch’s got the Sangraal now, and we no longer have the power to withhold her. Excalibur’s our only chance, Your Grace.”
“We will do our best to assist you, Morgan,” Sir Cade says, “though our hands are tied at the moment.”
“Woah, woah, woah,” I say, holding my hands up before all this crazy-talk overwhelms my brain completely. “Let me get this straight. You’re saying my dad hid Excalibur and left clues with me and my mother, some Fey, might I remind you, I’ve never even met. And now you want me to go with Arthur on his little expedition to Avalon so I can find her and this blasted sword before Carman does.”
“In a nutshell,” Sir Cade says, dead serious.
“And in the meantime, you two will be having a jolly old time, drinking tea while I constantly risk my life?” I ask indignantly.
“Not exactly,” Sir Cade says, his gaze growing distant, a vein throbbing at his temple. “But it’s too early to make my role public just yet, or I’ll get the boot before I can finish my task.”
“Which is?” I ask suspiciously.
Sir Cade gives me a bitter smile. “It is in your best interest not to know exactly what yet,” he says. “Just know that we are both working to finish Gorlois’s dream.”
Sir Joseph nods solemnly, only to start coughing again. “It has been a pleasure to finally meet you, Your Grace,” he says, his image becoming hazy, “but I must leave you now.”
And with a final bow, the mirror fogs over, Sir Joseph disappearing from view.
“How come I never heard of him before now?” I ask, staring at my coppery reflection before Sir Cade replaces the portrait over it. “Is he another wild oat?”
“Sir Joseph is in jail,” he says. “In fact, I believe you were but a few floors above him just yesterday.”
I repress a shiver. “Why is he in there?” I ask. “He’s not Fey, is he?
”
Sir Cade straightens the frame and stands back before taking out his ring again. “His crime was being loyal to your father. As I’ve said, we will try to help you, but your best bet is to stick to Arthur and the Fey party he’s brought over.”
I want to tell him how Lugh’s never told me about my own mother either, no matter how many times I’ve asked him about it, but my uncle ushers me out and back the way we came as quickly as possible.
“You better get back to the festivities now,” he says, as we hurry down the serpentine hallway, “before anyone wonders where you’ve gotten to.”
As we finally near the exit, he stops. The lanterns above taint the first half of his face red, casting deep shadows below his prominent cheekbones.
“I need to stay here,” he says. “My employees won’t say a thing, but it’s best if I’m not seen with you.”
“Why not?” I ask hotly. “Why can’t people know you’re my uncle?”
“Gorlois wasn’t liked by everyone around,” Sir Cade says. “In fact, many were happy when he died. And you saw what they did to his…squire. If I were to reveal my parentage to Gorlois, I would not last here very long, and then I would be completely useless to our cause.”
I nod in understanding, my stomach knotting up. As if dealing with Carman wasn’t enough, now I have to worry about some internecine war40 my father started in the midst of the Order itself.
“Will I see you again?” I ask, before the door can shut on me again.
The question seems to take Sir Cade by surprise. “Of course,” he says, giving me the first genuine smile of the evening, one that reminds me strongly of my father’s picture, “though probably not any time soon, if we don’t want to raise any suspicion. Quickly now, and be careful.”
Before I have the chance to say goodbye, I find myself all alone again, a thousand questions jostling in my mind.
If my father truly hid Excalibur with me, it’s no wonder I’ve been let out of jail so easily, even with all of Irene’s objections—it had nothing to do with Arthur being all chivalrous or some other bull crap of the sort. And if that’s the case, then I must definitely tread very carefully, for my every step must be closely watched.
Rise of the Fey Page 33
