We’ve been in the woods for half an hour at least, and the entire time, he and I have argued over what token is the least conspicuous. After much discussion, the three of us decided that to get our tether into the faerie realm, we have no choice but to place it on Marcus himself.
I have no idea how we’re going to do that. Or rather, I have no idea how Brynn is going to do that, since she will be the only one with the opportunity. And I don’t like it.
“The hairpin is small,” I insist. “Marcus won’t notice it.”
“But if he finds it, he’ll wonder where it came from, and it could possibly make him suspicious,” Rune says. “The item should be a gift Brynn gives him, something he’ll want to keep close.”
Absolutely not.
I shake my head vehemently. “I don’t like it. The sorcerer is already becoming too attached to her to begin with.”
“And that’s exactly why it’s going to work,” Rune argues.
“I don’t feel comfortable leading him on,” Brynn says, still staring into the dark trees. “It’s wrong.”
Rune looks at her, scrunching his face like he’s going to argue, but then his shoulders slump, and he nods. “No—you’re right. Fine, the hairpin it is.”
Now that it’s decided, Brynn must make the tethers. It seems like a lot to ask of her.
She looks back at us, her face etched with worry. “How will I know if the spell is successful?”
Her question stumps the elf. After a moment, Rune looks down, collecting the random items scattered on the ground. “It’s just a spell like any other.”
But she doesn’t look convinced. “Let’s just hope making tethers is easier than metamorphosis.”
Rune flashes her an encouraging smile and hands her the book. “I have faith in you.”
“Are we finished?” I ask, cutting the conversation short. I don’t like any of this. It was one thing when Brynn was only poking through the sorcerer’s belongings—it’s completely different now that we’re planning on traveling between the so-called realms, hoping that Brynn has become proficient enough in her magic to create an item that will send us where we’re supposed to go.
I, for one, have no desire to wander a faerie realm for years before I can convince someone to send me back.
Rune nods. “For tonight. And next time Marcus leaves, we’ll be prepared.”
26
It’s late by the time Gavin and I return to the manor. We hang back, at the edge of the trees, neither of us wanting to part.
“I’d invite you inside,” I whisper. “But I’m afraid we’d wake Mrs. Stone.”
“We can be quiet.” Gavin grins and wraps his hands around my waist, tugging me forward.
“And I thought you were a gentleman,” I tease.
Feigning offense, he says, “You should know me well enough to realize I didn’t have anything ungentlemanly in mind.”
I raise a brow. He laughs quietly and adjusts his hold on me, pulling me closer.
Sighing, I rest my forehead against his shoulder.
“I don’t know if I can do it,” I admit after a minute.
He pulls back, frowning down at me. “Brynn, you know I wasn’t serious.”
Smiling, I shake my head. “Not that. I don’t know if I can make the tether.”
Gavin presses a finger under my chin, making me look up. “You don’t have to do this. You know that, right? You can wash your hands of the whole thing.”
I stare into the night, feeling safe with Gavin’s arms around me. “Part of me wants to go through with it just to prove it isn’t true. Because if it is…what does that mean for me? For us?”
He runs a hand over my back, trying to soothe me. “What does any of this have to do with us?”
Before I can answer, a tree branch very near my face suddenly shifts. My first instinct is to jump away, but Gavin reaches for his rapier.
“Porter!” I exclaim as soon as I realize it’s the owl, stopping Gavin before he can fillet the bird. “You must stop that.”
The unrepentant owl stares back at me.
“Well?” I ask, feeling rather self-conscious. “Did you find the gateway?”
Porter squints, which might mean yes. Of course, it might mean no. It would all be far easier if I only spoke bird.
Gavin slides his blade back into its baldric, looking irritated to have been taken surprise by a bird. Sarcastically, he says, “Maybe you should just ask him to take us there.”
Porter lets out a whoo and leaps into the air, flying in the direction Marcus went, and then lands on a tree not far away and stares at us.
“Is he…waiting for us?” Gavin asks.
“I believe he is.”
“This isn’t happening.” Gavin rubs his forehead. “Are we truly going to follow an owl into the night?”
“I don’t know.” I look at the guard, trying not to smile. “Do we have a choice?”
Growling under his breath, Gavin gestures me forward. Every time we almost reach the owl, he flies a little farther away. A lone wolf, likely the one I heard many nights ago, cries at the moon. It’s an eerie sound, one that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.
“When you said the woods are dangerous at night, what exactly did you mean?” I ask as we traipse through bushes and tall grass, following a path that looks like an overgrown game trail.
He gives me a sideways look. “I’m not sure the best time to discuss this is while we’re in the forest at night.”
“Wolves, apparently,” I say, ignoring him. “What about trolls? Do they live in your kingdom?”
“Not here specifically. But they can be found on the other side of the mountains.”
“Oh,” I say. “And do they… ever visit?”
Gavin chuckles. “No, not often. They’re not fond of elves.”
I think about it for a moment, and then I look back. “It’s the elves you fear, isn’t it?”
“I have a healthy respect for them.”
“If Rune is correct, and Marcus has the area warded, we should be safe from them here.”
When Gavin doesn’t say anything else, I let the subject drop. We reach Porter once more, and again he flies away. This time, however, the owl doesn’t go as far.
I look around, unsure. This part of the forest doesn’t look any different than every other section.
“Is this it?” I ask. “Are we here?”
I suppose when Rune said we were looking for a gateway, I hoped for a glowing portal, something magical—at the very least, I expected something visible.
“What exactly are we looking for?” Gavin asks, looking as perplexed as I feel. He walks a little farther, his eyes on the ground.
“Maybe Marcus somehow opens the rift? Perhaps we need a spell? Something to reveal the gateway?”
Gavin nods, and I’m about to suggest we turn back for the night and speak with Rune when I spot the faintest shimmer between two oddly identical trees. I cross my arms, studying them. They’re the same height, the same width, and the narrow trail we’ve been following passes right between them.
“Gavin, I think—no!”
I leap forward, grabbing the guard’s arm just as he steps forward, right between the trees. I yank hard enough, he comes to an abrupt stop—but not before his right leg disappears.
27
Immediately, Gavin stumbles back, away from the gateway, and he appears whole once again.
I blink at him, my head swimming. Who knows where he would have ended up without a tether.
Telling myself to calm down and breathe, I take a moment. Once I feel I can speak, I say, “Well. I think we’ve found the gateway.”
Gavin stares at his leg like it’s a foreign appendage. Slowly, he nods. “I’m afraid you might be right.”
“You don’t sound pleased.” Now that the panic has worn off, the reality of the situation hits me. Rune was telling the truth—there’s a gateway to another realm right here in the woods. And we found it.
&n
bsp; All right, technically Porter found it, but the details aren’t important.
Gavin meets my eyes, still looking a bit flustered. “You saw it, didn’t you?”
“Saw what?” I press my lips together so I won’t laugh. Disconcerted Gavin is rather amusing.
“My…” He shakes his head, his eyes still wide, looking down again. “My leg.”
“What about it?”
Frustrated, he snaps his head up. “It disappeared.”
“Oh, that.” I don’t bother to hide my grin anymore. “I saw it, yes.”
Gavin, usually so calm and unflappable, stares at me, bewildered. I raise my brows, waiting for him to calm down enough to realize we’ve stumbled upon something truly monumental.
“We should go back,” I say, taking pity on him. “We’ve had enough excitement for the night. We’ll get some sleep, and tomorrow, we’ll tell Rune that we found it.”
Gavin nods and takes my arm. We walk in silence for quite some time before I finally ask him if he’s all right.
He turns his head to look down at me. “I don’t know what bothers me more—that there truly are these gateways scattered across the kingdoms…or that the blasted owl directed us to one.”
I laugh and clutch him closer. We reach the manor, and again, we hesitate to part. I step into Gavin’s arms, allowing him to hold me.
Softly, when I’m just debating whether I can sleep standing up, Gavin asks, “What did you mean earlier, when you said you don’t know what will happen to us if Marcus turns out to be the dark sorcerer Rune claims he is?”
“Just that once I have my full mark, we can be together—publicly. No one will have the authority to tell us no. But if Marcus is truly wicked, I can’t stay. I’ll have to hope I can find another sorcerer or sorceress to study under.”
Gavin shifts, his arms going rigid around me.
I look up, meeting his eyes in the dark. “Surely you can’t argue with that. Gavin.”
“Brynn...sorceresses don’t marry guards. They certainly don’t marry blacksmiths.”
“But—”
“There is no ‘but.’ I love you, yet I know the time we have is fleeting. Eventually, you’ll have to move on.”
“Gavin...” I stop myself, past frustrated. Why must he make this so difficult?
He holds me closer. “But until then, I’m here. Let’s worry about the future when it comes.”
* * *
Sitting cross-legged on my bed, I arrange the objects I intend to tether—two hairpins, two coins, and two buttons—in front of me. According to the book Rune found, the items must be metal for the magic to take correctly. I wish I’d studied longer so I knew why. There’s so much I still don’t understand, and I find that unsettling, especially when I’m attempting to create a spell this important.
Porter sits on my bedpost, his new favorite perch, slumbering. Occasionally, he’ll wake, fluff all his feathers, and then go right back to sleep. Before, I was nervous around the owl, but I now find his company soothing.
Stalling, I straighten the items into their three groups, until they’re perfectly in line with each other. The set of hairpins is for Gavin and me, as we discussed in the forest, for when we cross into the faerie realm behind Marcus. The coins are for when we return, so we’ll have a tether to this gateway—otherwise, we could end up halfway across the world. And the set of buttons is for Rune, though we didn’t discuss making him a tether.
It’s true Rune can’t use Marcus’s gateway because of the wards, but that doesn’t mean he can’t cross through a different gateway. And if I carry one of the tethered buttons when Gavin and I cross, the elf will still pass through the same rift as us on the faerie side.
Of course, he’ll have to find another gateway, but that’s more his dilemma than mine.
When I can stall no longer, I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and speak the spell three different times, concentrating first on the hairpins, imagining them linking, and then the coins, and finally the buttons.
There’s no comforting flash of light or burst of warmth—absolutely nothing to make me believe the enchantment worked. The items just lie there, cold to the touch, looking as ordinary as before.
I nibble my lip as I stare at them, wondering if I should attempt the spell one more time, when there’s a knock at my bedroom door.
Startled, I leap to my feet, hurrying to see what Mrs. Stone needs. She never calls on me when I’m in my room. In fact, she doesn’t call on me ever.
I crack the door open and freeze when I see the sorcerer leaning against the door jam, his expression dark.
“Marcus,” I breathe. “I didn’t hear you come home.”
He was gone for less than a day this time.
His dark green eyes meet mine, and my palms begin to sweat. Something is wrong. “May I come in?” he asks, nodding for me to open the door.
“Into my room?”
A smirk crosses his face before it ghosts away, easing some of my fear. “Hiding something?”
My eyes go wide, but I quickly school my reaction and open the door, immediately backing to the bed. “Of course not.”
Fluffing out my skirt, I sit right on the tethered objects and spell book, hiding them from sight. Then I primly cross my hands in my lap as if waiting for Marcus to begin.
He steps into the room and glances about, his eyes first landing on Porter and then taking in the rest of the tiny space. “I rather forgot I still had you up here. I’ll have the housekeeper prepare you a larger room.”
“That won’t be necessary,” I answer immediately, working up a bright smile. “I’ve grown used to this one. It’s rather cozy.”
He narrows his eyes, studying me. “You didn’t correct me.”
I clench my hands tighter, wishing he’d leave so I can squirrel away my contraband. “Correct you?”
“For not using the housekeeper’s name. You always do.”
“Oh.” I frown, nodding and then giving him a teasing look—the kind of look I might give him if we were completely at ease, working on a spell in his study. “I suppose I’ve grown used to you.”
My words cause him to stand taller, and his eyes lower, taking me in. Softly, he says, “I suppose I’ve grown used to you as well.”
Silence blankets the room, heavy and suffocating.
“Do you…need something?”
Marcus shakes his head as if clearing his thoughts and then strides across the room—which takes all of four steps—and kneels in front of me. I gape at him as he reaches for my hands, clasps them between his larger ones, and meets my eyes once again.
My heart begins to pound as I panic. I have no idea what he’s about to say, but there’s no way it can end well.
“We’ve become close in the last few months,” he begins. “I admit, I didn’t want you here in the beginning, and I might have attempted to make it a bit uncomfortable so you’d leave—”
“Might have?” I interrupt, unable to help myself.
He laughs under his breath and rubs his thumb over the inside of my wrist. It’s not an unpleasant sensation—but unwelcome all the same. I want to yank my hands away, scream that I love Gavin, but I tell myself to be smart about this. Stay still and calm.
“But I’ve grown to admire you, Brynn. Very much.” He pauses, making sure I’m giving him my full attention. “In fact, it’s more than admiration I feel.”
“Marcus…” My voice shakes, but somehow, I must work up the courage to end this. “I don’t—”
He laughs, looking away, shaking his head like I’m difficult. “You do—at least a bit. Don’t tell me you don’t. I know you think you’re in love with that guard—”
I suck in a startled breath. Marcus presses his lips together, looking less than pleased. “Oh, yes, I know. The lovely girl in the general goods shop mentioned how close the two of you seem to be—how often you’re together.”
“Marcus, I—”
“But I also know if the man wanted you…you wouldn’t
be here.”
His words are spoken gently, but they strike me to the core all the same. “That’s not true,” I whisper. “You don’t understand—”
“It is true, Brynn. Your guard has kept you at a distance. If he loved you—truly loved you, he would have never let you into my house.”
I stare at Marcus, silently denying the words though they eat through my excuses.
“And do not fool yourself,” he says, lowering his voice to a whisper. “I know, without a doubt, what I’m feeling for you isn’t wholly one-sided.”
But even as I shake my head, a tiny part of me—a minuscule part—protests. Because he’s right. I love Gavin; that’s a fact. But in the last few months, despite Rune’s warnings and my own reservations, and perhaps somewhat due to Gavin’s insistence on constantly pushing me away as often as he pulls me in, I’ve come to care for Marcus. But he’s become a friend, a welcome companion, nothing more.
And deep inside, I don’t want to believe the sorcerer has done this awful thing that Rune claims. Marcus is abrupt, difficult, distant, and more. But he’s not a villain.
Is he?
Marcus looks down, still stroking my hand, oblivious to my tumultuous thoughts. “But it doesn’t matter how we feel because we can’t be together either.”
I jerk my head up. “We can’t?”
“Brynn,” he breathes, leaning forward, his handsome face shadowed with emotion. “You don’t know me, not really. If you did…you wouldn’t want me.”
I’m about to tell him I don’t want him, but I pause. Does it matter?
“Is this it then? Are you sending me away?” I finally ask.
Please, tell me to leave. Then I won’t have to follow him, won’t have to learn the truth. And maybe, just maybe, he’ll arrange another apprenticeship for me.
Immediately, Marcus pulls his hands back and shakes his head. “No. Of course not. You’re not ready to be on your own, and I won’t send you to anyone else.”
My shoulders sag, but I nod, knowing I was foolish to hope it could work out so neatly.
The Sorceress in Training: A Retelling of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice Page 16
