Conflicted, I stare at my brother. I feel like I should tell him the truth, tell him that his darling fiancée is cheating on him with one of his best friends. But then I imagine how much this will hurt him, and I just can’t bring myself to do it, especially not in front of everyone else.
“I can’t tell you,” I finally say.
“That’s because she’s lying!” Sophie yells again before Gareth shuts her up.
“If it’s anything illegal,” Arthur says, his voice cold, “then you must bring this up.”
“It wasn’t anything…illegal,” I say. “But it wasn’t something she wanted others to know either.”
For a while, the only thing that can be heard is the sound of the wind sighing outside the windows, and the distant screams of children playing. I shift my weight from one foot to the other, hoping Arthur won’t force me to reveal the secret.
“Continue,” he says, resuming his writing.
“I went to the infirmary myself,” I say. “For my lip and my hand.”
“Yes, Dr. Cockleburr did mention it,” Arthur says. “So when did you see Jennifer next?”
“I’m not exactly sure how long it was,” I say, finding it more and more difficult to speak. “But I heard her scream, and when I went to look, I saw someone was chasing her up by the boats. I couldn’t tell who, I was too far, but I saw her try to defend herself against it with a knife. So I ran over to help.”
“How long did it take you to get there?”
“I don’t know. A couple of minutes? When I got to the boats, she was already on the ground, and this…shadow thingy was over her. When it heard me, it ran away.”
“Did you get to see who it was?” Arthur asks.
I shake my head. “Like I said, it was a black shape, somewhat blurred…I couldn’t make out anything from it except that it was bigger than me.”
“It?” Arthur asks, sitting straighter in his seat. “You don’t think it was human?”
I hesitate. “No.”
The room erupts in cries of protest.
“This is stupid,” Daniel says, louder than everyone else. “It’s obvious she’s lying. Fey can’t penetrate through the school’s barriers!”
Arthur raises his hands, and the assembly quietens. “Let the accused finish her story,” he says. “Why didn’t you think it was human?”
“Well, I tried to tackle it,” I say, “and it moved really fast out of my way. Too fast to be human. Even then, I should have touched it, but my fingers didn’t feel anything, just…cold.”
More angry murmurs break out around the room.
“I grabbed Jennifer to shield her,” I say, “but when I looked up, it was gone. I didn’t even hear it leave. And Jennifer…I tried to wake her up, but when she didn’t, I panicked. And that’s when that girl, Sophie, pushed me away.”
“Now let me ask you this,” Percy asks me. “Where exactly were you when you saw Jennifer and this ’ere, uh, black shadow critter?”
I feel the blood drain from my face. “Here,” I say.
“’ere as in school?” Percy says. “Or…?”
“In this room,” I whisper.
The scratching from Arthur’s pen stops. “Why were you in the KORT room?” he asks me.
“I’d followed my friend’s brother in,” I say, choking on the words. “He’d escaped from the asylum, and when I saw him after leaving the infirmary, I followed him here.”
“He came ’ere?” Percy asks.
I nod. “I saw Jennifer through that window.”
Percy gets up to stand where I’m pointing. “You do have a better view of the dockin’ area from ’ere,” he says.
“So what happened to the boy,” Arthur asks, “your friend’s brother?”
I burst into tears. “He-He sat d-down where h-he shouldn’t h-have,” I hiccup, “and I couldn’t s-save him!”
“What do you…The Siege Perilous?”
“But that’s not possible,” one of the knights says. “Everyone knows that—”
“He’s gone!” I yell, hysteric. “It ate him! It took him. It—”
Percy’s holding me in his arms, making soft, soothing noises. I cry into his shoulder, soaking his clothes, but he doesn’t let go of me.
“You should’ve come straight to me,” Arthur says, pacing the KORT room, empty now but for him, Percy, the two cousins, and myself.
I’m sitting on the stone bench, eyes lowered to my clenched hands.
“Then Jennifer would be dead,” I say, trying to ignore my pounding headache and my left shoulder throbbing in tempo with it.
“So you think you saved her?” Gauvain asks me.
I shrug. “Whatever that…thing was doing to Jennifer, I interrupted it, and she’s still alive, isn’t she?”
“We don’t know how quickly the poison works,” Arthur says.
“Well, it ain’t that slow,” Percy says. “If it only took Morgan a couple a minutes to get up there, then that critter didna have much time with ’er. But you ’eard what Lance said, She did ’ave some of them veins turned black.”
“What I find troubling,” Gareth says, “is that the créature was on school property at all.”
“Yes,” Arthur says. “Either Morgan’s wrong about what she saw—”
“I know what I saw,” I say.
“But you’d just seen your friend die,” Gauvain says. “We can understand if it made your brain confused.”
“I was not confused,” I say, much louder than I intended. “I know what I saw. I didn’t make it up. How could I?”
“But if that’s the truth…” Gareth says. He stops, looking somber.
“Then the barriers are compromised,” Arthur finishes. He passes his hand over his face, looking exhausted.
Percy pushes himself away from the wall. “I’ll go check it out,” he says. “Will be back directly.”
He raises his hand to his forehead and nods at me as he strides past.
“Anything we may help for?” Gareth asks.
Gauvain tosses a pebble in Gareth’s direction. “With, idiot. You should study your prepositions more.”
“Just check on our supplies,” Arthur says before a fight breaks out between the two. “And post on the news board that there’s a curfew as of today. No one, except for knights on duty, is allowed outside the school. Anyone who’s found to break the rule will be expelled.”
“Eye to eye, Capitaine,” Gareth says, snapping his heels together in salute.
I hear the cousins’ bickering voices die down as they disappear down the hallway. I envy their ability to be so carefree, like nothing in the world can get them down, no matter how horrible or threatening.
“You,” Arthur says with an accusing tone.
I lift my eyes up to him shaking his finger at me.
“You,” he repeats.
“I did not leave the school grounds,” I say, defying him to find something to criticize about me.
Nostrils flaring, he watches me carefully, then says, “No. You didn’t. And that’s an issue.”
“What do you mean, an issue?” I ask. “I did everything you told me to. I even went out of my way to help that…your girlfriend. What more do you want from me?”
“For you to stay out of trouble,” he says. “But apparently that is too much to ask of you. So from now on, you are consigned to our home.”
The words take a while to sink in. Then I jump up to my feet. “What did you say?” I ask, shaking with rage.
“You heard me,” Arthur says, turning away. “You can’t be trusted. And if that’s the only way I can keep you out of funny business, then so be it.”
“By locking me up?” I laugh when he doesn’t answer. “Really? That’s the best you can do?”
“Damn it, Morgan!” Arthur yells, spinning around so we’re standing nose to nose. “How else am I supposed to keep you safe? No matter what I say or do, you always manage to slip through the cracks and invite trouble. Do you think I want the next body we find t
o be yours?”
I push him away. “Why do you keep on wanting to protect me all the time?” I ask, shoving him again. “I never asked for any of this! I never asked to be in this godforsaken place! I never asked to become a knight!”
I’m crying freely now, but I can’t stop myself. I’m tired, tired of seeing people die in front of me, tired of not knowing anything about everything.
“That’s twice now that you’re trying me for killing someone,” I say, punching Arthur in the chest over and over again until my knuckles are scraped raw. “Why didn’t you guys just leave me to rot in a cell in Switzerland when you had a chance? Things would have been a lot easier, and you wouldn’t have had to deal with me!”
Arthur grabs both my fists and holds them down behind me, locking me in place so I can’t fight anymore. Gasping, I glare at him instead.
“You will do as I say,” he says, his hazel eyes so dark they almost look black. “And that’s final.”
Whistling a funeral march, Percy follows me down the corridors as I look for Bri—the last thing Arthur’s allowing me to do before I head back to the surface and get locked up for who knows how long. The high-pitched version of Chopin’s classic grates on my nerves as I try to find the best way to tell her that her brother’s dead.
“Hey, ain’t that the girl you’re lookin’ for?” Percy asks, pointing with his chin.
Looking down from a fifth-floor window, I see the small figure of a girl running toward the meadow, her short dark hair in disarray. My heart sinks at the sight—that’s definitely Bri, and she’s still looking for Owen.
I whirl around and rush back downstairs under the confused looks of students coming back from their day of fun.
“Bri!” I call out when Percy and I pass the wharf on our way west. “Bri, wait up!”
“There!” Percy says.
We run past the last boat and into the fields surrounding the school. We run until we reach the western warding stone, out of breath.
“Where is she?” I ask Percy, panting.
The shorter boy looks about. “Not sure,” he says. “But that girl’s mighty quick!”
A cackle makes the hairs at the back of my neck stand up. Hand on his sword, Percy crouches into a fighting position, but a haggard face pokes around the monolith, a beatific smile peeking from under his beard.
“It’s Myrdwinn,” I say, stopping Percy from skewing the crazy old man.
“Yeah, I noticed,” Percy replies. “You spotted anyone round ’ere?” he asks the old man.
Myrdwinn laughs, pulling on his extended earlobe. “Just a lil’ mite running like she got her ass on fire,” he says.
“Where?” I ask. “Which direction?”
“Just down the next hill,” Myrdwinn says, shuffling over.
With a loud sniff, he grabs my hands and turns them over to show their blackened palms. He sniggers.
“Thought you were the chosen one, eh?” He laughs, drool dripping into his beard. “Well, you’re marked now. There’s no more escape!”
I pull my hands away. What does that degenerate old man mean? That I’m going to die next, like Owen?
“Come on,” Percy says, chivying me away. “Let’s get yer friend back and give ’er the news.”
Casting a backward glance at Myrdwinn, I run into the muddy fields, struggling to crest the hill without slipping. But over here, we can see someone’s small footsteps have preceded ours.
“Bri!” I yell again, stumbling in the mulch. “Wait up!”
Bri finally hears me, for I soon see her plod back to us.
“Did you find him?” she asks, her uniform soiled from slipping in the mud herself.
Now that I’ve found her, I can’t bear to tell her the truth. I watch a flock of crows take flight from the distant treetops. For a moment, I wish I were one of them, free to roam about the earth with no worries beyond finding food and shelter.
“Well, where is he?” Bri asks.
“We did. Find him, that is,” I say. This is so not a great start. “But…he’s gone.”
“Gone?” Bri repeats. “You mean he escaped again?”
I shake my head. Why is she making this harder on me? “I mean he’s gone gone,” I say, “as in…” I clear my throat and kick a tuft of dirt aside.
“I don’t understand,” Bri says, looking back and forth between Percy and me. “Did he leave school? Did my parents come pick him up?”
“No,” I say.
“He sat in the Siege Perilous,” Percy says, coming to my rescue.
With a sharp intake of breath, Bri sinks to the ground.
“No,” she whispers, as if denying it is going to make everything OK again. “No, it’s not possible. You must be wrong.”
“I saw it myself,” I say, trying real hard to keep my eyes dry. “He’d gone crazy!” I want to kick myself at the use of the word, but keep going, “I saw him when I came out from the doctor’s, and I kept calling and calling him, but it was like he couldn’t hear me. So I followed him, and we ended up in the KORT room.
“At first, I thought he’d just gotten confused. That maybe he was looking for someone, you know? And I…I looked away for a split second. And when I looked back, he’d sat down on that cursed chair. I tried, I really did, but there was nothing I could do!”
Bri remains motionless for so long I wonder if she’s fainted with her eyes open. Finally, I hear her tiny voice.
“You’re sure about this?” she asks.
“Quite sure.”
Despite the open air, I feel like I’m suffocating. Yet I can’t even imagine what Bri must be feeling like now, when her own twin is gone and there’s no more hope of him ever coming back to her.
I put my hand on her shoulder. “Is there anything I can do for y—”
Bri slaps my hand away. “Don’t,” she says. “I don’t need your pity. I just…I just want to be alone for now.”
“OK. OK, I can do that. But…are you sure you don’t want someone with you? I could go find Hadrian if you want.”
“I said leave!” she shouts.
I shrink back, then turn away and head for the docking area. There’s nothing more left for me to do here before my exile, nobody else my presence can bring bad luck to.
Silent as a shadow, Percy trails after me. I repress a shiver. If I do bring disaster everywhere I go, maybe it’s not such a good idea for Percy to come along. But I hold my tongue, knowing that no matter what I say now, nobody’s going to listen to me.
Back on the surface, the world is as dreary as I feel. Winter hasn’t officially started, yet the lake’s surface is already patched over with ice, forcing Percy to use a salamander to break through.
To my surprise, Dean is waiting for us at his usual spot, his tall, lanky frame dark against the night sky.
“How did you know we were coming?” I ask, my teeth chattering.
“Arthur sent your parents a message,” Percy says as Dean hands me a warm coat.
“So quickly? How?”
“It’s called scrying,” Percy says. “Just need a flat reflective surface, and ya can use it to see what’s happenin’ elsewhere. Ya can also communicate that way. Real prattical when we can’t use regular tech, like down there.”
We head for the car, which has been left running on the side of the old cemetery. Inside, Percy sinks deep into the leather seat.
“You’re coming too?” I ask, pushing him farther into the car so I can climb in.
“Sure thang,” he says, eyes closed. “Gotta make sure the miss is safe and all.”
I feel my blood boil and dig my fingers into the seat. “This is ridiculous,” I say. “I don’t need someone to watch over me twenty-four seven. It’s not like I’m going to do anything.”
My protest goes unheard, however, as I soon notice Percy’s deep and steady breathing. I let out a grunt, and the rest of the drive back to Fond du Lac is done in absolute silence, except for the occasional muttering from Percy in his sleep.
Wh
en the car pulls into our driveway, the door to the mansion opens to let Irene out.
“Thanks for coming along,” she tells Percy, looking tense. “And you can tell my son we’ll be coming in later.”
Percy gives her a sharp nod, but before heading off again, he pulls me aside.
“Arthur had a message for ya,” he says low in my ear. “Don’t trust anyone.”
“Yeah, great, thanks,” I say with a derisive snort for this sudden brotherly concern.
Percy shakes my elbow. “He means it, Morgan. Ya can’t follow no one till he comes back ’ere for ya. Ya hear?”
“I hear,” I say.
With a small bow, Percy leaves me behind with my mother and Dean. Irene ushers us inside before closing the door and setting the lock.
“Luther’s asked to see you,” Irene tells the tall lawyer. “He’s in the office, going over the maps.”
Apprehensive, I watch Dean disappear into the depths of the house—there goes my last line of defense against my mother.
A strained smile on my face, I make a small curtsy. “Good evening, Irene,” I say, inching toward the stairs. “Lovely weather, isn’t it? Well, I’m knackered, so I think I’m going to go to—”
“I’m so glad you’re safe!”
The declaration is so unlike her that I wonder if perhaps I’ve misheard. She must’ve said she was mad I was safe. Yeah, that would be more in character. But the worried look on her face seems to contradict my reaction.
“Uh, me too?” I say, ill at ease. Surely something nasty must’ve happened since yesterday, like a massive blow to the head. Either that or it’s some kind of devious ploy to get me off guard.
Irene grabs both my hands in hers. “We were so worried,” she says. “We heard everything that…What’s wrong with your hands?”
I wipe my hands on my skirt self-consciously, though I know the strange stains won’t come off.
“It’s from when my friend sat on the Siege Perilous,” I say. “All this black stuff came out…It must’ve somehow stained me while I was trying to take it off him.”
Irene pounces on me at those words, pulling my collar down to uncover my neck and shoulders.
“What are you doing?” I ask, backing away.
Blood of the Fey (Morgana Trilogy) Page 33
