He stops and I feel my stomach tighten apprehensively.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Being a squire also means you’ve got to follow me wherever I go,” he says, looking at me pensively as if to gauge my reaction. “In battle as well.”
I take a half-step back. “Battle? Me? I don’t think so.”
“That’s what you’ve been training for, Morgan,” he says. “What did you think? That we were getting you ready for a theatrical performance?”
“Considering the way I’m treated here,” I say, crossing my arms defensively, “it might as well be. And after everything you put me through—”
“I did not put you through anything,” Arthur says through clenched teeth.
“Well you certainly didn’t help,” I snap back. “What with you lying to me all the time.”
“What did you want me to say?” Arthur asks. “That you were on heightened security because of what you are? That we couldn’t let you know so that you wouldn’t run away and get caught?”
“Yes, actually,” I say. “It would have been better than not knowing anything while being locked up all the time. Besides, your parents are the ones who unleashed Dean on me, you can’t fault me for that!”
Arthur bangs his fist on the door, making it shake in its hinges. “Maybe if you hadn’t been disobeying orders all the time, none of that would have happened to begin with!”
“Obviously you guys don’t know me at all if you think I’m ever willfully going to be kept in the dark,” I retort. “So you and your conniving mother can go stuff yourselves!”
Arthur’s face turns to stone. “Throwing yourself into dangerous situations when you don’t know what you’re getting into is pretty stupid of you,” he says, his voice brittle, “but I suppose I shouldn’t expect more from you considering that’s exactly what got your father killed.”
I feel like I’ve just been sucker punched. “What?” I breathe.
The sound of rapid footsteps clacking on the flagstones draws Arthur’s attention away. A moment later, a squire appears from around the corner, out of breath.
“An urgent message, sir,” the girl says, straightening up. “From Sir Ywain. He says that there’s a whole batch of weapons that have…gone rogue.”
She finishes her message looking down at her feet, as if ashamed of being the bearer of such news.
“How many?” Arthur asks, already moving to action.
But before he can escape from me, I hold him back, and I hear the girl suck in her breath in shock. “I asked you a question first,” I say. “What did you mean about my father?”
Arthur pries my fingers off him. “Does it matter?” he says, his tone so cold I could get frostbite. “You never listen to me anyway.”
I see the girl smirk before the two of them dash away, leaving me seething behind.
“You just wait, Mr. I’m-so-great-I’m-so-brave-I’m-gonna-make-you-my-personal-slave!” I shout at his retreating back, my blood coming to a rapid boil. “You think I’ll just take your orders meekly? I don’t think so!”
I feel something react in the pit of my stomach, hot as lava, before it erupts out of me. There’s a loud BANG and I crouch in sudden fear, covering my head as bits of plaster and wood shower down on me. When I look up again, I find that Arthur’s bedroom door has imploded and is now lying sideways through its casing, cracks and fissures stretching out along the wall around it.
Chapter 7
“I swear I can’t leave you alone for one minute before you unleash another catastrophe!”
I jump in surprise as Keva surges before me.
“What are you doing here?” I ask numbly.
“Saw Arthur a second ago without you so I thought I’d check in,” Keva says.
I swallow with difficulty as we both eye the wreckage.
“I didn’t do that,” I say, and wince at the sudden stabbing pain in my gut.
“Sure you did,” Keva says tiptoeing around the debris.
“I mean, not intentionally,” I add, joining her to peer through the gap left by the torn door.
I pause for just a second before I push my way into the room. Dust and fragments of wood have been blasted over the entrance of an otherwise pristine suite of rooms. Keva slaps her hand on the splintered frame and the salamanders slowly light up in their colored bowls up on the ceiling, throwing iridescent patches over rich furnishings fit for a king.
Heavy embroidered rugs cover the floor between a boat-sized four-poster bed at one end of the suite to the beautiful, claw foot bathtub on the opposite end. The Prussian blue curtains that frame each window along the wall have been tied back with golden tassled cords, revealing the church’s illuminated façade in the distance.
“Nice,” Keva says, admiring a wall covered in jewel-encrusted weapons displayed in order of size, from small knives and daggers, to broadswords, axes, nasty-looking maces, and even a long halberd. “He’s even got a katar!” she adds, hopping up and down in an attempt to grab a long, triangular dagger with a double grip hung near the ceiling.
But all she manages to do is raise a cloud of dust from the rug that makes her sneeze, and she gives up.
“Every single one of them is covered in oghams,” she says, trailing her hand down the wall as she continues her fawning. “Do you even know how much just one of these is worth?”
“No, and I don’t care,” I say as anger rises inside me at the sight of all this luxury. How could Arthur have let me rot away in jail while he was up here lounging about?
A smile splits my face as an idea strikes me, and I roll up my sleeves: Time to get busy….
I walk up to Arthur’s desk, take a cursory look at the perfectly aligned pens and stacks of papers, then sweep everything off the table. My smile widens as a glass paperweight shatters on the floor.
“Let’s see how long it takes before he fires me now,” I say gleefully as I upend all of Arthur’s drawers onto the floor, leaving behind heaps of clothes in disarray.
“Morgan!” Keva shrieks. “Have you gone completely mad?”
“Yes, I’m very, very angry,” I reply, moving on to a massive trunk placed at the foot of the bed.
“That's not the kind of mad I was talking about,” Keva says in a small voice.
I fling the trunk’s lid open, and stacks of books and pieces of spare combat armor stare back at me in neat piles. Then, with a loud whoop, I place my booted foot on the coffer’s edge and knock it over, letting its contents spill onto the plush carpet.
“Morgan, stop!” Keva says, holding me away from my next intended victim: Arthur’s gigantic bed.
I struggle to get out of her hold, but for a small girl Keva packs a lot of strength.
“He asked for it,” I snarl.
“If you don’t stop this sacrilegious act, I’ll have to call for help,” Keva says. “I’m sure Lady Irene’s still around.”
That manages to calm me down a bit. “Fine,” I say, giving up. “But only because you asked so nicely. Besides,”—I beam at the chaotic view, proud of my handiwork—“this ought to make my message pretty clear.”
“Well I’m not staying at the crime scene so let’s just—” Keva’s eyes light up on a particularly colorful pile of clothes. “Briefs, huh? I always thought he was a rather traditional guy.”
Rolling my eyes, I head back outside, dragging Keva after me—I don’t mind being accused of destruction of property, but not theft; a delinquent girl’s gotta know where to draw the line.
Keva throws one last longing look at Arthur’s room, the ultimate fangirl in her obviously itching to grab a few mementos.
“I guess we should head over to EM now,” she finally says.
“Really?” I ask. “We have to go to class even with the war and all?”
Keva tuts disapprovingly. “The more we know, the better prepared we’ll be,” she says as we make our way up to the third floor. “Do you think they’d send us, untrained, into battle like we’re common cannon fodder? B
y Kali’s mighty sword, Morgan, this isn’t the Order of Errant Companions!”
“The Order of what?” I ask as the swell of excited voices reaches us from the lecture hall. “Wait, are you saying there are others like us? Other knights that don’t go to Lake High?”
“Of course, dummy,” Keva says. “You think our Order survived throughout the centuries without ever suffering any schisms? But they’re all puny orders compared to ours, really not worth our attention. Although if you were forced to listen to Hadrian day-in, day-out, you might start to think otherwise.”
“Talking about Hadrian,” I say, slowing down as our classroom’s door comes into view, “how did you end up becoming his squire?”
“His last one died in the attack,” Keva says with a shrug. “I helped him with the school’s defenses, one thing led to another, and now I’m stuck with him.”
“How come he didn’t pick Bri?” I ask, chancing a look inside the classroom to see if the girl’s there already. “She is his sister.”
I spot Bri sitting calmly by the windows, her face blank, her eyes staring unseeing straight ahead of her.
“And that’s exactly why she can’t do it,” Keva says. “No favoritism.”
“But I became Arthur’s squire!” I exclaim, outraged.
Keva shakes her head at me, an enigmatic smile on her thin face. “You’re not his sister, as we all know now. You can imagine how pissed some people were, though, especially Jennifer. She and Arthur had a big argument over it at dinner time yesterday, before your little stunt with the Fey prisoner interrupted them.”
She pauses on the classroom’s threshold, frowning deeply. “I’m actually surprised Bri was picked at all to become a squire,” Keva says. Then, seeing my shocked expression, she explains, “I know you two were tight and all, but she’s been somewhat off ever since, you know….”
I nod in understanding. The death of Bri’s twin is not something I can wipe out of my memory, no matter how much I wish I could.
The moment we step inside, the class goes dead silent.
My first instinct is to hunker down, find an inconspicuous seat at the back of the room and remain as still as an old poster on a wall. But I know that tactic’s not going to work for me anymore, not when everyone sees me as a ticking bomb.
So I go for my next stratagem: If you can’t flee, fight.
Squaring my shoulders, I stop in the middle of the podium to face the sea of distrustful faces.
“All right,” I say loudly with more calm than I feel. “If you have something to say to me, do it now instead of behind my back later.”
“What kind of Fey are you?” Daniel asks from his usual spot at the back, his new knight sigil shining stark on the lapel of his uniform. “Just so’s I know how to use you after I catch you.”
“What kind of Fey?” I repeat stupidly.
“Certainly not a Leanan Sidhe,” Daniel continues. “You’re too ugly for that.”
“But she did seduce the President,” Brockton says, sniggering.
“Maybe she’s part-gnome?” Ross adds, snorting at his own, dumb joke.
“Nah, too tall,” Daniel says. He leans forward in his seat, tapping his lips with his forefinger. “I’m thinking maybe she’s a Dearg Due. She seems like the bloodsucking type.”
“Ew!” Laura exclaims, simpering one row in front of Daniel. “Sooo grooooossss.”
“Somebody might want to warn our beloved President that his life’s in danger,” Daniel adds, obviously pleased with all the attention. “Unless, of course, he’s into that sort of thing.”
Heat rises to my cheeks and I have to bite on my tongue to stop myself from lashing out at him—one might forgive me for a broken door, but I doubt people will be as lenient if I do the same to someone’s skull.
“There’s no need to insult Arthur by bringing him down to your level,” Keva says. “Besides, the only reason he picked Morgan to be his squire was so he could keep an eye on her, same reason they made me be her roommate again.”
I force my mouth to wind back shut at this new revelation of Keva’s, and mentally kick myself for not realizing the truth sooner. I should’ve known that the Board would want my every move watched closely, even if it means having my own friends spy on me.
“I don’t know who or what my mother is,” I finally say, cutting their argument short. I flex my fingers menacingly. “But if you want, I’ll be more than glad to test my powers out on you. Of course, the process of elimination can be a long one….”
I have the pleasure of seeing Daniel’s face turn a couple of shades paler, and let my hand fall back to my side.
“Anyone else?” I ask, scanning the benches.
But everyone’s curiosity seems to have been satisfied and, with a contented smirk, I drop into the empty chair next to Bri.
“That was so unnecessary,” Keva says, tipping her chair back to look at me. “Now you’re really going to make everyone hate you.”
“Well at least they are being honest about it,” I say coldly. “Better that than getting stabbed in the back. Seems the only one I can count on here is Bri, after all.” I see Jack flinch next to Keva at his exclusion, but I can’t forget how he testified against me after Jennifer’s attack.
At the mention of her name, Bri finally looks at me, a feverish glint in her eyes.
“Did you do it?” she asks.
“Did I do what?”
“Push him.”
“Push who?” I ask, with growing confusion.
“Owen,” Bri says, her voice barely more than a whisper. “I heard you pushed him onto the Siege Perilous.”
Jack glances over his shoulder at me, his blue eyes reflecting my own concerns. Who could have come up with such a terrible lie? But I already know the answer: Jennifer.
“Of course I didn’t,” I say, nauseous at the thought she would believe such a thing about me. “How could you even ask me that?”
Bri’s eyes take on a faraway look that scares me even more. “I suppose…,” she says at last, losing all interest in the conversation again.
I dig my nails into the palm of my hands to stop them from shaking. I know that we haven’t had time to talk, what with getting locked away right after Owen’s disappearance, then the attack on the school, and of course my short spell in jail….
But to accuse me of murder? That, I must admit to myself, hurts more than finding out Keva’s spying on me.
“I see people are clowning around rather than getting some more studying done!” a gruff voice says.
Sir Boris hobbles in, his iron cane clacking on the floor with every second step. He drops his heavy satchel onto his desk, eyebrows raised high on his bald head. “So perhaps we should make this lesson a quiz,” he says.
A loud grumble of protest rises from the class, and Sir Boris motions for everyone to calm down.
“However,” he says, shuffling over to the board, chalk in hand, “it wouldn’t be fair to some of us who have been…indisposed for a little while.”
“Didn’t think a changeling would get preferential treatment at this school,” Daniel mutters.
Sir Boris, mid-text, drags the chalk down on the board with a loud, ear-splitting screech, leaving a long, white mark down the black surface.
“I may have lost the use of one of my legs,” he growls, “but not my hearing. So if I hear one more word out of you, Mr. von Blumenthal, it will be detention for a week.”
I grin as Daniel’s face turns bright red at being called like a commoner, and look at Bri to laugh with her. But, eyes glazed, she doesn’t respond, and I wonder if perhaps she hasn’t started losing her mind like her brother did.
Sir Boris smacks the butt of his cane on the blackboard, making me jump in surprise.
“Take note,” he barks. “Now!”
The classroom erupts in a flurry of pens scratching on paper as we all write down Sir Boris’s notes:
Of the four main elementals, the Undine is the second trickiest to catch, after
the Sylph. If unprepared, it will easily slip through one’s fingers, never to be seen by the knight again. Therefore, many like to use other elementals to catch Undines,
either the help of a Sylph or, if unavailable, with that of a gnome.
“Sir?” Laura asks, raising her hand in the air. “Why can’t we use another undine or a salamander to catch them?”
“Using two elementals of the same nature against one another is bound to be chaotic,” Sir Boris says. “Think of it as trying to make two magnets touch each other: It requires an incredible amount of force to make it happen, and then the moment you release the pressure, they fly away from each other again. Now think how that would be with elementals. The results would be unpredictable, and potentially lethal for the handler.
“As for using salamanders to catch undines,”—Sir Boris shakes his head, the handles of his long moustache swinging back and forth like pendulums over his large stomach—“just think of what fire does to water. The best it can do is make it evaporate, and then the nymph is definitely out of your reach. More often than not, however, your ogham will be overwhelmed and could even be destroyed. A free elemental is much stronger than one chained by us, for their link to their source of power hasn’t been cut off.
“Now, who can tell me how one could catch an undine without the use of oghams?” Sir Boris looks around the classroom hopefully. But after a minute, his jowls sag in disappointment. “A trap,” he finally says. “Every Fey out there has a weakness for something—it’s how they lost their place in Paradise to begin with. The trick is to know what that weakness is.”
Sir Boris grabs another piece of chalk and nearly pulverizes it on the board in his frenzy.
“Gems, for example, are very potent!” he explains. “Like magpies can’t resist shiny objects, so too can undines not resist the lure of the following stones: Amethysts, lapis lazuli, aquamarines, azurites, and, most importantly, moonstones.”
“Why most importantly?” a girl at the front of the class asks.
“Because,” Sir Boris says, straightening away from the board with an irritated look, “undines are ruled by the moon.”
Morgana Trilogy Complete Series Page 47
