“I’m a monster,” I say flatly, “and monsters don’t deserve to live.”
I push the jagged piece of mirror through the remains of my shirtsleeve and into my flesh. Blood pools at the tip then flows down to my blackened hand as I pull the fragment of glass across my forearm, from elbow to wrist. I bite on my lips to stop myself from screaming, the pain burning its way up to my shoulder, forcing me to connect with reality again. Yet, even as the cut reaches my hand, it’s already mending itself.
I pull the shard back out before ramming it into my forearm again, cutting more deeply, only to watch in horror as my muscles, tissue and skin knit themselves back up again.
I burst into hysterical sobs, raking the broken piece of glass up and down my arm, feeling it hit the bone, until the water around me is scarlet with my blood, my arm screaming in agony.
The door to the restrooms slams open.
“Morgan, stop!” Arthur yells.
I hear him rush over, the water splashing as he drops on the floor next to me, then his warm hand grabs my own before I can stab myself again, crushing my fingers in his fist.
“I’ve got to find the ogham!” I shout, tears pouring down my face. “Only then will I be able to stop!”
Arthur twists my arm around and I let out a sharp yelp, dropping the shard into the murky waters of the overflowing toilets.
“No!” I scream hysterically. “I’ve got to find it, it’s the only way!”
“Morgan, stop it!” Arthur yells, grabbing my other arm before I can find another piece of glass.
“Don’t look at me,” I wail, bursting in renewed tears. “I’m evil! You should put me down before I hurt anyone else!”
Arthur’s arms suddenly encircle me, holding me so tight to him that I can barely breathe. I try to fight him off, but no matter what I do he doesn’t let go.
“I can’t hurt them anymore,” I wail, pounding his back feebly. “I keep getting everyone killed….”
“Shh,” Arthur says, rocking me back and forth, “it’s OK, everything’s OK.”
My sobs eventually die down to a hiccup, and Arthur finally pulls away from me.
“Bri’s fine,” he says, “there’s nothing to worry about. It was just an accident.”
I want to tell him that he’s got it wrong. That he was never supposed to protect me. If he’d kept me in jail, then Bri would never have been hurt in the first place. And if I hadn’t been brought to Lake High, Owen wouldn’t have sat in that stupid chair, and Percy wouldn’t have almost died fighting the banshee, and the whole attack on the school wouldn’t have happened! And if my father had let me die at the hands of that Shade, then Agnès would never have been murdered, and he himself…
A strangled sob escapes my lips.
Everything bad that’s happened around me started with my cursed birth.
“Let me show you something,” Arthur says, pulling me up after him.
I stumble as he leads me to an intact mirror. Then, using his wet finger, he traces some runes on its surface before whispering a few words. The mirror fogs up, smoky white tendrils rising from its smooth surface before dissipating again to show me a woman’s face, smiling as it looks down at something outside the mirror’s range.
“Who is that?” I ask, my voice breaking.
“You really don’t recognize her?” Arthur asks. “Even after you fought tooth and nail to save her?”
Arthur traces another glyph in the mirror’s corner and the image pulls out so that I can now see what the woman’s smiling at.
“A baby,” I whisper, finally recognizing the pregnant lady from the fight by Little Lake Butte Des Morts. I glance at Arthur in amazement. “They both survived?” I ask, still unwilling to believe what my eyes are showing me. The woman had been attacked by a Fey, pumped full of poison, and on the verge of giving birth in below-freezing temperatures…those aren’t what can be called ideal survival conditions.
Arthur nods, smiling. “They wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for you,” he says.
I look again at the nursing mother, remembering the warmth that had spread from my hands into her body. I hold out my hand to touch the infant’s soft-looking cheek, but the moment my fingers graze the mirror the image dissolves.
“So don’t you ever hurt yourself like that again, understood?” Arthur says meeting my eyes in the mirror’s reflection. “If it weren’t for you, those people wouldn’t have made it, Jennifer would be long gone, and I would just be another name on the casualty list.”
I nod slowly, though I am not entirely convinced I shouldn’t have my powers restrained somehow.
“Good,” Arthur says, sounding relieved, “then let’s get out of here and call for a cleanup crew.”
But as he takes a step, his knee gives out.
“You’re bleeding!” I exclaim, rushing to his help.
“It’s nothing,” Arthur says, pulling a shard of mirror out of his knee and dropping it on the inundated floor.
“Don’t tell me it’s nothing,” I say. “It’s an open wound and”—I straighten up and point at the broken toilets which, thankfully, have stopped their spewing—“with all the crap around us, it could get infected, or you could get cryptosporidiosis[60], or hookworms, or—”
“OK, OK, I get it,” Arthur says with a disgusted grimace. “I’ll go see Dr. Cockleburr.”
“Or…” I narrow my eyes at him and he takes a half-step back, wincing.
“Or what?” he asks apprehensively.
“Or I could heal it for you,” I say haltingly.
Arthur looks around uncertainly.
“Don’t you trust me?” I ask, unable to stop my voice from shaking.
I find myself holding my breath as I wait for his answer.
“Do…do your thing then,” Arthur says, rather stiffly.
“Awesome,” I squeak out. I clear my throat. “Uh, why don’t you sit down over there?” I say, motioning towards a small wooden stool down by the showers where the floor isn’t covered in refuse.
As Arthur limps across the room, I wash my hands and arms until my skin is raw, apprehension knotting my insides, then drag my feet over to him.
“Could you, uh, roll up your pants?” I ask, kneeling before him.
I hold my hands before me so they won’t touch anything dirty as Arthur carefully reveals his wound.
Without my asking to, he passes his hand over his injury.
“Laguz,” he murmurs.
One of Arthur’s rings sparkles pearlescent white and a soft jet of water washes the grime off his leg. A vision of Bri lying unconscious on the school desk flashes before me and my hands start shaking uncontrollably. I look up apprehensively, but Arthur has the good grace to pretend not to notice.
“It appears to have passed right next to the patellar tendon,” I say to distract myself from the terrifying thought of losing control over my abilities again. I gently prod his knee and blood seeps from the deep gash. “Though it could have damaged your meniscus…and perhaps even your anterior cruciate ligament.”
I babble on for another minute, enumerating every single medical fact I know about the knee to hide my increasing nervousness.
Finally, when I’ve run out of things to say, I take a deep breath, lay my hands over the cut and close my eyes.
Please, just please don’t let me blow his leg to pieces, I silently pray. Slowly, a pleasant heat envelops my hands. I want to open my eyes but I’m too scared to see what I’m doing. What if I’m making it worse instead, or making something strange grow, like a spike, or fur? Arthur’s leg is awfully soft, now that I think about it….
I fling my eyes open and let out a sigh of relief. Arthur’s knee looks as good as new—no fur, no spikes or scales and, most importantly, no gaping wound.
“You could’ve told me I was done,” I mutter, shivering with relief.
Not getting an answer, I lift my eyes and notice Arthur’s looking neither at his leg nor at my face. I follow his gaze down, wondering what’s ca
ught his attention, only to find that my torn shirt is sticking to me in a very revealing way.
Heat blazes to my cheeks. I throw my arms up to cover myself and my fist connects with a loud thwack. Arthur gasps in surprise as he falls off his stool, smacking his head hard on the tiled wall.
“Oops,” I say. “Didn’t mean to give you a concussion.”
A voice coming from the bathroom’s doorway makes us both jump. “It was either that or somethin’ much more embarrassin’,” Percy says with what can only be an evil grin. “Came to tell ya that Irene wants to see ya both. I recommend ya don’t change—could make the conversation briefer and to the point, so’s you guys can resume where ya left off real quick.”
And with a wink, Percy dashes away.
Chapter 16
To my perverted pleasure, Percy wasn’t wrong—the moment we walk inside the KORT room, I see Irene’s small face pucker up in distaste.
“What have you two been up to, cleaning the sewers?” she asks. “Never you mind,” she adds as I open my mouth to reply, “I don’t want to know. I just called you in here to inform you that I’ve called the Board over and they’re sending a crew to pick up the Sangraal. They’ve asked that Morgan demonstrate how it works to them before they leave. Oh, and they’ll want to interrogate the Watchers as well.”
“You. Did. What?” Arthur asks, tense as a drawn bowstring.
“What I had to do, evidently,” Irene retorts. “What you should have done. You know very well that this place isn’t secure anymore, what with the spy working from inside the school, and the wards currently down. On top of that, I heard you almost got ousted last week.”
“I gave you no permission to remove the Sangraal from the school’s precinct,” Arthur says. “It’s always been here, and it shall remain here.”
Irene gives a tired sigh. “This is no time to have a fight, Arthur. I just told you about it out of courtesy, so my son won’t look like an idiot for once.”
“I still can’t allow it to happen,” Arthur says. “You talk about things being bad here? Yet why is it that you never broach the subject of corruption within the Board itself? Or has Luther converted you to his side of the matter too?”
Irene casts me an uncertain look. “You shouldn’t talk about your father like that,” she says quickly.
“Why not?” Arthur asks. “It’s only the truth. It seems to me the Sangraal is just another stepping stone to garner more people at your sides. I suppose you find it’s too bad Jen’s father was elected to the Board’s presidency after you two so carefully managed to get rid of Gorlois.”
A loud, resounding smack echoes around the large room. Arthur doesn’t budge, but I feel like I’m the one who got hit. I look at the two of them with growing confusion. What did Arthur just say about my father?
“You have no idea what truly happened back then,” Irene says through clenched teeth, “despite nosing in secret files. And you should get rid of Morgan before she brings you down along with her.”
And in a whisper of satin and lace, Irene flounces out of the spinning KORT room.
Dizzy, I close my eyes and feel my balance shift, catching myself on the back of one of the chairs before I can fall down.
“What else haven’t you told me?” I ask, breaking the strained silence. I open my eyes to look at Arthur straight on.
“I’m sorry,” Arthur says. “I didn’t… I mean, it wasn’t…” He rakes his hand through his already disheveled hair.
I scowl at him and Arthur looks away, a blush that has nothing to do with his mother’s slap creeping all the way up to his hairline.
“Sorry,” he says. He looks at me pleadingly. “That last part I said about, you know…it’s just a conjecture on my part. I wanted to shock her.”
“But there’s a reason why that thought crossed your mind, isn’t there?” I ask.
“It’s more complicated than that,” Arthur says.
I watch him as he paces up and down the room to get rid of his nervous energy. “I know Luther’s goal has always been the Board presidency,” Arthur explains. “In his eyes, there are only two categories of people: Those who can help him, and he uses them avidly; and those who can hinder him, in which case…. Well, anyway, despite what it may look like now, Irene really did love Gorlois. Given the choice, she’d never have picked Luther.”
“So you’re saying that Luther killed my father?” I ask, my head pounding with an oncoming migraine.
“No,” Arthur says. “The reports are clear on that—he was killed the same way those other people were, the same way Jennifer almost was: By Fey poison.”
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” I ask. “He is your father, after all.”
Arthur freezes for a second, as if he’s just been slapped again. “True,” he says. “No matter how many times I wished that weren’t so, although sometimes I’m glad it’s him rather than….”
Arthur looks away, as if ashamed, and I know he meant to say he’d rather have Luther than a Fey for a father. Finally, his hazel eyes find mine again. “I’ll show you I’m telling you the truth,” he says.
“How?”
“I’ll show you your father’s file.”
A thrill flows down my spine. “Truly?”
“Truly,” Arthur says, then his lips split into a rueful smile. “But you’re going to have to do a little more training if you want that to happen, because it means going to Camaaloth.”
I let out my breath in a rush. Arthur’s taking me to the Board’s headquarters, my father’s previous home!
◆◆◆
Still reeling from the roller coaster ride my emotions have taken me on, I stumble to the infirmary where I find Bri lying on a bed at the far end of the ward, listening with a frown to Keva who’s writing next to her.
Despite my quiet footfalls, my pungent scent alerts them both to my presence, as denoted by the distinct wrinkling of their noses.
“What happened to you?” Bri asks, round-eyed.
“Let’s just say that we won’t be able to use the bathrooms on our floor for a while,” I say.
“You could have at least taken a shower before coming down here,” Keva says, pointing to the side of the bed furthest from her.
“I just wanted to make sure that….” I look at Bri, shifting from one foot to the other. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“What for?” Keva ask. “This is the perfect excuse for Bri to skip out on practice again. She should be thanking you instead.”
I smile in relief, glad neither of them seems to hate me for what happened in class, and sink into an empty chair, all my energy evaporated.
“So let’s go back to the letter,” Keva says as her pen resumes its scratching. “If I say ‘I miss you most terribly every minute I’m not with you,’ do you think that’ll sound like him?”
“No,” Bri says categorically.
“Right,” Keva says. “Well, since you’ve said no to everything so far, I’m still going to keep that in there.”
“What are you two doing?” I ask, frowning as a migraine thumps behind my eyes in tandem with the wild beatings of my heart.
“Writing a letter,” Keva says, still scribbling away.
“I realize that,” I say, “but what for? And to whom?”
“To Professor Pelletier,” Keva says.
“You miss her?” I ask, confusion redoubling my headache. “Didn’t we just have her class yesterday?”
“Not me, Hadrian.”
I look pointedly at the letter and Keva sighs dramatically.
“Fine, technically I’m the one who’s writing it,” Keva says, “but I’m going to sign his name.” She pulls another sheet from under the letter to show it to me. “I’ve got a sample of his writing here, so that’s easy.”
“Why are you still doing that?” I ask. “I thought that your previous letter had succeeded?”
“Because,” Keva says, speaking as if I have a negative IQ, “although those two clearly fancy eac
h other, I’m tired of seeing them playing coy. We’re in the middle of a war here, there’s no time to beat about the bush. I figured if the two of them finally hook up then Hadrian’ll be bound to give me some space to breathe.”
“What if it backfires?” I ask, laughing.
“Can’t,” Keva says. “The attraction’s there, it’s already been confirmed. I’m just giving them a gentle, extra push.” She looks up at me and cocks her head. “I know I’ve asked you this before, but are you sure you don’t want me to do one for you too? Love letters are actually quite entertaining, so I’m taking orders.”
Lugh’s face suddenly comes to mind and I feel myself blush.
Keva’s smile deepens. “Who were you thinking about? Arthur?”
The name shatters my daydreaming. “What?” I exclaim. “No way!”
“Bandar kya jaane adrak ka swaad[61],” Keva mutters. She taps her pen thoughtfully on her chin. “If not him, then who were you thinking about?”
I look down at my lap. “No one,” I mumble, grimacing as a searing pain jabs my insides.
“Don’t lie,” Keva says, wheedling, “it’s so obvious when you do. So if not Arthur, who? Percy? Gareth? Gauvain? Lance?”
I shake my head ‘no’ at every name.
“It’s not like you’re close to anyone in our year,” Keva says thoughtfully. “So it’s gotta be someone outside. I give up. Maybe you got bonked on the head by some Fey during our outing and lost your marbles….”
My blush deepens and Keva stops, a mischievous gleam entering her dark eyes. “That’s it, isn’t it?” she asks. “You’re in love with a Fey.”
“I’m not in love!” I exclaim, louder than anticipated.
Keva smirks and I realize I’ve subconsciously touched my lips, and I quickly drop my hand back in my lap.
“That good, huh?” Keva says.
“A Fey, Morgan?” Bri asks, sounding disgusted. “It’s worse than kissing a dog’s behind!”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Keva says. “We all know the lures of the immortals are hard to resist—every world mythology is full of such stories.” She sits up on the edge of her seat as if ready to pounce on me like a sphinx. “So how was it? And who was it?”
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