“Resources?” Cole asked, watching him. Exhaustion seemed to press down on the man, leaving him suddenly wondering when his father had last slept.
Victor sighed. “The staff she carries, as well as any other artifacts in her possession.” He gestured dismissively. “It’s not something to concern yourself over, and Simeon should not have let those same concerns get the best of him. We can’t operate assuming she’ll find a way to bind us again at any moment. We can only focus on now, and what we can do to stop that from happening.”
Cole hesitated, fairly certain his surprise was plastered across his face, despite the fact his dad didn’t seem to notice. He couldn’t believe he’d forgotten, or that it’d never occurred to him that they didn’t know. In all the waiting and concern for Lily, it hadn’t even crossed his mind.
“She…” His eyes darted to Brogan. The man lifted a piece of paper to read, giving no sign he heard anything from the office. “She doesn’t have the staff.”
Victor’s gaze snapped up from the desktop. “Excuse me?”
“Ashe doesn’t have the staff,” Cole repeated. “It was destroyed when she pulled me through that portal.”
“You’re certain?”
“I watched it disintegrate in her hands.”
A short chuckle escaped Victor. “I hadn’t thought anything could destroy something like Merlin’s staff.”
“Getting a cripple through a portal.”
“Indeed.”
Victor shook his head in amazement, but slowly, the humor faded from his face.
“What?” Cole asked.
“It’s nothing. I’m grateful you told us, even if her sources will simply give her a new weapon since that one is gone.”
“Sources?”
“The Merlin historians,” Victor said, an edge to his words. “The ones that, unlike her, we have never managed to find.”
Cole hesitated, glancing to Brogan again. “You’re looking for the Merlin historians?”
Victor chuckled. “Seems ironic, I know. But believe me, those historians are the other piece to ending this war. Or, more specifically, their archives are. Merlin’s historians kept records of everything, from fairytales of immortal wizards to progress reports on reconstruction after the last war. And while we might not need all that, we believe they do possess information that would enable us to defend our people in ways that haven’t been possible for nearly five centuries.”
“What do you mean?”
“Deterrence, primarily. As I’ve said, bloodshed is not our goal. But with the knowledge we would gain from the Carnegeans’ archives, we’d be able to communicate to the Merlin and Taliesin perpetuating this war that, should they continue to do so, they will face an enemy with skills beyond their own.”
“And if Ashe got her hands on those archives?”
His father paused. “She would do the same, in her way.”
Cole looked down. He could feel Brogan in the next room, listening intently for all that he continued pretending to read. The tension of Simeon’s departure still hung in the air, and he couldn’t for a moment believe the giant wouldn’t share everything he heard with the other Blood, if for no other reason than their apparently low morale.
But it didn’t matter. He couldn’t sabotage his dad, regardless of what he thought of the others. If the Carnegeans’ records really were that important, his father had to know the truth, and now. After all, Lily might crack, or give away the information accidentally. For all he knew, she’d done it already, and everything his grandparents had was currently in the bloody queen’s hands.
The possibilities after that were too terrible to contemplate.
“I don’t think Ashe knows about them.”
Victor’s brow furrowed.
“Lily and I were the ones who found the staff, not Ashe. And the Carnegeans… my grandparents,” he acknowledged with a grimace in his father’s direction. “They hid from everyone, Merlin included. Had everybody convinced they’d been dead since the war began. We just stumbled across them by accident.”
His father stared. Cole shrugged.
“You just stumbled across them…?” Victor repeated. “But the queen doesn’t know where they are?”
“I don’t think she knows anything about them at all,” Cole said, hoping the words were still true.
“But what did you tell her about the staff?”
“I… I lied. I told her we got it from a drifter we’d stayed with for a while, until Taliesin killed him and burned his place down with everything inside.” Cole paused. “I don’t think Lily will tell her the truth.”
“Because you asked her not to?”
Cole winced illustratively, but nodded. “And because she’s worried the Carnegeans will hurt her sister if Ashe goes there.”
“But you know where they are?”
He nodded again. “Washington state, north of the Kettle Falls area.”
Victor exhaled, closing his eyes as a smile pulled at his mouth. Shaking his head, he glanced to Brogan, who looked up from his papers and nodded shortly.
“Thank you,” Victor said to Cole as Brogan strode from the room. “You have no idea how much you’ve helped us today.”
Cole looked down uncomfortably.
A moment passed, but his father didn’t say anything else.
“Have you heard anything about Lily?”
Victor blinked, drawing himself out of his thoughts. “My apologies. You didn’t come here to simply listen to our problems.”
He waited.
“We have a lead,” Victor confessed. “That was part of what brought Simeon up here. And, if all goes well, we are hopeful it will result in finding Lily,” he paused, “today.”
Cole froze.
“A contact has informed us that the Merlin are attempting to relocate the girl. One of the queen’s bodyguards will be meeting a pilot at the airport outside Banston today at two, after which he’ll travel with Lily to an undisclosed location.” Victor smiled reassuringly. “Don’t worry. Simeon’s team will reach her before the Merlin put her on the plane.”
Cole exhaled, running a hand over his hair as relief hit him. Just like that, it’d be over. The waiting, anyway. She’d be here, safe.
And Ashe could be dead.
He paused, the relief melting like ice in a heat wave. Lily might have to watch her sister die today. And here he was smiling.
Glancing up, he swallowed, trying to push the discomfort aside. “So then what?” he asked, his voice tighter than he’d have liked.
“Then,” Victor said, “after we get Lily settled and hopefully adjusted to what’s happened… we see what she can do to help the Merlin agree to negotiate.”
Cole nodded, his gaze dropping to the ground. The first part would take weeks. Probably more. He wanted to believe she’d understand eventually, he just hoped his father was prepared for months to pass between now and that time.
“Do you think they’re even going to listen to her?” he asked distractedly. “I mean…?”
He shrugged rather than finish, not really wanting to remind himself that negotiating hinged on getting a bunch of grown Merlin to obey a kid.
Silence answered him. He looked up to find Victor watching him.
“They will.”
“Are you sure?”
His father paused, a considering look creeping into his eyes. “The Merlin’s Children,” he began, as though choosing his words carefully. “They possess similar abilities to mine. I assume you know that.”
Cole shrugged again, nodding.
“But their powers are not exactly the same,” Victor continued. “In one, vitally important aspect, they are utterly distinct. The Merlin’s Children can create a spell which binds an entire people. And based upon everything I’ve seen in my research… and in all the research I did with your mother before the Carnegeans disowned her… I am fairly certain I cannot. The ability was somehow tied to the Merlin’s Children’s bloodline and,” he chuckled dryly, “despite m
y rather crude method of mixing that blood with my own, it remains something they alone can do.”
Victor exhaled and folded his hands in front of him, humor fading. “Which is why we need Lily’s help. Between her abilities and the information your grandparents maintained, we have a very good chance of binding those who oppose us. The spell operates on affiliation, that much was clear by the way it bound everyone associated with Taliesin’s supporters in the first war. Using this spell, we could bind Ashe’s allies and any Taliesin who resist us in a single moment. And if they still choose to fight…” he splayed his hands illustratively.
Cole eyed him warily. The hairs on his arms were raising and, for some reason, it was becoming hard to breathe. “What?” he asked cautiously.
“We are up against forces determined to enforce their worldview on us, no matter the cost. The losses we’ve suffered, you’ve already seen. But even without their magic, there is a strong possibility they will keep fighting. They are willing to do anything to continue this war, Cole. You’ve witnessed that. And you know the brutality monsters like Ashe are capable of. If she’d found your grandparents first, I do not want to imagine what she would have done. So, if we have no other choice… we may have to force the issue.”
Cole swallowed. He couldn’t have stopped the question if he tried. “How?”
Victor paused, as though deciding again precisely what to say. “If pushed hard enough,” he allowed, “the spell does have the ability to end the lives of those it is used against. Merlin obviously never took it that far, but based on what some historians believe… he could have. Of course, we don’t want to do that, and if it came to that point, we would only seek to eliminate those it would take to serve as an example to the others. I told you, bloodshed is not our goal. But you know the atrocities the Merlin queen committed, and that her people supported. If pushing the spell is what it takes to make them understand they must end the war…” he gestured regretfully, “then that is what we will have to do.”
Cole wanted to blink, but he couldn’t make himself move. Everything in the room seemed to have come down to the fixed point of his father’s face and the small shrug of his hands. The world beyond the window was a white glare and his body felt strangely thick, as if he didn’t know what to do with it anymore.
“But this is where we are going to need your help,” Victor continued.
The words hit him like a blast from a fire hose. He fought not to choke.
“Lily will have trouble understanding this,” his father said. “She is a child and she has not seen what you have. Or,” he amended, his eyebrows rising and falling eloquently, “we hope she has not. But, regardless, she trusts you, and she will need your help to understand that this is not about hurting people as her sister has so willingly done. This is about securing peace. It always has been. And if, upon binding them, Merlin and Taliesin back down and negotiate with us for their surrender, so be it. That is what we would prefer. And if they do not…”
He sighed. “I promise you, she won’t have to see it, or know the details of what you’re asking of her. We can shelter her from that. We must shelter her from that; it’s the only humane thing to do. And later, when she’s older and this war is something for the history books… then hopefully she’ll understand that through her efforts and those wizards’ sacrifices, peace became a reality.”
Cole shook his head, frantically trying to figure out how the man in front of him could be the same one he’d been speaking to only moments before. A breath entered his lungs, rasping his throat like sandpaper as it came. “She…” He swallowed hard. “Dad… she’s just a kid. She…”
A compassionate expression flickered across Victor’s face. “She’s a weapon, Cole,” he said gently. “In our hands or theirs. You need to realize that. Both those girls are.”
Trembling spread up from his stomach and his forearms were glued to the wooden surface of the chair. His eyes searched his father’s face, desperate for the joke, for the explanation that would somehow make this sane.
But there was nothing.
“Dad–”
A knock sounded behind him, and he flinched. On shaky arms, he twisted in the cage of the chair and looked back to see Brogan slip around the door.
“My apologies,” the giant said, bowing slightly. “Keller needs to speak with you.”
Cole heard his father sigh, and when he turned back around, he froze to see the man watching him.
“I know this is hard, Cole,” Victor said. “But I also know we’re the best hope Lily has for a normal life, given what she is. She can be safe and happy here, more than she’d ever be elsewhere. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
A chuckle escaped Cole, the sound clinging by its fingernails to this side of hysteria. He could feel Brogan at his back and see the expectation on his father’s face, along with the concern slowly growing in his eyes. His dad wanted him to agree. Needed him to agree.
And Cole couldn’t even find it in himself to breathe.
Swallowing hard, he moved his head in something approximating a nod.
Victor smiled. “Then we’ll talk more soon.”
“Yeah,” Cole managed.
“In the meantime,” his father continued. “We have a place set up for her, if you’d like to see? It’s the apartment down the hall from yours.”
He wasn’t sure if he nodded again. He wasn’t sure of anything. His rubbery arms moved of their own accord, pushing him out of the chair, and he had no choice but to obey the distant commands of his legs as they carried him across the room. As he neared the giant, his gaze twitched up to see Brogan staring him down.
Swallowing again, he glanced to his father. The expanse of Croftsburg sprawled in a vertigo-inducing abyss beneath the bright blue sky at his back, and his lips curled into a warm smile as he met his son’s eyes.
Cole barely kept from bolting as he fled the room.
*****
Brogan watched the boy leave the lobby. Pale didn’t begin to describe Cole’s complexion. Dead would have been more accurate.
Letting the door close behind him, he crossed to Jamison’s desk. “You told him the plan for the girl?” he asked, though he was fairly certain of the answer.
Jamison turned to the window, regarding the world below.
“Clearly he took it well,” Brogan commented.
Silence answered him. A grimace touched his expression as the seconds slid by.
“He is more attached to the child than I anticipated,” Jamison said quietly. “But Cole will come around. He agreed to the possibility of the Merlin queen’s death. He’ll agree to this.”
Brogan didn’t respond.
“That being said,” Jamison continued, his thoughtful tone fading. “There is still the interim.”
The king turned back from the window.
“Watch him. Let me know if his behavior becomes… concerning. But don’t let him become aware of your attention. I will not risk alienating my son. Not if it can be avoided.”
Brogan nodded and then drew out his phone. His gaze tracked the king as, ghosts of discomfort still clinging to his face, Jamison rose and headed for the conference room.
Chapter Eight
He needed to move. He couldn’t stop moving.
His feet carried him into the elevator, and then the wall brought him up short. Spinning, Cole paced back, but then came the door.
He’d hit a button. He couldn’t remember which. Blinking, he looked down, but then the door was open again and he didn’t care anymore. The hall blurred around him, as did the doors and walls and things that didn’t matter like people who were waiting at the end. Stopping sharply, he stared at them. They were guards. The guards on his apartment. He was on his floor.
His eyes went to the door beside him, and he blinked at the brass handle. He’d never given much thought to the only other doorway in the hall.
He’d just thought it was a storage room.
For some reason, the thought seemed excru
ciatingly ironic, though he couldn’t figure out why. With trembling fingers, he reached up and tugged the latch down.
The door swung wide.
It was pink. The room. Like a nightmare of flowers and fluff stripped from the pages of a girlish decorating magazine. An oversized pink butterfly made up the thick rug on the floor, and a multicolored butterfly mobile dangled from the ceiling and gently twisted in the air from the hall. An enormous mural of clouds and smiling butterflies filled one wall, with several of the creatures escaping into the bathroom as well. White wrought iron twisted in abstract loops around the king-sized bed, framing the vividly pink quilt and the profusion of flower-shaped pillows, while sheer pink curtains filtered the light from the windows.
She’d probably love it.
The thought hit him and he choked. On unsteady legs, he walked into the room, and his shoes sank into the butterfly rug before it occurred to him he was probably getting the enormous thing dirty. His gaze ran over the idiotically grinning creature and slowly, he felt his heart start to pound.
This couldn’t be happening. This was… this was stupid. Absurd. Stupid and absurd and wrong…
Oh God, this was wrong.
He gasped, yanking his gaze from the bug, only to find that the room still surrounded him.
This was beyond any definition of wrong. This made what Ashe’d done look like the practice run before the actual show.
Though she would have done it herself. Or tried to, if not for the fact they’d probably end up killing her today.
His father’s face rose in his mind. Cole sank onto the bed, trying not to be sick.
He hadn’t even cared. He’d been careful and meticulous and patient in his explanations, but he hadn’t actually given a damn that, in the midst of it all, Lily was a child…
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