Shades of Avalon

by Carol Oates

  He said what everyone had to be thinking. There was no way we were all walking away from this, but no one wanted to say it out loud. Zeal had no boundaries. We may hold back to save the lives of bystanders, but he wouldn’t. There was nothing he wouldn’t do, including sacrificing his own followers. We hadn’t been training to defend ourselves. We had been training to kill.

  My body heat and the warm room were beginning to dry out my clothes and turn the blood and slime to a crust on my skin. It itched my back and arms and felt as though it was closing in on me, constricting my body into something small and dirty.

  Archú, who lounged on the rug with his ears twitching every now and again, whined. Animals had a kind of sense of the darkness of a soul, and I’d heard it said they sensed death on the horizon. Was this was true of Archú?

  “Nothing has changed,” Triona resolved. “He’ll still be at the same place, at the same time. We still plan to stop him without anyone else losing his or her life to this madness. Nothing is different, except now we know he’s nervous.”

  “How do you work that out?” Lewis rested one massive hand on Carmel’s shoulder. Fine white lines and scratches covered his skin, mostly old from working with wood. A few were newer from training since he didn’t heal as fast as some of us.

  “He wants us to think he’s playing with us, but he had to know this was unnecessary and sloppy.”

  “Yes,” Eila said. “Triona is right. Taking the cauldron was rash. Zeal is used to having Lucien by his side to temper his impulsiveness. The closer he gets to his goal, the more likely he is to lose control. He fears that.”

  “What’s with the boxes?” I said.

  “That’s the other thing.” Samuel heaved a breath.

  Emma’s eyes ghosted over a few of them before she selected one and tossed it to me. “Check it out for yourself. I got a call before breakfast from the gatehouse to collect a delivery. I thought perhaps John ordered something online and forgot about it. I had Amanda drive me down, and when we get there, it’s a timber packing case full of boxes.”

  I balanced the box on the backrest of a chair nearest to me and tugged on the ribbon as the others searched out their own nametag. The ribbon fell away to the floor, but I didn’t bother with it and shuffled the lid of the box off. I found an envelope stuck inside the lid. In the main box, nestled in a mound of soft black satin, was a black mask. It was molded to fit snug over the nose and only cover a band around the eyes, made out of a hard, velvety substance.

  “Is this some sort of joke?” I demanded incredulously holding up the contents.

  “It’s a war missive,” Guinevere explained while waving a rectangle of white card embossed with gold writing. “A declaration of intent. In many societies throughout history, including your ancestor’s, it was common to feast the night before battle in case the warriors didn’t return. By hosting a masquerade ball the eve of the equinox, Zeal is asserting for some this will be a last hurrah.”

  Her words echoed what Emma had told me about the Picts. All the others were removing their masks from boxes. Ignoring mine, I placed the box on the table and drew out the white card made from expensive, weighted cardstock with a silken feel. Rich gold shimmer accentuated the embossed lettering. As Guinevere said, it was an invitation to a masquerade ball. Instead of an RSVP, there were instructions to wait at our hotel in Ireland where we’d be collected and delivered to our destination.

  Merlin covered his face with his mask, a gaudy green on the left and purple on the right, with gold piping around the outside and an elongated bulbous nose. The others, too, varied in levels of simplicity. Amanda’s was made up of delicate and complex swirls of black lace, Carmel’s, pure white, but it came with a peacock feather. Emma held her mask at arm’s length and squinted one eye. It appeared to be a black butterfly complete with rhinestone tipped antennae, which would settle between her brows. Its curling wings spread wide, bleeding to scarlet at the outer edges.

  “I guess he doesn’t know you changed your hair,” I quipped. The crystal winked, catching the stark, gray light coming in the window.

  Emma’s lips pursed a moment and quirked up on one side to a half-smirk. “I can rock the red.”

  “I can’t see how this is a good idea,” Caleb mused aloud. He tossed a cutaway, molded, dull gold mask back into the box. It reminded me of the famous phantom of the opera and was probably the creepiest. “It serves no purpose.” He pinched the bridge of his nose hard, leaving imprints of his thumb and forefinger when he dropped his hand by his side. “Or we should just attack there—get it over with.”

  “That’s just what he wants, and we won’t come off the better for it.” Annice left her husband’s side and approached her son, her silver eyes blazing with radiance. She’d probably convinced herself dozens of times that she’d never see him again. She brushed hair from Caleb’s temple and tilted her head. “Remember, we’re the bad guys in this scenario. To the people around him, we are the ones seeking the power of the Stone for our own ends, and he’s doing the world a service by keeping it from us. He will attempt the ceremony, arrogance convincing him that it won’t matter what anyone thinks afterward. We have to show Zeal caught with his hand in the cookie jar.”

  Caleb’s unspoken acceptance came in the form of a short burst of air through his nose. Annice had made him see things her way as she always did.

  Emma heaved a sigh. “I’d be much happier if the cookie jar Zeal wanted to crack open wasn’t my brother’s head. Eila—” she met the woman’s eyes across the table with the unfaltering gaze I’d come to expect from Emma “—you know Zeal best. Will he place his fatted calf on display? Will John be at this ball?”

  A flicker of sadness washed across Eila’s face before she caught herself and locked it away. “Honestly, I believe he’ll want John where he can keep an eye on him, but I really don’t know.”

  Emma closed her eyes a moment. Her eyelids were a pale blue color that seemed made to match her hair—had the shade of the wafer thin skin not been natural and caused by lack of sleep. Never a good look on anyone, not even those who favored blue hair.

  “So, the general consensus is play along for now,” I said flatly.

  “I have a question,” Joshua chimed in. “We’re traveling to Dublin in the morning. Where are we supposed to get costumes for this thing?” He held an iridescent blue eye mask that seemed to ripple when his hand moved.

  “I wouldn’t worry about that,” Emma answered, shaking her head slowly. “There’s a second box for each of us still out in the car.”

  “Before we go anywhere,” Caleb started, his gaze slid to Emma. “There’s another matter.”

  Chapter 32

  Hippogryph

  EMMA STEPPED CLOSER, running her fingers nervously over the surface of the table. “Caleb…don’t.”

  His jaw tightened, and he swallowed, guilt flickered across his expression before he contained his reaction and met Eila’s eyes.

  Triona shot a glance to her. “Caleb—”

  Joshua moved in front of his soul mate and crossed his arms. “No. Eila’s always done everything she can to help us, but you can’t keep using her as a lie-detector when you please.”

  Triona’s lips puckered closed, but she nodded.

  “What’s this about?” Amanda whispered, leaning her head closer to me. “If you were any stiffer you’d creak when you move.”

  “I have no clue.”

  Caleb strengthened. Triona’s eyes jerked in Samuel’s direction and back to him.

  “It isn’t important,” Caleb said to Triona in an even tone but loud enough for us to hear.

  He wanted to talk before we came in here and before Emma interrupted. I cursed under my breath. “This is about John. You were about to tell me something.”

  Triona’s eyes narrowed, confused and hurt. Caleb was obviously keeping something from her.

  Emma huffed out an angry breath. “He’s right—it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters except what we need to do
next.”

  My jaw slackened in surprise. Emma’s small nostrils flared, and her cheeks flushed crimson, clearly shocked at her own outburst.

  Merlin mumbled to himself in a singsong voice from the end of the table. Archú trotted over and nuzzled his head under Emma’s hand. She combed her fingers into his wiry fur and visibly relaxed.

  Triona pressed her palm flat over Caleb’s heart as though using his heartbeat to measure his honesty. “We said no more secrets.”

  Caleb closed his eyes and removed her hand, gently kissing her palm. “I can’t have any secrets, Emma. I’m sorry. Emma and John’s ancestors…”

  His eyes found Emma’s briefly, and she nodded with a tiny resigned shrug.

  “They were protectors of the royal bloodline.”

  My irritation at Caleb holding this back outweighed my surprise at the revelation. On some level, there were clues, if we’d stopped to consider…“The hippogryph,” I said to Emma. “The offspring of a horse—a mortal beast, and a gryphon—a mystical creature charged with protecting a treasure. The bloodline is the treasure. Now I get why you weren’t exactly surprised by my story in London. Which side of the family was it?”

  Emma sighed. “The statues go back seven generations on my father’s side. Cecil Hamilton had them made as a whimsical gift for his wife after the birth of their first child. I think the family secret goes back further,” she explained. “Our family became a bit redundant anyway after your parents chose to make Lewis and Carmel your protectors instead. John doesn’t know the family legacy. After our parents died, I used to hide out in the basement of the Brier and found an old journal. It mentioned records, but I only found the journal.”

  “The records we were given for safe keeping,” Lewis said.

  “I guessed the journal was something our dad meant to pass on to John or me, but I was too young, and John wouldn’t speak to him. I never told him about it. When you lot showed up, I was afraid if he found out he’d do something stupid…”

  “Like try to be a hero,” Triona finished for her.

  “John is a hero,” Emma corrected her.

  “He said Caleb had to know all his family skeletons by now,” I explained to a confused looking Amanda.

  Understanding crept into her expression. “Oh.”

  Triona shook her head and released a breathy laugh. “I’m an idiot. Now I get why you’ve been so damn jealous of him, right from the start.”

  “No,” Samuel added. “The information came to light after you took John’s memories. John and Emma were out of the picture. We weren’t supposed to be in their lives anymore. It was over for them. In truth it was over when your mother passed the mantle of protection to Lewis and Carmel.”

  “You knew too.” My accusation sounded bitter. “Why didn’t you tell us sooner?”

  “At first, I thought I was protecting him by keeping him from our world. Just like you tried to do, Triona.” Samuel glanced at her. “I considered it when we discovered he was changing, but no previous generations showed signs of such a transformation. I couldn’t see how they could be related. Then Emma begged us not to say. It was their secret, not ours. I made the wrong decision, and I’m sorry.”

  “Oh gods.” Triona staggered and was caught quickly by Caleb. He placed one steady hand on her elbow and the other around her waist. She struggled to remain calm. “He was supposed to know about us all along. Didn’t Merlin say many reach the first stage of becoming the Philosopher’s Stone? He was supposed discover the existence of Guardians. He was supposed to reach that stage.”

  “Regardless,” Merlin interjected in a moment of coherency from his mumbling. “The second stage is the most important. Memories were lost—power bestowed. A reversal of fortune. A change of fate. A boulder toppled down a hill, unstoppable…” He trailed off with words we didn’t listen to, and Archú whined.

  “If I’d known—”

  “None of us did,” Samuel cut Triona off. “By the time we did it was too late.”

  Emma moved around the table to Triona, with the hound by her side. “I will tell him. Like I said, I was afraid, and I didn’t think it’d help John to reopen old wounds from his relationship with our father. It doesn’t matter,” she said resolutely. “Now, it doesn’t matter.”

  “I’ve known a couple of months, and I was stupid to keep it from you,” Caleb added to Triona. “You had let him go. You said you were never going to see him again. I truly believed it wouldn’t benefit either of you. I wanted to tell you when Zeal released me, but Emma was insistent.”

  “It’s true,” Emma agreed and rolled her shoulders back, her quiver jangled at her hip. “Johnny is my family, and it was up to me to share our family secret with him.”

  “Secrets always hurt someone.” Triona shook her head and inhaled a calming breath, and I tried to do the same.

  I darted a look to Merlin. He smiled benignly, and I suspected the old coot knew from the instant we arrived at the Brier.

  “The first stage is nigredo—the destruction. It’s not so unusual for many to reach this stage. For John, it happened at Tara when he discovered the world wasn’t as he believed it to be.”

  He never said John wasn’t meant to know about Guardians. For a crazy guy he sure possessed an acute ability to manipulate words. Guinevere must have been onto something when she said John was a protector. It seemed he had that role in her life in every possible reality.

  Chapter 33

  The Deathwatch

  THE VIEW FROM OUR SUITE afforded me a skyline over the gray buildings of historic Trinity College in Dublin City. Among them, the nineteenth-century bell tower stood between the green lawns and the trees of Library Square and the cobbles leading to the west front entrance. This faced the white curved, pillared façade of the old central bank. In the distance, I glimpsed the roof of the library where two hundred thousand of the library’s books were housed under the barrel-vaulted ceiling of the Long Room. In the past, Samuel had spent an inordinate amount of time among the library’s extensive collections, some dating back to seventh century. He had been attempting to find clues to the true history of my family hidden by the Council. This was before I presented him with the pages passed down by the trusted humans who tried to hide our bloodline from the Council.

  I’d learned all this from Caleb the day he advised me not to wait to start my life with Amanda. Our conversation had taken place in this hotel, and this had been where we shared the news with Triona, and exchanged harsh words regarding Caleb. I accused Triona of being jealous that I didn’t leave Amanda despite her being human, the way he had left her in Camden before he knew we were Guardians. It had been true but cruel. I understood better now how our situations were different. Back then I didn’t fully grasp what I was getting Amanda into. Now, I understood the “why” of his reasons, even if I’d never comprehend the “how.”

  Being here also reminded me of the dinner party Triona hosted in the hotel’s largest suite, and I couldn’t help drawing parallels with this night. It was what Guinevere talked about, the celebration before the battle, the pretense of normality under a shadow of threat.

  It seemed as though we were retracing steps of our past. However, the rooms were not the same since the hotel had been refurbished to a more modern style in the intervening months. Our suite still smelled faintly of plaster and fresh paint, although stronger, more pleasant fragrances of leather and new wood overpowered it. The furniture was minimal and elegant, with dark leather and pure white linens on the bed.

  I heard the occasional car beeping and the low chuck, chuck of the city’s electric train line where I stood by the window in the separate lounge area. Mingled in with commuters and shoppers, tourists still sported their green colors proudly after the recent Saint Patrick’s festival. I smiled thinking of our trip to South Cadbury where Guinevere had pointed out my tourist apparel.

  I didn’t feel like a tourist here in Ireland. A hint of the fever I’d experienced on the journey to Tara the year before
prickled in my blood, drawing me back there. It was the land and my ancestors claiming me as their own. Triona felt it too, only stronger since she was the first-born child in this generation of the royal bloodline. Those binds were the reason she could never quite settle anywhere else for any length of time and why Triona and Caleb made their home in Ireland.

  I turned and picked up my cup of tea with milk—I’d developed a taste for it at the Brier—from the low coffee table. I ignored the black mask beside the room service tray. I poked my index finger into the tight space between the collar of my white dress shirt and my neck. Zeal had provided me, and almost all the men, with black tuxedos and expensive patent leather shoes. The tailored jackets were longer than the classic style, with narrow lapels giving them a contemporary twist. This brought up another question…since the Council’s wealth had been confiscated, where did Zeal get the money to mount his campaign? We had to presume from other Guardians supporting him. It made me queasy, the way our kind had turned against us and still believed Zeal’s distorted interpretation of the prophecy. We had believed the Guardians who arrived at Tara upon hearing Lia Fáil scream to proclaim the new queen would bear witness to what happened. We presumed they’d tell how we fought to free them from under Zeal and Lucien’s tyrannical laws. Instead, they feared us. How many of them would attend tonight? How many of them would stand with Zeal against us tomorrow morning? Would they lay down their lives, and if they did, could we take those lives?

  I believed I could because of my Guardian instincts to protect Amanda and Triona, my mate and my queen. On the other hand, I also knew no one could ever truly predict how he or she’d react in any situation until faced with it.