She nodded again, a quick bob of her head. She held up her hand. “I can do something for the pain, at least.” She hesitated. “You know that if I could give you back your power—”
“Do not fret over that, child,” he said. “Nimue stole from me, it is true, but it was meant to be. I know that I can never have that power again. Fate decrees against it.”
“I know,” Nora said, “and I’m sorry for it.”
Merlin closed his eyes.
“Thank you again,” she whispered. Another flash of red came from her palm.
Merlin’s eyes closed, and he went motionless, but there was less agony on his face than there had been before.
But Nora… she seemed to have become even more exhausted. Her whole body sagged, and when she turned around, Sawyer could see just how haggard she looked. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her face seemed thinner, almost as if she’d lost weight.
Squaring her shoulders, she headed across the room and down the steps.
And the four of them simply stood there, hidden by their blanket, and watched her go.
* * *
Maddie tugged the blanket off of their heads, considering that Nora was gone. She bit down hard on her bottom lip.
“Aren’t we going after her?” Lute said. “Are we going to get stuck here?”
“No,” Maddie said. “This is a cross-quarter day, and we’ll be able to get back to Helicon.”
“Well, that proves it, doesn’t it?” Sawyer said. “She came here because she wanted to know if she could fight against Owen. If she was in love with Owen, she wouldn’t be trying to fight against him. So she’s obviously playing him for a fool.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Maddie said. She wandered over to the edge of the room, peering out a window at the ground below. “All this time, she’s been fighting against Owen in secret. None of us have known, and she’s endured this alone.” She gripped the window. “When I think about it, it just makes me feel ill. I can’t imagine all the things she’s going through.” She leaned forward further out the window. And then, in a split second, she realized that she’d leaned too far. She was going to fall down into the darkness. The ground was stories and stories away.
She gasped, but she couldn’t regain her balance.
And then Agler’s strong arms were pulling her back from the window. “Careful,” he said. “That isn’t safe.”
She buried her face against his chest. His arms went tight around her.
It felt good. She held onto him. Why had she ever worried that Agler wouldn’t protect her, wouldn’t be there for her? She knew now, she could feel it in a way that he held her, that he thought she was precious. She was important. He’d never let anything happen to her.
The stuff with the pregnancy, he’d just been thrown. She was being too hard on him. She pulled back her head and looked up into his eyes. “Oh, Agler…”
“You gave me a heart attack,” he said. “Don’t do anything like that ever again.”
“Yeah, close call, Maddie,” Sawyer said.
Maddie couldn’t stop looking into Agler’s eyes. It was quiet for a minute and then she could see that something changed in his eyes too. He bent down towards her, and their lips met. It felt sweet and wonderful, and bursting full of promise.
Dimly, she was aware of Sawyer’s voice in the background, coughing pointedly. “Um, Lute and I are still here,” he said. “Still exactly right here.”
Maddie pulled away, blushing. “Sorry, I just…”
“No, we got it,” said Sawyer. “Near death, romance, yada yada.” He reached over and took Lute’s hand. “Don’t fall out a window, okay, babe?”
Lute laughed. “Yeah, I’ll do my best.”
“So… we go back to Helicon now?” said Maddie. “We need to talk to Nora.”
“No way will we find her without Owen,” said Agler.
“Right.” Maddie felt disappointed.
“But we should go back,” said Sawyer. He started for the steps.
Maddie took one last look at Merlin, encased in his crystal prison. She shivered. And then she followed Sawyer.
* * *
They didn’t think they would find Nora, at least not alone. She had said she needed an hour away from Owen, and that hour seemed to be almost up. When they got back to Helicon, Sawyer stowed away the invisibility blanket. They all should have now spent their time having fun at Halloween. But none of them were really in the mood anymore.
Still, in order to keep up appearances, they found themselves somehow stumbling into one of the haunted houses in the architecture enclave. This one looked like a big abandoned castle. It was complete with bats flying around the turrets. No one was quite sure how the architecture enclave had managed that. It might have been a bit of muse magic, which was probably forbidden.
Whatever the case, they all started in together.
The haunted house was fairly typical. Some skeletons jumped out at them. They were chased by a ghoul brandishing some kind of ancient ax.
And then they came to a portion of the haunted house that was actually a sort of maze. There were mirrors on every wall, making it difficult to know where they were going. The mirrors reflected spooky things. It was difficult to tell whether anything was actually on the wall or if it was just a reflection. Some of the walls turned inward, making everything even more confusing.
They saw Nora up ahead. She was alone. Owen wasn’t anywhere around. She was sitting down in the corner, back against one of the mirrored walls, her head in her hands. She seemed to have smeared her Halloween makeup a little bit.
Maddie ran forward and knelt down on the ground next to her. “Nora!” Maddie threw her arms around her friend. “Nora, I’m so sorry.”
Nora looked up at her, confused. “What?”
“Everything you’ve been going through. Pretending to be in love with Owen all to get information about whether or not he’s stealing power from the gods,” Maddie said. “I can’t believe you’ve been keeping this from us all this time. And you look so tired.”
Sawyer was hot on her heels. He knelt down next to Maddie. “I’ve been horrible,” he said. “You know that. But I thought I lost you or something. Nothing made sense to me. I’m sorry about the things I said to you.”
Nora looked up at the both of them, shaking her head. “What are you talking about?” She was angry. “I have absolutely no idea what you’re saying.”
“Oh, come on,” Maddie said. “We saw you going to talk to Merlin. There’s no reason to hide.”
“Yeah, and Lute overheard you talking to Phoebe months ago,” Sawyer said.
Nora groaned. “I told her it was a bad idea to meet in the music enclave.” She rested her head back against the wall. “How long have you known? Does Owen know?”
“Of course not,” said Agler from behind them. “You think we would have ruined everything that you worked for?”
Nora raised her eyebrows. “So Agler and Lute are in on this too?”
“The gang’s all here,” Sawyer said.
“We thought you were shape shifters,” Maddie said. “That someone like Loki was pretending to be you and Phoebe and that the real you was somewhere in the mundane world.”
Nora chuckled tiredly. “I should have known better. I should have known you guys would figure it out.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Agler said. “We could have handled this.”
Nora pushed herself to her feet. “I thought about it. And lots of times, I wanted to. But, at first, we just weren’t sure how powerful Owen was. We didn’t know if maybe he would be able to read people’s minds. We didn’t know what kind of ability he had. Phoebe and I were both relatively sure that we had enough power to keep him out. But as far as everyone else was concerned… we weren’t sure. After a while, it was clear Owen wasn’t reading anyone’s mind. And we weren’t sensing anything happening. But by then, it was just too complicated to explain to everyone. Besides, I figured it was more convincing if Ow
en saw me separate from you guys. He thought I was really genuine.”
“How did this happen?” said Maddie. “Did you plan this all along?”
Nora rubbed her face. “You remember when we were going to the mundane world last fall, and Phoebe stopped us?”
“Oh, yeah,” said Sawyer. “You two went off and talked to each other privately.”
“She said that I should try to figure out what Owen was up to. She told me about power signatures and a bunch of other stuff, and she said she was worried,” Nora said. “She said I should try to allow him to think that I was on his side.”
“But why would she ask you to do that?” said Lute.
“I volunteered,” Nora sighed. “Not specifically to spy on Owen or anything, but to help out with protecting Helicon. I said I’d be up for anything. So, when she asked, I couldn’t say no.”
“I can’t believe she asked you to do that,” said Agler. “It’s a lot of risk.”
“Well, I’m not sure that Phoebe knew that I was going to bring Owen back here, but when the opportunity presented itself, it seemed like the best way to accomplish what she wanted me to do. So, I had to go for it,” Nora said.
“So, all this time, you’ve been pretending,” said Maddie. “That must have been horrible.”
Nora shut her eyes, and her weariness seemed to come off her body in waves.
“What’s he up to?” Sawyer said. “I mean, we know about Owen’s power, but is he trying to use it for anything?”
“He wants to take over Helicon,” Nora said. “He wants to be the ruler, to overthrow the council.”
They all gasped, drawing back.
“I need to stop him from taking over Helicon, which is why I went to Merlin—wait a second. Did you guys say that you were there? That you saw me talk to him?”
“Actually, yeah,” said Sawyer.
“But how? I didn’t see you,” said Nora.
“Invisibility blanket,” said Lute.
“Huh?”
“Long story,” said Agler. “Go back to what you were saying, about needing to stop Owen?”
“Well, if you were there, you heard. I can’t fight him,” Nora said. “So… that means the direct approach is out. I don’t know what to do.”
“We’ll help,” Maddie said. “We’ll find a way to stop him.”
“You can’t.” Nora rubbed her temples. “It has to be me.”
“I don’t see why you can’t have help,” said Sawyer.
“Because Owen can’t have a bunch of people on his side all of the sudden.”
“Well, not all of the sudden,” said Lute. “But maybe gradually, we could all get close to him.”
“Yeah,” said Sawyer, “then you wouldn’t be doing this alone.”
Nora gave them a wan smile. “Okay, we’ll brainstorm. In the tree house, like old times.”
They all smiled back at her.
“But I’ve got to go,” Nora said. “I have to meet Owen. I said I’d meet him in an hour, and my time is almost up.”
* * *
They split up and all went their own way. Nora went off to find Owen. Sawyer and Lute disappeared in the direction of the music. And Maddie and Agler were left alone.
“Well,” he said, “do you want to go dance or something now?”
“No, that’s okay,” she said.
“But earlier, you really wanted to,” he said.
“Actually,” she said, “I’d like to go back to the tent.”
“Oh,” he said. “Okay. You’re really not into it anymore, huh?”
“I’m just into something else for the evening,” she said, pulling him close.
“Oh,” he said in a different voice. “Oh. Seriously?”
“Seriously.” She grinned.
“But… I mean, not that I’m not into this whole idea, but why?”
“I was being idiotic,” she said.
“You were?’
“Yes, I was. I was blaming you for something you didn’t even do. You were right, I dumped the pregnancy thing on you out of nowhere. I didn’t give you any time to deal with it. It wasn’t fair of me.”
“No,” he said. “It wasn’t. And I’m really glad that you’re saying that, but… why are you saying that now?”
She stood on tiptoe to press her lips against his. “I realized it when you caught me, when I almost fell.”
“Realized what?”
“That you’ll always catch me, no matter what.”
He kissed her fiercely. “I will,” he breathed. “I will.”
* * *
Nora found Owen standing at the edge of the stage, a drink in one hand. She immediately wished she would have gotten herself a drink. Owen was easier to handle when she was drunk.
Well, actually, her level of drunkenness made no difference, but when she was drunk, everything was a little fuzzy around the edges and she liked the fuzzy feeling. It was pleasant. Pretending to be Owen’s girlfriend was the opposite of pleasant.
It wasn’t bad just because she remembered all of the things that Owen had done to hurt her friends. It was bad because she remembered when she truly used to have feelings for Owen. A long time ago, she loved Owen with all her heart. True, some of that was because Owen had manipulated her own brain against her. But not all of the feelings had been false. Much of them had been genuine. For so long, Owen had been everything to her. She’d had no one else in the world besides him.
That had been a dark period of time in her life. She hadn’t known at the time just how dark and horrible it was. But now, when she looked back on it, she did.
And pretending to love Owen put her right back into that old position. It was as if she had regressed. That was painful.
But the worst of it was the present, not the past. Owen himself. He was angry. Sarcastic. Guarded. The only way to win his respect was to pretend as if she didn’t have any feelings at all, just like him.
No, that wasn’t accurate. It wasn’t that Owen didn’t have feelings. He did. He felt pain and sorrow. But his feelings were the only feelings that were important. To Owen, everyone else’s feelings were meaningless, while his mattered.
So being around Owen, she had to pretend as if she didn’t care about anyone else. She had to be cold, like he was.
And it fooled him. It fooled him completely. He was enamored of her, and he was willing to share almost all his secrets with her. There was only the pesky little bit about where he’d gotten the power and how he’d gotten the power from the gods. But other than that, she knew everything.
Owen grinned at her. “Still not gonna tell me what you’re up to?”
Nora laughed. “Wouldn’t you like to know,” she said. She had decided that it was better not to make up some sort of excuse. Having a little bit of mystery to her was a good thing when it came to Owen. Keeping him on his toes kept him in line.
“Well, what do you want to do?” He said.
“Honestly? I want a drink.”
He laughed. “Well, surprise, surprise.”
Nora spent the rest of Halloween doing her best to get obliterated. She stayed out late, dancing to one band after the other, even though she was exhausted. The dancing meant that she didn’t have to do a lot of talking. And the longer that she stayed out, the longer she could avoid going back home with Owen.
But eventually, it got so late, that the bands stopped playing. Nora was very drunk, and blacking in and out of consciousness. She time-traveled from the main fire pit back to the tweens and rebels enclave, coming to herself again as she stumbled and fell into Owen’s arms.
He laughed at her. “Hitting the sauce pretty hard there.”
“What?” She was confused.
“I was just saying I don’t think you need another drink,” Owen said.
Another drink? She had been trying to get another drink? No. That was a very bad idea. Blacking out around Owen was a very bad idea. She had no idea what she might do or say. Why had she allowed herself to get this drunk? She gav
e him a smile. “Well, I guess you’re right.” Her words were slurred, coming out barely understandable.
Owen laughed again. “Come on. Let’s get you to bed.”
There was suggestiveness in his voice.
Maybe that’s why she’d been drinking so much. Maybe she thought if she was blacked out, she wouldn’t have to be conscious for one more bout of sex with Owen.
Not that it was all that bad. Owen didn’t do anything deviant or weird to her. At least not yet. She wasn’t going to put it past him. The whole act itself was fairly new to him.
No, it was distasteful mostly because of how she felt about it. It was very hard for her to pretend as if she cared about him when it was going on.
Luckily, Owen didn’t seem to notice anything. If she was less than responsive and eager during the process, he didn’t know the difference.
She guessed that his lack of experience actually worked out in her favor.
And he was mercifully quick that night. She’d been afraid. Sometimes, when he drank, it made the entire thing drag on forever and ever. She would spend that time gazing up the top of the tent thinking about anything except what was happening to her.
But not this time. Owen gave one last grunting thrust and rolled off of her.
He pulled her into his arms, spooning her from behind. He kissed her neck.
She shut her eyes. She just wanted to go to sleep. She could feel Owen’s semen starting to seep out of her, and she shuddered a little bit. She had a twinge of fresh horror—she had lost ownership of her own body. If she wasn’t so tired, maybe she would have gotten up and gone to the showers. Scrubbed away the smell of him. Rinsed away all traces…
But she was exhausted. She’d shower in the morning.
“Someone came to me with a good idea,” Owen murmured to her.
She was barely awake. “Oh?”
“A new enclave,” he said. “The political enclave.”
“Politics? Politics aren’t creative.”
“Of course they are,” he said. “I think it would be great. Plus it would give me a chance to gather together all the people who are on my side. This could be the first strike. A base of operations. It would be happening right under the nose of the council.”
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