CHAPTER 21
glance down at the handwritten note in my hand—a summons from Raphael. Meet me in the Merlin Library. Sentinel training.I My body glows with heat inside the tower. It’s July, and there’s not a hint of air conditioning in this place.
Tonight, instead of Raphael’s office, we’re meeting in one of Camelot’s many ancient libraries. As I reach a stone landing, excitement flickers through me. I’m about to see inside the very place where Taliesin once penned his haunting poems. And some dirty ones, too— about fleshy orbs, rigid pillicocks, and pearly showers, and other phrases that people apparently found sexy way back in the Romano-British era.
I glance up at the carved mahogany doors. The metal knocker, shaped like a severed hand with long, clawlike fingers and an eye inset into the center of the hand, looks disturbingly real. If I were full-blooded Fey, I’d recoil from the iron, burned by the touch. But as I’m demi-Fey, I feel nothing as I reach for the knocker. It creaks as I raise it and bring the iron fingers down twice against the wood.
It’s a moment before Raphael pulls open the door, wearing a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. A tendril of his dark hair tumbles in his eyes, and he flashes me a half-smile.
His silver eyes pierce me. As always, his masculine beauty immediately makes my breath catch. You’re weak, I tell myself. Remember what he did.
Walking past him, I survey the soaring ceilings. The sixty-foot walls are covered with faded, colorful, and leather-bound spines marked with gold
letters and esoteric symbols. Ladders on wheels stretch up to the higher shelves. I breathe in the scent of leather and parchment and faintly recognize it as him. Raphael spends a lot of time here, I think.
I feel awestruck by this place and at one with the cozy, flickering lights of the many candelabra.
At the far end of the hall, a brass spiral staircase leads all the way up to the back side of the clock. The ticking of the second hand echoes off the ceilings—the beating heart of the library. I stare at the back of the clockface, an ancient mechanical marvel, its brass gears illuminated by the library’s dancing torchlight. The hands move rhythmically, ticking and tocking. I can almost picture Taliesin in here, scribbling away.
But my task is different from Taliesin’s. Unlike art, my task involves pain when I mess up. And there, in the center of the room on a carved oak table, is the veil box. In the little trunk, it shimmers and buzzes, making the hairs rise on the back of my neck.
Raphael pushes his hair out of his eyes. The warm firelight caresses his beautiful features. “Let’s get to work, then. You still need to master your
control over the veil.”
“Why here?”
“I always do my best work here, and my clearest thinking. Maybe it will help you focus.” He gestures to the desk, with the veil box glowing in the center.
I cross to it, my shoulders already tensing in anticipation at the pain that awaits me.
We’ve been training for the past three months, once a week. I’ve been getting slightly better, but about half the time, I lose focus and burn myself.
Because of the diametric magic, my powers are erratic, crashing into each other unpredictably. No matter what I do, I can’t smother my telepathy.
I pull out a chair, and Raphael takes a seat across from me. He folds his arms. “Let’s start this time by channeling into the creative source.”
“What does that mean, exactly?”
His silver eyes gleam. “Everything on earth comes from a divine, creative source—the force that drives nature, that created our world, our existence. It forged every drop of water and blade of grass. When we write poems and make art, we are conducting that power. It’s nature expressing itself in the same way that it expresses itself as an apple tree growing from the earth, and the apples on its branches. That’s where our magic comes from. That’s the
thing about magic, Nia. It doesn’t really come from us. It’s not ours, and we don’t own it. It’s a power we are allowed to use, a gift that doesn’t belong to us. Do you understand?”
I stare at him, entranced. The firelight sparks in his eyes. “I think so.”
“You need to let it flow through you. Get in touch with the force that
created us.”
“How, exactly?” I ask.
“One way to get in touch with the creative force is through free association. Or free writing. Just say or write whatever comes into your
mind.”
“What, now?” I ask, and he nods.
I’m already nervous. What does he want me to say? I’m usually so good at determining what people want from me, but I can’t read Raphael. And moreover, I’m not supposed to be telling him what he wants to hear. I’m supposed to be tapping into that creative force, but I have no idea how, and I’m certain that I’ll say something fucking weird.
“Nia,” he says, “just say the first word that comes into your head. Then
keep going.”
“Rigid pillicock,” I blurt.
He stares at me. Not a hint of a smile. Of course not, because even if he were having the absolute time of his fucking life, even if he were swilling champagne on the back of a glittering unicorn, the man would not crack a smile. He has no emotions.
My cheeks flame red. This is why I didn’t want to do this. “Can we skip this, please?”
“Fine. Let’s try it another way. Find the core of your Sentinel powers.
Smother your other magic. Suppress your emotions to clear space.”
I close my eyes. By now, I can do that. My mind shuts out the world.
Mentally, I dive into the feel of the magic, ignoring all the distractions that surround me. I let go of my everyday anxieties, the tiredness of my legs, the stiffness of the wooden chair, the hollow pit in my stomach from missing dinner. I forget Raphael’s gorgeous face and the way he smells.
Deep in my chest, I can sense my power. Two powers pulsing with energy, at odds with each other—wrestling like spirits of the light and dark. I feel twinges in my chest as each struggles to snuff the other out. As the magic battles inside me, goosebumps rise on my skin. A gust of wind skims over me, though from where, I have no idea.
The sound of whispers flitters around me—two voices, one angry and one sad. But the meaning eludes me.
I can imagine how people with two powers sometimes lose their minds.
The opposing magic is powerful, pulling me in different directions, and I feel as if my mind might split.
In the hollows of my skull, red-streaked images flicker—the halls of Avalon Tower, splashed with blood. Mordred’s work.
Screams echo off the stones.
I swallow hard, trying to pull out the thread of my Sentinel powers, to untangle it, but that’s impossible to do without awakening the telepathy powers, too.
Raphael has taught me to mentally see the magic inside me, to identify its color and sound. Right now, they’re twined together. I think the Sentinel power is darker, a deep red, like the blood Mordred spilled in Lothian Tower.
It also has a slower, deeper vibration. The telepathy powers are more violet, high-pitched and frantic.
Opening my eyes, I lean toward the tiny veil on the desk. I can see the magical net that created it. As I stare at it, I hone in on the spot that looks weakest. I channel my Sentinel powers, trying to make them swell. Red blooms in my thoughts. The quiet buzzing of the veil goes silent. I push my hand into the box, and the misty veil snakes around my fingers, up to my wrist—completely harmless.
Inside, threads of my magic twist and roil.
“Good,” says Raphael. “But if you can, focus for a moment on your telepathic magic. Contain it in a bubble, then shrink that bubble until it’s gone.”
I breathe hard, envisioning the violet strands. But as soon as I give the telepathy my attention, it only seems to grow, hungry for more power. Now, the violet is devouring the crimson, a ravenous beast.
The veil bites at my wrist. “Ow!” I scream. Yanking my hand out, I massage my throbbing hand, and a chill racks my body. My teeth chatter, and I lean away from the box. “It was working until you told me to focus on my other power.” Pain pierces my hand, and I feel irrationally annoyed with Raphael.
He holds out his hand. Glowering, I slide mine into his palm, and his healing magic immediately washes over my hand in a soothing pulse. I lick my lips. “I think it’s better if I just focus on the dark red magic.”
“We’ll keep working on it, but I think you have to be able to completely smother your telepathy skills in order to master control of what we need.”
“Yeah,” I answer hollowly, my chest tight. I keep thinking about what I glimpsed in Tana’s thoughts. The encroaching darkness, the tiny drop of water that gleamed in the shadows, the agonized screams that chilled me to the bone.
Everything depends on my ability to control this power.
A little part of me considers telling Raphael about the vision, but I keep my mouth shut. Tana seemed sure it was a secret I needed to keep.
“Do you really think I can pass the other tests in the Culling?” I ask.
“Fighting, spycraft?”
Raphael shrugs slowly. “You don’t have to be worried about the fighting test. Viviane told me you’re pretty good with a bow, and as long as you demonstrate some rudimentary abilities with a knife and a sword, it will be good enough. Not all spies are fighters. And as for spycraft, you happen to be very skilled at delivering to people the story they want to hear. Back during our first mission, that sergeant wanted you to be a timid and naïve girl, and you sold him that story beautifully. It’s the only reason your accent didn’t matter at all. It was your instinct, Nia, to give him what he craved.” He’s looking down at the table, and I can see the shadow of his long eyelashes on his cheeks. “And that will be part of your test. You’ll have to persuade someone to give you something they wouldn’t normally want to give up.” His gaze lifts, and my heart races at the intensity of those silver eyes.
“I am good at telling people what they want to hear. I never realized that living with a highly volatile addict would prepare me to be a good spy, but here we are.”
He arches an eyebrow. “With most people, you tell them what they want to hear. You’re not always quite so flattering with me.”
“Well, Raphael, I worry that if your ego gets any bigger, it will need its own magical realm.”
He leans closer to me. “But why is it, exactly, that I am the only one to whom you show your real self?”
My heart is beating faster. “Because there’s no point pretending with you, is there? I heard what you thought of me. Trash was the word that got me, actually. You referred to my mother and me as trash. Yes, this was a long time ago, and no, I’m not over it. I overheard everything. And I don’t blame you, not after one of my mother’s spectacles, but I don’t see why I had to be
included.”
After all this time, I can’t quite believe I’m letting it all out.
He sits back. “I never said that. I wouldn’t have.”
My chest tightens. “But I remember it. Right after mother got drunk again. She was falling down the stairs, and you had to help carry her back to our room. You had already stopped speaking to me…” I’m dangerously close to mentioning our kiss, and I really don’t want to betray how much I’d thought about that single kiss over the past ten years, and we already know I’m terrible at lying. “Anyway, you’d stopped speaking to me. But Mom was drunk, and you and your rich friend helped carry her to our room at the château. And the next day, I overheard you talking to your posh friend about
how we were trash.”
“I wouldn’t have said that.”
Anger flickers through me. “Not in English, but in French. ‘Des ordures.’ One of you said, ‘People like us don’t spend time with people like that,’ and the other one said, ‘Yes, isn’t she trash? She and her mother.’”
He nods, frowning. “Ah, guilty as charged, in part. I did say, ‘People like us don’t spend time around people like them.’”
I stare at him. “I’m not sure I see how that’s much better. What do you mean, ‘people like them’? You’ve been making digs at me like that since I first saw you on the dock in the south of France. You said I should be getting drunk on champagne at the beach, or that you don’t expect much from people like me. It’s not really much better than saying trash, is it? What’s the fucking difference?”
My pulse is racing out of control. No one in the world makes me feel unhinged quite like Raphael does, and it really doesn’t help that he never displays a single freaking flicker of emotion. That I’m yelling at a robot.
He breathes in sharply, then swallows. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it how
you seem to think I did.”
“Then how, exactly, did you mean it?”
“What I meant, Nia, was, ‘We don’t spend time with rich people.’ You still seem to think I was rich. I never was. Some of the demi-Fey at that château were, but I was a fugitive with no money. I came from Brocéliande to the south of France with nothing, fleeing Auberon. I was literally barefoot when I arrived. And at the château? I was employed there to pick grapes. I wasn’t a guest like you. I worked in the vineyards, and you were a guest.
When I said people like us, I meant poor fugitives. And when I said people
like them, I meant rich Americans. We were from two different worlds, that’s all. And I’m assuming that you didn’t stick around to hear my reply because I wouldn’t have accepted anyone calling you trash, nor did I believe it.”
I swallow hard. “Oh.” I bite my lip, my cheeks burning. “I’m not rich, either, as it happens. That vacation you interrupted? I saved up for five years.
I live in a dingy apartment with my mom. Walter was rich—the man I thought was my dad. But they never married. She used to find rich boyfriends, but the money was never ours. And once she got older, and her looks faded—well, it’s harder to find a rich boyfriend. I work in a bookstore, Raphael. Mom and I eat bargain-brand cereal for dinner most nights.”
“I see.” His pale eyes gleam, and it’s the closest I’ve ever seen him come to showing real emotion. “Perhaps we’ve misjudged one another. And you’re not what I used to think at all. I thought you were…”
“Spoiled.” It comes out a bit sharp. “Is that where the princess thing came from? Pixie princess?”
“I really did say that, didn’t I? I know it’s not the truth now.” A line forms between his eyebrows. “So, when you saw my room, and you said, ‘It’s not the sort of room meant for trash,’ you were referring to yourself? I was sure you were calling me trash.”
My jaw drops at this. “Oh, gods. You thought that I was calling you poor trash?”
A faint smile curls his lips. “Listen, let’s forget all that.” He leans forward. “Can I show you something? It’s my favorite part of Camelot, and hardly anyone else knows about it.”
I was shocked to realize that yes, I really did want to see whatever it was he had to show me. Just like when I was seventeen and he’d invited me to see something at the château, and I’d jumped at the chance. Last time, such an invitation was followed by a month of me crying on the floorboards. After all, even though he didn’t call me trash, the man had still ghosted me.
Still, I wasn’t a teenager anymore, was I?
This time, I wouldn’t let my defenses down.
“What do you want to show me?” I ask.
I see a dimple in his cheek as he almost smiles. “You’ll see.”
