CHAPTER 41
he skies opened up a few hours ago, and they haven’t let up since. I wonder if Raphael is out there getting soaked on his scouting mission.T In fact, I think it might actually be hailing right now.
On the top floor of the attic, there’s no fireplace, and a draft whistles through the cracks in the window. It’s now ten p.m., and I’m keeping the lights off so no one can see me staring outside.
The autumn chill envelops me, and I shiver, gazing at the warm glow of the mansion across the way. Firelight wavers over Caradoc. He’s back in his library with mead and a stack of books. Lucky man.
Outside, the Fey soldiers are drenched from the storm, and I watch them change guards. Two more show up dressed in cloaks. The sodden guards stalk away, looking relieved. It’s been fourteen hours of surveilling the house, and I already recognize all four of them, even with the cowls over their faces. They are, as I’ve nicknamed them, the Silver Fox, Redbeard, Rosy Cheeks, and Ball Scratch. All named for their physical qualities, except for Ball Scratch, named after his favorite activity. Silver Fox and Rosy Cheeks are the ones arriving now. I check the time and mark it in the log.
10 pm: Guard shift change.
Raphael and I have been swapping shifts at the window throughout the day, hardly speaking.
One thing is already clear: killing Caradoc—or even just getting close to him—will be extremely difficult. He’s only left the mansion twice, surrounded by a retinue of six large, armed bodyguards. The mansion itself is
fortified, not just by walls and guards, but by magical wards, too. From here, I’ve been able to spot the enchanted inscriptions and rune marks on the windows and doors. I might be able to disrupt them with my Sentinel powers, but I’m not entirely sure. I’ve never done that before.
For now, all we can do is keep watch and wait for an opportunity.
The stairs creak, and I reach for one of my daggers. I turn, relaxing a little when I see that it’s Raphael. His white shirt is soaked through, and his hair is drenched with rain. “It’s started to bloody hail.”
“Ginevra’s gone?” I ask shortly.
“On her way.”
Ginevra went out with our fastest horse to inform command of our progress and to check for updates about the rest of the teams. I will miss her
company.
Ha. No, I won’t.
“What did you learn?” I ask.
“The servants are all people Caradoc knows personally,” he says. “When one of them is sick or missing, they have Fey from the town fill in. Never someone they don’t know.”
“And what if they all fell sick at the same time?” I ask. “They’d have to get someone else then.” My mind is already sifting through the ethics of giving food poisoning to an entire town.
He considers that. “Maybe. But it’ll also draw suspicion. Fey don’t get sick as easily as humans do.”
He’s holding a white box wrapped with string, and he slides it onto the windowsill. The surface is slightly damp. “What’s this?” I ask.
“I remember you saying you liked lavender cake, and I saw some in the bakery.” He takes the spyglass from me and starts staring out the window.
I take the box and sit on the bed, scooting back cross-legged. I pull the string on the box, unwrapping it. “You got me cake?” I’m still confused. This doesn’t square with his rant about not liking me. “Why?”
“Because you said you liked it. You told me you ordered the lavender cake, but you got blackberry.”
I stare at his large back, stunned. “That was six months ago.”
“Right.”
Silver moonlight filters through the window, and I notice that his shirt has gone transparent from the rain.
I glance down at the cake again—white frosting, little lavender blossoms.
“You told me that you don’t even like me. So that’s why I’m confused about the cake.”
He whirls away from the window to stare at me, his silver eyes piercing the dark.
“You said that you didn’t know what ‘foolish notions’ got into my head,”
I continue. “You said that you never liked me, that I’m a spoiled girl who grew up in chaos and knew nothing of the real world. That all of this was a game to me. So, explain the cake, Raphael. Because if it was all a ploy to bring out my power, why did you never explain that to me?” I know he was at Avalon Tower this past week, just like I was.
He leans down, palms pressed flat on the mattress on either side of my thighs. The light from the window sparkles on the droplets of rain on his eyelashes and his high cheekbones. “You never replied to any of the letters I
left in your room.”
My breath goes shallow. “What letters?”
“The letters that I have been writing to you every day since your final trial,” he says slowly. “Wrythe was always watching us, and I couldn’t speak to you privately. He kept saying that you were my favorite. Wrythe implied we were fucking, which would have got us both kicked out.” His gaze sweeps down me, and a droplet of rain falls from his wet hair onto my lap. “I explained all this in the letter after your final trial.” He straightens, folding his arms. “Serana said she’d pass them on.”
I stare at him. “Well, she didn’t.” My heart thuds, and the pieces start to slide together in my mind. She and Tana were very worried I’d get kicked out. Tana saw something in her cards, and she knew it was about Raphael.
He straightens and starts unbuttoning his wet shirt. “I can’t say I’m surprised. Wrythe was spreading rumors that you and I were falling in love.
He was going to use it as a pretext to get rid of both of us. Viviane tried to convince him that you had notions about me but that it wasn’t reciprocated.”
I arch an eyebrow. “She couldn’t have done it the other way around?”
Raphael grabs a towel and starts to dry himself off. I’m staring at his chest, my pulse racing. The moonlight tinges his muscles with silver and shadow. He towels off his hair. “I was trying to put the rumors to rest. Also, I needed you to be angry. That was in the letters I wrote, too.”
“So you did want me to be angry?” I try to reassemble everything I know.
“After all that time telling me to ignore my emotions.”
"Anger wasn’t my first choice.” He freezes, and his silver eyes cut to me.
“You refused to let Nivene remove your telepathy, and that meant you needed your anger to pass. It was a risk, but it worked.”
He starts to unbutton his trousers, and I’m tempted to stare. But one of us should be watching the mansion. I stand and cross to the window, picking up the spyglass.
I stare through the lens, trying to focus on Caradoc, but I’m partially thinking about the fact that Raphael is peeling off his wet clothes in the same room with me, and also trying to understand what he’s saying. “Explain yourself. Because it doesn’t matter how clear you made it in the letters if I never read them.”
“I tried to teach you to master your emotions, like I do. To let the creative force take control instead of expending energy on emotions. Anger can burn up magical force. But that’s not how you operate, is it? You spend so much energy telling everyone what you think they want to hear, trying to soothe people and placate them. Analyzing what people want, giving it to them so they stay calm. That’s how you grew up, isn’t it?”
My throat tightens. “Maybe.”
I steal a glance in the glass’s reflection. Raphael is turned away from me, pulling on a dry pair of trousers. My gaze sweeps over his half-naked body.
“When you finally screamed at me and told me what you thought, you let go of worrying about what other people felt, what they needed. You finally stopped wasting energy trying to manage other people’s feelings. Then you had more power for yourself.” He buttons his trousers and turns. “And what a power it was.” In the reflection, I watch him come up behind me. “Were you watching me just now, Nia?” he murmurs.
My pulse races. “No.” I clear my throat. “Fine, yes.”
He presses a hand against the window frame and stares through the window over my shoulder. I can feel the heat radiating off his body. “Getting to know you, I learned we don’t all use magic the same way. You channel the creative force through your emotions, not by blocking them. I remembered reading something Merlin had written about magic, and it didn’t make sense to me. Merlin said he used his emotions, his heartbreak and love and anger, and that made his magic stronger. On our first mission, I saw you disable the entire veil, fueling your power with fear. And your anger at me gave you that explosive magic we saw on your final trial. It’s what let you access a primal power for the first time in over a thousand years, Nia. You’re like the grapes at Douloureuse Garde.”
“I’m like the grapes?”
The corner of his lips curl. “Remember? The vintners would stress them to make them grow. They’d starve them of nutrients or water, and the grapes would grow stronger and enhance the flavor. For you, stress can make your magic thrive.”
I shoot him a sly look. “So, the fact that I thought you were an asshole— that’s what turned me into the next Merlin?”
A wry smile. “I didn’t say ‘next Merlin.’”
“Have I mentioned the Avalon Steel, though?”
“I wonder if Nimuë trapped Merlin in the oak because he wouldn’t stop banging on about his Avalon Steel,” he muses. “But yes. The fact you thought I was, as you say, an asshole, helped you pass the Sentinel test. I must admit, I didn’t anticipate just how angry it would make you.”
“You were very convincing.”
Across the street, the lights flick off in Caradoc’s library.
In the dark, all I can see is the glow of Raphael’s silver eyes.
“Might as well get some sleep while he does,” he says. “You take the bed.”
