Chapter Twenty
When she reached her room, she felt like she had been running for miles. Her breathing coming short and fast, she slammed the door and locked it.
Unlocked it. Locked it.
Unlocked. Locked.
She had her own invisible compulsion that held her prisoner, her own geas that tightened its constraints upon her behavior. Finally she rested both shaking hands on the panels while she tried to think.
Her stay in Avalon had been only lacking that one thing, the threat of sexual assault, to made the nightmare complete.
Her mother had told her once, long ago, when people show you who they are, believe them. The monster had shown her who he was, and Sid did believe him.
You know I can find you, he had said. And he was right. He could. Several people, including the castle guard, knew where she was staying. An offhand conversation, a few carefully worded questions, and he would know exactly where to come.
I could run, she thought, turning to lean back against the door as she looked around the room. I could just head out of town, ignore the two hours’ walk limit, and keep going.
But then he could have me tracked down to a place where there weren’t any witnesses. And if I tell Morgan, he’ll kill him. There’s no question in my mind. He’ll kill him, and that might expose him, and he could lose what little freedom he has fought so hard to gain.
I could move to another inn.
But even as she considered that, she knew that wasn’t a solution either. Valentin could find her wherever she went.
Suddenly, her mind switched gears.
She thought, I could go back to the castle. Approach Kallah in confidence and tell her what happened. Maybe Kallah would let me stay in her room. Surely not even Valentin would dare to attack Kallah, not when she was so close to Isabeau.
But if I did that, I would always be looking over my shoulder. I would always be strategizing how to avoid dark corners or find ways to keep from being alone, and I can’t keep that up indefinitely. Sooner or later, I’ll find myself in a vulnerable position.
Or…
I could kill him.
When that thought occurred to her, it clicked home, like the key turning in the lock. She let the thought settle to see if it held true or vanished in a train of logic, while she stared out at the sparkling sea.
It held true.
Quickly, she sprang into action. She stripped off the bedsheets and carried them down the servants’ staircase. Down below, she threw the sheets in with the pile to be washed in the morning.
Then she got a bucket and soap from one of the servants, and went back to her room to scrub every available surface she could. She finished by washing the floorboards on her hands and knees.
It was early evening, and the sun was beginning to dip down toward the sea, when she finally poured the last of the soapy water down the drain in the alcove. Setting the bucket by the door, she dressed in a black tunic, trousers, and butter-soft boots.
Pulling out her pen, ink, and paper, she wrote, Go back. I can’t see you tonight.
Because if she saw Morgan, he would want to know what was wrong. And if she weakened and told him, he would want to do something about it. She knew her Magic Man well enough to know that much.
Pinning the note to the balcony table with an unlit lamp, she closed and locked the balcony doors. Then, pausing for a few minutes, she took off her telepathy earrings and slipped them into her pocket. Settling the strap of her leather purse across her torso, messenger-style, she left her room, locked it, and headed down the stairs.
The taproom was filled with the dinner crowd. Light Fae and humans, some of them probably Hounds, along with a few of the creatures she had discovered were ogres, and a few sprites who were drawn to the conviviality like bees to honey.
Across the room, Leisha was serving dinner to several men. She saw Sid and gave her a nod and a smile as she approached. “Headed back to the castle?”
“I thought I would check out the night market,” Sid told her. “I heard there are metal smiths at the other end.”
“There are.” Leisha eyed her curiously. “Looking for anything in particular?”
A good, sharp knife would do. She didn’t think she should attempt anything like a short sword. Like a gun purchased by someone who didn’t know how to use it, a short sword would be more a danger to her than to anyone else, if someone knowledgeable were able to take it away.
Tae kwon do was an unarmed sport. She could try striking to immobilize and then hopefully finish the job with the knife.
Listen to her, plotting someone’s murder. When Leisha’s expression changed, she realized she had gone silent for too long.
Moving closer, Leisha lowered her voice. “Are you all right, love?”
Leisha lowering her voice was a courtesy, nothing more. Sid knew there were many sharp Light Fae ears that could still hear every word that was spoken.
Oh, screw it. She was tired of being so damn careful all the time. She couldn’t win her way through this fucked-up situation by being careful, and there was no place for her to hide.
She replied, “You know, no, I’m not. Someone threatened me today, and I want to buy a knife to protect myself.”
There was a nearly indefinable change in the people around them, a sharpening of focus. Coldly, Sid watched a few of the guard set down their forks. Witnesses before the fact should be useful.
Dismay darkened Leisha’s features. “Dear goddess, I hope it didn’t happen here!”
“No,” Sid said, glancing around the taproom. “Your inn must be one of the safest places in town. But I have to leave here sometimes and go to the castle or go buy supplies in town. I can’t barricade myself in your inn.”
Leisha grabbed her hand. She whispered, “Go to the Queen. Tell her what happened. She’s your patron. She’ll protect you.”
Sid almost pitied Leisha’s naïveté. Either that, or she envied it. Isabeau might not tolerate rape in most cases, but she had already shown who she was too, earlier, when Modred had tried to warn her.
Sid forced a smile. “I can do that. This is your busy time of day. Go back to your customers.” As Leisha lingered with a frown, she added, “Don’t worry about me.”
“The night market is well lit and perfectly safe,” Leisha said finally. “Just don’t wander down to the docks.”
“Thank you.”
Sid made good her escape. Quickly she made her way to the night market and threaded through the growing crowds, searching for the metal smiths. She found them clustered at the other end of the market.
Perusing their stalls, she looked through the array of weaponry. There was everything imaginable on sale—swords, maces, pike axes, throwing stars… now that would be handy to learn… bows and arrows, and knives. Plenty of knives, and in all sizes and shapes, housed in a variety of scabbards.
The vendor of one stall watched her for a few minutes, then approached with a smile. “Is there anything in particular you’re looking for?”
“I don’t want something too big,” she told him. She held up a small knife in a square piece of worked leather. “What’s this?”
“It’s for your arm. Look.” He helped to wrap the leather around her forearm, threading a leather thong through loops and tightening until the knife fit snugly along the inside muscle.
“Oh, I like that.” She held up her arm to study it. Her tunic had long sleeves. When she shook the sleeve down over the scabbard, the knife was completely hidden from sight. The hilt lay downward, close to her wrist.
Reaching for it with her other hand, she drew it. Sheathed it again. Drew it, and sheathed it. There was a satisfying snick when the knife hit home in the scabbard. It was well constructed, so the knife wouldn’t slip out by accident.
The vendor grinned. “Smooth as butter, eh?”
“It is.” She drew the knife again. “My only question is, should I buy one or two?”
He took her seriously, as he should. “Are you good at knife work with both hands? Because otherwise, there’s no point in wasting your money. Those are good blades, and they’ll cost you.”
She narrowed her eyes as she considered. She didn’t have any knife work with either hand, but she was predominantly left-handed with most things. “I’ll stick with just one.”
“Aye, that’s a smart choice. You can always come back for another if you change your mind.”
“I will, thank you. How much is it?”
He quoted a price that made her swallow, but the handiwork was of clear quality, and with some haggling, she got him to go down a little in price. Paying him depleted her stash by quite a bit.
If she survived for very long, she was going to have to play for money again, soon.
If she survived. If she were attacked, and if she told the truth after she killed him.
If, if, if.
Had this all come about because of her prayer to Lord Azrael?
Maybe. Maybe she would never know. Maybe they had skirted along the edge of calamity for so long, something like this was inevitable. All she really knew for certain was that she had gone through enough, and she wasn’t going to be a victim any longer. Not if she had anything to say about it.
As she turned away from the vendor, she wore her new purchase. Now where should she go?
The answer to that question, when it came to her, seemed inevitable. She should go back to the music hall, of course.
She walked up the road to the castle. At the gate, the guard glanced at her indifferently. She recognized him from previous trips. He asked, “Back twice in one day?”
“I need to practice,” she told him.
He waved her through, and she made her way to the music hall.
The evening wasn’t late enough for the inhabitants of the castle to have settled for the night. She passed clusters of people, some of whom smiled and nodded to her, while others studied her curiously.
Back in the large, familiar room, she left the doors open, lit a fire in the fireplace, and also lit several candles in nearby candelabras. Picking the lute up from its cradle, she plucked at the strings and adjusted the frets until she was satisfied with the tuning.
Would he come? Did he dare?
If he did, and she killed him, it was going to look premeditated. There was no hiding the knife she had strapped to one arm, or taking back what she had said in the inn.
So be it. This was now the pair of dice she had to throw.
Settling on the footstool, she began to play, easily, gently, the kind of songs one might choose to play for practice, if one needed to practice. Angling her head, she listened for sounds outside the door.
She heard people pausing to listen, comment to each other, and then move on. Nobody stepped inside the hall to disrupt her at her music. That was okay. She wasn’t in any hurry.
Then there was a single pair of footsteps that stopped outside the doors. They didn’t move on.
Like the afternoon, a shadow passed over her again, and the light from the fireplace and the candles dimmed. A dark, gentle voice whispered, He will be faster than you, and stronger. Be ready.
She caught her breath. Now she knew for a certainty Lord Azrael had heard and responded to her prayer.
She had set her telepathy earrings aside, so that Morgan couldn’t distract her from her purpose if he found her. Still, she reached out to the dark voice, whispering back, I’ll be ready.
The darkness settled around her like a cloak of shadows. It was a hell of a thing to know a god had taken the time to notice you. Her fingers shook, and she had to concentrate fiercely to steady her playing.
Valentin walked into the room, and unhurriedly, he closed and locked the doors behind him. Taking in deep, steady breaths, she told him, “You’re not welcome here.”
“I am welcome wherever I choose to go in this place,” Valentin responded. “You speak above your station, musician.”
Strolling toward her, he looked the epitome of Light Fae entitlement, confident, arrogant, and relaxed.
Anticipatory.
Her muscles tightened. He was not the only one who was anticipating the encounter. She murmured, “If you don’t leave now, this will turn out badly for you.”
“So much cockiness for a human,” he said, circling around her. “How could you possibly think this might go badly for me? I am stronger, faster, and far older than you. I am trained and experienced.”
After a moment’s hesitation, she gritted her teeth and set the lute aside. While not her instrument of choice, it was still far too beautiful to allow it to be ruined. Standing, she turned to face him.
“So you rape,” she said. “You are a rapist. You believe you have the right to take anything and anyone you want. To force your will on them. To make them do your bidding. To deny them their own free will.”
He smiled. The light from the fireplace glittered in his eyes. “You protest too much, my dear,” he told her. “This doesn’t have to be an unpleasant encounter. I believe you will enjoy this far more if you simply let yourself go.”
She tilted her head as she studied him. “You know, I think you’re right. Come take me if you can.”
“You are a true delight.” He laughed. “And, oh yes, I can.”
When he walked toward her, she strode forward to meet him.
* * *
Morgan was glad to leave another frustrating day behind as he climbed over the rooftops to Sidonie’s room. That afternoon he had finished going through the last of the texts. There hadn’t been anything useful to use in summoning Azrael, and he continued to fail to create a summoning spell himself.
He had tried various tricks, but nothing worked. He couldn’t even successfully create a general summoning spell for any god. The geas had clamped down, disrupting his thought patterns and hampering his Power.
Despite their best-laid plans, he might have to go to Earth after all to search for a spell. Isabeau could have something useful in her personal collection, but she had never allowed him to see her books on magic, and she’d expressly forbidden him from accessing the library. Maybe when Robin returned, he could sneak in to look at the titles to see if she might have something they could use.
Sliding down the iron pipe attached to the inn’s gutter, Morgan leaped over the balcony railing. The rising moon was only half-full, but the pale square of the note pinned to the balcony table was immediately apparent. He didn’t have to glance inside to know the room was empty. He could sense it from where he stood.
Striding over to the table, he snatched up the note.
Go back. I can’t see you tonight.
Wrongness curled around him like the smoke from a burning building.
Sidonie didn’t write that Isabeau had asked for her hour of music late in the day. She didn’t ask him to wait for her. Instead, she told him to leave. Why hadn’t she asked him to wait?
The balcony doors were closed and locked. Looking in the room, he saw the sheets had been stripped from the bed, and a cleaning bucket sat on the floor by the door.
She had washed the room clean of his scent. She hadn’t asked for him to wait, because she wasn’t expecting to come back.
Placing the flat of his hand against the balcony door, he tilted his head as if to listen to whatever may have happened inside that would have made her leave.
It wasn’t something Morgan had done. He would swear to it. If he had done something, Sidonie would think through the issue, then talk to him about it, carefully hitting all the important points. Besides, when he had left her early that morning, she had been sleepy, relaxed, and affectionate.
No, something had happened during the day, yet she’d had enough freedom to clean the room and leave the note. She’d felt secure enough to write the note, and confident enough that he would find it, but she still hadn’t offered any explanation. Why?
Because she didn’t want him to know what she was going to do.
His hand tightened to a fist as he pressed it against the door.
She didn’t want him to know, because what she was doing was dangerous. She would have told him virtually anything else. She would have told him if it was something they could do together.
She would have told him if it was something Morgan could have fixed, but there were two things constraining him—the geas and his dwindling supply of hunter’s spray.
And anything related to those two constraints led back to the castle.
He didn’t have to waste time tracking her. He didn’t know why, but he knew where she’d gone.
If he followed her, he would be using the last of his hunter’s spray to avoid detection. She could have warned him to go home for that reason alone. But as he glanced back into the room, at how carefully she had left everything, the sense of wrongness washed over him again, and he knew that wasn’t true. Again, it was something she could have told him.
And going back to his cottage wasn’t an option, not even if he lost the last of his freedom that night.
Digging into his supply bag for the spray, he used the rest of the bottle to douse himself thoroughly, then he slipped his lump of beeswax into his pocket. Afterward, he threw the bag high onto the roof, settled his sword scabbard between his shoulders, cast a cloaking spell, and climbed down to the street.
Setting off for the castle at a sprint, he thought through possibilities.
Where would she be? Not the servants’ quarters. If Isabeau had simply ordered her to return to the castle, Sidonie would have told him that too.
He would start with the music hall and work his way through the castle from there.
Layering a spell of aversion over the cloaking, he slipped like a shadow past the guard at the gate and through the castle halls. A feeling of urgency drove him forward. Even though he had brought the beeswax, he didn’t use it.
Instead, he listened keenly to everything around him. The snatches of conversation he caught from courtiers as they passed by seemed untroubled. Warrick and Johan lingered near the great hall, flirting with two of the court ladies. Their demeanor was relaxed as well. Whatever had compelled Sidonie to act the way she had, it was a private matter.
As he drew near the double doors of the music hall, he heard a loud thump from inside the room. Springing at the door, he found it locked. A quick spell unlocked it. As he slipped inside, he saw Valentin backhand Sidonie.
She reeled from the blow, but instead of crumpling, she used the momentum of the movement to spin around, jump, and land a flying kick to his jaw. It was a spectacular move, full of elegance and speed.
Valentin’s head snapped back, and he staggered.
Breathing hard, she hesitated.
It was a rookie mistake, that hesitation. Morgan would have drilled that out of anyone on his training field. As Valentin recovered, he grabbed Sidonie by the throat.
Baring his teeth, he snarled, “It would have gone so much better for you if you had just submitted.”
By then, Morgan had already begun his lunge across the room. His focus narrowed down to one thing—the hand Valentin had around Sidonie’s pale throat.
He was fast, so much faster than either Valentin or Sidonie, yet he was still too far away when he saw her reach into her sleeve and draw out a knife.
She slashed Valentin across the jugular.
Eyes bulging, he let go of her and grabbed at his own throat with both hands, vainly attempting to stop the bright crimson arterial spray.
Morgan reached Sidonie’s side as Valentin sank to his knees. She stared at Valentin, her face ashen. When Morgan grabbed her by the shoulders, she started wildly and bit back a shriek.
Dropping his cloak and aversion spells, he snapped, “What happened?”
Her gaze clung to the dying man. Her eyes were dilated, and her lips looked bloodless. Droplets of Valentin’s blood stood out against her white skin. “He threatened to rape me. He’s been at the chambermaids. And I wasn’t going to be raped.”
“You should have come to me!” he hissed. Fury boiled over. If Valentin wasn’t already dying, Morgan would have gutted him.
Her gaze snapped to his face. She hissed back, “You shouldn’t be here! I told you to go back to the cottage!”
He barked out an angry laugh. “That was never going to happen, Sidonie!”
“I was trying to save you from getting involved!” she snapped. She was shaking visibly. “You’re too close to exposure as it is!”
She was the one who had been threatened, yet she had tried to protect him. The blood pounded in Morgan’s temples. He held so much rage in his body, he didn’t think his skin could contain it.
Grabbing Valentin’s head, he gave it a sharp, vicious twist, breaking his neck. Then he let the body fall. As Sidonie stared at him, he said, “I killed him, not you. Remember that. Now, give me your knife and get out of here.”
She stammered, “I-I have his blood on me. Morgan—whatever you’re trying to do, it’s not going to work.”
Then a new voice entered the tableau.
From behind Morgan, Warrick said, “What the fuck, Morgan. You and the musician know each other?”
Morgan grabbed the knife out of Sidonie’s hand and cast a death spell on it.
As he whirled, Warrick added, “The Queen wants to see you right away. Now that you’ve killed Valentin, that should be a hell of a reunion.”
Morgan had already flung the knife, but it was too late.
Even as the blade buried itself in Warrick’s throat, the geas flared to life and he was caught.