Chapter Twenty-Three
Jamael took Sid to Scarborough in North Yorkshire, of all places.
When she found out the name of the English town, she had to cough out a laugh. Life could sure have a dark sense of humor at times.
With remarkable efficiency, Jamael consulted the local tourist office and found a furnished farmhouse to rent located outside town, an easy walk from the coastline.
With four bedrooms, the house was rather too large for one person, and the massive kitchen hadn’t been updated since the 1960s. It also wasn’t much to look at. Built of stone and brick, it sat squarely on its patch of land and looked like it had weathered many years and would see many more.
But it had fireplaces in almost every room, and from the end of the long, narrow drive, one could see the ruins of Scarborough Castle sitting high on a rocky promontory, standing sentinel over the sea.
“I’m curious,” she asked as Jamael unlocked the door and they walked inside for the first time. “Why did you choose Scarborough of all places?”
“The town lies at the border of the North York Moors National Park,” the Djinn told her. “You said you wanted somewhere wild and windswept. The North York Moors is one of the largest wildernesses left in the United Kingdom.” He gave her a keen glance that seemed to see everything. “You will have privacy here, and plenty of room to run.”
The tension between her shoulder blades began to ease. “That sounds so good.”
“I will bring you groceries, a car, and a phone,” Jamael said. “Do you need anything else?”
I need Morgan to forgive me.
Suddenly, she was so exhausted it took a conscious effort to remain upright. “No. What you’re doing is more than enough.”
The Djinn was as good as his word. Within an hour, someone drove a car up to the farmhouse. Sid wasn’t familiar with European cars, but she thought it might be a Peugeot. Soon after, a wealth of groceries arrived, everything from prepared meals to pantry staples, fresh foods, and even wine.
God, to simply relax and enjoy a glass of wine. She no longer knew what that felt like.
The Djinn weren’t known for their kindness, yet Jamael had proved the exception. When he pressed a smartphone into her hands, she said, “I don’t know what to say except thank you. I don’t know when I’ll hold a concert again, but when I do, you will always be more than welcome.”
“Just be well. That will be thanks enough.” Jamael smiled. “Can I do anything else for you?”
“No. What you’ve already done is amazing.”
He bowed. “Don’t hesitate to call me again, should you think of anything.”
“I won’t.”
She watched as he dissipated in a maelstrom of energy.
When he left, she dragged linens and blankets out of a cupboard and made the bed in the largest bedroom. Then she crawled into it and slept straight for almost thirty hours. After waking, she ate one of the prepared meals, a chicken curry dinner, took a short walk, then slept another fourteen hours.
Except for Jamael, nobody knows where I am, she thought, reveling in the peace and silence in the farmhouse.
She didn’t turn on the television or the radio. Instead, over the next few days, she took longer and longer walks. One night she took her new violin with her. When she reached an open place where she could look out over the land meeting the sea, she remembered the black and white hall and her pact with Lord Azrael, and she played all the wild grief in her heart for an audience of one.
On the third day, she thought she might be able to make a phone call but backed away from that almost immediately. Had Robin managed to get her message to any of them?
Sitting at the kitchen table, she stared at the phone. Instead of calling, she punched in Vince’s phone number, which was one of the ones she had memorized, and sent him a text.
This is Sid. I’m just outside Scarborough, and I’m okay.
Okay being a relative term, of course.
Almost immediately, her phone rang, and she winced from the strident noise. But everyone on Earth had endured two months of uncertainty, and it wasn’t fair to avoid talking to them just because the phone seemed strange, and her emotions felt raw enough already.
So propping her forehead on the heel of one hand, she answered and began to let her old life back in.
“I’m different,” she warned Vince. It was easier to talk to him. He could deal with what happened privately and not break down on her like Julie would. “It was bad, I’m not human any longer, and I’m dealing with a lot of emotions. I can’t stand it if any of you fuss at me right now. Got it?”
“Got it,” he said, keeping his voice quiet. Easy. “It’s all going to be okay. Just tell me where you’re at. Let me be your guard dog. Nobody will get to you again without going through me first.”
At his words, a silent, unamused chuckle shook through her. She almost told him, Vince, I could guard you now.
But she didn’t. Instead, she said, “Okay.”
She told him where she was staying, and he drove up to the farmhouse within a matter of hours. Vince had set up a temporary office in London from which to direct the search for her, and Robin had, in fact, delivered her message to him.
After they talked, she felt ready to talk to others. Two days later, Julie and Rikki came, along with Vince’s wife, Terri, and it turned out the farmhouse wasn’t too big after all. They had all been wounded by what had happened, and not just emotionally, although Sid knew they each cared about her.
But Vince had not been home to the States since the car wreck. After recovering from his injuries, he had spent all his time spearheading the search. Sid was the biggest client at Julie’s boutique PR firm, and for two months, Rikki, her manager, had been living in limbo. They all needed to take a breath and figure out how to move on.
At first, careful though everybody was, the air felt raw and charged with too much emotion. Sid escaped a lot, changing into her lycanthrope form to run for miles over the vast moorland of the park.
As she said to them, her need to run away wasn’t personal. She was dealing with both PTSD and the sensory overload from the lycanthropy virus.
Gradually, they all adjusted. Patience and steadiness were the house rules, until she could finally unbend enough to hug Julie. From there, things got better.
Not terrific. Not even okay. Nothing soothed the gaping hole in her chest where she mourned how things had ended with Morgan. But still, better.
Within a few days, they had sketched into place a rough game plan for how to proceed. Julie crafted statements for the press on Sid’s return and recovery without going into detail about what had actually happened.
There were some legalities that would need to be taken care of. The British authorities wanted information about how the kidnapping occurred, but Vince would field as much of that as he could over the next week as the news broke. Then Sid’s contract with his security firm would be terminated until the next concert tour, whenever that might be, and he could finally return home for good.
As for the rest of the current tour, it would be cancelled, not postponed, and the remaining ticketholders’ money refunded. Sid didn’t know when she would be ready to perform in public again. She needed to get used to the stimulus of being in large crowds before she crossed that bridge, and she didn’t know how long that would take.
“It will happen someday,” Sid said to Rikki’s worried expression. “But definitely not until next year, which is apparently only four and a half months away anyway.”
To Rikki’s credit, her response was instant and sincere. “You get to be who you are. You get to play when you want, for whom you want, and when you want. You’ve been going ninety miles an hour for several years anyway. We’ll just throttle back until you’re ready to go again. I promise you, none of this is going to be a problem, Sid.”
After the third day, her houseguests began to leave. Terri left for the States, and Vince went back to London to finalize things before heading home. Julie was the last to let go.
“I hate to leave you stuck here in the middle of nowhere!” she exclaimed.
Sid smiled. “In the middle of nowhere is exactly where I want to be. I’ll be home in a month or so. Maybe two.”
Julie sniffed. “If you’re going to stay that long, I’m coming back again in a few weeks.”
“That would be fine. But just you. Not any of the others.”
Julie studied her face. “What are you going to do here all by yourself?”
“I’m going to relish having time off. I’m going to read books I’ve been meaning to read for years, and watch TV. I might even go sightseeing.”
And somehow I need to figure out a way to live without Morgan, because there’s no point in trying to go forward with anything else until I can do that.
But she didn’t say it. She hadn’t told any of them what had happened in Avalon, and after a couple of gentle attempts, they had wisely given up asking, at least for the time being.
Finally Julie left as well, and welcome silence settled back in the farmhouse.
By the end of the second week, Sid was beginning to sleep better. She was no longer succumbing to the long bouts of exhaustion, and her appetite had evened out. She thought she might possibly try a trip into town.
After all, she had coped with a houseful of guests. She didn’t have to stay long. Planning her first excursion carefully with the help of the new laptop Julie had brought for her, she decided she would check out a bookstore. She wanted some books to read, and there was a local Waterstones, or she could go to The Book Emporium.
If there were too many people, or she got overwhelmed by sensory input, she could just leave. No big deal, right?
The next day, she headed into town, driving carefully since everything was on the wrong side—the gearshift, the steering wheel, the road. By the time she had pulled into a car park, she was feeling rather proud of herself.
Studying the map on her smartphone, she walked down the street. The bookstore should be two blocks forward, then to her right. It was a sunny, late summer day, and there were lots of people on the sidewalks, many of them looking like tourists, but the scents and the sounds were not too overwhelming, at least not yet.
Then, up ahead, a tall figure rounded the corner at a leisurely stroll.
It was Morgan.
He wore a long, tailored jacket of expensive-looking black leather, a white dress shirt, and plain, dark gray slacks. The inferno of magic she had sensed in him after she had just become a lycanthrope was gone. Or cloaked. After sensing what burned inside him, she didn’t doubt for a moment he could cloak what he was.
His brilliant hazel gaze fixed on her, and he walked toward her. To her starved eyes, he looked more vital, more compelling than ever, his strong, bold features calm, even contemplative. The tanned skin around his eyes carried laugh lines she had barely gotten the chance to enjoy. The stern cut of his mouth was relaxed.
He looked for all the world like a handsome, charismatic man might look on holiday.
Panic ran over her, shrieking like a freight train. Whirling, she sprinted in the opposite direction.
Her hearing was sharp enough now that she could hear him swearing from a block away. As she glanced over her shoulder, she saw him running after her in pursuit.
She pelted down the sidewalk. She couldn’t move fast or far enough away from him, and between one stride and the next, she changed into a lycanthrope. Exclamations sounded all around, and someone shouted in alarm.
From one moment to the next, something shimmered and changed. She could feel the magic, like she had never felt it before in her life. She was running in some kind of bubble, and while several people pointed back to where she had been, nobody looked directly at where she was.
Had he thrown a cloaking spell around her?
It didn’t matter. Tossing out all speculation, she lowered her head and ran for all she was worth.
And he followed.
He followed her out of town, and along the road that led into the North York Moors National Park. He followed her when she plunged into the park and ran across the wild, open space. The magic bubble encasing her dissipated. Glancing back again, she saw that he had changed into his lycanthrope form as well.
She couldn’t outrun him. If he chose to, he could keep pace with her forever.
Sidonie, will you stop? he said telepathically. We need to talk.
No. No. The panic locked up her mind.
Changing course in a giant circle, she raced back to her farmhouse. Once there, she shapeshifted quickly back into her human form. With shaking hands, she dug into her pocket for the key, let herself in, and slammed and locked the door.
Backing away until her shoulder blades hit the nearby wall, she sank to the floor.
Her lycanthrope senses were such that she knew the moment when his footsteps sounded outside. Something thunked against the door. His hand, perhaps, or even his head.
She also heard him say quietly to himself, “What the hell.”
* * *
As Morgan watched the ruins of the summer palace slide into the sea, he wondered, where did one go after an age has ended?
What was one to do with the rest of one’s life when one actually had a choice?
At what point did one stop seeking justice and vengeance, and began, instead, to seek out his own life?
Was it enough, now that he had killed Modred? Could he stop looking back, and begin to look forward?
Isabeau’s kingdom was in disarray, and he had injured her badly.
She wasn’t dead. Yet the thought of going after her seemed unutterably wearying. Her histrionics were so tawdry. She had enemies enough in the world… she and Oberon’s Dark Court were still at one another’s throats. They could kill each another. He no longer needed to be a part of it.
Besides, the sword he bore wanted to go back to its holder. He could feel the pull from where it was sheathed in its scabbard. Its job was done.
So he let it be enough.
He rode back to the lake and offered the sword to its Lady. As he threw it, and her arm emerged, he whispered, “Thank you.”
She caught the sword by the hilt and held it straight. His last sight of it was as she drew it down into the water. When the sword disappeared from view, somehow he knew he would never see it again.
What was past could finally lie in the past. It settled into its grave with one last sigh. He hoped he had brought it a measure of peace. Now, what he had to do was make amends for some of the things he had done. It didn’t matter if he had done them while acting under the influence of the geas. Some wrongs needed to be put right.
Riding to the closest crossover passageway, he went to Earth. For the next several days he traveled along the Welsh Marches and removed all the cloaking spells he had placed on crossover passageways, both those leading to Lyonesse and those leading to Avalon. He couldn’t do anything to repair the passageways he had ruined, but he could at least open the ones that were still useable.
As he worked to clear the last passageway, a huge black stallion with fiery hooves galloped to up him. The horse reared and changed into Robin, who eyed him warily.
“This is a surprise,” Robin remarked.
Morgan raised an eyebrow. “I could say the same of you.”
“I took your hunter’s spray to your cottage, but of course, you weren’t there.” The puck eyed him curiously. “I found the castle ruined, and the town all but empty.”
“Indeed.” Morgan turned back to complete his task.
When he was finished, Robin asked, “I no longer sense the darkness on you. So you are free from Isabeau’s control?”
“It would seem so.” He rubbed his chest, which ached, but not because of the mortal wound Isabeau had given him. It ached from what had come after.
After a moment, Robin asked, “Where is she? What happened to Sidonie?”
“I don’t know,” he whispered.
She became something else. She wrapped chains around me, and freed me at the same time, and I grew outraged and left.
I left the best thing that has ever happened to me.
The thought ate at him in the night. Where had she gone? What was she doing? The news of her kidnapping had hit all the major newspapers and television channels. He scoured each story for clues, but there were none, just a professionally prepared news release in which she thanked her fans for respecting her privacy while she recovered from her ordeal.
He and the puck stood awkwardly together, in the middle of the sunlit clearing where the passageway shone clear and bright again.
Then Morgan turned to face Robin. “I am attempting to right a few of the wrongs I committed in Isabeau’s name. All the crossover passageways are now clear again. Your king has fallen under a spell of mine. I would be glad to reverse it, if they would let me.”
Robin laughed. “They would all, to a knight, die before they let you anywhere near Oberon. But I will pass on your regards and the message.”
Morgan nodded, unsurprised. “Modred is dead,” he told Robin. “Isabeau is alive and in hiding. I don’t know where. I did manage to wound her, and she no longer commands the Hounds. I do. Tell this to the Dark Court as well—I mean them no harm. I never did, and I will take no further action against them as long as they leave me and mine alone. I’m done, puck. Do you hear me? I wash my hands of the war between you and the Light Court.”
Robin smiled. “That was everything I had ever hoped for, sorcerer.” Then his smile died. “When you find her again, would you please tell her a thing from me?”
Morgan didn’t have to ask who Robin meant. He already knew. “What?”
“She offered me forgiveness once, even though, she said, she knew I did not want or need it. Could you please tell her I ask for her forgiveness now, even though she has already given it?” As he watched, Robin changed into the horse again. “After all, what would we have if we didn’t have forgiveness?”
Morgan rubbed his eyes. “Good-bye, puck.”
“Good-bye, sorcerer.” The horse paused. “Despite all that came between us before, I say fare thee well.”
Forgiveness.
Forgiveness might be given, even if one has never asked for it.
Raising a hand, Morgan watched the horse gallop away. Soon the puck was lost in the distance.
Morgan still wasn’t done. He had a culling to do, and when he reached the Hounds’ encampment outside Shrewsbury, it was bitter, ugly work.
By the time he, Harrow, and a few trusted others had finished, he had cut the number of Hounds from nearly eighty down to just thirty-two. When the last of the murderers and the criminals had been killed, he went off by himself and vomited until he had nothing left in his stomach.
Forgiveness was hardest to give to oneself. Even when he knew the geas had compelled him to do things, he still remembered doing them. But nobody could walk that road of forgiveness for him. He would have to find his way by himself.
He disbanded the rest of the Hounds and sent them off to live their individual lives, and then, when he lifted his head from all the wrongs he had worked to set right, he saw nothing ahead of him. Nothing, but what he chose for himself.
I order you to go find joy wherever you may, with whomever you may—to find love, if you like, with someone clever, kind, and educated while you sightsee all the beauty in the world.
Oh, Sidonie, he thought, while the pain in his chest swelled to overflowing. How could you chain me and then just give me up?
He couldn’t do it.
He couldn’t just walk away, and his inability to do so had nothing to do with the geas and everything to do with what they had shared for such a brief time.
I order you to follow your heart and your best impulses.
So he did. He cast a spell of finding that had brought him across the country, to this private farmhouse by the moors. And when she saw him, what did she do?
She ran away, and kept running.
What the hell?
Had he injured her that badly?
Leaning his forehead against the door, he said, “I know you can hear me. I know just how good your hearing is now. Sidonie, please don’t run away anymore. We need to talk. I need to talk to you.”
He paused to listen, but nothing happened.
Well, something happened, but it didn’t seem to have any connection to him. He could hear her footsteps as she walked away. They went up a flight of stairs. She had retreated to the upper story.
Bewilderment mingled with pain. Her inexplicable behavior was unlike anything he had imagined when he’d thought about finding her. He had never felt at such a complete loss before.
He did the only thing he could think to do. He kept talking.
“Even though I want very badly to come in, I would never force open a door you closed on me,” he said. “But I need to talk to you, so I’ll wait here until you’re ready. It’s okay if it takes some time. I’ll be patient.”
A window overhead opened. As he looked up, Sidonie threw a paper airplane out. It sailed downward in loops until it nose-dived into the grass.
Walking over, he picked it up and unfolded it.
Scrawled across the blank page, she had written, Please leave. I’m afraid to talk to you. I’m scared something I might say will trigger the geas.
Ah. That.
Understanding illuminated everything.
Folding the paper with care, he tucked it into his pocket, turned, and sat on the porch stoop. Leaning his elbows on his knees, he looked over the acres of green pasture where a flock of sheep grazed.
“I love you,” he told Sidonie. “I think I fell in love with you during one of my visits to you in the prison. It was when you snuggled against my side. You said, ‘I can’t really trust you, can I?’ Yet you still put your head on my shoulder. Do you remember?”
Above him, she whispered, “Yes.”
The single, tentative word shot hope into him. Lacing his fingers together, he looked down at his hands and thought, Be easy. Don’t blow this.
“I thought, how could you possibly do that? How could you reach for me, when I tried to warn you away? But you didn’t have many choices down there, did you?”
She sighed. “I had that choice. Nobody compelled me to do it. I understood I wasn’t supposed to trust you, but I did anyway.”
“You were in an impossible situation,” he said. “They should never have done what they did to you.”
“They should never have done what they did to you either.” Her voice was soft and held so much sadness, he wanted fiercely to put his arms around her, but he couldn’t. “I shouldn’t have done what I did to you. I knew it, and I did it anyway. You were dead, and I-I couldn’t—”
Her words cut off abruptly. Hurting for her, he clenched his fists and waited, but she didn’t continue.
Bravery, he thought, was facing the impossible and saying, What’s next? Which was exactly what she had done.
“When I think of how you confronted Azrael, I’m speechless,” he told her. “And when I think of what you managed to win from the god of Death, I’m in awe. Here’s the thing, my love. If I had faced what you had faced—if I had seen you killed, I would have done exactly the same thing as you did. I would have done anything I had to do in order to keep you. Anything. I realized I would do that the first time we made love.”
“But the one thing he offered was the one thing I knew you couldn’t accept,” she whispered. “I took it anyway, because I needed to know you were somewhere in the world, even if you weren’t with me.”
The pain in those simple, whispered words was so clear, his eyes dampened. What a desperate choice she’d faced.
“I’m here to ask for your forgiveness,” he said.
“You? What do I have to forgive you for?”
Leaning forward, he put his head in his hands. “When I awakened, and you told me what you’d done, I reacted badly.”
There was a small silence. “Well, for God’s sake, you had your reasons. You had died.” Her voice broke, but she picked up again quickly. “Died and then woken up again to discover you were still under the geas. I’d say you get a pass for reacting badly to that, Morgan.”
He chuckled as he wiped his eyes. “Okay, but I still hurt you, and I can’t take that back. I wish I could.” Standing, he stepped back from the house to look up at her. She had crossed her arms as she leaned on the windowsill, and she looked so vulnerable and beautiful at once, he wanted to claw his way up the side of the house to her. “I’m sorry it took me a few weeks to work through it. I had a lot of baggage I needed to clear out of the way, and a lot of years of struggling against the geas. Those years taught me I wasn’t supposed to trust anyone who held me in their control, but I trust you anyway.”
Her gaze flared wide, and her expression came to life, but not with the kind of emotion he had hoped so much to see. “You—trust me?” she repeated bitterly. “How could you be so stupid? I don’t trust me!”