Blood of the Fey (Morgana Trilogy) (33 page)

“Well, you took your time, didn’t you?”

I lower my eyes to the pristine floor as Dr. Cockleburr glares at me. There is nothing I can say that she’ll find excusable, least of all if I’ve been doing things I shouldn’t.

“Since you’re over an hour late,” she continues, “you’ll stay here an hour later. I want the whole casualty room completely cleaned and disinfected, same with the ward. And that means bedding and drapes as well. And when you’re done with that, I want you to take inventory of all the medicines and herbs we have in the pharmacy and note which need to be replaced or restocked.”

“All of it today?” I ask, doing a quick mental calculation of the time it’s going to take me to get it all done.

“No, by next year,” she says, exuding sarcasm. “Of course today, now get a move on!”

It takes me three hours, fifty-six minutes, and twenty seconds to get the ward beds changed and the room scrubbed to Dr. Cockleburr’s approval, and I haven’t even started on the pharmacy. As I put the broom and bucket away, two squires bring in an injured knight, leaving a bloody trail behind them.

I groan as I pick up the bucket and mop once again.

“No time for that,” Dr. Cockleburr tells me, pointing at the knight being lowered onto a table. “Help me with this one.”

I recognize the girl, as her reckless behavior makes her prone to injury. I nod and rush to clean my hands and put on a clean apron. When I get back to the doctor’s side, however, the knight, Marianne, looks at me with frightened eyes.

“M-Morgan?” she asks, blanching.

“You’ll be all right,” I say. I grab some gauze to soak up the blood, but the girl flinches away from me.

“N-No,” Marianne says. “I don’t want you near me.”

“Don’t be silly,” the doctor says. “You’re in need of surgery, and I can’t do it on my own.”

“No, not her!” the girl says, making the sign of the cross.

My hand falls back to my side, and I make to move away, but Dr. Cockleburr stays me.

“You’re speaking nonsense,” she says peremptorily to the knight. “You’ve told me before that you liked being treated by Morgan, that you felt you even healed faster.”

“Witchcraft,” Marianne mumbles, on the verge of fainting.

Dr. Cockleburr doesn’t look happy, but ultimately, the patient has the last word, and she’s forced to call Harry, a semiretired and nearly deaf nurse, to help her.

For a few minutes, I stand in the doorway, watching the pair operate on Marianne, before I finally get my limbs to work again and leave. But the more I pace down the hallways, the more my anger boils.

“I’m not going to stand by and let people insult me all the time,” I tell myself. “Especially when the school isn’t doing anything to help me.”

I jab my finger at the school’s standard hanging on the opposite wall, a shield before a wide oak tree, with a pentacle inscribed on it.

“How can you teach about defending the poor and the innocent when you don’t even know how to do that for those within your own walls?” I accuse the flag. “But you’ve messed with the wrong girl. I’m going to show you how finding the truth is done!”

I humph, nodding vigorously at my brilliant statement. I’m going to show everyone that I’m not behind these murders. All I need is to find the real culprit.

Pacing, I rehash all that I know. Arthur and his minions had talked about some banned-she of sorts, whatever that is, and that it could be behind those deaths. And the way to find that creature is to track it by its howling cries.

Somehow, those words sound familiar. I frown, attempting to dig through layers upon layers of garbage in my memory, seeking a clue. I snap my head up.

“Aha!” I say, punching my fist into my hand. “The bar.”

Adrenaline rushes through my veins as I recall the farmers venting about their dogs barking at the strange keening wind coming from over the lake. And the only place around there where one can live on the lake is Island Park, where the Kruegers disappeared.

None of us had seen anything back when we went to investigate with Nibs, but who’s to say that outlawed woman wasn’t hiding from us?

I toy with the idea of telling KORT about what I’ve pieced together, but soon give up on it. I could be completely wrong about this, and if that’s the case, I don’t want to have another strike against me.

Which leaves me with no choice but to find a way to get there on my own.

“Morgan!”

Something lands on my face, then falls on my plate and rolls away—a large piece of half-eaten carrot.

“What?” I ask, rubbing my forehead.

“We’ve been calling you forever,” Jack says, looking concerned.

“What are you thinking about so intently?” Bri asks. “We know you didn’t do it, you know,” she adds more quietly.

And she should be discreet. Though all the tables around us have been cleared, it’s hard to ignore the distrust and fear that crosses people’s faces whenever I’m present.

“She’s thinking about that man of hers,” Keva says with a knowing smile. “I told you they were having an affair…You should pay up.”

I frown at my roommate. “Will you drop that, please? First of all, there’s no way there’d ever be anything between me and Dean. He’s just our family lawyer doing what he’s told.”

“Uh-huh,” Keva says with a roll of her eyes. “And everyone knows how top-paid lawyers are known for playing babysitters.”

“Second,” I continue, ignoring her, “I’ve got more important things to think about right now than guys.”

“Like what?” Bri asks.

“Like it’s-none-of-your-business,” I reply.

All three of them stare at me with undisguised weariness, forcing me to concentrate on the bottom of my plate instead.

“I don’t like this,” Jack says in his soft voice. “She’s up to something.”

“Yeah,” Bri says, “and that’s bound to end up wrong.”

“Of course,” Keva adds. “Anything she does turns into a big mess.”

I can feel their stares boring into me, eating away at my meager defenses. How can people ever keep secrets when they have friends so unabashedly curious?

“Fine,” I say, “but you’ve got to promise not to tell anyone.”

“Of course not,” Keva and Bri say with heavy nods.

“I don’t know…” Jack starts, but stops when the other two girls glare at him. “Yeah, OK.”

I take a deep breath, suddenly regretting my decision to tell them what I’ve learned. “Well, I overheard something last night…” I stop and look around to make sure we’re safe from prying ears. “I heard a KORT session.”

“You mean you spied on them,” Keva snorts.

“Call it whatever you want,” I say. “They were discussing, you know, the deaths.” All three of them lean forward in their chairs. “And they mentioned a banned-she something or other.”

Jack chokes on the last of his food. “A banshee?” he repeats as Bri pounds his back.

I nod. “Apparently it’s been roaming about on the surface near the lake, and that’s what K and Rei were checking into the night they disappeared. Why? What is it?”

“Technically, they don’t do much,” Jack says. “But—”

“They usually only appear when someone’s about to die,” Bri finishes for him. “They’re like carrion birds.”

I try really hard not to picture Rei’s body before me, but find it difficult and gulp the rest of my water down to hide my unease.

“So what’s that got to do with you?” Bri asks.

“Well everything, of course!” I exclaim. “If I can find—”

“You mean ‘they’?” Keva says pointedly.

“This banshee creature,” I continue, “then my name will be cleared. I won’t have to deal with all these stupid taunts, and I may even be able to go back to Switzerland, finish high school there, and be done with this wacko place.”

“You want to leave us?” Bri asks, stricken.

I look away. “Well, I’d like to be independent as soon as possible,” I say. “And if that means leaving…”

“You mean ‘they,’ don’t you?” Keva asks again, her voice rising. “KORT members?”

“No, I mean I will look for it,” I say, annoyed. “They’ve had their go at it, but they’re obviously not getting anywhere.”

“You can’t be serious,” Jack says. “You’re not even a knight. What am I saying? You’re not even a squire! What do you think you can do that they can’t?”

And this is why I didn’t want to tell them in the first place. I sigh in frustration.

“Seriously,” Bri says, looking tense, “you know better than everyone else how much I’d like to see them all burn, but this is stupid. You’re only going to get yourself killed—that’s what banshees are known for, foretelling someone’s death! Besides, you don’t even know how to do any kind of EM. How are you going to get up there?”

I keep my eyes averted. There’s no way I’m going to spill more than I already have, especially if they’re not going to help me. I push my chair away.

“You’re too young to understand,” I say, tossing my napkin on the table. “I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”

I have a feeling one of them is bound to break and tell someone about my plan. And that leaves me with but one solution: to go after the banshee tonight.

I watch Sir Ywain limp away before I take out the spare key and unlock the armory. If there’s one good thing about all this stupid cleaning I’ve had to do, it’s that I know where everything’s kept.

I scan the shelves filled to bursting. What I need is a weapon.

“This’ll do nicely,” I say, coming upon a rack of swords.

I grab one whose hilt ends in a glimmering dark blue stone— not a gem I recognize, but the point is that the sword’s made of iron.

I grab it, but its weight pulls me forward, and the tip clangs against the floor. I jerk around, ears open for any other sound. When no one comes over, I hurry to replace the sword back where it belongs and settle instead for a much smaller blade.

Knife tucked safely into my boot, I slink back outside, lock the door behind me, and head for the landing pad.

“I knew it,” someone says behind me.

I jump to the side, ready to defend myself. Keva and I both stare at each other, and then I drop my hands back down, sheepish.

“If you think you’re gonna get the banshee like that, God save us all,” she says. “You might try not to close your eyes, for one.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I say, straightening my jacket. “How’d you know I’d be here?”

“I’m your roommate,” Keva says. “Though frankly, you’re so transparent anybody can read what you’re going to do before you realize it yourself.”

The wood creaks under us as we cross the wharf. When we reach the warding stone, I pause. Darkness has enveloped the fields ahead of us. I wish there were at least stars in this sky-lake, anything to dispel the sense of foreboding this lugubrious landscape is giving me.

“Changed your mind?” Keva asks, her voice ringing clear in the quiet of the night.

“Shh,” I say, my heart beating faster. There’s no turning back now, especially not with a witness.

Something glows in the darkness before us, winks out, then comes back, closer. Keva grabs the back of my jacket.

“Is that a Fey?” she whispers. “You step out of the school precinct, and you’re toast.”

My thought exactly. I wonder if I should get my knife out already, until I hear a soft meow.

“It’s just a cat,” I say, releasing the breath I’d been holding.

I shrug Keva off and head in the direction above which I believe Island Park lies. After a minute, Keva follows.

It’s not until we’re nearly to the forest and the school’s no longer visible that I stop. I look up at the dark void that is Lake Winnebago.

“I really don’t like this, Morgan,” Keva says as the cat runs around my legs.

“I’ll be fine,” I say, more for my sake than hers.

I make a quick prayer to slow my heartbeat to a more acceptable speed, then point my hand down to the ground at my feet.

“Perth,” I whisper.

A burst of green energy flashes out of my hand and pulverizes the ground, nearly taking out my foot at the same time.

“By Kali’s mighty sword, you can use them!” Keva breathes.

“OK, let’s try that again,” I say shakily. “But without any maiming.”

I’m about to call out the ogham’s name again, when the cat hisses at me, then claws my legs to shreds.