Rise of the Fey (2 page)

“The banshee,” I whisper, huddling instinctively closer to the clurichaun.

Nibs’s chains rattle as if he’s just shook his head. “Again, very doubtful. Banshees would not dare get this close to humans, and to a place crawling with knights even less so.”

Again, the guttural, inhuman cry reaches my ears. “She’s here for me,” I say, my mouth dry. “I killed her master, she wants revenge!”

The banshee worked for Dean. Dear, sweet Dean whose care of me over the years turned out to be only a façade for his true intent: To harvest my blood, needed to free his mother Carman.

I feel the palm of my left hand where the cut he made has closed back up, leaving a puckered scar behind.

The minutes tick by, marked by the banshee’s mournful cries.

“Why is she even sad?” I ask, resentful at the recollection of Dean’s betrayal. “He didn’t even treat her well. In fact, he was going to kill her to complete the warding circle!”

“Sometimes being treated like shit is better than never having your existence acknowledged.”

“It was a rhetorical question,” I snap, not wanting to feel pity for Dean’s hired killer.

I dig my knuckles into my eyes in an effort to get rid of the vision of Dean’s pale face as the ground of Island Park slowly drew him under, eating him up like it did his other eleven victims. Not
once did his eyes waver from my face, not even when the earth finally closed over him.

Tears well up, hot against my frozen hands. “I hope all the demons in hell are torturing you right now,” I hiccup, more angry at myself for missing him than at anything else. “I hope they’re tearing your eyes out and pulling your teeth out, and ripping your hair out, and cutting you to shreds, and…” I let my voice trail off—I’ve really got to work on better curses.

“Has anyone ever told you how overly dramatic you are?” Nibs asks, and I sniff back my tears in mild embarrassment. “If you ask me, there’s no hell worse than being stuck here with—”

“Shh,” I cut him off again. “Someone’s coming!”

“Yes, yes,” Nibs says complacently, “we’ve already established the fact that our little friend is—”

He breaks off as the muted thumping of boots on stone grows louder, drawing near, then stops. I hear a key being inserted into the lock and the door to our cell is wrenched open.

I close my eyes at the sudden, blinding light.

“Urgh, it reeks in here!” a man says.

I shy away from the deep voice, trying to cover my bare legs with my muddy skirt. My teary gaze falls on Nibs’s prostrated form and I hold back a gasp. Half his face looks like it’s been burnt with acid, a mesh pattern tracing his temple and the top of his left cheek. I swallow with difficulty as I match the pattern burned into his face to that of the iron threads in my coat.

“Morgan?”

I blink up through the curtain of greasy hair that’s fallen over my face as Arthur steps inside.

“Dear God, Morgan, what’s happened to you?”

“You locked me up,” I say through gritted teeth. “I thought that was rather obvious.”

“It wasn’t…” He pauses. “But it’s just been a few hours!”

“You mean days,” I say, alarmed. I can’t possibly have lost track of time that much, can I? Or is that a side effect from being locked up in total obscurity?

“I mean hours,” Arthur repeats, more gently, “and you already look like a mess.”

“Yeah, and your sweetie’s gone batshit crazy to boot,” Nibs says, voicing my fear. “But isn’t that why you put her in here for?”

Arthur glances at the clurichaun with obvious disgust. “Why have they been put together?” he asks, his voice cold. “I want Morgan moved to another cell, one with light and away from—”

“Can’t, sir,” the guard says, his eyes narrowed with revulsion. “Orders.”

“Don’t bother,” I tell Arthur before he can argue back. I lick my dry lips. “Nothing you do or say is going to change the fact that you betrayed me.”

Arthur flinches. “I didn’t mean for this to happen,” he says so low I barely hear him over Nibs’s loud, rattling breathing. “I will get you out of here, you need to believe me. This is all… temporary.”

Eyes pleading, Arthur leans down and slowly brushes my hair out from my face, his fingers lingering on my cheek. I can’t resist the temptation and bite him, my teeth sinking into his flesh. He cries out but I hold on until the guard kicks me in the gut.

“You’ll pay for that, demon!” the man says, his next kick landing on my sternum and knocking the air out of my lungs.

“Enough!” Arthur says, his voice striving for composure. “I won’t have the prisoner injured before her trial.”

“I hope your hand gets infected and you lose it,” I cough. Then the other shoe drops. “Trial? What trial?”

“The one that will determine whether you should be put down or not,” the guard says, looking like he’s straining not to hit me again.

“Put me down?” I repeat, my insides knotting with fear.

My eyes flicker to the door left wide open behind them. This is my chance. I smile at the guard, goading him to attack me again. In this confined space, he can’t use his sword, and I’ve learned enough from Master Ywain to bring the larger man down long enough to flee.

Arthur must have sensed my desire, for he moves into my field of vision before the guard can come at me.

“I just came to let you know that you are to be tried in a week and a day,” he says. “The trial will be held before members of both KORT and the Board, at Terce
²
.” He leans forward, enough so the guard can’t hear him, but far enough from my deadly dentition. “And drop the crazy act. I need you to make a good impression on everyone if I want to get you out of here.”

I squint up at him, too surprised to come up with a snarky repartee. He can’t be serious. It was my understanding that Irene—his own mother—wanted nothing better than to see me eviscerated. So what’s he doing here telling me he wants to set me free?

Arthur straightens up, gives me a pointed look then heads back out.

The guard snorts in disbelief. “Don’t know why he bothered,” he mutters. “You aren’t better than a feral dog.”

And before I can get over my surprise, he kicks me again. I double over in pain, gasping, a wave of warmth spreading down my legs. The heavy iron door squeals back shut, cutting off all light and any hope I had of escaping.

The tears I’ve barely been holding come pouring out in raking sobs.

“There she goes again,” Nibs says, sounding defeated. “Why are you overreacting again? At least you’ve got a chance to make it out alive.”

I cry even harder. “I-It’s not th-that,” I say, burning with humiliation. “I just p-peed myself.”

Days and nights bleed into each other with the sporadic meal to mark the time ebbing by. And, unfortunately, I’m still sane, which makes my ordeal that much harder to bear.

“Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen,” I hum off-key, “nobody knows but Jeeesus. Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen, Gloooory Halleluuuiah.”

“Can you
please
stop the racket?” Nibs asks plaintively.

“Sometimes I’m up, sometimes I’m down,” I sing louder, “oh, yes Loooord. Sometimes I’m splattered to the ground, oh yes Loooooord.”

“You’ve sung it ten thousand times already!” Nibs yells over me.

I snap my mouth shut and lean back against the iron door, my post since Arthur’s visit, and the perfect spot to tell if someone’s coming. Not that it matters. By now I’m convinced the whole world’s conveniently forgotten all about me.

“I’m bored,” I say after a while. “Let’s play a game!”

“How about seeing how long it takes Carman to get her ass here and bail us out?”

“That could take ages,” I say. “I’ll be tried and hung before that happens.”

“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Nibs says.

“Why not?” I ask, perking up.

“Because of your Fey blood. Have you noticed a propensity to heal, by any chance?”

I frown to myself, remembering my wounds closing up after drinking from the Sangraal. “I suppose…” I say tentatively.

“So you’re likely to suffer a much more gruesome, painful death instead,” Nibs says with relish. “One that won’t give you a chance to heal back up.”

“That was because of the Sangraal,” I say. “They can’t blame me for that, can they?”

“The Sangraal helps augment one’s powers not temporarily give you one,” Nibs says.

I think back to that dreadful night facing Carman, and how I was able to heal Arthur afterward. “Could it boost your healing too then?” I ask. “Could it restore your ogham?”

Nibs chuckles dryly. “No, but I’d settle for a face lift at this point. Not that it matters in our present circumstances.”

“If I get my hands back on it,” I tell him, “I’ll help restore you to health.”

Before Nibs can answer me with another one of his jabs, the metal of the door vibrates against my back. Someone’s coming down the stairs. I straighten up as the tremors intensify—more than one person is coming, which means this isn’t mealtime….

Someone unlocks the door and pushes it open, projecting a dazzling wedge of light inside the cell. Before I can scurry away to the other end, however, a guard grabs me by the arm and hauls me to my feet.

“Time to get yourself burned at the stake, demon,” the man says before dragging me out into the narrow hallway and closing the door again.

Despite the guard’s painful hold on my arm, the faint heat of the flickering torch releases some of the tension that’s been accumulating between my shoulder blades while in jail. As my vision adjusts to the light, I find myself standing before a familiar figure dressed all in black. The woman’s heavily-lined eyes are watching me with a flat expression, judging as they always have.

“Hello, Irene,” I say, smiling until my lips crack. “Always a pleasure.”

Her nose wrinkles in distaste.

“
Laguz
,” she intones, flicking her hand towards me.

The guard barely has the time to let go of my arm before a massive jet of water hits me in the chest, cold and unforgiving. When I think I’m about to drown, the deluge stops, leaving me soaking wet and shaking.

“That’ll have to do,” Irene says with a slight smirk.

The guard proceeds to handcuff me before slipping on a heavy iron collar around my neck, a long, heavy chain hanging from it.

“A fitting leash for the little bitch,” he whispers, before dragging me after him.

We emerge next to the church, the sky-lake bright with the light of noonday. The wind picks up, plastering my sodden clothes to my body, and bringing with it the ever-present scent of apple blossoms that can’t quite mask the acrid smell of fires. A chill
runs down my arms as I remember the pile of dead Fomori serving as a pyre on my way back from facing Carman. Surely they can’t still be burning the dead?

“Get going, you demon spawn,” the guard says, yanking hard on my chain.

I stumble after him as Irene leads us past the church towards the training grounds. I hear the sounds of commotion long before we reach the arena, and I guess I’m to have a public trial, one the whole school seems most eager to attend.

The crowd’s excited chatter grows to a roar of disapproval the moment I step inside the stadium. Something hits me in the face, splattering all over my hair and my guard’s uniform. I barely taste the juice of a well-ripe tomato before another flurry of vegetables and rotten fruit hits me.

“Death to the traitor!” someone shouts as a solid apple hits the back of my head with a loud
thunk
before bouncing off to the ground and rolling away in the dirt.

My guard cusses under his breath and forces me to go faster towards a round stand erected a third of the way down the arena floor.

“Rip her ogham out!” another shrill voice screams from the stands.

Applause of approval resounds at the cry when a crackling thunder rends the air. I look up, startled.

“I will have order and discipline at my court!” a voice booms out, coming from the dais raised in the center of the stadium.

The curses and cries die out as quickly as a snuffed flame. The man who spoke is a grizzled geezer, his shoulders pulled back proudly, his face stern. Fluttering angrily on a pole above him is a triangular flag depicting a bearded man with the horns of a ram, a sword in one hand and a wreath of oak leaves in the other—the Board’s sigil.