The Morrigan's Curse (4 page)

Addie sat up. Her father had taught all his children the
basics of spell casting, but he'd always singled out Evangeline as his best pupil. Now Addie had the opportunity to learn from the personal instruction of Bran Llyr, one of the most powerful Kin men on the planet. And with this opportunity came her chance to bargain, because even a Llyr couldn't countermand the Eighth Day Spell without the cooperation of an Emrys. “I'll learn whatever you can teach me
and
talk Aine Corra into joining us. But you have to promise me something first.”

Instead of striking her dead with lightning, Bran smiled. Addie suspected not many people could make demands of this man and be rewarded with a smile.

“I don't want you to hurt the Transitioners who live in that house,” Addie said. “The Taliesins placed me in the Carroways' care, and they gave me a good home for years. They're practically the only parents I remember.”

Bran sat back in his chair and retrieved his staff. “I commend your youthful spirit and boldness. I look forward to training you in the proper use of your potential.”

Addie grinned triumphantly.

RILEY FOUND AN UNOBSTRUCTED
bridge across the river, and once they were back on a highway, the two vehicles increased their speed to outpace the storm. The wind and rain lessened the farther inland they traveled. When midnight came, everyone except Evangeline transitioned into Thursday, and A.J. turned on the truck's radio. Reception was poor, but Jax caught references to a freak storm, flash floods, and a coastline ravished by hurricane-force winds.

However, it was raining only lightly when they arrived at their cabin in the Pennsylvania mountains. Jax watched Riley get out of the Land Rover and look back at it unhappily as he closed the door. Evangeline was still in there, sort of, and would remain there till next week. She wouldn't feel the time passing; it
wasn't
passing for her. But that didn't make it any easier to walk away from the car. Jax felt the same way every Thursday, wherever he left her.

Mr. Crandall showed up about an hour and a half behind them, complaining of flooded roads and the long detours he'd needed to get home.

“Anything to report on the Llyrs?” Riley asked him.

“Other than the whopping hurricane they dumped on us? No. They vanished like smoke.” Mr. Crandall sounded tired and discouraged. “They might have flown halfway across the country or switched to land transportation at any time. Sheila Morgan says they couldn't have crossed the Atlantic in what they were flying, but they might've changed planes later. We know from the assault on Oeth-Anoeth that they have more than one.”

“But if they made that storm,” Jax argued, “they couldn't be that far away, right?”

“It was created by magic and traveling faster than naturally possible. We don't know where it came from.” Mr. Crandall sighed. “Fact is, they could be almost anywhere.”

Jax and Riley exchanged glances. Neither one of them looked forward to sharing that news with Evangeline next week.

By late Thursday morning, the magical storm had dispersed into scattered showers, but New York City and parts of New Jersey and Connecticut were without power. Beach towns were devastated. Dozens of people had drowned in their homes or cars, and a couple
hundred were assumed dead, vanished along with the planes that had blipped off the radar map at midnight. Riley got on the phone with Deidre as soon as cell phone service was restored, trying to learn what the Morgans would do next.

Meanwhile, Jax surfed the online news reports on his computer while checking his phone. Billy had texted him, asking him to get in touch, but someone else was on Jax's mind. Twice he picked up the phone and chickened out. The third time, he opened his contacts and punched the telephone symbol next to a certain name.

“Yeah?” That was how his call was answered.

“It's Jax,” he said.

“I know who it is.”

Friendly as ever. Jax was already regretting the call. “I was just wondering if . . . uh, if you guys were okay. I didn't know if you were still in New York City.”

“Are you crazy?” Tegan Donovan said. “We weren't going to hang around for a hurricane.”

“Have you thought any more about helping us?” The Donovan family—Tegan, her twin brother, Thomas, and her father—had a highly developed scent sensitivity for magic. They could identify Transitioner and Kin families by smell, which had proved useful more than once.

“We weren't thinking about it at all,” Tegan replied coldly. “We told Riley
no
when he asked us last week. I told
you
no. We're not stupid enough to go sniffing out
people who can raise hurricanes and tornadoes when they feel like it. We don't owe you anymore. If anything, you owe us.”

“Yeah, I know.” Tegan had saved his butt from the Dulacs, much as Jax hated to admit it.

“You should take Blondie and get as far away from those Kin as you can instead of going after them.”

“I thought you didn't care about Evangeline.”

“I don't care about either of you. That was just disinterested advice. Why'd you call me?”

“I dunno. Thought you and your family might be headed into New York to do some looting and wanted to offer my own disinterested advice. Water's high. Try not to drown.”

“Jerk.” She hung up.

“Same to you,” Jax said, even though she was already gone. He shook the phone vigorously, pretending to throttle it. Then he texted Billy.

Jax: hey whats up?

Billy: can you get on video?

A few seconds later, Billy appeared in a video box on his computer screen. “Dude,” he said. “Glad to hear you're all okay.”

“Yeah, we are. But how'd you hear it?”

“Riley texted me last night to let me know.” It was
kind of weird that Riley and Billy kept in communication now, separate from Jax. “Hey, I've been working on my research for Riley,” Billy went on, “and finding all this cool stuff. Have you ever thought about elves?”

“Elves?”

“They're supposed to be gifted in magic, right? They live extra-long lives. And a long time ago they vanished from earth to go live in a magical world humans can't get into. Sound like anybody you know?”

“Evangeline is not an elf, Billy.”

“Of course not. But didn't you tell me the Kin are sometimes transported in coffins? Who
else
gets moved around in coffins?”

“Dead people.”

“Vampires.” Billy grinned. “What if Bram Stoker saw people being moved around in coffins and got the idea to write
Dracula
?”

Jax sighed. This was pure Billy—connecting everything to his favorite science fiction and fantasy stories. “How do vampires and elves help us find Addie Emrys?”

“Now I know where to look.” Which made no sense to Jax. Then Billy's grin died away. “But that's not why I wanted to talk to you. Dorian emailed me something a little while ago, and I'm supposed to forward it to you.”

“Dorian has your email? Do you think that's smart?” Dorian's dad had kidnapped Billy to get to Jax.

“Dude, your uncle knows where I live. What does it
matter? Besides, Dorian says now that I'm Riley's vassal, messing with me is practically an act of war.”

“Uh, the Dulacs assassinated Riley's family. They shot him up with tranquilizers and threw him in their dungeon. They're already at war with Riley.”

“That was under Ursula's leadership. According to Dorian, Sloane has the chance to wipe the slate clean.”

Jax would be really surprised if his cousin Sloane was interested in slate cleaning. The new eighteen-year-old leader of the Dulac clan had already proved herself as devious as her grandmother. “So, what are you supposed to send me?”

“Scanned pages out of your dad's journal. From back when he was a teenager.”

Jax froze. Dorian had told him about this. “A log of the truth,” his cousin had called it. Jax's dad had recorded everything that happened to him because his Dulac relatives had used their talent to manipulate his memory.

They'd done the same thing to Jax. Ursula Dulac had gotten into Jax's head and twisted his memories until he hated Riley and Evangeline. If it hadn't been for Tegan's advance planning to protect Jax's mind, the change might've been permanent. Jax would be living with Dorian's family right now, and Riley and Evangeline might be dead.

“I, uh, read the pages,” Billy went on. “Hope you don't mind.”

“No, it's okay,” Jax mumbled. Above the video box on the screen, an email from Billy appeared with an attachment.

“I didn't want to forward it to you without telling you that I'm here for you, dude.” Billy made a face. “That sounded girly, didn't it?”

“Yup.”

“I'll let you . . . um . . . yeah, bye.”

The video box disappeared, and Jax stared at the email notification for a long time before clicking it open. He read Dorian's message first.

Jax,

I'm sorry I didn't give this to you when I had the chance. Later Dad took it away from me and grounded me for like 30 years. But there was a brownie here yesterday before the storm, rummaging in your backpack, and he created a new brownie hole in my bedroom that my parents don't know about. So I'm not as grounded as they think I am.

I stole your father's journal back last night. We couldn't evacuate until after midnight, because of Lesley, and by then it wasn't safe to move. As soon as the rain and wind slacked off Dad got us out of the city, and now we're at our vacation house in the Catskills.

I'm emailing Billy so he can forward these scanned
pages to you. I'll keep the original safe, so you can have it someday if you want it.

Dorian

P.S. Used the brownie tunnels to steal Dr. Morder's notes from his apartment before we left. I'll let you know if I learn anything useful.

Jax was ashamed to realize he hadn't given any thought to his relatives during the storm.
Of course
they couldn't have left without Dorian's sister—a dud with no magical talent. Unless Lesley was handcuffed to a family member, she skipped over the eighth day every week and reappeared at 12:01 on Thursday like the rest of the Normals.

As for Dorian, that was a lot of sneaking around and defying authority for a nerdy prep-school kid. Jax wondered if he'd been a bad influence on his cousin.

Bracing himself, he opened the attachment and began to read.

Jax was still sitting in front of the computer, stunned, when Riley found him a little while later and asked with concern, “Jax, you okay?” Instead of answering, Jax stood up and gestured at the computer screen. Riley sat down. “What am I looking at?”

“My dad's journal,” Jax said flatly. “Dorian emailed it to Billy.”

If Riley was surprised Dorian and Billy were email buddies, he didn't show it. Riley silently read through the journal pages, which detailed how Jax's dad had found evidence he'd been used to help assassinate a rival Transitioner family—and how the whole thing had been wiped from his mind afterward. “Considering what they did to
you
,” Riley said finally, “this doesn't come as a shock.” He pointed to a passage on the last page. “See this part, where your dad says he knows who he's going to contact for help? I'll bet he meant
my
dad.”

Jax nodded.

“This explains what your dad's problem was with vassalhood—why he stayed independent and was dead set against me swearing you on.”

“Do you think he committed murder for the Dulacs?” After Jax blurted out the question, he wished he could take it back. Riley's family had died in an explosion engineered by Ursula Dulac.

Riley hesitated. He'd been present when that bomb killed his family. He'd almost been killed himself—and in official records, he was legally dead. Jax was just opening his mouth to retract the question, when Riley said, “Maybe they only used him to get close to their target.”

That wasn't an answer. It was a way out. But Jax recalled how gleefully
he
had betrayed Riley and plotted
against Evangeline under Ursula's manipulation. He knew what the Dulacs were capable of making someone do.

“This clears up a lot of things about your father,” Riley said.

“Not everything.” Then Jax told Riley what Angus Balin had said to him in the Dulac basement—that Jax's father had deliberately driven his car into a river to get away from his enemies. That information had been eating a hole in Jax's stomach for a week.

Sharing it with Riley eased the pain a little, especially because Riley didn't hesitate a second before saying, “Balin lied.”

“You think?”

“Your father struck me as someone who didn't do anything without a plan—and a backup plan—and a backup for the backup. Trust me, your father didn't panic and kill himself because he couldn't shake the Balins. It was an accident, and Balin was lying to hurt you.” Riley squeezed Jax's shoulder.

Jax didn't say anything. In the end, whether the car had gone into the water by accident or design—even as a part of a crazed, desperate backup plan—the result had been the same for Jax.

OVER THE WEEK, THE
mid-Atlantic coast struggled to recover from the Impossible Storm. Scientists tried to explain how a category-five hurricane had spontaneously appeared in seconds, while politicians blasted each other for inadequate preparation. Nobody, as far as Jax could tell, was blaming an ancient feud between two magical races.

However, the severity of the crisis convinced Transitioners that a concerted effort was needed to stand against the Llyrs. They'd have to put aside their rivalries and work together.

“How are we going to find these Kin when they could be anywhere?” Jax asked Riley.

“Sheila will have a strategy for locating them,” Riley replied. “Guaranteed.”

On Saturday, the phones of Riley, Mrs. Crandall, and Jax buzzed with identical texts.

Sheila Morgan: Monday. Table Meeting. 1pm. Bedivere's mountain house. Be there.

“This is it,” Riley said grimly. “I'm officially coming back from the dead.”

A.J. checked his phone. “I didn't get anything.”

“She only sent it to the people attending,” Mrs. Crandall said. “Me for the Kaye seat; Riley for Pendragon.”

“Why'd she text me?” Jax asked, staring at his phone. “I can't go.” The Table was a council of the highest Transitioner lords—ones who could claim a direct ancestor present at the casting of the Eighth Day Spell. Branch-off lines weren't included, and Jax's line was a branch-off in the newest possible way. He was the first of a bloodline that came from the Ambroses—who were, in turn, only a diverted branch from one of the knights of the Round Table.

“Gloria and I had a great idea, and we warned Sheila in advance out of courtesy. This is going to shake up a few people.” Riley grinned at Mrs. Crandall.

But Mrs. Crandall was staring at Riley in horror. “I can't take you to the Table like
that
.”

“Like what?” Riley stared back at her.

She turned on Jax next. “Both you boys in the car. Now!”

Mrs. Crandall said she wasn't going to let her liege lord claim Philip Pendragon's chair at the Table wearing
a biker jacket and cowboy boots. That was why, on the following Monday, Riley came downstairs dressed in a navy-blue suit with a red tie and black polished dress shoes. Mrs. Crandall had even made him get his hair cut—
short
.

Jax fell down on the sofa laughing. “Shut up,” Riley said, tugging on his collar like he was being strangled.

“You look like you're going to a job interview,” Jax said. “At a bank. To be an accountant.”

“Next time,” Riley growled, “I'll let them buzz you.”

Riley had scored a reprieve for Jax at the Hair Cuttery on Saturday by convincing Mrs. Crandall that they needed to leave him looking like himself—“a dumb kid.”

“Hey!” Jax had exclaimed.

“That way they'll underestimate him,” Riley had finished. “Like we all did.”

Jax had gotten away with just a new shirt and a half-inch trim on his wavy mop, but he still had to pass inspection before they left for the meeting. Mrs. Crandall straightened his collar and smoothed a loose lock of hair off his forehead. Then she turned to Riley and picked lint off his collar. “You look like your father,” she said.

“Then I should be wearing jeans.” Riley spoke quietly, not meeting her eyes. He wiggled a finger into the knot of his tie to loosen it.

Mrs. Crandall swatted his hand away. “Philip could get away with that. You can't.” Riley winced at the
mention of his father's name, and by the expression on his face, it looked like taking his dad's place at the Table made Riley a lot more uncomfortable than the clothes did. Mrs. Crandall put her hand on his arm and spoke gently. “You can't walk in there and try to fill his shoes. Just be yourself, and they'll see the similarity for themselves.”

“But this isn't the real me.” Riley waved a hand at his attire.

“Trust me on this. Ten years from now, if you want to ride in there on his motorcycle, you can. But today you're wearing a suit and tie.”

Jax groaned. For someone who was supposed to have a talent for information, he sure did miss a lot of obvious stuff.
The motorcycle. It was his dad's.
No wonder Riley spent so much time working on it. No wonder A.J. had taken the time to securely stow it in the truck before fleeing a hurricane. Jax got it now.

“So, Sir Bedivere,” Jax said as Riley drove the Land Rover along a scenic highway through the mountains. “I looked him up. He had one hand, and he was the knight who returned Excalibur to Niviane after King Arthur died. He's not going to be mad that Riley took it back, is he? Well, not him. He's dead. I mean
this
Bedivere.”

“I didn't steal the blade off Niviane's body,” Riley said
indignantly. “Wylit did that. I took it from Wylit. Spoils of war. It's mine.”

“Sir Bedivere didn't have one hand,” Mrs. Crandall added. “That's a mistranslation in the legends. He had the hand of power. It's the Bedivere talent.”

“And what is that, exactly?”

“Anything they do with that hand, whether it's wield a sword or a tennis racket or sign a business contract, is magically enhanced.” Riley glanced at Jax in the rearview mirror. “He'll use a handshake to evaluate you, and be careful what you say while doing it, because you might find yourself bound to an agreement.”

“Is he not trustworthy?” Jax asked.

“Philip thought Calvin Bedivere was a
fair
man,” Mrs. Crandall replied. “But most members of the Table will look out for their own interests above anything else. Be wary of all of them.”

“Is Bedivere the leader of the Table?”

“Why would you think that?” Riley asked. “The whole point of Arthur's Round Table was that everyone was equal. No one's vote counted more than anyone else's, no matter if you were a king or a knight or a noblewoman. This one runs the same way. Gloria's my vassal, but she can vote against me if she wants to.”

“Not that I will,” Mrs. Crandall said. “If I disagree with you, I'll tell you privately.”

And probably smack him in the back of the head
besides, from what Jax had observed. “Well, the meeting's at Bedivere's house,” Jax pointed out. “I just thought . . .”

“The Table usually meets at a neutral location in Manhattan,” Mrs. Crandall said. “But the city's still recovering from the storm, and Bedivere's house is a favorite alternative. You'll see why when we get there.”

The first thing Jax saw from the highway was a little town in the valley, tucked into a bend in the Lehigh River. Once they left the main road, he spotted the house on the mountainside overlooking the town. Maybe
castle
would've been a better word, because it seemed to guard the town from above. It had turrets and balconies and other architectural stuff Jax had no words for. He figured Bedivere must've signed a lot of contracts with that hand of power to afford this. “Does a whole clan live here?” Jax asked. “Like at the Dulac building?”

“Calvin's a widower,” Mrs. Crandall said. “He has three daughters, several grandchildren, and vassals with families of their own. They might stay with him from time to time, but I believe they all have their own residences, and only Calvin lives here year round.”

They took a narrow, switchback road to the house, where they were stopped at an ornate gate by three guards who ordered them to get out of the car and show their marks. When they did, two of the men betrayed no reaction, but the youngest one whistled in surprise over the Pendragon family crest.

“We're here to claim our seats,” Riley said.

“You and Kaye, perhaps,” the head guard said. “But the boy stays outside.”

“No, he's coming with us.” And then Riley explained why.

The inside of the mansion was as impressive as the outside, but Jax didn't have a lot of time to admire it. A guard marched them to a set of double doors, knocked briskly, and waved them into a banquet room. The table inside wasn't round, which disappointed Jax. It was a regular rectangular dining table with four men and three women seated around it. One of the women was Deidre's mother, Sheila Morgan, and another was Jax's cousin Sloane Dulac.

Jax stiffened at the sight of her. The last time he'd seen Sloane, he'd been fighting to keep himself out of her clan and Evangeline safe from her malicious plans.

A gray-haired gentleman rose from his chair at the head of the table. His smile seemed genuinely welcoming. “Gloria Kaye. Have you come to claim your brother's seat at last?” He offered her his hand, not by showing his mark in the Transitioner fashion, but in the Normal way.

“Good to see you again, Calvin.” Mrs. Crandall accepted his handshake. Her maiden name was Kaye, and she was descended from the Sir Kay of legend. Her family
had served the Pendragons for centuries, but like Riley, she was the last of her line. Her only child, A.J., had inherited his father's talent, not hers.

Calvin Bedivere turned to Riley, who solemnly showed his mark. “No need, young man,” said Bedivere, offering a warm handshake to him as well. “I recognize you. Philip's boy. I'm glad to see you alive and well.”

“Thank you, sir,” Riley said.

Jax detected a surprised reaction from some of the people in the room—but not many. Sheila Morgan and Sloane already knew Riley had survived the assassination attempt five years ago, and it looked as if word had leaked out to other Table members as well. Too many people had seen Riley at the pyramid in Mexico and at the Dulac building for it to remain a secret much longer.

Bedivere smiled at Jax next. “You, son, I don't know.”

Jax showed his mark. “Jax Aubrey, sir.”

“Indeed.” Bedivere shook Jax's hand with a friendly smile. “Now, Gloria and—Riley, is that right? You're both welcome to take the seats of your ancestors at our Table. And your young friend can wait outside.”

It was politely stated but firm. Jax was not welcome in the room.

“Jax isn't tagging along,” Riley said. “He's serving as proxy to someone who can't attend the meeting.”

“Ah,” Bedivere said. “Owens? Is he finally claiming his seat, too?”

“No.” Riley's voice was quiet. “The Owens line is deceased.”

“I can confirm that,” said Sheila Morgan. “Miller Owens died fighting Wylit's vassals in Mexico.”

“Another bloodline of the Table lost,” grumbled a bearded man, shaking his head. “While the branch-off talents increase like rabbits, snuffing us out.”

“Get over yourself, Pellinore,” said a wispy-thin, elderly lady with snow-white hair. “Branch-off talents aren't inferior to ours. Back before the spell, nobody cared about such things. It's only an accident of history that our families ended up earning a seat here—and an extra day, as well.”

Jax perked up his ears, suddenly wondering how many people with magic talents had not become Transitioners because they hadn't been present at the casting of the spell. He was pondering that when Bedivere cleared his throat to catch Jax's attention. “Who are you here to represent then, Aubrey?”

Jax snapped his thoughts back to the task at hand and said what Riley had told him to say. “I'm here as a proxy for my liege lady, and on her behalf I claim the Emrys seat at the Table.”

A number of voices called out at once.

“What?”

“That's nonsense!”

“There are no Kin at the Table!”

Sloane leaned over and whispered to the man sitting next to her.

“The Table is a Transitioner council,” Bedivere said to Riley.

“With all due respect, sir,” Riley replied, “seats at the Table are owed to clan leaders descended from the people who cast the Eighth Day Spell, which included one Kin lord.”

“He's right,” said the woman with the white hair. “There used to be an Emrys seat at the Table, although I don't believe it's been filled since the seventeenth century.”

“You would know,” muttered the bearded Pellinore, who seemed to be stinging from the
Get over yourself
remark.

“We can't invite an enemy to join us,” Sloane said loudly. “We're at war with the Kin, and the Emrys line conspired against us in the past. There's an Emrys consorting with the Llyrs right now.” The man beside her nodded.

“A child,” said Mrs. Crandall. “Who was driven to seek refuge with the Llyrs after being held against her will by the Dulacs.”

“It was protective custody,” Sloane corrected.

“It was a jail cell,” Jax snapped. He looked at everyone else. “My liege lady wants to get her sister away from the Llyrs.”

A narrow-faced man with a cross-eyed gaze waved his
hand for Jax to be quiet. “You don't have a right to speak here, boy.”

“If the Emrys leader wants to cooperate,” Sheila Morgan said, “it would be foolish to refuse her. Let's put it to a vote.”

“There's no reason for a vote,” the elderly woman said firmly. “An Emrys cast the Eighth Day Spell. The Emrys bloodline is owed a seat.”

But they voted anyway. Sheila Morgan and the white-haired woman voted in favor, and so did Riley and Mrs. Crandall, who hadn't even had a chance to sit down yet. Sloane voted against, along with the man beside her, the cross-eyed man, and Pellinore.

The deciding vote fell to Calvin Bedivere, who smiled wryly. “I find myself swayed by historic precedence. The Emrys family is welcome to our council.” He looked at Jax. “By proxy.”

“Thank you, sir.” Jax tried not to look as nervous as he felt. Riley clapped a hand on his shoulder, and together they moved toward the Table to find a seat.