“Yet here you are.” Under the changeless gray of water and sky, Vivien
’s eyes found nothing to kindle the fire in them. “Who invited you?”
The controlled expression that had settled over Scotia’s face melted
suddenly. She stared at the three, looking wide-eyed and tense, and answered
incredulously, “Nobody invited me! I exceeded the speed limit on my bike and
rode out of the world, maybe that’s how I got here. What can one knight
pledged to serve the wyvern king matter to you? You’re already battling King
Arden for his son, so that you can fight him for his realm. There’s nothing I
can do except stay and bear witness, to do what I was asked to do: to stand
with the king’s son until he casts me out. What else can I tell you?”
“You took something I want,” Vivien said simply.
“I didn’t—I have nothing—”
“You took Daimon’s attention. He brought you here.”
Daimon, astonished, gazed at the fay, enthralling face that had again and
again drawn him across the threshold between worlds. Vivien smiled ruefully at
him; he remembered the touch of her long, graceful fingers, the eerie, magical
fires in her eyes. He had a sudden vision of her being crowned queen of her
realm, while he stood beside her yet alone, watching without a word to say and
with no one he knew at all standing with him in that strange land where he had
lost himself.
He drew breath slowly, deeply, wondering what peculiar dream they had
inhabited together, until they woke and neither knew where they were now.
“It’s called glamour,” Vivien said softly. “What you saw in me. I
enchanted you. Now the glamour, the magic, is gone. You are disenchanted.”
“I didn’t intend to be,” he whispered. “I’m sorry. I don’t— I can’t
seem to find my way back to where we were. That place seems terrifying. If not
impossible.”
“It’s not the first time we have tried this,” his mother said reluctantly.
“I was hoping— I wanted this so much. For us. And for you.”
He gazed at her, the woman who had given him her face, and half his heart.
“Maybe you could change the story? Talk to my father. Without the threats.”
“Oh, piffle,” his great-aunt declared to that. “Without the cauldron, what
do we have to—”
“You have no cauldron. But still you have such power.”
“What power?”
He felt it again, the lingering touch of pain and desire, the dream of what
had ensorcelled him. “All that power,” he said huskily, “you had over me.
That still exists. Ravenhold exists. You showed it to me in so many ways. Open
your boundaries. Invite others in. Show them what you showed me. The magic.
The poetry. Invite my father.”
“I did, once,” his mother reminded him.
“And he never forgot you. Ever. You could show the human world what
Wyvernhold is lacking. You don’t have to fight my father’s realm to get back
your own. They can exist together. I know that. You revealed that in so many
ways. Open your doors; let the magic flow into Wyvernhold. The more humans
know of the lost Ravenhold, the more they will want it back. It is beautiful,
dangerous, magical, frightening, ancient, and forever. I know that. You took
me there.”
“Piffle,” Morrig murmured again, dourly. But he saw in her eyes the faint,
unexpected gleam of possibilities. “I still want that cauldron,” she added.
“If only because it’s ours, and I don’t see why Wyvernhold should have it.
”
“No,” Daimon said fairly. “I don’t, either.”
“This led us here.” Ana raised a darkly shod foot, nudged the odd, shifting
cloudy bundle of bracken with it. “To Chimera Bay. We heard pleas for help
that his evil caused, and finally understood them.”
“What is it?” Daimon asked uneasily.
“Our first and only king,” Morrig said, her voice so cold and thin that
Daimon felt it chill his heart. “He and the cauldron vanished at the same
time, during that battle with the wyvern king. He keeps telling us he has no
idea where it is. But he is here in Chimera Bay, and so are you with your
raven’s eyes. If it’s here, you’ll recognize it.”
Daimon gazed with horror and fascination at the bundle. “What will you do
with him?”
“We’ll ask him one last time,” Morrig answered. “If he refuses to tell us,
we’ll trap him somewhere, I suppose. I don’t know if such power truly can
die, but he’s too dangerous to let loose.” Out of the corner of his eye,
Daimon saw the wordless Scotia shift half a step closer to him. “Where in
your world are we?”
“We’re in the parking lot of the all-you-can-eat diner.”
“Ah. Good. That’s what you came here to find. There are ways we can see
without being seen. Can you take us where the inside of it might be?”