“This has nothing to do with Lord Skelton’s quest—”
“You are searching for the same thing,” she said inarguably. “What would
you have done with that extraordinary vessel if you had walked into the
Kingfisher Bar and Grill and found it there? You recognize this marvel, you
take it—and you do what with it? Use it to threaten your own father with war
if he doesn’t return a long-forgotten land to its rightful ruler? Would you
really do that?”
He was seeing her clearly, then, and wondering at the question, which took on
dimensions he hadn’t noticed before, or had so completely forgotten why he
should care about them. “Yes,” he said finally. “Yes. I would have. If I
had walked into the Kingfisher Inn instead of into this mystifying,
exasperating no-place. This mist would still have been in my head instead of
all around us. Now, my head is appallingly clear. And when we are finally
allowed to leave this place, I will be of no use any longer to the one who
enchanted me. Or to myself,” he added with wry sorrow. “I will be
disenchanted.”
He was astonished at the sudden sheen in her eyes, the well of tears from some
source hidden within her prowess, her composure.
“I am so sorry,” she whispered. “I should never have followed you so far.”
“I didn’t think anyone could.” He was silent again, thinking clearly for
once, and finding it disconcerting. “If this isn’t within the definition of
Lord Skelton’s idea of a quest, and it isn’t the enchanting place I had
begun to know so well—if some power is guarding that vessel from both the
wyvern and the raven, then where are we? Who brought us here?”
“Good question,” his mother said, and he saw the three familiar faces behind
Dame Scotia.
She whirled, as though she felt the intent gazes homing in between her
shoulder blades.
“Who is this,” Vivien wondered, “standing between you and me, my love?”
Scotia moved again, quickly, stepping to one side of Daimon. “Lady Seabrook,
” she exclaimed, and Morrig smiled suddenly with delight.
“Dame Scotia Malory. I met your ancestor Tavis once, you know. Well, of
course you don’t, but I did. You’d think, writing all those tales of valor
and romance, he would have led a more respectable life. But then, how would he
have recognized me?”
“You knew Tavis?” Scotia said faintly.
“Of course. I have been at the Wyvernhold Court since the first King Arden
overran Ravenhold. I thought it would be the best place to hide.”
“But how,” Vivien asked, her wide, lovely eyes never moving from Daimon’s,
“did this knight find her way here?”
“Well,” Morrig mused, considering the question, “that might be Tavis’s
fault, too. We might as well blame him. Everyone else did. He was always
finding himself where he didn’t belong, and with those who might have given
him a glimpse into overlapping realms. Dame Scotia could have inherited some
of his sight. Fore and hind, over and in, as well as second—who knows exactly
which sight drew her here?”
“She serves the wyvern,” Daimon’s mother said abruptly. She was veiled in
black from hair to shoe, as they all were, shadow black, raven black, and she
held what looked like a chain made of raven feathers that linked her to an
odd, blurred bundle containing broken branches or bones, all of them
constantly shifting, testing the strength of what held them imprisoned.
“Yet she sees us,” Vivien said, her voice curling to a question, a caress,
in Daimon’s ear.
“He brought her here,” Ana said simply, and Daimon, startled, shook his
head.
“Of course she serves my father,” he said, glimpsing undercurrents, and
choosing words very carefully around them. “So do I, for that matter, though
it hardly matters to you. She was following me only because she was asked to.
She has no idea how she got here, and I’m sure, if you show her a way out,
she’ll take it with great relief.”
“She has a voice,” Vivien commented, and gave Scotia a glimpse of her
charming smile. “She could ask.”
“I could,” Dame Scotia agreed. “Ask.”
But she did not, just waited silently, while they gazed at her, waiting as
well, then consulted one another.
“Generally speaking,” Morrig said to her, “you must be wanted.”
“Wanted?”
“Invited. To come here. As we asked Daimon. We permitted him to see our
realm. Sometimes we allure, beguile, bewitch—we do whatever catches the
attention of the one we wish to bring into our world. All that is a form of
invitation. We did not invite you.”