Spellbinder (Moonshadow #2)

He was getting ready to leave. She didn’t know how she felt about him—she hadn’t had any time to process the fact that he was the reason why she was in this hellhole—but the thought of him leaving her alone again brought the panic back. It beat through her veins, shook through her body in tremors, and shortened her breath.

She couldn’t force herself to swallow any water until his hand came down on her shoulder and he held her again in the same kind of steady grip as before. It grounded her in a way that helped to beat back the panic. Then she upended the bottle and drank until it was empty. When she was finished, she handed the bottle back to him and hugged herself.

“I will come back, Sidonie,” he said.

“You’re sure you won’t just leave me here?” Her voice shook as badly as the rest of her.

Because he could. He could walk away and never come back, and while it was an unbelievable miracle he had healed her hands, she was still trapped in the cold and the dark, still caught in this unending nightmare.

“I promise you, I will never just leave you here.” He stepped closer until she could feel the brush of his clothing against her arm and feel his body heat. In the calm, confident way he had reassured her about everything else, he said, “It’s nearly dawn, so I must go for now. In less than a half an hour your cell will lighten, and the guard will come through with food and water. You need to start throwing the food they give you down the latrine, or they’ll expect to see a dead body in here eventually. After the day passes, and they have come through on their evening rounds, I will be back. I will not abandon you.”

Breathing hard, she focused on soaking up his words. When he was finished, she forced herself to say, “Thank you. For everything.”

She was rather proud that she had kept herself from pleading for him to stay, since he couldn’t anyway, and she would not let herself sound so irrational again.

“Don’t thank me.” His whisper turned harsh. “It’s the least I can do. See you this evening.”

But what if he didn’t come back? People promised things they couldn’t deliver. What if he changed his mind? What if, through no fault of his own, he was detained?

The way her kidnapper, Robin, had talked, this man and Isabeau were responsible for a great many deaths. Just because he had helped her didn’t mean he was a good man, or trustworthy.

Clenching her fists, she pressed them to her temples. The doubts and worries were going to drive her crazy.

There was another slight rustle of clothing, and the smallest creak of metal. The air around her changed and became cold and empty, and she knew he was gone. Carefully, she held the food he had given her.

One small loaf of bread.

Thirty-two grapes. Thirty-two.

Thirty-two.

*

The pain from the new knife wound in Morgan’s side was unrelenting as he eased his way down the prison tunnels. Sidonie had gotten in a few solid blows. He was glad she had so much fight in her. She was going to need it.

Despite the darkness, he could see well enough to pick out where he was going, and he knew the route like he knew the back of his hand.

Isabeau’s castle had been built on a rabbit warren of natural tunnels that had been turned into a prison over a thousand years ago. Some parts had been filled in, while cells had been carved out of others, and shafts had been dug in order to provide ventilation. Without the indirect daylight from those shafts, Sidonie’s cell would never lighten to gray and she would have been in perpetual darkness.

The prison guard rooms and barracks lay just above the cells. That area had several openings to above ground. He avoided it altogether and wound his way farther down, to a tunnel passageway that had been part of the area that had been originally filled in.

A very long time ago, when Morgan had begun to realize he was not going to break free of the geas, he had turned his efforts to creating his own private spaces in Avalon.

Working with earth magic to shift rock and shale, he had cleared out a few of the ancient passageways and kept them hidden with sheets of rock covering their entrances. This tunnel was only one of several secret ways he had of moving in and out of the castle.

The first time Sidonie had hit him had been an annoyance, but the second time she had struck directly on the new wound. He had felt something tear, a few of the stitches, no doubt, and wetness had seeped through the bandage.

He kept pressure on the wound, and when he lifted his palm away briefly, his skin felt sticky and wet. He would have to suture the area again before he could rest, all while avoiding detection from anyone else so Isabeau could not force him back to her side.

In the normal course of things, hiding from the Light Fae was relatively easy. They had keen eyesight and hearing, and many of them were proficient in magic, but none of them were as proficient as he was.

This time wasn’t in the normal course of things. Once he’d made the decision to return to Avalon, he’d raced back as fast as he could. With the fresh silver poisoning his system, Morgan was much weaker than normal, his magic was dampened, and he hadn’t had time to recover the way he’d planned.

Healing Sidonie’s hands had taken everything he had and then some. To make sure he did the job properly, he’d had to use several healing potions to supplement the meager trickle of his own returning Power.

Not only that, but Isabeau’s Hounds were lycanthrope, just as he was, and they had the ability to track him by scent.

He had prepared for that eventuality by using a chemical hunter’s spray developed on Earth that helped to eliminate scent. If worse came to worst, and Isabeau tried to have one of her Hounds track the person who had broken into Sidonie’s cell and healed her, they wouldn’t be able to glean any information.

He hoped he had brought enough of the spray to last for a while, because he couldn’t think of any way to make Sidonie’s situation better. While he could take her food and supplies and offer healing and whatever comfort she might accept, he couldn’t release any prisoners, or aid in their escape. Isabeau had forbidden that a long time ago when she had first ensorcelled Morgan.

Thrusting aside the memories, he focused on the challenges of the present. As he eased through the narrow opening he had hidden long ago with subtle concealment spells, he looked up at the lightening sky grimly.

He hadn’t expected to find Sidonie so badly injured, and he had stayed with her longer than he had meant to. The tunnel exit lay deep in the shadow of a stone buttress, but he needed to cross an open area of ground that was clearly visible in the growing morning light, all the while bleeding and drained of Power.