Spellbinder (Moonshadow #2)

“The geas is like that,” he replied. “Sometimes I can find my way around orders to certain freedoms. I’ve been expressly forbidden to help prisoners escape, but that doesn’t mean I can’t aid them from time to time, like I am with you. I’ve been ordered to never tell anyone I’m acting under a geas, but you and I can discuss a fact you already know. If she had ordered me to never talk about the geas with anyone, I would be mute right now. One of her greatest flaws is her own carelessness. I hope it will be her downfall one day.”

“Specifics matter,” she whispered. “How you phrase things, what elements you choose to put in a spell or a bargain, or what you choose to leave out. I don’t know anything else about magic, but dealing with the Djinn has taught me that much. When the first Djinn approached and wanted to bargain to attend one of my concerts, I consulted with a negotiating expert before striking a deal. I learned a lot from her.”

Despite the heavy topic, he found himself smiling again. “That was smart.”

“Now several Djinn owe me favors.” She emitted a ghost of a laugh. “I keep them as my safety net. The funny thing is, they could have just taken physical form and bought a concert ticket like everyone else.”

He chuckled silently. “I remember when a few of the Djinn bargained with me to listen to my music. Gods, I haven’t thought of that in ages. It happened so long ago. One of them told me they experience music in an entirely different way when they’re bodiless in their natural form. The vibration of the sound suffuses them entirely. They have a way of appreciating music that’s completely alien to us. I doubt a single Djinn would consider attending a concert in an embodied form. That would be like trying to listen to music with earplugs, or appreciate a work of art while wearing a blindfold. It’s simply unthinkable if you have the alternative.”

He had lost himself so deeply in reverie, her surprise came like a dash of cold water to the face. She exclaimed, “You never said you were a musician! What do you play?”

His pleasure faded. “I’m not, at least not anymore. I haven’t played anything in centuries.”

“That would kill me.” Her whisper shook. “They killed me when they broke my hands. I can’t live without my music.”

He put his hand over both of hers as she twisted them together in her lap. “You are stronger than you give yourself credit for. You have no idea what you can survive until you’re pushed to find out.”

Underneath his palm, her clenched hands opened, unfurling like a flower. She cupped his hand between hers, and in a gesture that shocked him to the core, she slid to his side and put her head on his shoulder. “I really can’t trust you, can I?”

He let the sadness in that whisper sink in, breathing through the pain like he had breathed through every other pain he had experienced in his very long life.

He could have told her that she could trust him to do everything he could to fight the geas, to work his way around direct orders, to do for her whatever was in his power to do, and in a way, all that would have been true.

But fostering false hopes would not serve her any good purpose. Putting an arm around her, he drew her close.

“No,” he said gently. “You really can’t.”

*

What on earth was she doing?

Why was she cuddling up to a man who had just admitted she couldn’t trust him?

A man who had alluded to the fact that he could be ordered to do monstrous things—and no doubt had done them in the past?

He could be ordered to torture her, to kill her, and he would do it. All of it.

What kind of magic had such a terrible hold over him?

“I don’t know how you’re still breathing.” The words slipped out of her as she tried to imagine what his life must be like.

“I’m still breathing, because I was ordered to.” A dark, sardonic note entered his whisper. “And I happen to be extremely hard to kill, so no one has managed that feat yet.”

She sank into the horror of imagining his suicidal despair while being forbidden to act on it, a right that was so basic she had never thought to question it before. His life was literally no longer his own.

That kind of shackle could crush the music out of a man. It should have crushed all decency, moral code, and sense of compassion as well, but somehow he had managed to hold on to those things, and he acted on them, at least as much as he was able.

Nestling against him, she turned her face into his shirt. “I’m so sorry for what happened to you.”

Something dropped briefly onto her forehead. Had he just kissed her?

While she felt like screaming on his behalf, he sounded perfectly composed. “Instead of being sorry, what you should be is wary.”

The full import of that was beginning to settle in. It clashed with all her sensory impressions.

The heavy weight of his arm circling her shoulders was a shocking comfort. After being chilled for most of her time in this cell, he radiated heat that suffused her with a sense of well-being. She reveled in the simple, animal pleasure of feeling his muscled body against hers, the hard pillow of his shoulder underneath her cheek.

She didn’t know his name, or what he looked like. She hardly knew anything about him that wasn’t self-report, except that Robin thought he was terribly dangerous.

He had gone out of his way to warn her, himself, but he had also healed her. He brought food and water, and kept his word as much as he was able, and even more importantly than all that, he offered her hope and encouragement at a point when she had been so devastated she couldn’t even bring herself to get up off the floor.

No matter what he had done—or had been forced to do—those were not the actions of an evil man. And while she might not be able to trust him, her life had been shattered so thoroughly she was learning to grab on to any piece of something that felt good, no matter how small or fleeting.

This moment of feeling warm with her belly full, whispering confidences to someone who didn’t judge her, leaning against a strong body that seemed to welcome her presence—this moment was so good it bordered on the miraculous. She concentrated fiercely on soaking in every impression to shore up the time when she was alone and cold again.

But if she was going to have any future at all, it was also time to start laying plans.

She whispered, “Tell me more about Isabeau.”

He stirred, his restless body signaling clearly the distaste he had for the subject, but he also answered. “Modern psychologists would probably call her a narcissist. Every thought she thinks, every move she makes, is all about herself. She will lie, manipulate, steal, kill, do whatever it takes to get what she wants. If you are on her good side, she’s all sweetness and smiles. If you get on her bad side… Well, you know something of what can happen if you get on her bad side.”

“Yeah.” She rubbed her eyes. “It must be terrible to deal with her.”

“I’m often away, carrying out her orders, which provides some relief. Long ago, she embarked on a crusade to destroy another demesne with crossover passageways near Avalon’s—that of Oberon and his Dark Court.”

“What kind of Elder Race are they?”

“Officially they’re labeled Dark Fae, which is why Oberon’s court is the Dark Court as opposed to Isabeau’s Light Court. But the reality is, Lyonesse is a society made of mixed races. They offend Isabeau’s racist and xenophobic tendencies.”