Spellbinder (Moonshadow #2)

The puck laughed. “No? I know enough. Once, you were a kingmaker, and what a king he was. He was your best, brightest work, the most brilliant star in the night sky.”

Morgan went somewhere inside that was darker than the underground prison, undershot with red. He spat out, “You’re not fit to say his name.”

“Neither are you, anymore,” Robin said simply. “Now you’re just Morgan le Fae. A man without a real home or conscience, a man known only for his association with a people who are not his own. Why did you turn against him the way you did?”

“I never did,” he whispered.

The ache of that never lessened, never went away. Over the centuries, he had grown to live around the ache. That was all.

“But you must have. You abandoned him. He went to war, and he lost, and you did nothing to stop it or save him. What did she offer you that meant that much? How did you stop caring for a boy you raised to be both man and monarch, a boy you raised as if he were your own son?”

“I never stopped caring.” His throat closed as the geas tightened around it. After a moment, he said, “And if you could ask me that, you still know nothing. As unhinged as you are, your ignorance is the deadliest thing about you. Do you know what Isabeau did to Sidonie? She broke all her fingers and threw her in the dungeon.”

“I know.” As Morgan stared, Robin lifted one thin shoulder and said wryly, “I make a most excellent rat.”

Fury torched through him, as coruscating as a nuclear blast. He snarled, “You knew—you went down into the dungeon and saw her, and—and you still did nothing?”

“I didn’t have to do anything,” Robin told him. “You did it. Just as you’ll have to be the one to defy your Queen if you want her freed. I intend it to force a wedge between you and Isabeau that is so deep it will finally drive you two apart.”

The geas pulled tighter. For a moment, it cut off Morgan’s breath.

We are all spellbound, he thought. Sidonie can’t leave Avalon on her own, and I can’t help her escape. And I hold Robin captive again, while Isabeau holds me.

When he was able to speak again, he said, “Isabeau ordered me to recapture you and bring you to her. Luckily for you, another of her orders takes precedence. I will set you free, if you—”

If you help her escape.

They were five simple words, but the geas clamped down, and he couldn’t say them.

“Fuck it,” he finally managed to say in a strangled whisper. He loosened his hold on Robin’s jacket. More than enough had been done to the puck. If he had a choice—and right now, he did—he wouldn’t add to that. Besides, if Robin was free, he might relent and choose to help Sidonie of his own accord. “Someone else is going to have to capture and kill you. Robin, I’m sorry for what happened to you, but what you did to Sidonie was ugly. It was wrong. You are so wrong about almost everything.”

The puck straightened his jacket while he stared at Morgan uncertainly. “Am I? Then prove it to me. Change. If you want Sidonie freed, then free her. Break with your Queen and become a better man again. You were… Do you even realize how many legends have been told about you? How the truth has been twisted by the winds of time?”

Morgan rubbed his eyes. He said, “Get out of here before I change my mind. And, puck?” Robin had already begun to slip out of the clearing. As he paused to look over his shoulder, Morgan told him, “Next time I might not be so lenient. If you know what is good for you, you will leave Avalon and never return.”

Robin’s mouth twisted. “Those might be the wisest words you’ve spoken this evening. But, sorcerer, I never know what is good for me.”

Before Morgan could say anything else, the puck vanished into the underbrush. There was a brief rustle, then all he heard was the wind blowing through the trees.

All that effort he had expended to track Robin down. Ultimately it had been a waste of energy, when he could have been going through the texts he had gathered and reading about Azrael’s Athame.

Slowly, he made his way back to his hidden cottage, where he went through the mechanics of survival again. Food. Water. Cleansing the blasted wound again. The fact that it couldn’t heal—that he couldn’t let it heal—was some kind of goddamn metaphor he didn’t want to inspect too closely.

When he finally laid down on his dusty bed, he managed to fall into a light, uneasy sleep, rousing only when the sun dropped low in the sky.

Then he went through the mechanics of survival again. Using the hunter’s spray. Stealing at the night market. Gathering fresh, clean water for the flasks. This time he stole silver earrings and cherry pies. Given how she had responded to the other sweets, he was almost certain Sidonie would enjoy cherry pies.

As he slipped into his secret tunnel, a whispered spell brought faint illumination to the fingertips of one hand. He didn’t want a light so bright it ruined his night vision. He made his way to the end of the tunnel, where he had used earth magic to drape a thin sheet of rock over the entrance to hide it from discovery.

Placing one palm over the rock, he gently shifted it to one side and stepped into the prison tunnel that lay on the other side. Dousing his faint light, he made his way quickly to Sidonie’s cell.

As he drew close, he paused. There were too many scents in the tunnel, many more than there had been the last time. Something had happened. Silently, he moved forward to the cell door, listening intently.

His keen hearing picked up the soft sounds of breathing inside, from too many people. There were four, maybe five individuals in the cell, all but unmoving, except for the slight rustle of cloth and the quiet scrape of a boot against the stone floor.

Realization was like another knife thrust to the gut.

Sidonie was gone. The prison guard knew that he—or someone—had been there, and had set a trap.

Fury roared through him, born in large part from fear. Before he had fully formed a conscious intention to do so, he was springing forward. The battle with Robin had cost him, so he had to dig deep for the strength to cast a stun spell into the cell that would be strong enough to lay out several warriors. It flashed with white brilliance, highlighting the five guards inside.

They toppled to the floor. Quickly, he unlocked the cell and stalked inside. Setting aside his pack, he chose the nearest guard at random, put his palm to the other man’s forehead and, with another spell, forced him awake.

As the man came to with a muffled groan, Morgan pinned him and hissed in his ear, “What happened to the woman?”

“The w-woman?” the guard stammered.

He was the victim of two competing spells, both stunned and awake, but Morgan had no patience for the other man’s confusion. He snarled, “The prisoner from this cell. Is she dead?”

“No… no, not dead. I don’t know what happened to her… but I heard she might be back in a few days.”

Christos. The relief at hearing Sidonie was still alive was staggering.