Chapter 12

CHAPTER 12

B y the time I finally get back to Avalon Tower, the rising sun is spreading a rosy blush across the Camelot sky. I've been gone for less than eight hours, but it feels like days, maybe weeks. My legs burn with weariness, and it hurts to keep my eyes open.

Somehow, the fatigue dulls the pain of the heartbreak. A breakup doesn't sting quite so badly when you feel as if you're under water.

I stumble into the door of Lothian Tower and push through it into a stairwell, my legs shaking. It smells comforting. Like home.

It almost feels impossible to walk the rest of the way to my room. So. Many. Stairs.

I lean on the stairwell as I climb, trying not to imagine my father rampaging through here with a blood-stained sword in his hand, just like he did centuries ago.

But when I get into my hallway at last, it's hard not to think about it. Hanging on a wall is a large painting that I've seen a thousand times and noticed the day I arrived in Camelot. It's a painting of Mordred thrusting his sword through a naked woman, corpses littered the ground around him, and it captures his cold beauty incredibly well, even his smile as he slays the woman—cruel and mocking. It's the same smile I saw on his face just a few hours ago.

This is the Fey to whom I've bound myself in a Hemlock Oath, this heartless creature.

The silver moth is ice-cold and heavy in my pocket, and when I slide my fingers in, the wings feel sharp as blades.

Mordred is trapped for another seventy-four years, at least, but doubt nags at me. Who is using whom? Mordred has millennia of experience over me. What made me think I could outsmart the ancient heir to the Fey throne, who has had centuries to plot his revenge?

I force myself to keep walking until I reach the circular stairwell that leads to my room, then drag myself up. At the top of the stairs, I push open the door, blearily staring at a dark-haired cadet guarding the stairwell. He wears a coat of arms on his blue uniform jacket, one with a stag and an iron helmet and swords. He's one of the brand-new Iron Legion sentries, part of the Pendragon cult, set up to spy on the demi-Fey. He goes pale as he stares at me, his jaw dropping open.

Right now, he's wondering if he fucked up.

"Aren't you…" He sputters. "How did you?—"

"Dame Nia of the Avalon Steel? I was in the library all night. Did you not notice me leave? Not a very attentive guard, are you? Close your mouth, darling, you'll catch flies like that." I brush past him and climb the stairs.

Reaching my door at last, I open it softly, my bed calling to me, and creep inside. Serana is gently snoring, and Tana is asleep as well. I stumble across the room to my desk and the wooden case that Amon gave me when I returned from Dover. The case houses my Avalon Steel torc. I unlatch it and pry open the lid, running my finger along the torc lying on the smooth red interior, admiring its rosy sheen. Only King Arthur, Merlin, and a few powerful Fey from Arthur's court wore Avalon Steel torcs. Now, I have one. What does it say about me, that I'm willing to work with the man who murdered Arthur?

I let out a long sigh. Espionage is a delicate act of playing people against each other—a tightrope routine between one total disaster and another. We have to keep secrets, even from our allies.

Gently, I lift the velvet off the bottom of the box, revealing a hollow underneath where I keep a hidden key. It's the key to the French cottage where Raphael and I spent a glorious week together, pretending to be newlyweds. It's the only thing I have to remember Raphael by. Holding it in my palm is helping me steel my resolve for what I'm about to do next. I close the box, and I slip the silver moth from my pocket. With a tightening throat, I drop it just behind the box—a spy device for an enemy of the Tower.

I let out a long, slow breath. There. Mordred's demand is done.

"Nia?" Tana's sleepy voice rises behind me. "You're back!"

I snap the case shut and whirl around, blood rushing to my face. I want to tell her about it, to warn her. Anything she says, Mordred will hear. But I can't. Mordred forced me into this impossible position, lying to my closest friends with a fatal oath.

"Morning," I say, trying to act natural. "I have good news."

"What happened?" she asks.

"Why were you gone so long?" Serana asks, now awake, too. She rubs her eyes.

"I found a portal that leads to Auberon's fortress in Brocéliande. And I got Raphael out of his dungeon. Then he broke up with me and is refusing to leave Brocéliande until we can find the dungeon where his sister is held." My heart tightens at the thought of him.

"What?" Serana flicks her red hair out of her eyes. "Wait a minute. I have so many questions. You rescued Raphael, and he dumped you?"

"He suddenly cares a lot about the rules of Avalon Tower."

My eyelids are already drooping, and dizziness clouds my thoughts. All the energy has leached out of my body.

"Nia, are you alright?" Tana asks.

"I need sleep," I mumble.

"Right. You haven't slept for two days," Tana interjects. "Rest for a bit. We'll go get you something to eat. We can talk about everything once you feel a bit better."

"But if there's a portal, we have to tell Viviane," Serana says. "This is a game-changer."

" We will talk to her," Tana says. "With Nia once she gets some sleep. She looks like she's going to collapse."

"Thanks." I crumple into my bed and pull the blankets up over myself.

As I start to fall into a deep sleep, I see Talan's hauntingly beautiful dark eyes in my mind.

Soon, the Dream Stalker will be trying to find me, to claim me as his mistress.

Tana and Serana wake me way before I'm ready. I've slept for two hours, but somehow, it seems no more than four minutes. I feel like I've been ripped from the darkest depths of sleep, dredged from the lake of dreams. My thoughts are still sludgy, under water.

Walking between them, I drag myself through the hallway. They're leading me to a debriefing meeting that can't wait in the Lady of Shallott Tower.

Blinking, I clutch a blue teacup, its porcelain surface covered in stars and moons. I take a sip. Slowly, the two shots of espresso are starting to work their magic in my veins, clearing my thoughts just a little.

I glance behind me, bleary-eyed, to find two Iron Legion cadets trailing us. I curl my lip at them, snarling. They blanch. Of course they're scared of someone who can control their minds. What they don't know is that I don't have any desire to feel that skull-shattering pain again anytime soon.

Tana pulls me into a narrow hall. "Detour," she mutters.

Sipping my coffee, I survey this new hall. I've never seen this one before—so cramped we have to walk single-file, with Tana in front of me and Serana behind. There's hardly any light, and a few cobwebs hang from the ceiling.

"This used to be a servant passageway," Serana explains. "Back in the days when Avalon agents didn't want to see the help. It isn't used much today, but it's a handy place for a smoke break, apparently."

"Nice." My voice echoes, and so do the extra footfalls behind us.

We're still being followed.

"Whoops, my shoelace is untied," Serana says. "You two go ahead. I'll catch up."

I glance over my shoulder at her. She's kneeling, fumbling with her shoelace in the cramped stone passage. Her red hair hangs down, and her body blocks the hallway. One of the Iron Legion cadets glares at her as he catches up.

His lips press into a thin line. "You can't just block the hall."

Serana is working on the slowest shoe-tying job in the history of shoes. "Sorry. I forget how it goes sometimes, you know? Do you make the bunny ears first, or…you know what? I'm going to tie a knot if I'm not careful."

Tana hurries ahead, and I rush to keep up with her, leaving Serana and the fuming Iron Legionnaires behind.

At the end of the long passage, we turn into a wide corridor once more and slip into a stairwell. My legs burn, shaking a little from fatigue.

"Who, exactly, was the Lady of Shallott?" I ask.

She turns to me with a small smile. "You know, Shalott, the beautiful island in the lake with the weeping willows?" She frowns. "Oh, it's not there anymore, is it? I think it drowned in the war between Merlin and Mordred. Anyway, Elaine was a countess. She was madly, passionately in love with your father, but he cursed her, trapping her on the balcony of that tower with a mirror and a loom. So now, it's named after her."

I swallow hard. The stories about Mordred weren't getting any better. "Why did he curse her?"

"She didn't support his attack on Camelot. She was worried for him, I think. She tried to talk him out of it. I think she saw that it would go badly for him…Shalott had a small army, and she refused to send her forces to aid him. Mordred took it personally, so he cursed her to stay trapped out there on the balcony, weaving her tapestries in isolation. Her only contact with the rest of the world was through watching people in that mirror. They say Auberon broke the curse, rescued her from this tower after the battle, and dragged her into Brocéliande to be his bride. But she never got over her love for Mordred, and she died of a broken heart. Now, her ghost haunts this place, and in the dead of night, she rattles the doors and windows, demanding to come inside from the cold. I talk to her sometimes, but it's hard to understand what she's saying. She's always crying."

A shiver ripples over me. I'd really made a pact with one of the worst people I'd ever met. "Sounds like a nice place for a meeting."

"It's private. Somewhere you can talk without the Pendragons or their cult members eavesdropping. It's going to be just three of you: you, Nivene, and Viviane. Serana and I will wait for you outside the door to get you back without harassment."

I'm wheezing as we reach the top floor, and Tana gestures for me to open the door to the pale stone balcony.

I find Nivene and Viviane sitting by a blazing fire pit, both of them clutching teacups. The air is crisp and cool, just above freezing. The sun dazzles with that crisp light that often follows a rainstorm.

"We were followed," says Tana. "The Iron Legion. Serana stalled them, though."

"Good," says Viviane.

I survey the terrace, where ivy climbs the walls. On one side, a large weaving loom stands before a mirror. Within the loom, the threads form the shape of a web. As I peer at the glass of the mirror, its surface shimmers and ripples like lake water. Then it transforms into a vision of the bustling streets of Camelot—the cobbled twists of Malevile Lane, then the ramshackle shops of Dark House Walk… The vision is gone again in the next moment.

"Is that her mirror?" I half suspect that the sleep deprivation has me hallucinating. "The Lady of Shalott's?"

"That's the one," says Viviane.

For a moment, I think I can feel her heartbroken presence whispering cold over my skin, and I shudder. I glance at the mirror again and feel as if I've been bathed in ice water.

"Helloooo?" Nivene snaps her fingers at me. "Are you awake? We need the debriefing to begin."

"Hang on." Viviane hands me a small brown paper bag. "Tana told me you haven't had breakfast."

I open it to find a sandwich of fresh bread, Cheshire cheese, and a fig spread. My stomach rumbles. "I love you."

"That's too much emotional expression for me, thank you," says Viviane shortly. Her smooth blond hair gleams in the dazzling light.

I glance up at her. "I was talking to the sandwich." I take a bite. Delicious.

"You look like shit," Nivene says.

"It's been a long night," I reply, my mouth full. "A long several nights. Sleep has been elusive."

"So we've heard," Viviane says. "So? Tana and Serana told us something rather extraordinary. They said you found the lost Isle of Avalon, where Queen Morgan used to rule. It's been missing since the Fey War. We all thought it drowned, like Shalott."

My mouth is full, and I nod.

Viviane narrows her eyes. "That alone already sounds improbable. It's been lost fifteen hundred years, but I suppose you are a Sentinel. Then they told me that apparently, you found a portal on the Isle of Avalon, one formed from ring stones. And although Auberon closed his borders, you could get through as a Sentinel. They said it leads directly to Auberon's fortress, where you found Raphael. Honestly, it almost seems too good to be true. Why didn't you come right to us?"

Ah. Well, it is too good to be true because I left out the part where I had to make a deal with the Butcher of Lothian Tower. Mordred, the slayer of innocent women. Curser of Countesses. I glance at the magical mirror again, my blood running cold.

"It's true," I say. "I found Avalon."

"When did you find it?" snaps Nivene.

Fuck. Of course she's the type who'd immediately be able to suss out when I'm leaving out something important.

I sigh. "Months ago. But I thought it was just abandoned. I didn't realize it was useful until I found the portal. It's mostly just a ruined castle and barren apple trees. Nothing of value except the dolmens."

"We need to get to Avalon," Viviane says. "Scope it out. And then, if it's really all you said, we can launch the attack."

Viviane's eyes flash. "A portal into Auberon's fortress? It's Sir Kay's wet dream. We gather a few hundred soldiers and agents and storm through the portal. We Kill Auberon and Talan, and every other royal member of Auberon's house. We cripple the Fey's command. End the war. The Court of Morgan will lay in ashes."

A pit opens in my stomach. I haven't told them yet that Mordred is what's left of the court of Morgan—and so am I. "We can't send an army through. Only Sentinels can walk through the ley portal. That's only Nivene and me."

Nivene nods. "Just like it was before the first invasion. There were ley portals that only Sentinels could walk through. There were many on Avalon and across England. The biggest one was in Stonehenge, of course, but there were more. A bunch in Ireland. One or two in America. Any Fey with Sentinel powers could go back and forth through them using ley lines. But around the time that Auberon invaded France, they stopped working. We assumed Auberon shut them down, but maybe he didn't know Avalon was still there."

Viviane's pale blue eyes sparkle. "And these ley portals…are you sure we can't use them to get other agents through? We did it with the veil."

"The veil is different," Nivene says impatiently. "Sentinels can control that. But with the ley portals, it's the opposite. They control us."

I nod. "When I went through, it felt like the portal's magic was pulling me, like intense gravity. I fell into it, hard. It drew on my Sentinel powers to pull me through. I wasn't summoning anything."

"Ah." Viviane nods. "I knew it was too good to be true. Okay, so we have a portal that only you two can get through. Fantastic."

"And that's why I can't get Raphael out," I say. "Also, he's refusing to leave until he finds his sister."

Viviane sighs. "Well, it's still better than nothing. Maybe we can still use it to assassinate Auberon or Talan. And we can finally get in touch with our assets in Brocéliande. We haven't contacted them for fifteen years. Okay, keep going. How did you break Raphael out?"

I clear my throat, calculating how much I need to omit. "The portal led to a courtyard within the fortress wall. So, I got into the fortress easily and found him in the dungeons, mind controlled a guard, and then I came back and collapsed from exhaustion."

"That was dumb and risky," Nivene says. But she looks at me with something that almost feels like respect. "So, hang on, when you mind controlled the guard, did you read anything important in his mind?"

"Not really." I stare out at the mist coiling off the cold lake. "Oh, and the Dream Stalker found me?—"

"He what ?" Nivene sputters.

"Nia!" Viviane shouts. "I think it's high time you tell us the entire thing from start to finish."

I do, skipping over the parts that include Mordred and his silver moths. They ask a lot of questions, and I find myself lying again and again to avoid mentioning the Kingslayer. As I weave together a web of lies, my gaze flicks to the mirror. My chest aches. The Lady of Shallott wasn't the only woman he'd cursed to live in isolation.

I finally finish and have a much-needed bite of bread and cheese.

Viviane and Nivene stare at me, stunned.

"So, we have a few days," Viviane finally says.

"We don't know how long, exactly," Nivene says. "To get this ready, we'll have to move quickly. Get her cover story ready. He could arrive at the village sooner."

Viviane nods. "Yeah, I'd honestly prefer that you leave tonight, before Wrythe gets a whiff of this."

"Hang on…" I say. "What are you on about?"

"We need to go through our contacts," Nivene says. "We'll have to use the sleeper agents. The assets we mentioned."

"That goes without saying," Viviane agrees.

" What are you talking about ?" I press.

"It's a good thing that her cover story places her in Lauron. You can get there quickly," Viviane says.

They're ignoring me now. Am I a ghost haunting this place, too?

"Hello!" I shout. "What's going on?"

They look at me. "Well, we're discussing how best to proceed with the Talan thing."

"What. Talan. Thing?"

"His courtesan thing, obviously," Nivene looks at me, frowning. "Come on. I know you're tired, but we need you to be much sharper than that."

"There's no courtesan thing," I say in disbelief. "There can't be. I fully intend to return to Brocéliande on missions, but not as his mistress. Talan will figure me out immediately. He's the Dream Stalker."

"Nia," Viviane says softly, "as spies, we spend years cultivating connections with Fey nobles. If we can get an agent undercover as a kitchen maid in a baron's house, it's a huge win for Avalon Tower. There's never been anything remotely close to this. No one ever got close to the royal family. To be in a romantic relationship with the prince himself…it's an opportunity we can't pass on."

My heart hammers. "I was with him for twenty minutes, and he came very close to invading my thoughts, to discovering every secret about me. He's the Dream Stalker. Viviane, you know what he can do. The first time I fall asleep around him, he'll step into my mind and find out everything I know. Then I'll be stuck in Brocéliande as well as Raphael."

"As a Sentinel, you can shield yourself from his power," Nivene says. "It's hard at first, but you'll get the hang of it. You create a veil in your mind. I can teach you how to do it."

That's what Mordred said, too.

Viviane's eyes blaze. "You told us yourself. He wants to murder all the humans. All the demi-Fey. He's worse than his father. All the more reason to stay close to him, to stop him if you can. You cannot pass up this opportunity. We can create a cover story for you. By the time he gets to Lauron, you will be a Fey farm girl. Then, you learn all the prince's secrets, yes? Get him to let his guard down around you, at least for a few days. Figure out his weaknesses. Find a way to get Raphael out. Then we take down the Dream Stalker and his father, and the war is over."

"You really think Talan the Impaler will let down his guard around me?"

"He must like something about you," says Nivene. "I couldn't say what. But if he hated you, you'd be dead by now."

"I wouldn't say he liked me. He called me imperious."

Viviane frowns. "I've never thought of you that way."

I shrug. "I was really angry when I ran into him, and I didn't care what he thought. I think it's safe to say I gave him an attitude."

"Well, maybe your instincts were right. He probably doesn't encounter someone who gives him attitude very often. Maybe it intrigued him. Maybe that's what got you this role."

I stare wordless at them. "You really want me to do this?"

This is insanely dangerous, but we're desperate. Losing the war. On the brink of Avalon Tower tearing itself apart. And maybe it isn't the worst idea to have a backup plan that doesn't involve Mordred.

"It's a lot to ask, I realize that," Viviane says. "And if you refuse, I'll understand?—"

" I won't understand," Nivene interrupts. "We all put our lives in danger to fight Auberon. You have the best shot out of any of us."

"Not the best way to put it, but I see her point," Viviane says, glaring at Nivene. "Our forces are losing miserably. Raphael is still stuck in enemy territory. The Iron Legion are tearing Avalon Tower apart, and I feel like we'll be thrown out of here soon. Nia, I can't see any other way. Can you?"

I swallow. She's right. But to form an alliance—even fake—with the Dream Stalker? I shiver. He's like the devil himself. "I'm going to need to bring an inhaler with me, and it will be a risk getting caught with it. Unless you have some magical solution to asthma. Serana will need to glamour me incredibly well."

Viviane nods. "Well, she's already done that."

I clear my throat. "Right."

"I'll go with you," Nivene says. "You won't be alone."

Dread skims up my spine. "Let's do it, then. I'll become the mistress to the worst person in the world."