Veiled Court (Legacy of Avalon #1)

Chapter 1

For just a second, I let myself indulge in a vision of throwing a rock at my boyfriend’s head right before he reaches orgasm.

I’m standing in a dark London alley in a damp T-shirt and soggy trainers, staring up at the Tudor windows of his flat, where he entertains a woman I’ve never met.

There, against the leaded glass, he’s shagging a blonde.

The cheeks of her bare arse press against the panes—pale, like two little mounds of uncooked dough.

Cold rain slides down the windows, echoing as it drips from the stone eaves. I loved that bedroom until a few minutes ago—the way it nestles in an arch between two gray stone buildings, sweeping above the alley like the Bridge of Sighs.

Up there, it’s warm and safe, all golden light and steamed windows. Down here, in the chilled damp of the passageway, a mouse scuttles past my foot and through a puddle.

The wind starts to pick up, whipping the April rain at my back.

How many times, exactly, was Owain lying to me when he said he was busy?

Sharp loneliness stabs me in the ribs.

In the window, Owain’s hand tangles in the woman’s blonde locks, yanking her head back. It’s precisely the same way he grabs my hair when he’s about to come.

The crack in my chest splits wider, an icy, hollow fissure.

What is he doing? Half our friends are dead. We need to flee the city, or we’ll be dead, too. Tonight is our one bloody chance.

And he’s throwing it away for this mortal woman?

I’m still staring at Owain. He hasn’t seen me; his eyes are closed in ecstasy.

Thought it would be over by now. Do they know people can see them? Maybe that’s the point. We never have sex in the window. Just in bed, after a few glasses of wine.

My cold sadness simmers into anger, and I grit my teeth. I storm up to his front door—blue-painted wood set in old stone under the archway. Slimy water drips onto me, sliding down my hair.

I press the buzzer. No answer. Of course not. Obviously, he’s busy, but I suppose I’m not feeling very considerate at the moment.

I keep pressing it. Again and again, unrelenting, refusing to let them come. The doorbell sound grates through my skull like a baby’s cry, but I don’t stop until footsteps thunder down the stairs and I hear him yelling, “Fuck off!”

I wince, even though he doesn’t know it’s me. I’m not supposed to be here.

At last, the door flies open.

Owain is wearing nothing but a towel, and when he sees me, his face goes as white as the terry cloth around his hips. His throat bobs. “Syn…I thought we were meeting at the church in an hour.”

I glare at him. I can’t even figure out where to start.

His dark hair hangs to his shoulders, and his pointed Fey ears peek through the strands. Of course she wanted him. To a human like her, he’s not only pretty but also immensely strong—and these days, a Fey lover is something forbidden. An intoxicating combination.

“That window has been there since Elizabeth I,” I say, a razor’s edge cutting in my voice.

He narrows his eyes—bronze, a color I loved deeply until tonight.

“Syn.” His voice cracks a little. “Why are you talking about windows?”

“Because that girl’s pasty mortal arse was mashed against it.” I keep my voice cool, controlled. Icy. “You don’t press your arse on something that survived the 1665 plague and the Great Fire of London, do you?”

He frowns, looking confused. Frankly, so am I. No idea where I’m going with this.

It really doesn’t help that I haven’t eaten since a breakfast of Extra Value bread this morning.

“Those windows were here for the dissolution of the bloody monasteries.” Somehow, I feel like this is a cutting rebuke. “For the beheading of Charles I.”

“Okay.” His voice is quiet, shaky. “I didn’t mean for you to see that.”

The heartbreaking ache keeps intruding on my rage, which I hate. It’s making my eyes mist as I stand here beneath the damp stone arch, and I really don’t want to cry in front of him.

The girl must have heard me yelling about the dissolution of the monasteries because she comes whipping around the corner, wearing Owain’s Cardiff City Football Club T-shirt.

It hangs down to her knees. She’s small, like me, but very human—and very young.

Twenty, maybe, to my thirty-five. Absurdly, we’re both wearing Owain’s T-shirts right now, and mine has a cartoon picture of an old computer.

Unlike me, she’s holding a champagne flute. She must have bought the champagne, because gods know Owain can’t afford it. Apart from the nice flat, he has nothing here in London.

“What's going on, Owain?” she chirps. “Who are you talking to?”

My fingers curl into fists. “Did Owain tell you he was leaving London tonight with his girlfriend?”

She wrinkles her nose. “Yes, I know? I’m his girlfriend? We’re leaving tonight?”

Everything is a question.

Owain’s eyelids are shut now like he’s hoping this whole situation will somehow be gone when he opens them—like a toddler trying to hide from the world by putting a blanket over his head.

At last, he opens them again. “I told Vicky I’m leaving.

She’s going to come with me to the Fey realm.

I’m sorry, Syn. After the war, you and I just…

we stopped having fun, and I…” He trails off, looking agonized.

“Well, I met Vicky. I planned to take her with me to the Fey realm. I was going to tell you…”

The rage bleeds out of me until all that’s left is the dull, Sunday-grey throb of loneliness.

“You’re bringing a mortal?” So much for our plan to start a new life together.

He looks back at Vicky. “She won’t be in danger there now. The king is dead. Mortals are allowed.”

“I don’t understand. Who are you, Vicky?” Now my voice cracks, though I want it to sound ice cold.

Her facial expression seems to be frozen in a permanent grimace. “I’m a life coach for single women?”

Another question.

“Life coach?” My shout echoes off the stone above me, uncontrolled.

“I offer coaching for high-achieving women about how to find their soulmates…” She trails off, and her grimace fades into a blank expression.

I stare at her, still stunned. “People pay you for that bollocks?”

“Yes,” she says sharply. “If you hadn’t noticed, everything is fucking terrible these days. People want an escape. They want fantasy. They want romance.”

“You’re a romance expert, are you? And you’re shagging a man who is cheating on his girlfriend?”

I glance at Owain again, and I can’t decide if I want to tell him to be careful or not.

Instead, I just blurt, “Well, you’d better pack your things.

The portal isn’t open all night. And look out for the Iron Legion so you don’t get murdered by mortals on the way out.

They hate our kind these days, you know? ”

It doesn’t seem cutting enough, so I add, “Twat.”

I pivot on my heels and walk down the rain-slick alley, where streetlights gleam off the puddles.

I’m trying very hard not to cry, but the loneliness is eating at me.

I turn a corner, heading for the old medieval church in Smithfield.

With my head down against the drizzle, I hurry through the modernist flats known as the Barbican.

This used to be one of my favorite parts of London, where ancient Roman walls still stand.

A water feature burbles across the landscape.

When I first arrived in London, I wanted to live here.

Not that I could afford it. But once, I imagined myself giving history walking tours, rambling on about medieval walls and lost Roman roads.

I dreamt I’d one day be able to afford a flat near the fountains and overgrown greenery.

Sometimes, I imagined Owain and me living here—a sweet little domestic life of home-cooked dinners and tea.

But I stopped dreaming of those things when the war began. Now I dream of dragons scorching the skies, hunting us to death. And I dream of a beautiful Fey knight with golden tattoos, slaughtering everyone around him as he stands knee-deep in gore.

Even my favorite neighborhood doesn’t feel the same anymore.

The Barbican walls show the wreckage of the war.

I glance at the silver Fey script still curling along the bricks, a faint glow that brightens under starlight.

The Fey army made these markings last year, designating these flats as barracks—a pretty little reminder of the violence they left behind.

And above that script, the walls are scorched from dragon fire.

As I walk, I can’t relax for a moment. The war isn’t totally over—not really.

I glance over my shoulder as I hurry along. Tonight, the quiet has a dangerous edge, and there is a sharpness to the air.

I’m not welcome in London anymore, and my time is running out.

I take off on my own into the city’s dark alleys.