Chapter 45
CHAPTER 45
A t Avalon Tower, the hour before dawn is the quietest and most dormant. The late-night library scholars and the knights who pore over maps have gone to sleep, and the early birds—the scribes, kitchen staff, and instructors—are still in bed. It’s the blue hour when silence reigns, the perfect time to go snooping in Merlin’s Tower.
The four of us creep through the worn stone hallways in silence. I’m still exhausted, and my fatigue intermingles with the adrenalin of sneaking around in enemy territory. I’m giddy and nauseated, and every sound makes me jump.
As planned, we split wordlessly at the base of the tower. There are three ways up Merlin’s Tower, and we need eyes on every entrance in case the Iron League shows up. Serena, Darius, and Tana are taking watch positions, and I climb the stairs to the top.
I creep up the stairwell, my ears straining for any sound—a lone guard patrolling or knights at the Round Table discussing the war—but I hear nothing but the soft pad of my own footsteps. Reaching the top floor, I make my way into the hall and press my ear to the double doors. Silence greets me, and I turn the handle and peer into the chamber.
Nothing, no movement or lit candles, only moonlight streaming through the stained glass windows onto the Round Table in the center of the room and the flagstone floor.
Quietly, I step inside. The air is cool and heavy with the scent of ancient oak.
I’ve never been in this ancient hall alone, and I am surprised by how large it feels. My footfalls echo off the stone walls, and the vaulted ceilings loom high above me. I feel the weight of history in this place, the centuries past and the generations of knights.
I cross the hall to Merlin’s portrait.
I’ve never actually examined this portrait up close. Glimpsed from a distance, Merlin seems wise and regal. But when I’m standing right in front of it, he seems different. There is a shadow of cunning in his eyes, a coldness to his smile. Up close, he looks mocking, patronizing. Power-hungry. No wonder Mordred hates him.
Okay, you old bastard, how do I get you to open up?
I brush my fingers carefully along the frame until I locate a loose bit of wood in the side. I press it, but it doesn’t budge. I tug on it, but nothing happens. I run my hand around the frame three times and find nothing. My heartbeat speeds up. In about half an hour, Avalon Tower’s staff will start waking. Someone will come here to prepare the room for the day’s meetings, to sweep the floor.
I don’t have much time.
I check the brick wall around the portrait, pushing and prodding. One of the bricks feels wobbly, but it doesn’t shift.
Frustration builds, a pressure in my skull.
Come on. Fucking come on.
Acting on a sudden hunch, I press hard against the wobbly brick, and it sinks into the wall.
A click echoes off the ceiling, and the portrait detaches from the wall, swinging open. A puff of musty air washes over me from inside the vault.
I step into a short, dark hall, and after a few feet, I find a chainmail curtain. I touch it and feel the slight, almost intangible hiss of iron against my skin. It doesn’t do much to me, but this would poison a full-blooded Fey.
It would also destroy a magical Fey moth. Mordred’s little spy flew in here, brushed against chainmail, and extinguished its own magic.
I push the chainmail curtain aside and step into a stone room. From above, a shaft of moonlight pours inside.
I don’t know what I expected to find here, a map of Brocéliande with red Xs all over it, perhaps, or plans for a surprise strike. Tana said it would be something tiny but huge. Maybe a powerful sword? Excalibur itself?
Whatever I anticipated, it wasn’t this: a small, barren room and an alcove with a few gray folders. A worn oak desk stands against one wall. There’s nothing else.
Inset into the wall is a small, round door. I try to open it, wondering if what I’m looking for is beyond it. It’s locked.
I pull my lockpicking kit from my pocket, then hesitate. Looks can be deceiving. I should check this room first.
I pick up one of the folders and open it. It’s a ledger of some sort. Columns of numbers are annotated with words like Inc. Period , Risk Factor, Temp. Resistance, Contamination Index, Replication Rate. I scan them all, trying take in information about temperatures, contamination, although I have no idea what I’m really looking at. I only know it seems important.
Each row has a six-letter code, and the page I’m looking at is dated three months ago. I flip through the pages. They seem similar. The next folder is more of the same, except it’s dated earlier—about two years ago. The third folder goes back five years. There are more folders, each of them with the same kind of data.
I slide the folder back in place. My pulse races faster. I’m on the verge of a major discovery—I can feel it. I walk over to the desk and yank open a large drawer.
To my shock, the interior of the ancient looking desk is ice-cold. It’s not just a desk. It’s a disguised refrigerator.
I stare at its contents.
In the desk drawers, I find tightly packed test-tube racks. Each test tube contains a pale liquid, is stoppered with a cork, and is labeled with a six-letter code. I pick up one of the test tubes, labeled AGNU6B , and inspect it. It almost looks like polluted water.
I put it back, my head spinning as I slot things together. The columns in the folders. Incubation Period, Risk Factor, Temperature Resistance, Contamination Index…
These are terms cataloging infections. Viruses, germs.
Something tiny and huge.
The secret Wrythe keeps here is a biological weapon. A plague.
I return to the alcove and pick up the fourth folder. It’s dated even earlier. And the fifth goes back ten years before. I pick up the last gray folder and check the date on the first page.
It’s dated seventeen years ago.
They’ve been working on this for seventeen years ?
The Fey invasion was fifteen years ago. Europe wasn’t at risk when they started this project.
I notice a thin notebook hidden among the folders and retrieve it. The notebook is more like a log. Flipping through it, I see multiple hands jotting down their insights, successes, and failures. I’m too exhausted to read it thoroughly, but sentences jump out at me, burning into my retinas:
Death within minutes—unusable because spread will be curtailed too quickly.
Deadly to humans and Fey: unusable.
Deadly only to Fey, weakens humans: investigate further.
Weakened virus, targets magic, weakening subjects: investigate further.
Aetherin-X26 deployed—initial results promising. Spread across entire territory assumed within months. Targets magical infused flora and fauna.
Feybane Contagion—transmissible with full-blooded Fey. Demi-Fey can contract but not spread it.
Deployed. Spread across entire territory. What territory? I stare at that sentence and check the date.
Sixteen years ago. Just before the Fey invasion. The invasion that Auberon started because of the blight that spread across Brocéliande. The rotten crops.
Oh, fuck .
“Fascinating read, isn’t it?”
The voice behind me turns my blood to ice.
I whirl, heart thumping. Wrythe stands beyond the iron chainmail. His long, black cloak drapes to the floor, and his eyes gleam like pale coins. Behind him are Tarquin, Genivieve, and two of the biggest goons I’ve ever seen.
“Get her,” Wrythe says.
I unsheathe a knife, but my movement is slow and clumsy. Something is wrong with me. I try to summon the power of the three, but I can no longer feel their presence at all.
One of the goons grabs my wrist, his touch clammy and rough. I tug at my powers, trying to seize control of his mind, but it’s like I’m trying to scoop water from an empty well. Nothing but dust. The magic is gone, dried up. I’m empty.
Wrythe’s lackey twists my hand, and I scream and let go of the knife. It clatters to the floor, and the other guard grabs my left hand. Tarquin and Genivieve don’t move from Wrythe’s sides. The two of them are glowing with joy at my current situation. Absolutely lit up by schadenfreude.
“What?” I say, my mouth feeling numb. “What did you do to me?”
“I didn’t do anything,” Wrythe says dryly, “but you’re standing in a room where many experiments were performed, biological agents cultivated. Agents that work against magic. Some of them are bound to be in the air. Harmless for pure humans, of course. But you’re not human, are you? You’re tainted. A mongrel.”
I stare at him, seething. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because, as I’ve said repeatedly, the Fey are dangerous and need to be exterminated. For good.”
“ You inflicted the famine on Brocéliande. You’re the reason they invaded in the first place.”
Wrythe sighs. “I wish I could say that. That was my father. A brilliant man, truly. I’m merely finishing what he started. And I’ve hardly done it alone. Sir Kay was very much aware of what we were doing and approved of it. To a certain extent.”
“You’re full of shit.”
“You didn’t know him,” Wrythe says, his voice rough. “He was pragmatic. The Fey were a threat, and threats require solutions.”
Tarquin’s voice cuts through the moment. “We should search her. She hides blades.” He steps forward eagerly. “I’ll do it.”
“No,” Wrythe says, eyes narrowing. “Genivieve will. You’ve been fooled by her tricks before.”
Color flares in Tarquin’s cheeks, but he steps back. Genivieve saunters closer to me with a mocking smile. Her hands roam over me. She finds my sleeve knife, the blade in my boot, and my lockpicks.
“I knew you weren’t worthy of an Avalon Steel torc,” Wrythe says. “A worthy agent would never step inside a well-protected room without making sure he had all the information. You tripped the alarm as soon as you opened the portrait in the hall.”
Tarquin chuckles. “And you thought we didn’t know you’d returned. We had eyes on you as soon as you landed in Camelot. It was cute how you sent your friends to watch out downstairs, not even realizing there’s another entrance in here, through the Pendragon quarters.”
“Enough, Tarquin,” Wrythe murmurs. “You don’t need to tell her everything.”
But Tarquin bristles, his lip curling. “You thought you were the clever ones, but we were always one step ahead.”
“Enough!” Wrythe snaps, and the word cracks through the air.
I stand there, cold realization seeping into my bones. I should have known.
This place isn’t just an academy. It’s a trap for the demi-Fey. They’d lured us right into it, invited us to enroll so they could use us, then arrest us.
The Pendragons weren’t helping us in Brocéliande. They never bothered with the actual war. All their effort was pointed internally at Avalon Tower, at the demi-Fey. Spying on us , figuring out how they could take over and crush their “enemy from within.”
“What’s this?” Genivieve’s voice slices the silence as she pulls something from my boot. Silver gleams in the moonlight. An inert moth, its wings dull.
“Give that to me.” Wrythe’s eyes are bright with a hunger that turns my stomach.
He takes the moth, turning it over with fascination. I stare, and a sharp tendril of dread coils through my gut.
This one was so light and flat, I didn’t feel it when Mordred dropped it into my boot or notice it when I put the boot back on.
He did always tell me not to trust anyone.
“Well,” Wrythe says, “isn’t this interesting? Nephew, perhaps you should fetch your new friend.”
Tarquin frowns. “I thought we’d take her to the Pendragon Tower for questioning.”
Wrythe smiles. “No. I think we should take her through the main steps. Let everyone see who’s truly in charge and what happens when you defy us.”
Genivieve hesitates. “But, sir, our spies say Raphael and his lackeys are gathering this morning. If they see us?—”
“I want them to see us.” Wrythe’s smile is cold as frostbite. “They’ll soon understand who holds the reins.”