Chapter 5 Quinn
Quinn
Rowan liked me. Like, liked me.
Giddy excitement made my steps light, and the sporadic sunshine warmed my world. I trailed behind said mage, desperately trying not to be weird.
“Quinn!” Brody exclaimed.
Oh, that could not be good.
My recently absent stalker stood in the doorway to Hope’s office. I uncomfortably waved back as I tumbled from cloud nine back into reality.
Rowan wasn’t single yet, and Angela didn’t seem like someone who would let go without a fight. Worse, even if I wanted to help Rowan, I didn’t know how. I couldn’t even defend myself against a sixteen-year-old kid.
As much as I didn’t like Chancellor Morgen, I said a silent prayer to whomever was out there that she could help me.
We marched into a part of the castle I’d never been to before.
A thick stone wall, with moss and ivy growing out of its cracks, dripped from the recent rain to my left, with a steep muddy incline leading to a defensive wall on my right.
Two black-clad enforcers guarded a doorless entryway in the stone.
Cayden stood just off to their right, scowling at everything. When he saw me, his scowl deepened. “Quinn, those better not be bruises.”
His feet slid wider, and his hands dropped to his waist as his attention focused on Rowan.
Rowan’s nostrils flared, and he gripped his massive sword.
I sighed. “Dirt. Just lots of mud stains even Rowan’s Majekah couldn’t get out.”
Cayden’s fingers twitched. Neither man looked at me.
Not again.
I stepped between the two mages before they could kick off.
Rowan’s barrel chest and square shoulders almost enveloped Cayden’s thinner, corded frame.
They stood almost eye to eye, Rowan taller by a few inches.
The rune mage had the kind of sculpted beauty that belonged on a fallen god, all sharp edges and temptation, while the elemental’s dark features and square jaw radiated power and danger.
The air between them crackled, and I was the only thing keeping them from burning.
I suddenly forgot why I stood between them. This was nice. Maybe we could stay like this forever.
“Did he hurt you?” Cayden’s whisper tickled against my ear.
“I would never hurt her,” Rowan growled, tightening his grip on his sword hilt.
Or we could just not stay like this. “Right, I remember why I stepped in here now.”
Both men blinked in confusion. I waved off my comment before lacing my fingers with Cayden, then Rowan, to keep both of them from their chosen weapons.
“No one hurt me. It’s mud, all of it.” I squeezed their hands.
“You’re both my friends. Just my friends.
So please, try to tolerate each other.” I leaned on the words.
“I promise once I’ve lived through this meeting, I’ll draw up a custody schedule. ”
For a moment, the two didn’t budge.
Rowan let out a frustrated growl, released my hand, and stepped back. “Don’t be afraid of Chancellor Morgen. She’s one of us.”
Cayden followed suit. “That means nothing.”
I found myself with no hands to hold.
“Why are you even here, Lawson?” Rowan asked.
“For the same reason as you,” Cayden responded.
Rowan growled. “I was ordered to escort her here.”
“I volunteered.” Half of Cayden’s mouth twitched up into a smile. “No one needed to order me to be at Quinn’s side.”
Rowan crossed his arms over his chest as if daring Cayden to say that again.
I sighed. Maybe they needed to duke it out again, and I stepped forward.
The two flanked me like bodyguards, and I continued toward the guarded entry.
Every step brought me closer to Chancellor Morgen, and my thoughts moved inward.
I didn’t know if I was terrified or excited.
What if she couldn’t help me, or worse, what if she could, but I had to fuse with an animal or something?
My hands trembled, and I laced them together as if that would anchor me.
The black-clad enforcers turned to the side to let us pass single file into a tiny courtyard, mostly filled with a greenhouse. Condensation blurred the glass, foliage crowding close against it, green and breathing in defiance of the cold. Magic. A lot of magic.
“Do I go in there?” I asked.
“Yes. That’s the Chancellor’s garden,” Rowan answered.
I didn’t need to knock; one of the greenhouse doors was already open, so I just walked in. A warm, damp feeling settled into my chilled body, along with the scent of earth and growing things. It was honestly really nice.
“Welcome to the Western Defenses.” Chancellor Morgen appeared from behind a shrubbery. “I’m sure if the Architect has his way, you’ll be spending a lot of time here very soon.” She cackled.
I wrinkled my nose. “He’s been awake all day, and I’ve not seen or heard from him. Maybe he’s not as interested as you think.”
Chancellor Morgen laughed. “You’ll be popping out his spawn before the year’s out, whether you want to be or not.”
My heart raced. That’s not what I wanted… could he make me think it was?
Rowan leaned in, hand firm on my arm. “No. That’s not us. Whatever’s going on with fertility, you call the shots. Always.”
Chancellor Morgen’s pink hair shimmered as she leaned in, voice a blade wrapped in silk.
“Do you want to know when the cradles emptied, girl? The moment women stopped choosing. The Families tethered them like livestock, and magic… well, magic keeps its own accounts. Children don’t grow well in chains.
” Her gaze darkened as if filled with memory before she scowled. “Why did you want to see me, Quinn?”
I pressed my lips together. Cayden already knew I couldn’t use magic, but Rowan didn’t.
He’d seen my emergency run from my physical placement, where I accidentally used magic, but beyond that, we trained in non-magical combat.
He’d just admitted he liked me. What if knowing I couldn’t use magic made him change his mind?
I peeked at him out of the corner of my eye.
‘Don’t do that.’ My dad’s words echoed in my memory.
When I didn’t believe this world was real, I did what made me happy. I enjoyed being that person. I didn’t exist to inconvenience others as little as possible. I deserved better. If Rowan was going to judge me for what I couldn’t do, then it didn’t matter how handsome he was; he could shove it.
I drew my shoulders back and focused on the wrinkled pink chancellor. “How did you learn to do magic? What made you a monster?”
Chancellor Morgen raised an eyebrow. “Realizing some truths about yourself, are you?”
I took a sharp breath and rolled my shoulders back.
This wasn’t going to be a fun conversation.
“Can you just tell me?” I pleaded. “Wouldn’t me using magic help the family?
” I patted my chest. “I can’t even light a cauldron.
I owe people favors for doing basic things like laundry.
You said I was safe here, that no man would hurt me.
” I didn’t look at Cayden or Rowan as I pulled out my final trump card: my roommate Erick, whose huge ego I hoped meant he really was important.
“Most of those favors I owe are to Adler Michelson. What do you think it looks like when he finally cashes them in?”
I couldn’t see Rowan and Cayden, but I could feel the tension radiating off them.
Chancellor Morgen’s pink hair glowed. I swear her body shrank as she grinned like the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland.
“Oh, my dear Quinn. I believe you’re learning how to play the game.
” She glided forward. “I really thought you would be eaten up and spit out by now, but look at you.” Her pointer finger grew into its gnarled brown companion, and she caressed my cheek with a cold claw. “And not even shaking this time.”
I gritted my teeth.
“I was sixteen when the tremors hit.” She turned her hand over, and bark cracked up her wrist, branches curling like fingers. A pink flower burst open between two knuckles, pulsing with life.
“I grew up in Dartmoor,” she continued. “Even before the tremors, the land was beautiful and wild. The wind raced across treeless expanses, carving rocks over millions of years until it hit steep valleys that tamed it, barely. On the sheltered side of those valleys grew the Trees of Dartmoor. Lone gnarled hawthorns contorted into shapes with their thick branches splayed out in all directions and crawling along the ground as if they could save themselves from the wind.”
Chancellor Morgen closed her eyes, and the first genuine smile I’d ever seen from her made her look almost friendly.
“I loved that forest.” She opened her eyes and caressed the petals of the flower with one claw.
“As a child, I lived in the trees. As a preteen, I learned their biology and spent hours sketching their ancient branches.” She smiled to herself.
“I even lost my virginity under them. I think, in a lot of ways, I worshiped them, and it was because of my dedication that they saved me.” Her soft smile vanished back into the hard, wrinkled expression I was used to.
“I was under them when the tremors hit. Once the world stopped shaking, I fell ill, but the trees pulled me into them. I spent fifty years inside their trunks, watching the world change, knowing my human body could not.”
“Then some idiot came to cut me down.” That Cheshire grin came back.
“My body couldn’t use magic, but the trees, they adapt, they live.
Their life runs deep under the ground. We have to save ourselves.
So, I merged with the trees, and slaughtered that man, and the next and the next until my grove was bathed in blood. ”
She looked at me as if expecting me to say something.
“I don’t understand enough to judge. You were defending yourself, and the trees saved you.”
A feral grin made her brilliant pink eyes flash. “I channel magic through the tree. I cannot use magic without my tree half.”
My shoulders slumped; it wasn’t what I wanted to hear.