Chapter 28
TWENTY-EIGHT
GWENNA
It is hard to play it cool around Morgan.
Incredibly hard.
In another world—a normal, ordinary world—I would have been able to leave Kai behind and rush back to my dorm all giddy, briefly play coy with my roommate until she quickly suspected something was up and grilled me, and then giggle my way through relating the details of what was, to be honest, the hottest sexual encounter I’ve ever had, with or without another person involved.
Fuck. My stomach does a little flip just thinking about it.
But I don’t live in that world. So I have to do my best to act normal.
Fortunately, I’m able to play off my absentmindedness and generally sort of…
floaty demeanor as side effects of all my studies with Emrys and Kingston, which Morgan turns out to be highly intrigued by, and that gives me an easy option to monologue my way through my own awkwardness as Morgan eats her snacks.
“….and all of these women were writing about, like, God and Jesus and Divine Love or whatever,” I say, “but not the same way as all the men of the era—”
“—which is why they were burned at the stake,” Morgan interjects.
“—which is why some of them were burned at the stake.” I connect the dots of my theory from there: the revelations to ordinary people, the ideas of renewal and fresh life, the viriditas in Hildegard’s writing.
“She literally describes this feminine figure coming down and being like, I am the life force that makes plants grow, I make everything that happens happen, blah blah blah.” I shudder to think what Saint Hildegard would think if she could hear my butchered version of her writing, but I’m… getting the gist across.
“Innnnnteresting,” Morgan says. She sprawls back on the couch, examining the ends of her hair. “So like, a nature-based version of the Holy Spirit, or whatever you people believe?”
“Something like that,” I say. “And so I’m thinking, like…what if that’s what the Grail…is. Does. Has?” I frown. I don’t even know how to phrase it. Because, truth is, I don’t yet want to connect it to me. I want it all to be theoretical, phenomenological, impersonal.
“It sounds awfully witchy to me,” Morgan says. “Sorry, just being honest. You’re sure this is something church people wrote about?”
“Yes,” I say emphatically. “Well, mostly mystics. And women. And really just until the 12th century.”
“What happened then?”
“They…” I grimace. “Burned people at the stake.” Morgan looks a little satisfied. “But not for being witches per se. Just for being…outside the church’s control.”
“Again? Sounds awfully witchy to me.” Morgan sighs, then taps a finger to her chin. “You know, I have a theory that Vivian Thorne was a witch.”
“Vivian?” It takes me a moment to place that name, but when I do, my chest contracts.
Vivian Thorne
Loved much, lost too soon.
Custodiat hunc locum amoenum in eterna.
“Vivian,” I say again. “The—”
“Yah,” Morgan affirms. “The lady of the lake.”
I’ve seen her. A ghost. Just the once, during my doomed swim test. At the time, I thought it was just…well, just another symptom of me losing my mind.
Now, though…
“She’s the whole reason I wanted to come to Caliburn, actually,” Morgan goes on, then adds with a scoff, “as if I’d actively choose to be stuck in the same place as Kingston and Kai.”
“Oh,” I say. It never occurred to me why Morgan would come here, but when she puts it that way, I can see I roll my pencil between my fingers. “So…what’s your theory, then?”
“It’s kind of like you were saying,” Morgan says. “Feminine power, the influence of the rhythms of the seasons, the cycles of the moon, death and renewal…” She fixes me with a hard look. “I don’t think she was crazy. That whole narrative, I reject out of hand.”
I nod. “Okay. Then…how did she die?” No, wrong question. I give my head a shake. “Why did she die?”
“That’s the thing,” Morgan says, chewing a Twizzler. “I don’t know. And trust me, I’ve asked.”
“You’ve asked the ghost?”
“Okay, well, I’ve tried to ask,” Morgan corrects. “She won’t appear to me. Extremely rude. But—”
There’s a sudden, sharp rap at the door. Morgan looks at me, frowning.
“Bodyguard?”
I shrug. “I guess? It’s Lanz out there.”
Lanz looked…better when I saw him today. Not 100%, I guess, but not on the verge of collapse, either. Hopefully nothing’s wrong.
“Hmm.” Morgan gets up, crosses the room, and opens the door.
It is Lanz. And Callahan.
And Kingston.
And Kai.
My heart starts pounding as soon as I see him, thinking of the last time I saw him. I can’t even meet his gaze or else I might spontaneously combust.
Morgan’s eyes go wide at the four of them. “To…what do we owe the pleasure?” she asks.
“We need you,” Kingston says. Says it right past Morgan, to me.
“Me?” I pull back in my chair a little. “Why? Did something happen?”
“No,” says Lanz, while Kingston, Kai, and Callahan all say “Yes.”
“Um…” Morgan frowns.
“We need you, Gwenna,” Kingston repeats, stepping through the door. “We all need you. It…can’t wait.”
They bring me to Camlann House.
To their underground room.
High walls. Banners and swords. The massive, round, black wood table.
I shiver. I don’t like it here. I wouldn’t like it in here even if it hadn’t been the place where I’d learned exactly how they’d lied to me and felt like my sanity was crumbling away.
It’s austere. Grand. Cold. Demanding respect in a way that makes me uneasy.
Maybe this what some people mean when they say they feel uncomfortable in churches, I think as I take step after tentative step into the space.
Like they’re being judged simply for daring to exist in a space like this.
“Pick a chair, any chair,” Kai says, gesturing to the table. “We’re all equals here. Hence the…” He spins a finger in a circle.
I glance around at the options. But my gaze falls on the seat against the wall: a gleaming, tall, empty chair. Pure white.
“Any chair but that one,” Lanz corrects, stepping into my field of vision and shooting Kai a look.
“Figured that went without saying,” Kai retorts. He presses his hands together. “Gwenna, if you please, don’t sit in the magical mystery ejector seat, mkay?”
“The…what?”
I frown. Everyone looks at Kingston.
He’s frozen, hands on the back of one of the other chairs.
“Le siège perileux,” he says, after a moment. “It’s…for whoever succeeds. On the first Whitsunday after the grail is found, they’ll sit there, and if their quest is truly pure and complete, they’ll be safe.”
“And if not…” Kai draws a finger across his throat.
I blink at it. “Killer chair,” I murmur. “What’ll they think of next?” I fold my arms, shivering, as if the chair could lash out and get me right where I stand. “Is that what you wanted to show me?”
The four of them look at it each other.
Kingston pulls out his chair. “Let’s just sit.”
We do. And for a long moment, nobody says anything.
“Well, now.” Kai says, drumming his fingers on the table. “This is awkward.” He shoots at glance at Kingston. “Did you actually bother to think through how you wanted to present this?”
Kingston, for his part, is staring at the table. His face…
Is Kingston blushing?
“Present what?” I say, an edge of panic in my voice. “What’s going on?”
I look to Lanz and Cal, desperate, but they just exchange a wordless glance.
Kai heaves a sigh. “Fine. I’ll do it.” He gets to his feet and starts pacing, dragging a finger along the edge of the table as he goes. “This thing we’ve got going, the whole knightly society, brothers-in-arms deal. It’s very…three musketeers.”
“Except that there are four of us,” Lanz says. Kai glares at him.
“There were four musketeers, too,” Kingston puts in.
Callahan frowns. “There were?”
“Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and D’Artagnan.”
“Oh my God, quit changing the subject.” Kai runs a hand through his hair. “My point is, we’ve got that all for one, one for all philosophy. And as it turns out, some of us have been very bad boys.”
He tips his head at Lanz and Callahan. Callahan turns a burning shade of pink, while Lanz’s fidgeting intensifies.
My mouth falls open. “Wait.” I turn to the two of them. “They know? About—”
Kai stops in his tracks. “You knew?” He looks at Lanz and Callahan. “Gwenna knew?”
From the corner of my eye, I see Kingston look up at me. My own cheeks get a little flushed.
“Ah…” Lanz looks at Callahan, who—judging by his shell-shocked expression—is incapable of speech. He shrugs. “Yeah. She…sort of stumbled over us. Back in the fall.”
Now both Kai and Kingston stare at me. I shrink a little in my seat.
“I didn’t…what?” I say, suddenly defensive. “I didn’t see any reason to narc about it.”
“Okay,” Kingston says, a bit brusque. “Once again, this isn’t really the point.”
Kai snaps his fingers and points at Kingston. “True that. As I was saying…” He resumes his pacing. “It turns out some of us have been bad boys. Which is no bueno. Gets you kicked out. But if we’re all bad boys…”
He shrugs.
I wait for more.
Nothing.
And then they all start speaking at once.
“We’d leverage the risk, is the idea.”
“And since technically you and Kingston already…”
“You could have whichever of us you want, whenever you want.”
“And we would take no others. Um, other women.”
“If it’s okay with you.”
I sit, silent. A little stunned.
What are they—
“We’d swear fealty.”
This, from Kingston. Looking right at me from across that broad, black table.
“To you, and you alone.”
Oh.
“I…”
Jesus Christ.
I don’t know what to say to that.
I don’t know what to think of that.
My eyes close. I grip my knees, fingers digging into my tights.
What the absolute, actual hell?
I open my eyes again.
“Is this because Kai and I hooked up?” I blurt out.
Kai chews his lip ring and looks demurely at the floor. Silent, for once. My insides give a pleasant little twist.
“Sort of.” Lanz, now. “You and Kai, you and me—well, and you and Kingston, technically, way back when.” He throws a glance at Kingston that Kingston does not return. Lanz swallows. “And then, uh, me and Cal.” He runs a hand through his hair. “It’s just kind of a whole mess.”
“We’re supposed to tell on each other,” Callahan says, flicking a glance up at me. “Is the thing.”
“Right,” Lanz agrees. “But if it’s, you know, a closed system…”
“…then we all go down together,” Kai finishes, eyes flashing. “So to speak.”
He winks at me. My face gets brilliantly hot.
“Okay.” My voice comes out like a squeak. I swallow hard. “I, um. I have to…think about it?”
I don’t know why I say it like a question. Four previously celibate men—three of whom I have kissed, somehow—are now inviting me to be the…I don’t know, queen bee of their polycule so that they don’t get condemned to hell? Or something?
I close my eyes again.
I most certainly, definitely have to think about it.
And probably ask my best friend.