Chapter Thirteen
Although Fitz had declared we would leave immediately, the practicalities of travel planning and a hoard of concerned parents waylaid us.
Angelica refused to leave without the clothes we’d ordered yesterday, which weren’t delivered until the afternoon, and Fitz’s mother insisted on sending us off with a good meal.
Between settling our parents’ nerves, a drawn-out meal with too many pleasantries, and packing our bags, we couldn’t set out until the evening.
“Who’s ever heard of beginning a quest in the evening?” Fitz complained as we gathered in the courtyard.
“You’re right,” his mother said, smoothing his hair back. “It’ll be dark before you even reach the boundary. Why not wait until morning?”
Fitz allowed her to fuss over him. “Mother, I told you, the Good Wizard gave us a deadline. We need to use every minute we have available to us.”
“We never had a deadline,” Angelica’s father grumbled. “Took us all how many years to get married?” He glanced between the parents before guessing, “Twelve? Fifteen?”
“Because we were all engaged,” Maximus’ mother said. “That satisfied the spell until the final wedding.”
“The spell did thin when you interfered,” Father murmured in Dad’s ear, only loud enough for me to overhear.
A blush darkened Dad’s bronze skin and he muttered, “We agreed that wasn’t my fault.”
Queen Davina sighed deeply. “I wish the Good Wizard had stayed to explain himself.”
“Maybe he had another timeline to visit,” Dad said.
Her brow furrowed as she gave him an odd look, but she didn’t ask for clarification. Probably for the best—my dad’s reasoning didn’t always fit with conventional thought.
A carriage pulled up beside us. We could travel in it to Hud, the closest town on the edge of the Grimnight Forest, and walk from there.
Angelica was the first to bid her father goodbye and climb into the carriage, claiming a large section of the seat just for her skirts.
Fitz pulled away from his family next, grumbling as his sisters called out teasing taunts that turned his ears red.
Maximus’ mother reached up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. When he hugged her, she disappeared in his massive arms. Her sweet laughter followed him as he climbed into the carriage.
Dad hugged Delilah, telling her, “Your parents love you, and they are so proud of you.”
“I know,” she whispered, blinking tears away.
I stared at the carriage like it was the mouth of a beast everyone expected me to willingly walk into. This was it. The first real step of the quest. Another step toward completing the mission I’d spent the last twelve years preparing for.
“Trey?” Father placed his hand on my arm, frowning in concern.
“I—”
I did not want to go on this fucking quest. I wanted to stay with my fathers, for nothing to change and for my life to really be mine, not stolen from some non-existent prince. The geas prevented me from voicing my real fears. All I could manage was a strained, “I’ll miss you.”
He wrapped his arms around me in a tight, secure hug. “We’ll miss you, too.”
I’d barely released him when Dad took his place. “Next time we see you, you’ll be returning as defenders of the land!”
My heart clenched so tight it felt like all the blood in my body had stopped flowing. “Yeah,” I agreed, my voice barely above a whisper.
Angelica cleared her throat pointedly.
I flipped her off, but she was right. It was time to go. I released Dad and finally climbed into the carriage, Delilah following me. She shoved me into the middle spot next to Angelica, claiming the end for herself.
As soon as the door closed, the carriage rolled away. All five of us leaned against the window for one more look at our families.
My fathers waved at us the whole time, smiling and happy, confident their son would return a hero. Hopefully it wouldn’t be the last time I ever saw them.
The carriage drove straight through the night. Nobody complained, probably because most of us fell asleep before we realized we wouldn’t be stopping at an inn. Slumped over on a carriage seat was still better rest than we’d get while camping.
In the morning, we stopped at the last restaurant on the boundary between The Desolated Lands and the Rest of the World.
We all crowded around a table, a dozen plates spread out before us.
“You know,” I said as I peeled a shrimp with a tiny fork, “there are restaurants out there. We don’t have to treat this like our last meal on earth.”
Everyone’s chewing slowed as they looked at me. A noodle stuck out of the corner of Delilah’s mouth, and she slurped it up loud enough to draw the attention of another table.
Angelica cleared her throat and patted her lips with a napkin like she hadn’t just shoved an entire stuffed pepper into her mouth. “You’re awfully familiar with the outside world, Trey.”
I poked at my soup, the least effective food to poke at, and said nonchalantly, “At least one of us is.”
“He has a point,” Fitz said, removing his glasses to wipe away some steam before putting them back on. “There are inns, restaurants, bookstores, libraries, publishing houses—”
“Your list is awfully book-themed,” Delilah said. “You know we’re not likely to visit any libraries on this quest, right?”
“You’d be surprised,” he said. “I’ve been reading up on Traumstead, the city cursed into the Grimnight Forest—”
“When could you possibly have time?” Angelica demanded.
Fitz held up a book that’d been sitting in his lap.
“Right now. Anyway, they had a rather famous library sometimes referred to as The Library of Dreams. Many scholars were disappointed when they lost access to their collection of rare books and magic-centered research. If the library is still there, we might find something inside to help us break the curse.”
“If it’s still there, it’s definitely haunted,” I said.
“Haunted by librarians.” Only Fitz would be excited by that prospect. “Who better to ask for help? They’d know their way around the collection, and they might have witnessed the curse firsthand. Can you imagine the research they’ve gathered in their afterlife?”
“I wouldn’t trust ghost librarians,” Maximus said. “They’d probably want to make us part of the collection.”
I shuddered at the thought. “Perhaps we should avoid haunted places.”
Fitz frowned. “The entire Grimnight Forest is supposed to be haunted.”
“Fine, then we should avoid professionally haunted places.”
The meal continued like that, sometimes bickering, sometimes deflecting, until every dish—and the few extras we ordered—was licked clean. Literally, when Delilah ignored decorum and licked her plate in front of everyone.
“Before we leave, I’m going to take a piss,” I said, pushing my chair back from the table.
Angelica wrinkled her nose. “You don’t have to say it like that!”
“Oh, I’m so sorry to have offended your delicate sensibilities, Your Highness.”
She scoffed. “That’s not an insult when it’s my proper title.”
“It is when you’re too insignificant for me to remember your name.”
“You—” she sputtered.
I walked out of earshot before she recovered enough to fire any returning shots. The bathrooms were at the back of the restaurant, far enough away from the guests that no one would smell them.
Or hear a conversation.
I locked the door and walked to the farthest corner of the small room. Then I pulled the compact mirror out of my pocket. As I suspected, the gold had tarnished into black, signaling a new message.
I opened it to find two words written across the glass in small, precise script: Call Me.
Wilde didn’t give me a specific phrase to activate the spell, so I altered the one I used to call the old man. “I call on thee, Apprentice Wilde, as your … accomplice?”
The mirror only reflected my own face back at me, marred by the words.
“Fuck, I don’t know what I’m supposed to say, Wilde. Just answer the damn summons.”
The message disappeared, replaced by a hooded face. “You could call me ‘master’, pledge yourself to me.”
By now, I was used to his ridiculous commands and had a comeback already prepared. “Hold your breath.”
The hood’s shadow couldn’t quite hide his confused frown. “The phrase is ‘don’t hold your breath.’”
“No, I want you to suffocate on your own arrogance.”
“Treasure,” he said, half-exasperated, half-warning.
“Wilde,” I mocked. The frown deepened, and a little thrill hummed in my chest at his annoyance. “Why did you ask me to call you?”
“To see if you would follow directions for once. And here you are.”
Heat flushed my cheeks at his subtle approval.
In an instant, he’d snatched the small victory right out of my hands.
I clenched my free hand at my side, out of sight of the mirror.
“Do you know how hard it is to find some privacy when I’m traveling with four other people? Don’t order me around as some test.”
“I wouldn’t need to if you behaved properly.”
“I’m behaving just fine.”
“You’re being a brat.”
“Better than an asshole!”
Someone knocked on the door. “Are you alright, Trey?” Maximus asked.
“Yes! Uh, just a minute …” Lowering my voice, I hissed at Wilde, “Don’t test me again, or I won’t respond to your messages anymore. Then what will you do when you actually need to talk to me?”
“I’ll find you.”
And what will you do to me when you find me? I batted the inappropriate thought away. “That’s another thing. Stop with all the subtle dominating jibes. I can’t tell if this is your weird ass way of flirting, or if you’re that much of an egomaniac.”
“I’ll be more explicit in the future.”
“What?” I frowned at the mirror, only to see my own reflection staring back at me. What kind of bastard ends a conversation that way?
I shoved the compact back into my pocket, took care of business as fast as possible, and flung the door open.
Both Fitz and Maximus were on the other side, whispering to each other. When they saw me, they stopped.
“Oh good,” Fitz said with clear relief, “Maximus said you might have a stomachache and suggested we delay travel.”
“Nope, all good.”
“Then move out of the way. There’s only one toilet and I need it too.”
Once everyone finished with business, we climbed back into the carriage for the last semi-comfortable leg of the journey.
As we drove closer to the boundary, tensions in the carriage rose. I’d managed to claim an outside seat for once, only for Delilah to climb over me to press her face against the window.
Fitz was trying to read one of the books he brought with him, but he kept sneaking peeks out the window, too distracted to focus on the text.
Angelica shifted forward, then back, then forward again, as if she wanted to watch us cross the boundary but didn’t want everyone to know she wanted to watch it.
Only Maximus and I stayed in our seats. After a few minutes, I realized Maximus’ attention was locked on me.
I frowned. “What?”
He shrugged and finally looked out the window.
The carriage trundled slowly on.
Delilah frowned. “How far away from the boundary are we?”
I glanced out the window, noted an orc entering a nearby building, and said, “We passed it.”
“What?!” Her exclamation was echoed by the others.
Fitz dropped his book on the seat and leaned out for a better look. “But it all looks the same!”
Since we’d passed the busiest parts of town, there was less to look at now. Only a few scattered buildings, the occasional tree, people—human and otherwise—going about their day. “What were you expecting?”
“Fire and brimstone! Evil mages everywhere!” Delilah said, waving her arms around and digging her knee into my thigh.
I shoved her back into the middle of the seat. “There are evil mages and other villains. We’ll meet one soon enough, we don’t need to run into any extras. I tried to tell you that the outside world is just … normal.”
“Then why are we bothering with this quest?” Angelica demanded. “Why do we need to sacrifice ourselves and our happiness for everyone else?”
“Because our great-grandparents weren’t satisfied with normal.
They didn’t want to defend their kingdoms against every evil mage looking to add to their collection of names and accomplishments.
They didn’t want to sift through prophecies and Chosen Ones.
Normal wasn’t good enough, because normal comes with risks. ”
Silence fell over the carriage.
“So, if we turned the carriage around and returned home—let the Kingdom Defense Spell fall—our kingdoms would be fine?” Delilah asked.
“No,” Fitz said. “The moment that spell falls, every evil mage, necromancer, and witch around will see what we’ve hidden from them for all these years, and they will descend upon our kingdoms, fighting for the right to conquer them.”
Which was why I needed my old man to conquer the five kingdoms first.
Better the villain you know.
“If that’s the case, I wish they’d never cast the defense spell to begin with!” Delilah declared.
The others murmured their agreement. I was the only one who didn’t share the thought, even if it put us all in danger.
The Kingdom Defense Spell was the only reason I’d met Brendon and Rick, the reason I could call them my fathers. Without it, my life might have been simpler, but it wouldn’t have been better.
I was grateful for it, but I was still going to be the person who destroyed it.