Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
GWENNA
When the five of us gather later that day, there’s only one place to meet.
The one place in Camlann House I haven't been in months, the room I've only ever been in just one the time.
I've been in all their bedrooms, and my own, obviously.
The salle, the dining room, study, living room, even the wine cellar, just to see. But this—this I've avoided.
Until now.
Kingston sits at the head of the Black Table.
Or no, not the head, I suppose, because there is none.
It's round. Maybe that's the point. I cave my shoulders in a little, self-conscious, in spite of myself.
It's hard not to be in a room like this.
Tall and echoing and stone cold as a cathedral, but not set aside for reverence. It's a war room, I think idly.
“Something is very wrong,” Kingston says, matter of fact, and yet he sounds tired, even more so than he has since we got back.
“No shit,” Kai says. “You mean a bunch of biblical plagues aren't supposed to be descending like it's the book of fucking Exodus?”
I glance at the other two. Lanz, who looks better but not good, dark circles under his eyes, and Cal, whose jaw is set, his fist tight.
“We should have noticed earlier,” Cal says. “The snow, how it kept coming.”
“It's New England,” Lanz says tersely. “It's always freaking snowing here.”
“No, it isn't,” Cal counters. “We should have—”
“We were preoccupied,” Kingston cuts in. “It doesn't matter. We are where we are.”
“It's Gwenna,” Kai interrupts. “Isn’t it?”
No. I want to shout it, want to scream, but I can't. I'm frozen. My throat stopped, like I physically couldn't speak if I tried.
Lanz looks up. “What?” he mouths.
“It has to be,” Kai says. “Doesn't it?” There's an almost desperate edge to his voice, but when he looks at me, his expression is anything but sharp. The concern in his eyes is…soft. Tender almost. “I mean, I can't think of any other explanation. But if any of you—”
“You’re right.” I hear myself say. Flat. “At least that’s what we think.”
Silence. Candles flicker.
“If we're right,” Kingston says, “if Gwenna is right,” he corrects, “about what she is and how this all works, then she does have that power.” The word sounds awkward in his mouth. It feels strange to hear, too. “And if it's not… here, if she's not releasing it, then…”
“Releasing it?” Lanz cuts in, voice panicked. “King, you don't mean—”
Kingston’s question from earlier resounds in my mind.
Will she have to die?
“No,” Kingston and Kai say at the same time.
“It's out of the question,” Kingston says, just as Kai says, “Absolutely fucking not.”
I don't know where to look. I settle on Cal, the one who's barely spoken, as usual.
“Shouldn't we…” he trails off, looks up, hesitant, as if he needs approval.
I nod at him. “Shouldn't we what, Cal?”
“Shouldn't we tell the Consistory? Won’t they know what to do?”
Kai sighs. “Yeah, about that. We're kind of in a…” He slides a glance at Kingston. “I may have told them a bit of a white lie when I was writing to them.”
“What?” Cal and Lanz say in unison.
“How white of a lie are we talking?” Lanz adds.
“Eh,” Kai says, “as far as they know, Luther's still alive and nothing doing over here at Caliburn. Business as usual.” He shrugs. “Oh, and I told them we beat St. Ignaty’s in the tournament. That felt justified.”
Lanz blows out a long exhale. Callahan's eyes are wide behind his glasses.
“Why would you…” Lanz starts.
“Don't,” Kai puts up a hand. “I'm not relitigating this. I made the decision. It was the best course of action. Luther Pendragon was going to leave his entire robber baron fortune to them wrapped in a big red bow, and…” He swallows.
“Wouldn't we all agree that's probably not what needs to happen right now?”
The room is silent.
“So, yeah,” Kai says. “I think we’re on our own to solve this one.”
I breathe in, breathe out, not realizing how shaky my hands are until I fold them in my lap.
“I just have to ask,” I say, before I lose my nerve. “We're not going to…you all won't…”
“No,” the four of them say it at once.
“Gwenna,” Kingston says.
“We'd never—” Lanz starts.
Callahan just shakes his head like he can't even consider it.
“Well, then…what?” I cry. “How are we supposed to fix this? We can't go to the Consistory. Emrys has nothing for us. And you're all too gentlemanly to murder me for my blood.” Cal winces, but Kai gives a faint smirk. “What else even is there? Who else do we go to for help?”
Something sparks in Kingston's eye. He looks up over all of our heads, above the table, to the stone wall where a sword is mounted. Not a fencing weapon, exactly—still long and thin, but with a broader handle. Too antique to be a piece of sporting equipment. But more than just decorative, too.
“I know,” Kingston murmurs.
I don’t know what he means. But Kai does.
“What?” Kai cries. “No. No.”
Kingston looks back down, resolute. “If anybody, anything, would know about any magic in this place, any curse, any cure—”
Across the table, Lanz flinches. “Yeah, I don’t know,” he says. “I don't know if we should—”
“Well, I do know,” Kai interrupts, “and we shouldn't. That's dangerous shit.”
Cal, too, looks a little pale.
“What is?” I interject.
“Magic,” Kingston and Kai say at the same time—and in very different tones of voice.
“Magic,” I repeat. “What’s wrong with magic?”
“Kai doesn’t believe in it,” Lanz says darkly.
“I do believe in it,” Kai says. “I just don’t fucking trust it. And none of you should either.”
For some reason, that gets under my skin a bit—especially since, through context clues, I assume we’re talking about going to Morgan for some kind of help.
“Oh, really? You were just fine using that enchanted salt to detect poison at St. Ignaty’s,” I point out.
And that salve on your back, I add silently.
“That’s different,” Kai mutters. “That’s fucking different, and all of you know it.”
He slams his hands on the table, gets to his feet, and storms out.
For a moment, no one says anything.
“He’s not wrong.” Lanz, of all people, speaks up. “If we’re going to mess with…her, we should be very, very careful.”
Suddenly, I’m not following. “You mean Morgan, right?”
Slowly, all of them shake their heads.
“Not Morgan,” Kingston says. “Vivian. The Lady of the Lake.”
Two hours later, we’ve relocated from the eerie calm of the Black Table to the colorful disarray of a suite in Cornubia Hall.
Morgan, of course, had been fully on board with seeking out the Lady of the Lake. “I’m mad I didn’t think of it first, honestly,” she’d muttered to me when we got there. It was my idea to ask for her help—for magical purposes, but also as a kind of moral support.
“Tea?” Morgan hands me a mug, which I accept.
She’s in full hostess mode, flitting around her living room and doling out refreshments in a ruby-red track suit and high ponytail, a veritable army of candles lit up on every single flat surface against the press of darkness from outside.
Meanwhile, the four swordsmen look…incongruous, to say the least. Uncomfortable.
Tense. Almost too broad and hard-lined for the flowy feminine energy of the space.
Morgan, of course, is oblivious. Probably by choice.
“Tea?” She leans over to Kai.
“From you?” Kai scowls at the mug like it’s poisoned. “Pass.”
“Oh, for—it’s chamomile,” Morgan says, rolling her eyes. “I used one little spell to heat the water. You going to burn me at the stake over that?” But she retracts her offer, leaving the mug on the counter as she climbs into her own armchair. “So. You think we need to talk to a Lady.”
“Yes.” Kingston is leaning forward from his seat on Morgan’s plush, spindly-legged couch, elbows on his knees and face serious. “Can you help us?”
Morgan cocks her head. “Would I have let you all in here otherwise?” She exhales. “Of course. So, the Lady of the Lake. As I believe we all know, the name of the game is getting her to appear.” She pauses. “Right?”
“Right,” Kingston affirms, while Kai grunts. The other two just nod.
Kingston’s seen her before. I learned that much. Kai, too, although she really only spoke to Kingston. Just once, last summer. To sort of…bestow favor on them on behalf of Caliburn itself.
“Right. So. We can’t ask her anything if she’s not around, and she won’t be around unless she, you know.” Morgan spins a hand in the air, then shrugs. “Feels like it.”
“What do you mean?” I say. “She’s not just always, I don’t know…floating? Haunting?”
“What? No.” Morgan gives a little laugh. “Why would she do that?”
“I don’t know,” I say, taken aback. “I thought that’s how ghosts work.”
“She’s not a ghost,” Morgan and Kingston say at the same time.
The rest of us look at them.
“She’s not,” Morgan plunges on first. “I mean, I guess if you want to be really broad about it, she’s a spirit, of sorts, but that’s like saying that human beings are animals, or that tomatoes are fruits. It really sort of misses the point of the classification. More properly, she’s a—”
“Genius loci,” Kingston finishes for her. “Sorry, not to interrupt.”
The chivalry only makes Morgan roll her eyes. “Whatever. It means—”
“The spirit of a place,” I interrupt, not bothering to apologizing. I think of the stone at the lakeside, the engraving: CUSTODIAT HUNC LOCUM IN AETERNAM.
May she watch over this place forever.
“Right,” Morgan says.
“And that’s…what, exactly?”
This, from Callahan. He’s sitting next to Lanz, I notice, actually kind of crammed next to him, but looks…hesitant, somehow. Like maybe he doesn’t want to touch his not-so-secret boyfriend in front of the others, despite everything.
Or maybe he’s just uncomfortable.
“But in this case, it’s someone whose own personal magical practice became so entwined with a location that they…” She laces her fingers together. “Merged, essentially.”
“Fucked up,” someone mutters. Kai, who’s staring into the wick of one of Morgan’s candles, avoiding everyone’s eyes.
Morgan ignores him. “So if anyone understands what’s going awry with things around here,” she goes on, her tone just a fraction more pointed, “it’d be the genius loci.”
“Okay.” Cal nods. “Makes sense.”
It does. As much as magic can, I guess.
“Right,” Morgan says. “So, I guess we keep it as much like last time as possible.” She ticks off on her fingers. “Clothing that’s white. A crown of red flowers. A significant day on the calendar...” Frowning, she pulls out her phone and swipes it open.
“How do you have a charge?” Lanz asks, incredulous.
Morgan stares at him. “Magic,” she deadpans.
“I didn’t wear a crown,” Kingston mutters. “We made a ring of flowers on the ground.”
“Full moon,” Morgan murmurs, chewing her thumbnail. “Guess that’ll have to do.” She looks up from her phone. “I suppose it should be you, King, since you’re the only one she’s appeared to so far—”
“No, he isn’t.”
Five heads turn to me.
“Well, he isn’t,” I say. “I’ve seen her too.”
Kingston looks nonplussed. Kai’s eyes narrow. Lanz and Cal exchange a look of surprise.
“You saw her?” Kingston speaks first. “When?”
Does he not believe me? “That time I was ‘taking my swim test,’” I say, drawing air quotes. “And Callahan saved me from drowning?” Cal looks bashfully at the floor. “I saw her. In the water.”
“Well, that’s…” Morgan’s brows draw together, like she can’t quite pull the right word. “Auspicious.” She lowers her phone. “I think it should absolutely be Gwenna, then.”
“No.” Kingston and Kai say at the same time.
There’s a beat of silence. Then Lanz speaks up.
“Yeah, I don’t know.” He purses his lips. “After Russia…”
I shiver. Again, Kingston’s question to Emrys echoes in my mind, like a terrible mantra I can’t get rid of.
Will she have to die?
“I highly doubt that there’s going to be any blood sacrifice,” Morgan says drily. “More likely is that Vivian gives you some sort of quest to uncover the answer. That’s much more in keeping with tradition.”
“Vivian,” Kai repeats, a sneer in his voice. “We’re on a first-name basis with the ghost girl now?”
“She’s not a ghost.” This time, it’s me and Morgan who speak at the same time. I smile a bit in spite of the circumstances.
“If you must know, Vivian is a witch,” Morgan adds, studying her nails. “Or was, before she died. At least, that’s my theory, anyway.”
“Oh, even better.” Kai smacks the arms of his chair. “Why don’t we just stick an apple in Gwenna’s mouth and serve her to Vivian a goddamn silver platter, then?”
“Would you both shut up?” I don’t mean to yell. But I don’t like them sniping at each other like this. Partly because of the tension that’s now radiating through Morgan’s formerly cozy living room, and partly because…
Because I’m worried Kai might be right.
I’m worried this might hurt me. Or worse.
Kai glowers, but doesn’t protest. Morgan looks smug.
I turn to my best friend. “You wouldn’t suggest I be the one to talk to Vivian if it was dangerous for me. Right?”
“Right,” Morgan says. Pauses. “Well…” She purses her lips. “I don’t think she’d do anything to harm you. I really, truly don’t. But full disclosure is that I don’t know. So it’s more of an…informed consent kind of thing.”
“Magic doesn’t work like that,” Kai says darkly. “It literally does not have boundaries, Morgan.”
“Okay, but—”
“It doesn’t, and you know it,” Kai cuts her off sharply. “Stop trying to equivocate, okay? Lying about how it works isn’t helping your case. I may have my differences with the Catholic church, but you ask me, they had a good reason to burn you people at the stake.”
“Kai.” Kingston, this time. “Too far.”
Morgan, seemingly unbothered, tosses her ponytail. “You wish.”
From there, we decide on logistics. Time and date—the next full moon, three days from now. Apparel, accessories—Morgan will prepare and bring, and Kai will back the fuck off. It’s all as suddenly mundane as planning a surprise birthday party.
But there’s still something gnawing faintly at the back of my mind, the whole time, something I don’t want to shine the full light of my consciousness on but that I can’t banish entirely.
What if she says it anyway?
What if we manage to talk to Vivian, to get an answer from her, and that answer is just Gwenna has to die?
What would I do?
What will I do?
Out loud, though, I say nothing. Only listen.
“So that’s it,” Callahan’s saying. “That’s all we have to do to talk to her?”
Morgan lifts a shoulder. “Basically. Like I said, the biggest hurdle is just convincing her to appear in the first place. We’ll stack the deck and then hope she plays ball.”
“And until then, we should…” Lanz prompts.
Morgan gives him a blank look.
“How should I know? Go…” She makes a little shooing gesture. “…play with swords, or whatever it is you do in your spare time. I’ll see you at the lake.”