For the Love of the Quest

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Edith Darling’s bright-red face was not going to make a good first impression, but traveling without servants to hold her parasol didn’t give her much of a choice.

She had convinced the coachman to take her part of the way with a lie about calling on a friend in Bletchley, but that had still left her with a whole day’s walk to the city.

Good thing her family’s coachman was a recent hire, or he’d have known she actually had very few friends.

She examined the crimson skin of her cheeks in a compact mirror.

Autumn was nearly upon England, but they’d been struck with an unseasonably sunny day.

She snapped the compact shut. It was barely midday, and the sun was only going to grow harsher.

Maybe it was good that she looked a little rugged, a little edgy.

That was the kind of thing these people respected.

Tucking the mirror into her leather satchel, she set off down the road.

Bletchley was long behind her now, and the green of the countryside stretched around her in all directions.

She swore a blister popped with every step, and her back ached horribly.

Edith relished the pain, though. It meant she was finally in the midst of a real adventure.

She would be lying if she said she didn’t flinch at the sound of carriages passing or trees rustling beyond the road.

This was her first time traveling alone, and on foot at that.

The world could be a dangerous place for a young woman on her own.

But Edith reassured herself that people were good when given the chance, and as long as she gave them that chance, then no harm would come to her.

The afternoon wore on, one painful step after another. Edith counted birds, greeted passersby, and wondered if her parents had noticed her absence yet. She doubted it. There were often stretches where she laid eyes on no one but servants for days.

When she spotted a sign confirming she was indeed on the correct road heading for London, Edith rewarded herself with a rest. She found a nice rock, brushed off the dirt as best as she could, and sat down gingerly.

She retrieved a roll and a miniature jar of jam from her satchel.

As she unwrapped the freshly baked bread from the wax paper, she heard an arrogant voice call to her, “Hands up.”

Edith raised her arms, bread and jam clutched tightly in her fists.

She looked up to face her very first encounter with danger, expecting a rugged gang of highwaymen wearing the bones of their enemies, covered in blood, wielding axes.

What she saw was somehow even more impressive.

It was a woman, probably only slightly older than Edith herself, standing in the shadows of the trees and pointing a gun at Edith’s head.

She was alone, dressed in a dark-blue linen dress with a black laced-up bodice over top.

The blue of the dress brought out the striking color of the woman’s eyes, and her dark hair was piled atop her head in a messy knot.

Her features were rough and precise all at once: Wide slashing cheekbones and a perfectly straight nose.

A strong jaw and square chin paired with plush, delicate lips.

Her appearance should have been that of a common peasant, but she was more. Her expression, her demeanor, it could only be described as ruthless, and the fact that everything else about her should have detracted from that description only made it more impressive that she managed to be so imposing.

“Why are you smiling? I’m robbing you.” Moving closer, the woman cocked the gun. The click of the hammer locking into place should have alarmed Edith, but she couldn’t stop smiling. There were letters scrawled across the woman’s knuckles and little black symbols across her fingers. Tattoos!

“Are you a highwayman—sorry, highwaywoman?”

The woman’s brow furrowed, and she gestured with her gun. “Obviously.”

“Wow,” Edith breathed. “My very first brush with crime—and it’s a fellow woman robbing me! I’m honored, truly.”

The woman’s face scrunched in confusion as she took another step toward Edith. “Are you doing a bit?”

Edith jerked her head back to look up at the woman, who was now only a couple feet away and towering over her. “No! As a female adventurer myself, I have nothing but respect for your profession.”

“Adventurer?” the woman said, skepticism dripping from the word.

Edith straightened her shoulders and said importantly, “Indeed. And as we are both women blazing our own trail, I humbly ask you not to rob me.”

The woman considered Edith for a long beat, scratching her temple with the barrel of her gun. Finally she said, “I’ve never not robbed someone.”

Edith smiled. “Well, there’s a first time for everything.” She reached into her satchel, and the woman jerked, the gun rapidly coming back down to aim at Edith’s head.

Edith froze, opening her hands slowly to reveal a second wrapped bread roll and jam jar. “Why rob a stranger when you could share food with a friend?” She smiled cautiously, tilting her chin up to meet the woman’s eyes.

The woman harrumphed and then seemed to come to a decision.

Edith’s shoulders sagged with relief as the woman shoved her gun back into the leather holster wrapped around her waist. Edith extended the food to her, and the woman took the bread and jam.

With a wary eye trained on Edith, she unwrapped the bread and took a large bite.

She nodded to herself as she chewed. After she swallowed, she looked down at Edith with a hesitant smile.

“I suppose robbery is just a really aggressive form of sharing.”

Edith laughed, the tension of the situation fading away completely. “My thoughts exactly.” Edith scooted over, offering the woman a place on the rock next to her, but she waved away the offer and stuffed the rest of the roll into her mouth.

“I’ve got things to do—crime—you get it.” She chewed as she spoke, muffling the words.

“I understand completely,” Edith called to her retreating form. “Have a good day!”

Without turning back around, the woman threw her a sharp wave, her hand gripped tight around the jar of jam. Moments after she disappeared back into the trees, Edith heard hoofbeats galloping away.

Edith stood from the rock and continued her trek toward London, smiling to herself.

She hadn’t expected to be able to prove her philosophy about the goodness of people so quickly.

The high of that success distracted her from the pain in her feet and back.

Before she knew it, the city had wrapped around her so thoroughly, it was as if the countryside didn’t even exist anymore.

She was in a world of rickety buildings that slanted and slumped together.

Of uneven cobbled alleys that slithered like snakes.

And it was so loud that all the voices blended together.

There were merchants shouting from behind their stalls and people in threadbare clothing haggling back.

There was so much happening for such a cramped space. It made Edith’s head spin.

The stench was something she hadn’t anticipated, but as she stepped delicately around a pile of goo that she did not care to identify, she still did not doubt that this would all be worth it.

Already, she had seen and done more than she had ever thought she would.

Every horrid smell and unseemly sight was a gift that she did not intend to waste, because for the first time in her twenty-seven years, her every move wasn’t being picked apart and scrutinized by the ever-watchful eyes of her tutors, or her father, or every other person who had come to expect only disappointment from her.

On the streets of London, she was thoroughly invisible. Not a single soul spared her a glance. Soon, once she found Excalibur, all these people would look at her with awe, and not because of who her family was or how much money they had, but because of what she had accomplished herself.

For now, though, Edith was more than content with the blank slate.

With one hand raised to shield her eyes from the sun, she peered down at the wrinkled map she had apologetically stolen from the coachman. With a finger, she traced the path to the Oleander Inn.

It was early evening, and she wondered if they would be open at this hour. Did criminal syndicates have regular business hours? Surely they’d have to, otherwise how would people know when they could come round to hire their services?

These were the logistical factors that had never seemed to come up when Edith and her grandmother had spoken about the quest. They’d spent hours upon hours theorizing about King Arthur’s resting place; neither believed that the tomb at Glastonbury Tor marked his true gravesite.

They debated whether Merlin’s magical powers were allegory or actual fact—they both agreed it was the latter.

But never once had her grandmother offered any concrete advice on how Edith should actually navigate the vast country all on her own.

Probably because she was never meant to do this alone.

They were supposed to have been conquering the journey together.

Edith turned the final corner, hoping that the criminals weren’t only available to speak to in the dead of night. She really was tired and not keen on the idea of having to wait up that late.

The sign dangled from an iron rod hammered into the crooked rows of stone. For confidence, Edith tucked a hand into her satchel, her fingers tracing the designs of the ceramic jar within. Foregoing any more preamble, she stepped inside.