Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Edith knew what was going to happen a split second before she landed.
With a loud crack, the tile split into pieces, and then there was nothing beneath her feet.
There was a sickening breath right before the fall, right before gravity claimed her, when her body and mind hadn’t caught up yet to the fact that the ground beneath her feet was gone.
Then, she fell. Her arms shot out, hands instinctively scrambling for purchase. She thought she could hear Thomasin screaming, but it was muffled by the roar of her own heartbeat in her ears.
By some miracle, she caught herself on the edge of the next tile, the one she was supposed to land on.
Her elbows scraped against the rough surface as her momentum fought to pull her the rest of the way down.
Her fingernails broke against the ground as she clawed at the unforgiving stone, but then her fingers latched into the little divot where the worm’s squiggly tail was etched into the stone.
Her fingers digging into that little ridge, her sweaty palms pushing into the tile, that was all that kept her from falling into the darkness. Her legs swung helplessly, and she could feel empty air pulling at them, could feel the vast nothingness beneath her.
Thomasin was shouting at her, but Edith couldn’t make sense of any of it. There was nothing the other woman could do for her, no way to help her.
Edith had only two choices: pull herself up or die.
She didn’t think that she would be strong enough, but if there was one thing that Edith was good at, it was convincing herself that her fantasies were more true than her reality.
If this were a book, then the heroine would suddenly be strong enough to save herself.
Through the power of hope and love, bravery and courage, she would overcome her physical disadvantages to save the day.
So with every ounce of her might and will, she imagined she was strong enough, because this was not how her story ended.
She was the heroine, and a heroine didn’t die because her leap fell short.
Edith pulled until her arms shook with the effort. She pulled until she could get an elbow bent onto the surface, and then the other elbow. She dragged her chest up onto the tile, collapsed against it in sheer relief, fingers tingling with adrenaline.
She wasn’t sure how she managed to maneuver the rest of her body onto the tile, her legs curling awkwardly under her, hips straining at an angle, but she did it.
Her legs threatened to buckle under her as she stood slowly. Every muscle in her body felt wrung out, and there was a fuzzy lightheadedness that crowded her brain.
But she had made it. There was only one jump left, one half the length of the last one.
From the worm tile to the dragon tile and then on to the safety of the solid cave ground beyond the fence.
Thomasin was still shouting at her, but Edith ignored her.
She couldn’t risk stopping, couldn’t risk letting her adrenaline drop any further, because she feared that if it did, she would pass out right on that very spot.
She jumped. Really, she threw her body forward, hoping it would go where it was supposed to. When she landed, her legs did indeed collapse under her, knees knocking into the ground. She stumbled forward, catching herself on her hands just before her face slammed into the cave floor.
Edith let herself fall to the side, rolling onto her back, her feet just past the threshold of the fiery fence.
Pressing her hand to her chest, she attempted to get her breathing under control.
Her wet clothes still chilled her, but she also felt uncomfortably hot, and she could feel sweat beading along her hairline, dripping down onto her face.
Trembles racked her body, and she couldn’t bring herself to do anything but lie there and let her body shake.
Nausea rose in her throat, and she squeezed her eyes shut to push the feeling down, but that only made it worse, because with her eyes closed, she felt like she was spinning.
Then Thomasin was there, helping her roll over, holding her hair back as Edith vomited on the cave floor. “You’re okay,” Thomasin murmured, stroking a gentle hand up and down her back.
Edith heaved a few more times, but nothing came out.
Thomasin helped her lie down on her back again, then kneeled next to her head.
She brushed the sweaty hair from Edith’s forehead, then held her hand between both of hers.
With Thomasin’s touch grounding her, she was able to take a deep breath, her body finally relaxing.
“I’m sorry,” Edith said, her voice scratchy.
“You never have to apologize to me, you lunatic,” Thomasin said.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Edith admitted. Her body didn’t feel like her own.
“You’re just crashing from the shock. It’s a perfectly normal reaction.” Thomasin’s voice soothed the deepest parts of Edith’s brain. “You’ll be okay in a few minutes.”
Edith nodded. “Just don’t leave me, please.” It was embarrassing how needy she sounded, but she couldn’t help it. She felt so painfully vulnerable, like a light wind could shatter her to dust, and the truth was that she couldn’t bear to be alone just then.
“Never. I’ll never leave you, Edith,” Thomasin whispered, and her voice was the most beautiful thing Edith had ever heard.
Eventually, Edith’s heart slowed down, the oppressive heat faded, and she regained control of her jelly-like limbs.
Thomasin helped her sit, and then to stand.
Only once she was solidly on her own two feet did Thomasin duck her head to pin Edith with a hard stare. “You scared the bloody life out of me.”
Edith opened her mouth to apologize, but her words were lost when Thomasin yanked her into a rough hug.
Edith burrowed her face into the crook of Thomasin’s shoulder, while the side of Thomasin’s face came to rest on the crown of Edith’s head.
Thomasin held onto her like she was afraid Edith would disappear, like if she loosened her grip at all, she would lose her completely.
The first time Edith said it, the words were muffled, lost against Thomasin’s skin.
But she had said it, even though no one had heard it.
It was out in the world now. She couldn’t take it back, didn’t want to.
She didn’t want to think about whether it was right, whether she should wait, whether she was making a fool of herself.
She had dangled on the precipice of death, and she realized there were things that needed to be said.
So she tipped her chin up, stared into Thomasin’s hazel eyes. “Thomasin Shaw,” she said, her voice shaking, “I love you.”
The words hit Thomasin like a physical blow. She blinked, flinching back. But then she crushed Edith even tighter to her, a fist curling in Edith’s hair. “Thank fuck.” Thomasin inhaled a stuttering breath. “Because I love you too.”
A wild laugh escaped Edith’s chest. “I love you,” she said again, just because she could.
Thomasin let out a loud whoop and punched her fist into the air. Edith startled but was laughing by the time the echo of her celebratory shout bounced back to them.
“You’re mad.”
She shook her head playfully at Thomasin, who kissed her hard and then said against her lips, “And you love me, which means you’re mad too.”
“I can live with that.” Edith smiled, kissing Thomasin right back.
Their lips dancing together, Edith lost track of time and reason. It wasn’t until Thomasin murmured, “We have a quest to finish,” that Edith jolted back to her senses.
She forced herself away from Thomasin’s arms, putting enough space between them that they could catch their breaths.
Not that the space really helped. The temptation of Thomasin was overwhelming, her skin flushed and glowing in the firelight, her lips swollen and hair a wild mess from Edith’s fingers dragging through the curls.
The heaving of her chest with every breath, and the white tunic that clung to every sharp line of her body.
Her eyes, the way they burned as they watched Edith.
There was lust and love. Longing and restraint.
Desperation. She was almost impossible to resist. Thomasin was in a state, and it was all because of Edith. She had never felt more powerful.
But she forced herself to think about the frozen pool, how the water had felt when she’d first broken the surface.
She imagined that feeling washing over her heart, her mind, because as much as she wanted to throw herself into Thomasin’s arms, she also had a quest to complete.
In the stories she’d read, the knights of the Round Table often had to overcome temptation and master their lust in order to complete their noble duty. If they could do it, so could Edith.
She tucked her hair behind her ears, smoothed her still-damp skirt, and gestured for Thomasin to lead the way, resisting the urge to take her hand. It was best that she kept her hands to herself.
Against the back of the cave was another tunnel.
Thomasin ducked her head as she crossed the threshold, and she had to stoop as she walked.
Edith could stand upright, but it was a tight fit.
Luckily, the tunnel was only a few strides long, and then it opened up into another cavern.
This one was far smaller, about the size of Edith’s bedroom.
But as she looked up, she realized she was mistaken.
The cavern rose up and up above them. She couldn’t even properly see how tall the room was, for the shadows swallowed up the light the higher it went.
An earthen staircase wrapped around the edge of the room, leading up into the soaring cavern, but Edith hardly noticed it.
At the center of the room, propped up on a simple wooden stand, was a staff.
It was carved from dark wood, curved and gnarled so that it looked like a thick branch.
Symbols and ornate calligraphy spiraled up the shaft, debossed onto the surface with shimmering gold.
The head of the staff was a rough crystal in the shape of an oblong rectangle.
The edges were uneven, the surface unpolished and coarse.
A moonstone, Edith thought. When polished, they were a smooth, milky white with a faint shine.
But this staff was rugged, powerful. The gleam of the crystal was only a suggestion beneath the textured exterior, peeking out from behind the craggy stone.
Edith drifted toward it, unable to resist the pull of it. She wrapped her fingers around the staff, her touch reverent. It would take time to decipher the meaning of the symbols and words, but she recognized one, near the top.
Merlin.
Edith lifted the staff from the stand. Merlin’s staff. It was lighter than she’d thought it would be.
“The next clue, I presume?” Thomasin asked.
“Yes,” Edith breathed. But it was more than that. It was history and legend, clutched in Edith’s fist. She didn’t know what she had done to deserve this moment.
She stood frozen by the sheer magnitude of it all.
“Are you okay?” Thomasin drew closer to her and set a hand on her lower back.
“This is Merlin’s staff,” she said numbly.
“Holy shit,” Thomasin said. “What do we do with it?”
Edith shrugged her shoulders. “I guess we take it with us.”
So they did. Edith carried it aloft in front of her, terrified she would break it somehow.
With no desire to retrace their steps across the tiles, or swim back out through the freezing pool, they followed the stairs that spiraled upward.
They were worn and ancient, but the stone was sturdy as they trudged up step after step.
Edith held on to the staff so tightly that she felt the etched symbols imprinting onto the skin of her palm.
The damp humidity of the cave began to soften, and cold air started to filter in. The soft, cool glow of twilight soon followed, sifting in through cracks in the earth above them.
They emerged in a cave that was hidden in a rocky outcropping. The entrance, barely large enough for them to squeeze through, was hidden by moss and overgrown shrubbery.
“Well, this would’ve been nice to know about,” Thomasin said as they walked through the woods, trying to ascertain just where they had surfaced.
“If we had gone this way, then we wouldn’t have earned the clue. We wouldn’t be worthy.” Not that Edith felt worthy of the staff anyhow.
“You’re too noble,” Thomasin said fondly.
Edith didn’t get a chance to respond, because a hand wrapped around her mouth and pulled her backward, away from Thomasin’s grasp. Then a knife was pressed to Edith’s throat.
Thomasin drew her own dagger, eyes darkening. “Let her go,” she commanded. When she took a step toward them, the person holding Edith shuffled back, forcing her to stumble back with them. The blade kissed her skin, and she clenched her teeth at the sharp bite of pain.
“Stay where you are.” It was Worthing. Worthing held Edith captive.
But it wasn’t Thomasin he needed to worry about.
Before she could even try to make a move, Jay came out of nowhere, storming through the trees and launching himself at Worthing.
He tackled him from the side, and Edith tried to squirm away, but Worthing’s arm stayed locked tight around her as the three of them fell in a heap.
It was a desperate struggle of punches and kicks. She curled in on herself, unable to escape the melee.
There was a shocked cry, a guttural groan of pain, then the arm around her loosened. Relief flooded Edith as she pushed to her knees and saw Thomasin running toward her. Edith stumbled forward, falling into Thomasin’s arms.
“Look what you two made me do,” Worthing growled.
Edith felt Thomasin straighten, her body going rigid with shock. In the circle of Thomasin’s arms, she turned, looked back at where they had struggled.
Jay lay on the forest floor, unseeing eyes watching the stars. There was a deep gash across his throat, a pool of blood surrounding his body. It still bubbled from the wound in little spurts.
Another first, she thought senselessly, shock settling over her.
Edith had never seen a dead body before.