Chapter 36
THIRTY-SIX
GWENNA
I can’t see where I’m going, can’t see anything , like I’ve fallen into abyss.
Until I do see it, and I’m speechless.
A massive circular room, with high arched walls, flowing banners, no windows. It’s chilly, almost earthy smelling. We’re underground.
“What…” I say, voice trembling. “What is this place?”
Crossed blades and shields decorate the curving walls. At one edge is a seat, a throne , wide and spacious and a pearly sort of white, with a red velvet rope draped across its seat. And in the middle…
My heart plunges to my stomach.
La Tavola.
The table.
It’s huge, maybe twelve feet in diameter, wooden but dark, almost black, polished to a sheen, and with the crest of Caliburn inlaid in it.
None of it seems real. It’s like I’ve stumbled somewhere imaginary, somewhere fantastical, a movie set, or a museum, a recreation of how kings and princes used to live done up in a castle somewhere for tour groups.
I spin around to Kai.
“What—”
I’m cut off by the arrival of the other three. Callahan bangs through the door, Lanz practically jumping past him, and Kingston following, his face taut, but his eyes sharp.
“Kai,” he says, “don’t.”
“This is it, Gwenna,” Kai says, spreading his arms wide and walking backwards like a showman. “This is the big old secret, the whole kit and caboodle. You thought we were weird and reclusive before? Just keeping those vows for fun?” He laughs. “You had no idea.”
“How is this…” I’m blank. Unable to think. “What does this even?—”
“Kai,” Kingston says again, “ stop .”
“What, am I making it worse?” Kai says, cocking his head at Kingston. “What difference does it make if they’re going to throw her in the slammer for property destruction or whatever?”
A choked sob escapes my throat, and Kai’s glance immediately softens on me.
“She didn’t do it,” he mutters. “All of you know that, and none of you…”
“I tried,” Lanz said. “I tried , but?—”
“Get back upstairs,” Kingston orders, pointing at the stairs.
But none of them move.
Not Callahan, not Lanz, not Kai.
The only sound is my pathetic sniffling, until I finally manage to get purchase on my breath.
“What is going on? ” I say. “What is all of this?”
“We are real holy rollers, Gwenna,” Kai says.
“Knights charged by God, governed by the Consistory of the White Brothers of Saint Vincent, and bound on pain of death to its vows and chivalrous code.” He drawls it, like he’s a bored tour guide.
“Here on a quest for the cure to all wounds. The vessel divine. The fount of all founts and the secret of all secrets.”
A slow, deathly slow pulse of panic rolls through me. Head to stomach, stomach to toes, and over and over. My ears are ringing, like my whole body is trying to reject what I’m hearing.
“What are you telling me?” I say. My voice lower, the tears gone. “What are you saying?”
“It’s all real,” Kai says, cocks his head.
“Magic. Miracles. The holy spirit. Whatever the fuck you want to call it. It’s all real and it’s all bound up in one mystical thing that we and we alone are supposed to find.
A holy grail.” He curls at smile with no humor at his brother. “Isn’t that right, Kingston?”
Kingston doesn’t answer, doesn’t move.
Until he does. He springs forward, arms out, like he’s ready to strike or claw at or throttle Kai, but Kai is faster. He leaps backward, a practiced retreat, and lands at the foot of the wall, arm up, and wrenches a blade down by the hand guard.
“Not so fast.” He holds it out, the tip inches from Kingston’s face. “I will cut that smug little face of yours if you come even a millimeter closer, you prick.”
Kingston doesn’t move. Kai whips the blade left, right.
“Either of you wanna chime in?” he says to Lanz and Callahan. Not giving them a chance. “No? Fine.” He looks back at me, blade still raised, but gaze fierce.
“We’re a whole fuckin’ secret society . There’s rules . We shit the bed and they send the Prior of Arms after us. Strip us of our blades and invalidate a whole-ass generational claim . How do you like that?” His eyes are glassy. “Doesn’t even sound real. But it sure fuckin’ is.”
“I don’t…” My brain is still caught on what he said seconds ago.
It’s real .
It’s real.
“It’s real?” I manage. “Everything I…”
Everything I saw.
Everything I felt.
Everything I did.
The church.
The fire.
The vision in the lake.
I knew I wasn’t crazy.
Knew I wasn’t.
And they knew too.
They knew, and?—
“That night at the lake,” Kai goes on. “Once you told me what you saw, what you felt when you…” Kai swallows, sweeps his hair out of his eyes.
“I knew. I knew I couldn’t keep the truth from you anymore.
” He pivots to Kingston, and his voice goes from a rasp to a roar.
“But what I didn’t know, didn’t even fucking suspect, is that you, of all people, mighty Kingston Arcturus Pendragon, were fucking around on your vows.
Oh, I knew this idiot”—he points at Lanz with the sword—“had had his dumb little spin-the-bottle moment with her after the Sainte-Odile match, whatever. But you. In our father’s fucking office. ”
He shakes his head slowly. Looks at the distant, distant ceiling. Breathes out.
“It just kills me,” he says. “absolutely kills me, that I, of all people, am the best at keeping my fucking word. ”
Kingston’s warm eyes are hard, flat, and a sob wrenches out of my throat, shameful.
So Kai did know.
And he still wouldn’t speak up for me.
It’s all too much.
I run for the door. Lanz moves, Kai moves, as if they’re going to stop me, but they don’t.
Can’t. I’m gone too fast, even for them, pounding up the stairs through the unseeing darkness until I burst out on the landing of the house, this house, this terrible, beautiful house I never want to see again.
I run through the hall, through the door, down the steps, run, run, run until my eyes are too blurry with tears and my breath is too tight in my chest.
And then I get out my phone.
My fingers shake as I swipe it unlocked, my teeth chattering in the cold again. It’s getting late now, an emergency hour time to call. She’ll pick up?—
“Gwenna?”
And she does.
“Mom?” My voice is thin and scared as a little girl’s, and I can’t make any more words come out. Only a sob.
“Gwenna?” Her voice turns urgent. “What’s wrong? What’s going on?”
I clutch my phone, stare up at the sky, clench my eyes shut and wish, desperately, desperately, to disappear.
“I need to leave here,” I say at last. “You’re right. You were right. I need…help.”