Chapter 20
Ceri
Not two seconds after Clio disappeared, Morton fluttered his wings and said, “Okay, now it’s tea time. Take your seats, chat with the high prince, and have a snack and a drink after such a stressful event.”
We all gaped at him.
“What?” Morton’s shaggy brows furrowed. “Was it something I said?”
Marsten raised a finger. “Well, Clio did just disappear in front of all of us, and now that’s two of us who are missing and presumably dead, so forgive us if we’re not in the mood for tea.”
Morton sighed, puffs of smoke trailing from his nose. “How many times must I repeat myself? They’re not dead. This is part of the trials. Plus, I have a gut instinct everything will work out just fine.”
Marsten studied his bright pink nails. “Forgive me if I don’t trust your gut. It’s probably so cluttered with books and information, it can’t think properly.”
“I don’t think guts think,” Tal said, hovering in the air over the garden.
All of our heads whipped toward the stone gargoyles.
“How would you know?” Barty asked, pointing a talon at Tal’s stomach. “Your stomach is full of stone.”
“I have gut feelings,” Tal argued. “Like right now, I have a gut feeling that I don’t like you very much.”
Morton’s brows bunched. “That’s not what gut feeling means.”
“See?” Barty said, sticking out his long stone tongue. “Told you. You don’t have a gut.”
“I’m really starting to get tired of you,” Tal said.
“Just now?” Cillian asked. “After thousands of years together?”
“I’ve only been around them for a few minutes, and I’m already tired of them,” Meera mumbled.
The gargoyles took off, arguing as they flew over the peaks of the castle and disappeared to the other side.
With nothing else to do, we shot each other unsure looks before turning to go, but suddenly, an otherworldly force pushed us all back into the chairs, including Cillian, who plopped down across from me.
“Seriously?” I asked, shooting a look at Morton.
He shrugged, his wings lifting and falling with the motion. “It’s Castle’s magic. Don’t look at me! I’m just the messenger. Apparently Castle wants you to enjoy the tea and sandwiches.”
I doubted anyone was hungry and sank back into my chair, my mood souring. I didn’t want to be here any longer. I just wanted to go home and check on my father.
Cillian sat across from me with his symmetrical face and perfect dark hair falling over his forehead, and suddenly I remembered that he’d lied to me.
“What’s wrong?” He popped one of the miniature cucumber sandwiches into his mouth.
“Why did you really leave Fairwitch Isle last night?” I asked.
His blue eyes flashed. “I already told you—”
“I know it wasn’t Meera’s idea.”
He heaved a sigh. “Damn cat. I should’ve known I couldn’t trust her.”
So Meera was telling the truth. “Cillian! Why would you lie to me?”
I knew he kept things from me, but I’d always thought it was things I wouldn’t want to hear about, like one-night stands or spending all night at the town tavern. Not something as serious as leaving Fairwitch Isle and putting us all at risk.
I leaned forward, dropping my voice to whisper. “Was it to search for Lor?”
His eyes bugged for a moment, and he cleared his throat. “Uh, yes. You caught me.” He shot me a guilty smile.
I leaned back in my chair, crossing my arms over my chest. “Cillian! I thought we agreed that was a bad idea after your last search for him.” It was over two years ago, when Fairwitch Isle was situated on a bog, and Cillian had gone to look for his brother, but it hadn’t ended well.
He’d discovered Lor didn’t want to come home, that he didn’t want to have contact with his family. “You know he doesn’t want to be found.”
“Then why did he find me?”
I raised a brow, remembering our conversation from last night on the rooftop. “You saw his face?”
Cillian looked away, jaw locked. “Well, no, not exactly.”
“I rest my case.”
“I didn’t realize we were in the court of law, and if we were, you do realize I’d be the one presiding over the case.”
I made a face at him, my annoyance growing. “You wouldn’t be presiding if you were the one on trial, which you absolutely would be if anyone found out you’re leaving Fairwitch Isle. You’re lucky Meera doesn’t care enough to expose you.”
Or Meera might not even know we had strict rules against leaving. The Fair Folk could leave whenever they wanted, being invisible and all. We didn’t have that luxury.
“I should never have told you,” Cillian said.
My eyebrows shot up, his words like a punch in the gut. “That’s the lesson you’re taking away from all of this? And you didn’t tell me. You lied, and then I caught you in your lie. That’s not the same thing.”
He blew out a frustrated breath.
“Maybe the lesson you should be learning is to be more careful, to not put your entire city at risk for—”
“For what?” he yelled, startling me. “For my brother? Everyone else has given up on him, but I refuse. I thought you’d understand that more than anyone.”
His gaze bore into me, and his meaning became clear. “That’s different,” I said. “My father has an illness.” It wasn’t the kind of illness you could see on the outside, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. “Of course I would never give up on him or abandon him.”
“And my brother would never leave us. He’d never do the things he’s been accused of.”
I reared back at Cillian’s words. He’d never told me he felt this way. I had assumed that, like everyone else in his family, he’d finally accepted that Lor had betrayed us all and started working for the Brotherhood of Magic.
“It’s proven!” Now my voice was raising, my anger flaring at how obstinate he was being.
I wasn’t even sure how we’d gotten to this point in the conversation, how we were now arguing about this, but I didn’t care.
“Wolfe saw him. You got a note from him three years ago telling you to stop searching.”
“Just leave it alone, Ceri!” Cillian was normally so even-keeled, so cool, calm, and collected. But right now, his chest was rising and falling with quick breaths, his cheeks reddening. “It’s none of your business.”
“It is because it affects me!”
“Um, you guys?” We both glared up at Marsten, who peered down at us, wiggling his fingers.
“Hi, I hate to interrupt, but you are both screaming, and we’re all trying to enjoy our tea and pretend this entire situation isn’t completely fucked.
Maybe you could just”—he pinched his fingers—“take it down a notch?”
“Fine,” I said.
Cillian crossed his arms. “No problem.”
“Thank you,” Marsten said in a singsong voice, skipping back to the table he shared with Meera and Siobhan, who was glaring at me like she was the one I was in an argument with.
I leaned forward. “You need to stop whatever it is you’re doing. Stop leaving Fairwitch Isle.”
“You don’t know anything, Ceri.” Cillian looked away, jaw locked. “You spend all your time in that dress shop, but you have no idea . . .” He trailed off.
Tears burned my eyes, but I blinked them away.
I’d learned long ago that I was the one who needed to hold it together.
I couldn’t be falling apart when everyone else was, and that included Cillian.
“Maybe I don’t know anything. But I’ve spent years protecting my father from the worst of the attacks, the constant moving, from his own worst fears.
And if you are putting him, the only person I have left, at risk, I do know one thing: I will do whatever it takes to stop you. ”
I stood, and this time Castle’s magic didn’t hold me back. Cillian didn’t so much as glance at me as I stomped away.