We’re getting nowhere, and way too slowly. We’ve been at this for over two hours and other than a few tidbits read aloud and then dismissed, we’re no closer to an answer.
I slam my current book closed—a forgotten Grail quest story that had a weird interlude involving sheep—and bang my head on it. Then I look up to find everyone around the table giving me a concerned eye.
“Honey?” my mom asks.
We’re interrupted then, as Vale, the woman from the street, enters. “Still need help?” she asks, and her eyes linger on Porsoth. He reaches over and removes a book from Isaac to consult it himself. The two of them are showing a competitive streak.
“We do,” I say to Vale.
“Let’s take a walk,” Mag says to me. They know when I’m at my wit’s end.
I nod and get up. “Might be a good idea.”
I had a moment’s hope when Luke came back leaning on Sean. Acting like brothers. That they’re working together is good.
My mother motions for Vale to come sit beside her and she does.
Saraya is pacing, the only one of us not busy researching. The tense line of her body is what I feel like inside. We’re not making progress. My plan is failing.
Mag and I walk back out to the spiraling steps. “Up or down?” they ask.
“Up,” I say.
We head up together, feet slow thumps on the marble. “All the answers are supposed to be in books,” I say. “I really thought we’d solve the puzzle like this.”
“We will,” Mag says. Then adds, “Solve it.”
I’ve been thinking about something else too. “I want Jared’s apartment. I need something to look forward to, after this.”
Mag blinks, surprised. “You do? That’s great. There’s room for Luke there, you know.”
“How about Cupcake?”
“The entrance is at the back. You can probably manage to sneak him. And dogs are allowed.”
This feels so far from right now, today, but it’s true. I need to imagine the other side of this.
“How will you pay your half of the rent?” they ask.
“Great question,” I say. “I’ll think about that later.”
Mag nods.
“What changed your mind? I know what changed Mom’s.”
“Porsoth told us, about Luke’s brush with…” They trail off, searching.
“Death?” I supply.
“Yeah. And how you reacted. I realized I can’t actually imagine the two of you not together anymore. I knew how much it must’ve hurt, the thought of losing him. I … if it had been me…”
“I get it. Brushes with death do clarify things.”
Brushes with death … Wait a second. “I have an idea,” I say and pivot back the way we came.
Mag follows without hesitation, and we pound back down the stairs. “Glastonbury,” I say as we burst back onto the landing and hurry to the table. “What have you found about it?”
“We’ve already been there, though,” Sean says with a slight, pretty frown.
“That’s where the wound occurred,” I say. “What if we left in too big a hurry? What if we just didn’t find it?”
Isaac and Porsoth are elbowing each other, some light squabbling going on between them. “I told you that one was promising,” Porsoth says.
“I suppose you had a point,” Isaac says. He leafs through the stack in front of him and produces a document, then slides it over to Porsoth.
Vale’s and my mother’s heads are close together over whatever book they were reading. Mom says something to her and I see the first ever smile on the other woman’s face. They look up expectantly at Porsoth.
Interesting.
“Are you going to put us out of our misery?” Luke says. “Can we stop this?”
“Perhaps, if I can locate the correct line. Wait,” Porsoth says, and stabs at the page with a finger at the end of a wing. “Ah, here it is.” He clears his feathered throat and then reads aloud, “‘The castle exists in shade and shadow, protected by the thorn of flowers and the red waters. Its guardians are legend.’”
Yes, that could be important. “Why didn’t you say this before?” I ask.
“I tried,” Porsoth says. “I was informed it was too obvious.”
“I said I was sorry,” Isaac says. “Well, I’m saying it now.”
Sean says, “You think it means the Grail is back in Glastonbury.”
“Sometimes things hide in plain sight,” I say. “Or I guess in this case, are hidden from plain sight. But that has to be a reference to the Holy Thorn and the Chalice Well.”
Luke gives me a look.
I explain. “The Holy Thorn is said to have been created by Joseph of Arimathea—”
“Him again,” he says.
“Striking the ground with his staff. It created this special flowering hawthorn people still visit. And the well of the Red Spring runs with water tinted like blood.”
“From the iron content,” my mother says. “Ferric acid residue.”
“The natural world is made to reflect the wonders of creation,” Vale says.
“Yes!” I say to be encouraging. “But iron aside, it’s said to be a hint of the blood the Grail once held. Or the rust from the nails of the cross.”
“Why are all these stories so gross?” Mag asks.
Jared says, “An excellent question.”
“How do we find it this time, if we couldn’t before? And what does ‘Its guardians are legend’ mean?” Sean asks.
Good questions. Inconveniently good questions. “There’s also the White Spring, and that’s got to mean something too.”
“Calcite deposits,” my mother says, more softly this time. Vale smiles at her with encouragement.
“But it’s not mentioned in that text,” Porsoth says.
“Which could be a clue itself,” Isaac adds.
“‘Its guardians are legend.’” Sean repeats it again.
“Could it be a reference to the legends themselves?” I ask.
“The ones so strong they’re repeating themselves with us?” Luke asks. I can tell by the strain in his voice that the wound isn’t getting any less painful.
“No. Wait.” I hold up my hand. I close my eyes and envision Glastonbury. The ruins. The grounds around the ruins … “I think I know what it means. What did that phrase come from?”
Porsoth owlishly blinks. “It’s an account from—”
“The monks,” Isaac says. “Who used to be at the abbey. It’s never been published. It’s part of our private collection, recovered by a guardian centuries ago.”
A monk at Glastonbury Abbey. There’s one thing at it we didn’t go see, because I didn’t think it was really them. But what if it doesn’t matter? What if their presence is the clue?
“Lady Guinevere and King Arthur. Their so-called graves were discovered by the monks. On the same grounds as the abbey,” I say. “‘Its guardians are legend.’ It doesn’t get more legendary than those two.”
Everyone is quiet and I expect disagreement. Instead Luke lifts his hands, smiles at me, and claps. Genuinely claps. “Stop it,” I say, embarrassed when Jared and Mag join in. “We’ve got some ruins to revisit, stat.”
“Finally,” Saraya says. “We get to do something.”
The group bursts into conversation. Luke presses his weight on the table with his hands and levers himself up. He sidles over to me, putting one hand around my waist and his nose against my cheek. “I think you deserved the applause.”
“You would,” I say.
He kisses me, soft and sweet, and it shouldn’t make me worry. It’s a lovely kiss. But I worry anyway.
What follows is a flurry of activity. Knights go on quests together, and I insist everyone comes. Except Isaac, who says his place is in Guardian City, and stays behind. He and Porsoth exchange a handshake, and then Porsoth ducks his head in a slight bow. “May the light shine on you in your time of darkness,” Isaac says in farewell.
Now we’re in a supply barracks, empty of guardians because everyone else is working or training.
I have my arm tucked in Luke’s, propping him up. I’m sticking close to him, because I need the reminder that we still have time. Saraya is busy gathering anything she thinks we might need, other than reinforcements. That turns out to be way more weapons than I’d have thought, but about par for her. She sticks a crossbow into a large satchel.
For that matter, I guess Sean knows how to use them too. He’s quietly helping her. She directed my mother to a kitchen area, where some food is being packed to take.
It’s already midday and we’re almost ready to leave. I continue to worry that I’m wrong, about all of this, and that Luke’s kiss had something weird in it. An apology in advance? He’s being quiet and I don’t like it.
But pressing him in front of everyone won’t get me anywhere. I’ll choose my moment. We’re going to get through this, because we have to. Leaving Guardian City does feel like being cast out of a sanctuary. Being back on the map feels like it will be symbolic in a way that isn’t exactly good.
“Back on the map is back on the clock,” I say.
Saraya is practically vibrating with her joy at being in motion. “We’re ready,” she says, fastening the bag, which Sean then hefts over his shoulder.
“Do you think you’re strong enough to make us hard to notice when we get there?” I ask Luke. “Those security guards are going to flip if not, but we’ll deal with it.”
“I’ll muster the energy,” Luke says. “I’m wounded, not dead.”
The Fisher King loses his capacity to function slowly is what I don’t say. No reason to plant that in his head. He’s called the Fisher King because it’s all he can do in a lot of stories—in the ones where he can even leave the castle—cast out a rod and catch a fish or two. Not that Luke couldn’t serve some A River Runs Through It–era young Brad Pitt with a fishing rod, but the image is ridiculous.
“Do people go boating in Hell?” I ask him.
“Why wouldn’t they?” he counters. “You could forget everything, or get roasted alive, or hang out with Styx.”
“Did I tell you she said hi?” I ask Porsoth. “She was worried about you.”
Porsoth fidgets. “I, ah, saw her before I left.”
Luke and I exchange a smile, and I almost tow him away right then to interrogate him. What are you thinking, devil’s son? What have you decided to do? Or not do, my secretive love?
I leave it for now.
But I decide to ask him something else. “I’m thinking of getting an apartment. Taking over Jared’s.”
“You are?” he looks at me searchingly.
I swallow. “Mag says it’s big enough for two people.”
“They do?” he asks.
“Yeah, they do. And a goat and a dog.”
Luke does a slow blink. “Are you asking if I’ll move in with you?”
“I’m asking if maybe, once this is over, you might want to move in together. Yes.” Not that it’s what he’s used to, with his palace apartments. “But you don’t have to answer—” What am I doing? What has gotten into me?
“I want to,” he says. “Yes.” He leans in and speaks into my ear. “I’ll need to make sure it has the right kind of shower, however.”
I swat him. “You could magic the right kind.”
“True.” He straightens and says, “Let’s get going. I have something to live for.”
I force him to look at me. “You always did, goofball.”
He straightens with a wince. “I am not a goofball.”
Mag and Jared come in then, hefting two packs full of whatever my mother’s put together. She’s behind them, along with Vale. Mom has picked up a plus-one. “You are both goofballs,” Mag says.
I stick my tongue out, because I’m mature. Then, I ask, “How are we going? Is there a non-searing-pain way of travel?” I clarify. “Not for me, for everyone else. I’m with you,” I tell Luke.
I hope he hears the truth of it. I’m with you, even when it hurts. Even when it’s hard. That’s what love means.
“I’d never want you to hurt on my account,” he says. “Especially if there was another option.”
Saraya throws her arms out wide and bares her teeth in a smile. “Everyone huddle up,” she says. She tosses a glance at Luke. “You too.”
“Me?” he asks, surprised.
“If Sean can travel this way, so can you,” she says with a shrug.
Sean says, “She has a point. It’s a lot more pleasant.”
“I’ll go on ahead,” Porsoth says, and he’s popped out before anyone can protest.
The rest of us ring our arms around each other in a tight circle, turning ourselves into an echo of the Round Table. Here we go.
Saraya chants, low, and Sean joins in. The tones vibrate and then the world around us joins too. I catch Mag’s wide eyes and see how tightly they grip Jared and then I don’t see anything. We fly and float, weightless, among stars. There’s no screaming. No pain. We don’t move at a hurtle, the way I do with Luke when we zappity. We meander through time and space.
And when we stop, we’re still linked together on the brilliant green of the abbey grounds.
Time to find an invisible castle.