This time I’m running as soon as the dream starts. Away from the watcher on the hill, churning through a sea of mud. My steps are heavy, but my will is stronger. I lunge and dive, tear all the way to Richard.
He looks mostly the same: black boots, ermine cape, crimson jacket full of medals. But there are little differences. His jawline is blunted by scruff and his hair is tousled, slanted at all angles.
He looks just as dazed when I reach him, grab his sleeve. Again it strikes me how real he is. The feel of the jacket’s fabric under my fingers—the muscled arm beneath it. Even the smell of him—cinnamon and cloves—is the same. It pulls at my heart.
I want those arms around me. To pull me close and hold me there.
But I know what’s coming. This dream always ends the same.
“Come on, Richard!” I’m tugging him away from where I know the black knight is marching. Just past Richard’s shoulder I see Mordred: blade held high, coming for us. “We have to run!”
Richard doesn’t move. He’s staring at me with a dazed, confused look.
“Embers?” He blinks, like a man underground who’s suddenly thrust back into sunlight. “What happened to your hair?”
“We have to—” I stop midsentence. His question hits me, leaves me breathless. “What did you say?”
“Your hair. It’s different.”
His fingers brush my new hair from my eyes, so I can see him more clearly. His freckles are almost gone now, a fleck or two over the bridge of his nose where there was once a salting. His almond eyes—flashing and swirling like all the precious metals and stones in the world were twisted together.
Details far too intricate for mere memory to stitch together. Even in dreams.
Is it possible?
Is he actually here?
I reach up, frame his face in my hands. His skin smolders under my fingertips.
So real.
It’s just a dream. Just my heart wanting and longing for all it’s lost. But his touch skates so softly over my skin. Summons shivers. I bring his lips to mine. The meeting is a thrill of light, glowing all the way down to my toes. Richard pulls in closer. His kiss is yearning, tinged with the perfect chemistry of give and take. His hands slide down to the small of my back, fill my insides with a hot, blooming feeling.
The kiss ends and he’s still here: cheeks flushed. Eyes clear and full of spark. My fingers trace the still-tingle of him on my lips. And I know.
But it’s too late. Mordred’s mailed fingers sink like dragon talons into Richard’s shoulder. Tear him back. Away from me. Into the cruel steel of Mordred’s blade.
When I wake, my lips still tingle and burn. My heart lurches into my throat, high and thrumming from the feel of him—the swell that’s so much like magic. I’m gripping my pillow so hard that the fabric has torn.
I lie still. The bedroom is wrapped in night. A blackness only equaled by the feeling in my chest. Richard’s touch, his kiss, was all light. His absence is just as powerful. A deep ache, streaking down my soul like the dye in the sink. Accenting the chill of the room, the emptiness of the sheets beside me.
Richard was real. He was there. It’s an impossible thought, but it floods me with a certainty which leaves no room for doubt.
I shut my eyes, try to will myself back to sleep. Back to him. But all my insides are awake.
Richard is alive. And he’s out there, waiting for me to find him.
I sit up. The sheets are tangled at my feet, as if I was actually running through them. The nail marks Guinevere left on my arm a few weeks ago have burst again. Weeping red down to my elbow.
“Oh good. You’re awake.” It’s only when Kieran speaks that I see him, sitting in the darkest corner of the room. He melts almost completely into the shadows, only his marking glows. A phosphorescent whisper of ever-changing swirls.
Though I’m clothed, I seize my sheets up anyway, hug them against my chest. “What are you doing in here?”
His scar flares brighter. It’s not until I see the confusion scrambling his handsome features that I realize how angry my question sounded.
“It’s just . . .” I fumble for an explanation, my mind still fogged over with dream. “The mortals consider it strange to watch someone while they’re sleeping.”
I think of all those nights I sat by Richard’s window, watching him sail through dreams. How a smile lit up his face as soon as he woke, saw me. Always that smile. How I miss it.
“I was waiting for you to wake up. This came just an hour ago.” The Ad-hene holds out a tight roll of parchment: Queen Titania’s response. My heart drums war songs inside my chest when I take it from him, tear the seal.
Dog escaped. Still in London. Do not trust the Ad-hene.
I stare at the script for a long moment, to make sure I read it right. It’s Titania’s writing, a shaky earthquake version, yet still hers.
Three sentences. After lifetimes of loyal service as a Frithemaeg, after days of waiting, that’s all the Faery queen has to offer me. Three wobbling fragments of thought. No help from the Guard, who should be at Anabelle’s side regardless. Not even a hint of whether or not they intend to return.
Do not trust the Ad-hene. Bitterness rises up my throat as I reread the final sentence. It was Titania’s pride—her willful, stubborn ignorance—which allowed Richard to be taken in the first place. And now she’s telling me to do nothing. Just like her.
Has she broken her oath to the crown and abandoned mortalkind altogether? Is that even possible?
I think of the stun gun’s savage stab. The anger which thinned her voice even before that. Suddenly the possibility doesn’t seem all that remote.
The parchment crumples easily in my fingers. Without a fight.
“News?” the Ad-hene asks. “Should I wake the princess?”
The clock on the bedstand glows an early, sunless hour. All I want to do is fall back asleep, kiss Richard again. But Kieran is sitting on the edge of my bed and Blæc is roaming London’s foggy streets, the answers to my many questions buried beneath all that shadowy fur and razor teeth.
“No. Let Belle sleep while she can. She won’t be much help where we’re going.”
His eyebrows rise: dark arches sweeping with questions.
I take a breath, let go of the sheets. “We have a dog to hunt.”
The air around Westminster tastes of morning: heavy with fog, drear, and damp. A steady drizzle falls, turning gutters into rivers. The Thames roils through the city, a swollen beast.
Kieran walks with me over the bridge, watching currents of rubbish rush under our feet. Remnants of bonfires bob past: burnt pieces of wood, hollow beer bottles, even the half-charred face of an effigy, trailed by sopping strings of orange yarn.
There aren’t many souls out at this hour, but a few have already started their morning commute. Cars, double-decker buses, and people trickle past us, their attentions deterred by Kieran’s veiling spell.
My attention, however, is completely gripped by the Ad-hene’s magic. He seems to have no trouble holding the invisibility spell. It’s stronger, more potent than last time, dripping over me more wholly than the rain. My new hair is already sopping wet. Even my bones are chilled.
“You really think the Black Dog is still around here?” Kieran asks.
“This is his territory,” I say over my shoulder. “There’s no reason he shouldn’t return to it.”
We cross to the east shore, where the London Eye spins round and round. I loop all the way down to where a tunnel stretches under the Westminster Bridge. Blæc’s lair.
“Wait!” Kieran’s hand falls on my shoulder, a startling, physical weight. He holds me back just steps from the tunnel’s entrance. “I should go first.”
I’m not sure what’s worse now. The feel of his magic or his touch. They’re almost one and the same. Both root into me, raw, feeding power and possibilities. What might have been. What could be . . .
No! Richard is my future. My center.
Isn’t he?
Kieran steps forward; his eyes bore into the tunnel entrance. His hand reaches out, pauses in the air. “This is your magic!”
He’s right. One of my old enchantments is still in place. A blocking spell, meant to keep mortals from entering the Black Dog’s main tunnel.
“It was a good spell.” He goes on, his fingers dancing through the air, plucking at webs of magic I can’t see.
“Was?” I say stiffly, tasting what’s no longer mine.
“It’s broken. Someone tore through.” The Ad-hene’s fingers become a fist, pull the remnants of my magic away like a bothersome cobweb. Pieces float past like dandelion seeds. I hold my breath until the traces of my old spell fade altogether.
This tunnel is blacker than midnight. Kieran strides in—arms up and ready—prepared for the Black Dog’s teeth. The mark of his arm is all-dark, his steps full of hunter’s stealth. I follow, bracing myself for the sudden snarls, the flash of demon eyes.
But they never come. Kieran halts in the middle of the tunnel. We both wait, still and tight in the silence. One minute. Two. Three.
We are alone.
Kieran’s scar flares through the dark. The walkway burns to life: stark black and white, like a film negative.
My throat catches.
Runes. Everywhere runes. Written out in black marker, covering the tunnel’s white tiles like a madman’s scrawl. Harsh, angled lines strung together like a physicist’s equation. Too clustered and tight and ancient to be graffiti.
I stare for a long time, trying to understand the sheer number of these symbols. Many of them look familiar, but I know this only because I saw them chalked inside a cell on the Isle of Man.
Kieran’s staring too, stunned. His mouth is cracked open, lungs swelling.
The marks are on the floors too, running like ants along the concrete all the way to the center of the tunnel.
My muscles seize tight when I see the Black Dog on the floor. Blæc’s legs are curled up, almost as if it’s sleeping. But Black Dogs don’t sleep.
This place isn’t a tunnel. It’s a grave.
There are no markings on Blæc’s body. No blood. The beast’s fur has lost its gloss. Those burning acid eyes are closed. Never to open again.
Kieran crouches down by the Black Dog’s body, threads his fingers through its bristly black fur. The tendons of the Ad-hene’s hand cord tight.
“A fresh death. Very fresh.” Kieran looks around. As if the killer might still be lurking behind us.
I feel it, suddenly rising and swelling around us. The prisoner’s magic rushes through the tunnel like a wave. I spin around, but the space behind me is empty. My eyes snap back to Kieran. He’s still hovering over Blæc’s body, watching its carcass crumble to pieces. Reduced to a pile of ash in seconds.
“How . . .” I look back over my shoulder. The burst of magic is already fading. Gone. Just like Blaec’s body.
“The runes.” Kieran points to the ground, where the Black Dog’s outline is crowned by symbols. “I think the magic is inside them.”
“Belle was right,” I whisper.
The Ad-hene looks up at me. His fingers trail through the ash.
“A mortal did this. That’s why they tore through my spell at the door. They had to. They couldn’t enter otherwise.” I kneel down, placing a hand over the symbols on the floor. There’s nothing but the chill of concrete under my palm. “The runes are spells.”
Kieran’s hands sift through the ash, edge closer to mine. Our fingers are almost touching. Only a few symbols apart.
“All mortals needed something to conduct their magic.” Except Arthur. I make a mental note to strike him off of the list of possibilities. “The runes—this writing is that channel!”
“A mortal,” he repeats softly. “A mortal with magic. Like the princess.”
“Someone from the Camelot days.” I let my voice rise, hopeful. “Perhaps you remember . . . it would be a prisoner brought in around the same time as Guinevere.”
“I have no memory of those days. I was in the Labyrinth’s darkness then. It clouds many things. Erases them.”
“You remembered me,” I tell him.
“That’s different.” His finger slides forward, touches mine. “You’re different, Emrys. You intrigued me from the first. You have a way of shining.”
My heart stutters. My palm presses hard onto the dead runes. Kieran’s touch is the only warmth there is in this damp riverside tunnel. His magic is still everywhere, hiding me from all eyes but his. Even though I’m draped in a veiling spell, I feel more exposed than ever.
“You don’t know how deep your darkness is until there’s a light.” His eyes flicker to the tunnel entrance, back the way we came. Then forward again, to me. “I think I’m beginning to understand.”
I don’t think I can understand anything anymore. Why the mortals I fought so hard to protect are torching effigies of me. Why Titania has left us to fend for ourselves. Why Richard pulled away. Why he was taken. Why my dreams relive heartbreak, night after night. Why my fingers are still touching the Ad-hene’s. Why my eyes burn into his. Why his face is suddenly so close to mine. Why I stay still, my breath quivering in the air. Waiting.
Somewhere above us a horn blares. The sound sweeps across the river, rattles the tiles.
The moment breaks. Shatters like an undone spell.
I pull my hand away. There’s ash on my fingertips.
“He’s not your only choice.” Kieran’s words are as soft as the feathers in my pillow. Complete with prickling quill ends. “Remember that.”
“We found the trail.” My voice is ice, but my insides are flaring. I have to get away from him and his pulsing magic. I have to get away from whatever has taken root inside me. “The Ad-hene’s oath has been fulfilled. You’re free to go. Queen Titania and her Frithemaeg can track it from here.”
Kieran stays crouched over the pile of ash. All danger, power, and curiosity.
“This is no trail,” he says, nodding at the marked walls. “It’s a taunt. If this magic works as you say it does . . . then we have no way of tracing it. If it doesn’t flow in its worker’s veins, it’s not a part of their aura.”
I edge away from Blæc’s remains until my spine curves against the wall’s arch.
“Where is the Faery queen? Where are the Frithemaeg?” His questions echo through the tunnel, come back to haunt me. “They’ve left the princess completely unguarded. It does not seem to me that Titania is your strongest ally. You still need me. Unless you wish to reclaim your magic.”
And lose Richard forever.
He’s right. The Frithemaeg aren’t coming back to London. They’ve abandoned us. I’ll need more than a pile of ash and some scrawls on a wall to convince Titania to return.
Dead ends everywhere. Trails which tangle up inside themselves. Endless looping circles, just like the silver lines on the Ad-hene’s arm. And, just like inside the Labyrinth, Kieran is my only way out.