Blood of the Fey (Morgana Trilogy) (21 page)

I rush over to help the poor man. “How did you get out here?” I ask him, trying to untangle his beard from the bush.

“On my own two feet,” he replies, his moss-green eyes flashing. “What a silly question!”

“I mean, how did you get out?”

The man looks even more outraged. “Through the door, of course!”

With her clear laugh, the woman approaches us. “It’s too easy for you to get out, dear friend,” she says in her singsong voice.

It seems her presence has a calming effect on the old man, for his features soften. In a few seconds, she has him freed and is holding his arm, probably to prevent him from escaping again.

Students are now streaming out of the school toward the practice field, all decked out in their training gear. And in their midst are two familiar faces.

“Morgan! Where have you been?”

Bri rushes toward me, Jack on her heels. Behind them is Lady Ysolt, her stony face menacing.

“I’m so going to get punished for this,” I tell myself. “I just hope torture’s a practice that’s long been abandoned.”

“Bah, nothing your death can’t take care of, dear,” the old man says, patting my shoulder as he and the lady leave.

“We’ve been worried about you,” Bri says when she reaches me. She sounds more excited than worried, however. “What happened? We came to get you before lunch, but you were gone.”

“Were you called into the principal’s office?” Jack asks, looking nervously toward the odd pair who can still be seen walking to the asylum.

“No. I just woke up late.” I shrug. “Then things just happened that kept me away.”

“So why were you talking with Lady Vivian, then?” Bri asks, awed.

“And Myrdwinn, too?” Jack adds.

“Who and who?” I ask.

“The school’s principal and the director,” Bri says, a note of impatience tingeing her voice. “You were just talking to them. We saw you!”

“That’s who those two were?” I shake my head. “But the man…”

“Myrdwinn,” Jack says.

“Yes, he’s gone a little senile,” I say.

“Well, it’s no wonder,” Bri says, “considering how old he is. He was already here when my grandfather attended school.”

“My granddad says that Myrdwinn was the school’s president back when his grandfather was a kid,” Jack says. “They even say he’s the grandson of the original Myrdwinn, the enchanter who first taught knights EM.”

I scoff. “That’s not possible. That’d make him waaaaay over a hundred years old!”

“Which makes it perfectly reasonable for him to have dementia,” Bri says.

I stare openmouthed at my two friends. Do they even hear themselves speaking?

Jack shakes his head at me. “I don’t know how you do it,” he says, “to be hanging out with KORT people and talking to the school’s owners. You’re either very lucky or in deep trouble.”

Once again, I’m relegated to a corner of the field to train on my own, but with a wooden sword this time. Curse my tendency to be easily swayed by the smallest kindness. I should’ve just skipped this part of the day too!

“At least give me something to practice on,” I huff. I step sideways and bring the sword up, two-handed, in a mock parry. “Something I can hit to a pulp!”

“So much anger!”

I pivot and nearly thwack Arthur in the face. But the little turd actually ducks below the baton before tearing it out of my hands.

“Are you complaining because you can’t do EM with the others?” he asks.

I brush my hair out of my face, noticing Daniel and his gofers staring at us.

“No,” I say sourly.

Arthur raises his eyebrows, not buying it. “You should know hand combat. Many Fey use regular weapons, like we do. EM just allows us to level the playing field.”

Not knowing what to do with my empty hands, I cross my arms and glare at him. “What is it you want? You’re interrupting my class.”

“Class is actually what I came to talk to you about,” Arthur says.

I snort. “What is it, Mr. President? Did you come all the way over to a mere page to give detention?”

“Right on the dot! I see you’re not as stupid as some say.”

By “some,” I assume he means Jennifer. I grind my teeth together, waiting.

“I hear that you missed all your classes today,” he says, any trace of mockery gone, “but were not to be found in the infirmary. Is this correct?”

I nod, too annoyed to speak.

“Do you have a good excuse?”

Maybe that your girlfriend made me do cleanup duty last night, again, and when I was already dead tired and bleeding to death. I don’t think my mental diatribe is reaching him, no matter how much I may glower at him, not that he’d believe me anyway.

“No,” I finally say.

Arthur frowns, as if surprised at my response. “Very well,” he says. “In that case, you are to clean the showers and restrooms in the mornings, for two weeks.”

My mouth cranks open. “I have to what?”

“That means all eight sections of them, boys and girls, for each year,” Arthur continues as if he hasn’t heard me. “So I suggest you wake up a couple of hours early every day. Any questions?”

I’m positively fuming. “Yeah, did you have to come all the way here to tell me this, or did you only do it because you were dying to see my reaction?” I so do wish I’d smacked him in the head with my practice sword.

Arthur’s hazel eyes bore into me. “Rules are rules,” he says simply before stalking away.

“I really, really hate you,” I say under my breath. I think I see his steps falter for a second, but I can’t be sure.

“I did it! I did it!”

My class pauses to see Laura grow a wall of packed earth around her that’s getting taller by the second. The girl’s triumphant look morphs into one of panic as the wall grows higher than her shoulders.

“Control your gnome, Miss Adams!” yells Lady Ysolt.

“I can’t!” Laura sobs.

“Tell it to stop!”

Laura shrieks as the wall of earth closes over her with a loud crash, rocks shooting out in every direction. Everyone screams and drops to the ground, everyone but me. Lady Ysolt flings her hands out, and a long green flash zooms out to divert the projectiles away from the class.

Time seems to slow down. I watch the stones curve in midair, then tear through the air toward me. Something sharp pierces my calf. I yell and keel over in pain, only to see a black shape slink away.

The jets of stones soar over me and land in the stands like artillery shots. Within seconds, everything’s over. I look up from my bleeding leg to find the first three rows of benches demolished. I gulp. And to think that could have been me!

“Morgan, are you all right?”

Lady Ysolt races over to me and helps me up. She’s so worried she’s forgotten to call me by my last name like anybody who’s not a knight ought to be called.

“I’m so sorry,” she says. “I’d forgotten you were there.”

Forgotten? I bark out a mirthless laugh. Of course she would. People only remember me when they have no other choice.

I pull away from her. “I’m fine,” I snap. I wince when I try to put weight on my injured leg, but keep my mouth shut.

“Miss Kulkarni,” Lady Ysolt calls out, “go take your roommate to the doctor’s.”

I mean to protest, but Keva leads me back inside the school, and I use this moment to escape from everyone, too tired to deal with people.

“You’re shit out of luck, huh?” Keva says, leaning against a medicine cabinet as a nurse, an old man with a neatly trimmed beard and circular glasses, examines my wounds.

She chuckles. “I can’t believe your own brother gave you toilet duty!”

The nurse’s gentle fingers prod the ruptured skin until more blood drips down my leg.

I grimace. “If I could, I’d dunk him in it,” I say to Keva.

“A feline,” the man mutters in his graying whiskers. “How very odd.”

“It saved my life, that cat,” I say.

The doctor spreads a salve on my calf, some concoction of honey and other herbs, lavender perhaps and…

“Excuse me, sir,” I say, “but is that comfrey?”

The man looks up from his bandaging, his eyes owlish behind his glasses. He looks more shocked than when he examined the deep lacerations left by the cat.

“Why yes,” he says. “You’ve had this treatment before?”

“No,” I say. “But we used it as a slug repellent back…” My vision blurs, and I sway on my stool.

He grabs my arm to steady me. I breathe in deeply and slowly until my sight goes back to normal.

“You need to get some food in you,” the nurse says, “and some rest, or you’re going to get really sick.”

“No worries,” I mumble, getting to my feet with Keva’s help. “I never get sick.”

“Eat something!” the man says again before the door closes on him.

Keva and I make our way down the hallway toward the dining hall. We pull the doors back, and a couple of students shove past us. I nearly fall down, but catch myself on the door’s handle.

“You immature bastards!” Keva says. “If you think you can become knights with this kind of attitude, you’re fooling yourselves.”

I’m dead tired, famished, and filthy, but I’m quite sure that’s not why people are avoiding me. No, I realize as people turn away from me, avoiding eye contact, they’re staying clear of me for the simple reason that both Jennifer and Arthur have gotten on my back, and no one wants to feel their wrath by being associated with me. But at this point, I don’t really care.

I settle down next to Keva and practically inhale my dinner. Food has never tasted so sweet, and, before long, my three plates are as clean as if they’d just come out of the dishwasher.

Keva stares at me in disgust—her standards for ladylike manners are obviously wasted on me. “Slow down, or you’re going to choke yourself to death,” she says. “My Good Samaritan moment’s passed, I won’t be taking you back to the infirmary.”

I lean back in my seat, my bulging stomach threatening to pop my pleated skirt’s top two buttons.

“There’s no way they’re from the same family,” I hear some girls a couple of tables away whisper. “I mean, look at her.”

“She’s such a loser,” another girl says with a snigger. “I mean, she was even held back three years!”

“Poor Arthur. It mustn’t be easy to deal with a retard for a sister.”

I steal a glance in Keva’s direction, wondering how this is affecting her, but find her eating her chicken with all the airs of a
grand lady; if it weren’t for her foul mouth, she’d fool everyone into thinking she were royalty.

“What is it?” she asks.

“Considering your star-seeking status,” I say with a yawn, “I’m wondering why you’re sticking with me instead of keeping your distance like everyone else.”

Keva lowers her fork and knife, then daintily wipes her mouth on her napkin. “First of all,” she says, “I’m affronted you should think so low of me as to compare me to everyone else around here. Second, I do know you’re dumb enough to have turned Jennifer into an enemy, though I’m sure if she knew you better, she wouldn’t even bother. You’ve also managed to get disciplined more times in the few weeks you’ve been here than anyone else has in a semester.

“But one cannot get far in life if all one sees is just the surface of things.”

She links her fingers together and rests her head on them. “In your short time here, you’ve managed to befriend a number of KORT members, a rare feat for a page. You’re also on speaking terms with the dean and the school president, I’ve heard, and let’s not forget you’re Arthur’s sister.”

She raises her hand before I can interrupt her.

“I know he’s sentenced you to disgusting menial labor for a couple of weeks, but we all know he’s a stickler for the rules. And I also know that, before you showed up with Vivian, he was about to throw a search party for you.”

She crosses her arms on the table and leans toward me. “Which shows he cares about you. So you see, you’ve still got your uses.”

I shut my mouth with a resounding clap. Something’s very wrong with her picture.

“You could have waited,” Bri says, slamming her tray down on the table, startling me.

Keva shrugs. “You could have gotten here sooner.”

Bri glares at her. “We would have if we didn’t have somebody else’s gear to clean.”

“I was told to take care of this walking catastrophe, so I did.”