Ever After (24 page)

The king's shoulders sagged as he relived his failure to control the situation to his satisfaction. Once again, I wondered at Mab's control over the man whose strength I knew to be extraordinary. His will was unbreakable—except against his wife. Hearing the whole of their story now, it was even clearer to me that any love that had been there once had faded.

Although he still outwardly appeared to dote upon her, fawn over her, it was more the habit of a charming man who would fill his home with amity than any true fondness for the woman who shared his throne. And I was more convinced than ever that Mab's hold on the king was a product of her magic. How to rescue him from that hold, however, was beyond me.

The king heaved a sigh before he lamented, “Unable to bring my niece into my home after Nimue's death, I instead ensured that Arabella found her way into the home of a kind nobleman and his family. And she was happy there.”

“Until the mess with that bastard Gisbourne,” I told him, my tone harsher than he'd ever heard from me. I bit back the truth of just how far Gisbourne's treachery extended, waiting to find out just how much the king knew.

“That son of a bitch deserved to be drawn and quartered for what he did,” the king spat, his agitation bringing him to his feet to assume the pacing I'd left off. “And I would've been happy to do the honors, but ‘Sir Guy of Gisbourne' was just an alias ... one of many, as it turned out. I lost his trail and was never able to inflict the punishment he so deserved.”

“You may get your chance yet,” I informed him, closely observing his reaction.

“Do you mean he's in the Here and Now?” the king asked, his eyes going a steely blue.

“Not just in the Here and Now, sire,” I explained. “He's here in this very house. For the past three years, Sir Guy of Gisbourne has been masquerading as Reginald Mann.”

“In
my
house?” he bellowed, his face twisting with rage. When I nodded, he had to visibly work at composing himself. “He dared to infiltrate this home, ingratiate himself with my wife . . .” He unleashed a roar of fury, his hand balled into a white-knuckled fist. “I'll have that son of a bitch in my dungeons by morning. I'll do right by Arabella and the others Gisbourne has harmed, I assure you.”

“You could've done right by Arabella long ago,” I told him, knowing very well that pushing him when he was so enraged was risky but unwilling to hold my tongue. “All the time she was living her life as Robin Hood ... Why didn't you step in then?”

“I did,” the king snapped. “Who do you think her ‘merry men' were? Curiously honorable thieves who happened to leave a beautiful young woman untouched and unharmed? They were my own men, disguised as common brigands. They were charged with watching over her, protecting her.”

“But she lived in the woods with next to nothing!” I shot back. “You couldn't have offered a cottage? The means to live comfortably without putting herself at risk?”

The king gave me a mildly chastising look. “Dear boy, you know my niece better than anyone, I imagine. Do you think she would've been content living such a prosaic life?”

I had to concede the point. She would've managed to find trouble and adventure, no matter what her circumstances. It was that spirit and zest for life that I loved so much about her.

“My men reported back to me regularly,” the king continued. “Had she truly been in jeopardy, I would've stepped in.”

“You must've known about me joining her band of thieves then,” I said.

The king shrugged. “I did. But I didn't know who—or what—you were. I knew only that you were a man my niece fancied. I had no idea of the true depth of your affection for one another until that day at the falls.” He came to me and laid a hand upon my shoulder. “I could see it in your eyes, my boy. I did not need your empathic ability to sense the love—and grief—that was so akin to my own.”

“But you could've saved her!” I charged, my voice breaking. “You could've intervened when she fell! And we never would've been apart! We never—” I broke off, emotion choking me and preventing me from continuing.

“But I did intervene, Gideon,” he assured me. “I was not in time to prevent her fall, but I was in time to prevent her death. My spell grasped her at the last moment. My intent was to send her to Avalon to be with her parents.” The king's grip on my shoulder tightened. “But it seems she would not go.”

I lifted my gaze to his, astonished. “What?”

He grinned at me. “She fought against it,” he explained. “I believe her love for you was so strong, it kept her in a . . . sort of magical limbo. And, eventually, she made her way back to you.”

I blinked, clearing the blur that obscured my vision. “Did you know all along then?” I asked. “Were you aware that she'd return?”

The king shook his head. “No. I only discovered that she'd returned to Make Believe when Merlin brought it to my attention. He was one of the only Tales who knew my true identity when I masqueraded as Lancelot, you see, so he was aware of the history we shared. But by then . . .”

“I was with Lavender,” I filled in. “You knew about us?”

The king puffed up his chest, offended that I could even suggest his lack of knowledge about such goings-on in his house. “Of course I did. Did you really think you could keep such a thing from my notice?” I chose to keep silent on his lack of knowledge regarding the presence of a traitorous, power-grabbing bastard in his house for the past three years. Instead, I let him continue, “The trick was keeping it from Mab's. When we came over in the relocation and you came to Lavender's defense, there was nothing more I could do to hide your relationship.”

I shook my head. “Why?” I asked. “Why do all of this for me?”

The king grasped the nape of my neck. “You are as dear to me as one of my own children, Gideon. What
wouldn't
I do for any of you?”

I swallowed past the lump in my throat, my emotions at war. “You could've released me from my bondage. Once you were assured of my safety, you could've let me go.”

He patted my cheek. “I released you centuries ago, Gideon. The bonds were merely an illusion. You could've disobeyed me at any time, shirked your responsibility to me, to my family. It was your own noble heart that kept you here.”

My gaze shifted to my wrists as I brought them up before my eyes. “But you commanded me to bring Arabella to you . . . I could
feel
the command. My bonds responded.”

“All part of the illusion. I had to be sure that it was truly Arabella who had come to the Here and Now,” he explained, turning away and drifting slowly back to his chair as he spoke. “Merlin did not come to me this time, he had kept the knowledge of her arrival from me. I cannot understand why he would prevent me from seeing my niece. Why steal from me instead?”

I sighed, preparing myself to deliver news I knew would bring him pain. “I imagine for the same reason he kept her arrival from me—to protect us.” When the king frowned in confusion, I add gently, “Arabella is
fading,
sire.”

Had the king been standing, he would've dropped into his chair. As it was, the sorrow and heartbreak that washed over him were almost more than I could bear. “That cannot be true. We only just got her back.”

I shook my head. “We have no idea why it's happening, sire. There's no discernible cause—unless it's because she's half-Tale.”

“But her fairy blood should protect her against such a thing as
fading,
” the king insisted. “In all our time here, none of the Seelies has ever fallen victim to the ailment.”

I leaned forward in my chair, bracing my forearms on my thighs, and clasping my hands. “That's not all, sire. There are others
fading.
They are half-Tales as well.”

“Surely our physicians are doing all they can to save them,” the king insisted. “Right now, our concern is Arabella.”

“I wish that were true,” I said gently. “But these others aren't just any Tales, sire.” I paused and took a deep, bracing breath before adding, “They are your children.”

He gaped at me for a full minute at least, disbelief and denial making him mute. I grabbed his empty glass from the desk and filled it, wrapping his fingers around the glass when he blindly reached out.

“How is that possible?” he said at last. “How could I not know I had children with the Ordinaries?”

“I believe they were kept from you, sire,” I said. “All of their mothers vanished or died mysteriously. Most were adopted by loving families or taken into foster care.”

He was visibly shaken by the news, his heart aching at the thought of any of his offspring suffering. “How many are there?”

“Nearly a dozen, sire.”

Something suddenly shifted in his emotions, a hard resolve bracing him as he slammed his glass down on the desk and got to his feet. “I must go to them immediately,” he informed me. “Take me to them, Gideon.”

“I'm afraid it's not that simple, sire,” I said.

“Of course it is!” he scoffed, waving a hand and producing his overcoat. “We will away at once.”

I grasped his arm as he strode past me, bringing him to a halt. “Sire, they are in the custody of the Agency.”

His face twisted with outrage. “Those conniving bastards! We've a treaty! They dare hold
my
children captive?”

“I have reason to believe that they were
offered
the children, sire,” I told him as gently as I could. “I think whoever hid them from you offered them up to the Agency when they became ill.”

“Another Tale?” he breathed, horrified.

I nodded. “I don't know who else it could be. Arabella has been stealing fairy dust to give it to the Agency in hopes of staving off the
fading
long enough to find a cure.”

“Brave girl,” the king murmured. “She truly is a Seelie.”

“This gets to why I came, sire,” I said, helping him to remove his overcoat and transporting it back to his closet with a sharp snap of my wrist. “We think the magic in Arthur's relics could grant a Tale immortality.”

The king nodded. “That's why I hid them away. Should such power fall into the wrong hands . . .”

“Arabella has been gathering them—now with my aid—to test the theory,” I told him. “But we're not the only ones looking for them. Someone has hired the Huntsman. And I believe this person is also behind the bulk of the fairy dust thefts.”

“Dear God,” the king muttered. “The Huntsman mustn't be allowed to have the relics. Do you have any idea who hired him?”

I shook my head. “Nothing definitive. I had the Huntsman in my grasp but turned him over to the FMA for questioning. Unfortunately, he escaped—or, more accurately, someone with powerful magical abilities infiltrated the FMA's jail and broke him out.”

“So we know nothing of this Tale's connection to the relics?” the king said.

I thought back on what the Huntsman had imparted to me in Merlin's apartment. “He did tell me that his employer was right under my nose and that to determine who it is I should ask my king.”

“How dare that butcher insinuate that I would hire him!” the king fumed. “The very idea!”

“That was my immediate reaction as well, sire,” I assured him. “But I believe he was perhaps making reference to someone close to you, perhaps someone among us . . . a traitor.”

“Gisbourne.”

“It would stand to reason, knowing Gisbourne's past treachery,” I confirmed. “But I have no proof.”

“But why?” the king mused. “He has no reason to want them.”

“Perhaps for the power they would afford him, the invincibility they would provide,” I suggested. “You said you'd split up the relics to keep them from falling into the wrong person's hands. Gisbourne would certainly qualify as the wrong person.”

“Well, then,” the king said with a resolute nod, “we must ensure he does not succeed in reclaiming them.”

“We possess all but two relics,” I explained. “We've been using Snow White's mirror to locate them, but we're running out of time. And now the mirror has been stolen, its inhabitant, Fabrizio, kidnapped.

“We must find this mirror at once,” the king insisted.

“I agree,” I said gently. “But, sire, even if we find all the relics, their power may only be enough to save one person.”

“Only one?” the king asked, his voice tight with sorrow.
“One?”
He shook his head vehemently. “No. That's unacceptable.”

I ran a hand through my curls. “Arabella by rights should have the relics, but she refuses to save herself. She would save one of the children instead. But she grows weaker and weaker, sire. I don't know how much longer fairy dust can sustain her as we search for the relics. And now that our main source of information has been kidnapped, we have no idea where to find the final relics. I don't know what else to do. I beg you to help us.”

The king nodded. “You know I will, my boy. I will do whatever you ask.”

“Tell me where the other relics are,” I said. “Help me find them.”

The king held my gaze for a moment. Then, with a resigned sigh, he nodded and waved a hand with a flourish, producing a bundle wrapped in an aged, dirty burlap cloth.

My brows lifted, not daring to believe my eyes. “Is that what I think it is?”

In answer, he peeled back the burlap, revealing the tarnished helm. “I found it after Arabella's fall and kept it hidden all the long years after my parting with Guinevere. Then, suddenly, it surfaced in the Here and Now. I imagine it has to do with the overlapping of Arthur the man and Arthur the myth.”

I frowned. “Sire?”

He turned his eyes up to the ceiling for a moment, searching for the words to explain. “Every great once in a while, there is an Ordinary who is a legend in his own time. For such a person, the story begins to grow, take on a life of its own. And, eventually, it becomes so powerful as to create the legend while he's still alive. Arthur was such a man. That's why no one is quite able to separate fact from fiction in his case. His story in Make Believe ran concurrent with the truth, evolving, becoming more dramatic and elaborate as time wore on. It's really quite fascinating.”