Guardians of the Boundary (The Conjurors Series Book 3) (29 page)

“I hope you’re right,” she said,
but she didn’t think he was. She thought of how the tale of King Arthur, her
hero since she was a little girl, had ended. “But even Camelot fell eventually,
even though King Arthur was fighting for justice.”

“Those are stories,” Cyrus said.
“They don’t mean anything.”

“They’re more than stories,”
Gideon contradicted him, to Valerie’s surprise. “But Valerie forgets that,
though Camelot fell, it was destined to rise again.”

She didn’t know what to make of
Gideon’s words, but for some reason he had reignited her little spark of hope.

A few days later, the seed still
hadn’t changed. Valerie couldn’t manage to get more than two hours of sleep in
a row before waking up to check on it. Oberon offered to keep an eye on it for
her, but she couldn’t let it out of her sight.

Henry was rarely home, stopping
by for clothes and a shower before leaving again. Valerie knew he spent some of
his time with Kanti, but he also spent hours by himself, wandering the woods
and coming back dirty and tired. She wondered if the constant movement gave him
any peace.

Valerie filled her mornings
training with Gideon and Oberon, and her afternoons among the guilds, talking
to Conjurors who were willing to support her.

After a day spent talking to Leo
and Cyrus’s friends in the Weapons Guild, Valerie came home as the light from
the day was beginning to fade. As she approached her house, an excitement rose
in her belly that had nothing to do with her plans. It was an unsettling, but
distinctly good sensation, like the reverse of her sixth sense for danger.

Her excitement grew when she saw
that someone was sitting on the front steps of her house, next to Oberon. She
walked faster, and then began to run. The person on the steps stood up, and
Valerie realized who it was. Thai was on the Globe.

He wore the biggest smile she’d
ever seen on his face, and in a flash, she found herself in a crushing hug, her
face buried in his chest. Oberon discreetly went inside the house, and they
were alone.

Valerie remembered all the
reasons why she shouldn’t be holding Thai as if her life depended on it. She
stepped back and tried to stomp out the joy that lit her up.

“You’re really here,” she said,
embarrassed by how breathless she sounded.

“Newly arrived,” Thai said.
“Azra herself met me on this side and brought me to your house. I met her lots
of times on Earth, but to see her in person… It doesn’t compare.”

“How is your family taking the
news?” Valerie asked, forcing herself to sound more businesslike.

“They always knew that it was
what I really wanted, so they’re not surprised. And I’ll visit them every
chance I get,” Thai said.

Valerie’s confusion must have
shown on her face.

“I know, you can’t understand
why they would think that, considering I told you I wanted to stay on Earth and
go to college and everything,” Thai said. “But all that was a lie, including
the part about not wanting to be with you.”

Valerie’s vision narrowed to a
point, and she forgot to breathe. Every cold glance, every cruel word Thai had
spoken wasn’t for real. He hadn’t betrayed her. Her world seemed to tilt on its
axis, righting itself. The happiness and pure relief that coursed through her
was so intense that it was positively dizzying.

She was clutching the side of
her house for support, so she forced herself to sit down. Thai followed,
sitting two inches too close for friendship.

“A lie,” Valerie repeated, the
weight of the words settling in her heart.

“Chern told me that he received
a prophecy that if I came to the Globe, you would die,” Thai said. “I didn’t
find out that he was Reaper until a few weeks ago, and I suspected that his
prophecy was invented to keep me off the Globe. I talked to your friend Sibyl
about it, and she told me that no such prophecy exists. All of the prophecies
given are magically recorded, so there can be no mistake, or else I wouldn’t be
here now.”

Thai gripped Valerie’s hand.
“Everything I did after I heard that prophecy was for you, I swear it. I knew
that even if you agreed that I shouldn’t come to the Globe, you would either
want to come back to Earth or you would stay loyal to me even though we
couldn’t be together. I wanted you to have a full life on the Globe without me,
so I convinced you that I’d moved on. But I hadn’t. I couldn’t.”

Valerie remembered those painful
days vividly. It all made sense—Thai’s awkward behavior, the guilt in his eyes,
the way it seemed like he was choking on his words.

“That wasn’t your choice to make
for me,” Valerie said, withdrawing her hand from his. “You’ve always trusted me
to make my own decisions, but you took that one away from me.”

“I couldn’t let you die,” Thai
said, his face tense. “In my place, what would you have done?”

“I don’t know,” Valerie said. “I
hope that I would have told you the truth and we would have figured it out,
like we always had before. But you didn’t and now… Now…I have made a new life
for myself on the Globe. One that includes someone else.”

“You mean this guy you said
you’re dating,” Thai said, his voice flat. “He’s that important to you?”

“It’s not some guy. It’s Cyrus,”
Valerie said.

Thai’s face registered shock,
and then his eyes lit with realization. He fought to control his breathing.

“Why didn’t I guess that?” Thai
asked, and he stood up and turned away from her so she couldn’t see his face.
“I knew he was in love with you before I figured out that I was, too.”

He turned and stared at her with
the familiar intensity that made her catch her breath.

“I still love you, Valerie. I
always will,” he said.

Valerie couldn’t stop the rush
of happiness that pulsed through her veins, more thrilling than magic. It was
like a piece of herself had been returned. But the feeling of being whole and
happy didn’t last long.

Cyrus opened the gate to the
garden of her house, the expression on his face grim.

“Welcome to the Globe, man,”
Cyrus said, and reached out to shake Thai’s hand. He must have used quite the
grip, because Valerie detected the slightest wince as Thai pulled his hand
away.

“Good to see you, bro,” Thai
said, and he and Cyrus had a wordless conversation with their eyes that Valerie
couldn’t guess at.

“Romeo has come back to the
fold, and he wants you back, right?” Cyrus asked her.

Valerie didn’t know what to say,
but she knew what not to say. Cyrus wouldn’t want to hear that Thai had never
truly betrayed her, had never stopped loving her.

Cyrus evaluated her and, after a
moment, nodded. When he spoke, he assumed his usual light, teasing tone, but it
sounded wrong, like his usual cheer had been sucked out of it. “It’s time for
me to step out of the path of true love. Last thing I’d want to do is be the
jerk who gets in the way of the guy getting the girl.”

Until that instant, Valerie
hadn’t been sure what she was planning to do. But she reached out her hand interlaced
her fingers with Cyrus’s. “You’re not.”

Cyrus’s hand was cold, but he held
her fingers tightly. Thai watched the exchange, and after a moment, he tore his
eyes away from their clutched hands back to Valerie’s face.

“You’re happy. I get it. That’s
what I wanted for you,” Thai said, and the only sign he gave of his pain was in
the tightness of his jaw, which barely moved as he spoke.

Cyrus’s hand warmed in hers.

“I can find you a place to crash
for a while in my Guild,” Cyrus offered, and the earlier bitterness that had
been in his voice when he spoke to Thai was gone.

Cyrus met her eyes, and Valerie
could see that even though his anger was gone, the fear of losing her was still
there. He’d offered Thai a room so he wouldn’t be living with Valerie. Valerie
wished she could reassure him that she wasn’t going anywhere, but she didn’t
want to hurt Thai more than she already had. There would be time to explain
everything to Cyrus later.

Oberon opened the front door
then, to Valerie’s profound relief.

“It’s time for you gentlemen to
head home,” Oberon said firmly. “It was an honor to meet you today, Thai.”

Thai cleared his throat, and his
voice was strong when he responded. “Thank you, sir.”

Valerie retreated to the safety
of her house as Thai and Cyrus walked away. Oberon closed the door, and Valerie
saw a struggle in his face.

“Thai told you everything,
didn’t he?” she asked him.

“I heard his story. I also saw
that he didn’t walk away today with the result he expected,” Oberon said, his
face neutral.

“You think I should have broken it
off with Cyrus?” Valerie asked him.

“I cannot see inside of your
heart, Daughter. No one but you can.”

“No matter what I do, someone’s
going to suffer,” Valerie said, defeated. She wished she could rip out her own
heart, rather than do it to Thai or Cyrus.

“Soul mates come
once in a lifetime,” Oberon said, his eyes warm and the bluest Valerie had ever
seen them. “I know this to be true. I’ve searched.”

Valerie thought she’d be tossing
and turning more than ever that night, but she slept peacefully. Maybe it was
all the planning that tired her brain, or maybe it was the security of knowing
that Thai would be fighting by her side, but it could also have been that defeating
the Fractus seemed a little more possible now than it had before.

Her rest was broken by the sound
of Henry slamming the front door. Valerie was on her feet with Pathos before
Henry had taken his first step down the hall.

“Leave me alone!” Henry said to
the closed door.

“Please, don’t shut me out,”
Kanti called back, and Valerie could hear the tears in her voice.

She sheathed Pathos and turned
to her brother. “What are you doing?”

“That is no way to treat a young
lady,” Oberon added, stepping out from his own bedroom.

“You don’t know what you’re
talking about, either of you!” Henry involuntarily pushed outward with his
mind, and Valerie and Oberon were both shoved across the room.

Valerie crashed into the wall,
hitting her head, hard. When she gathered herself together and Oberon helped
her up, she saw that Henry was staring at them both, horrified with himself.

“It’s okay, you didn’t mean to,”
Valerie said, knowing how her own magic could spring up inside her, as well.

But Henry shook his head, mute,
and then turned and fled to his room.

“You okay, Dad?” Valerie asked.

Oberon gave her a look.

“I had to check,” she said.

“See to your friend,” Oberon
said. “I will talk to your brother.”

Valerie nodded and opened the
front door. Kanti was pacing in the garden. She had a flower in her hand and
was picking off the petals one by one. Valerie winced, glad that Oberon didn’t
see her thoughtlessly destroying one of his babies, though he probably sensed
it as soon as it was picked.

“Henry found out about the fact
that I’ll be spending half the year in Elsinore,” Kanti said abruptly,
answering Valerie’s question before she posed it. “Stupid Isabella came to
visit and broke the news without asking me.”

“He had to find out sometime,”
Valerie offered tentatively.

“But not now! I told my family I
couldn’t go home while Henry needed me, but they sent Isabella to drag me
back,” Kanti said, tossing the remains of the flower she had mutilated to the
ground.

“He could go with you. A change
of scene might do him good,” Valerie suggested.

“I suggested that to him. After
this battle is over, we could get away,” Kanti said, dropping to her knees in
the middle of the garden, as if all of her earlier energy had deserted her. “He
kept raving at me, saying that I lied to him and couldn’t be trusted.”

“That sounds crazy,” Valerie
said, fear creeping into her mind. “Dasan said Henry’s grief might break him.”

Kanti shook her head. “I don’t
think that’s it. I think he’s afraid that if I go back to Elsinore, I’ll be in
the middle of all that royal intrigue, courted by hundreds of guys, and a
target for assassins.”

“He thinks he’ll lose you,”
Valerie said. “Poor Henry. He can’t lose anyone else.”

“He’ll never lose me. How can he
not know that?” Kanti said.

“But isn’t half his worry valid?
You’re seen as the next queen of Elsinore. Won’t there be people who try to
hurt you?” Valerie asked.

Kanti shrugged, and Valerie
could see that her friend was considering her words. “Nothing I can’t handle.
I’ve got magic now, remember?”

“Even you doubt the
effectiveness of flower petals and rainbows against real weapons,” Valerie
argued. “You need a bodyguard.”

“I thought that might be Henry,”
Kanti said. “Was that arrogant of me?”

“No,” Valerie said with a little
smile. “I think he’d be flattered. Give him time, and I’ll talk to him. This is
a bump in the road for you two. It only seems like a mountain because it’s
happening in the middle of all of his grief.”

“What do I do to get him to
forgive me? Send flowers?” Kanti asked, and Valerie was glad to see a little of
her friend’s sarcasm had returned.

“I suggest finding out the
latest football scores on Earth,” Valerie suggested, only half kidding.

Kanti stood up and hugged her
fiercely. “No matter what happens between Henry and me, you’re a sister to me,
more than my own.”