Silver Hollow (43 page)

“Don’t start that again! I needed a break today. Since I knew you wouldn’t leave me alone if I asked.” She shoved him with an extra jab, then marched back to Lewyon’s side. Emrys followed, watched her stack her books and clutch them to her chest with amusement.

Interesting…

The look he gave
Lewyon
was a clear reminder of how precarious a perch the bird was sitting on. Time was running out. Whispers through his network of the fouler residents of Silver Hollow had told him they knew of her existence now. They knew she was more than simply human and intended to use her. Emrys didn’t know how he felt about this, other than his fierce
sense of possessiveness over the girl. She was too valuable, too important to
him
, now he knew her usefulness. Anything beyond this, he tucked carefully beneath layers of violent emotion.

The old gryphon had enough self-preservation to smile beneath his large beak. “Here lass,” he said appraisingly, “take this too for a bit of light reading.”

Emrys was shocked when Amie spontaneously wrapped herself into Lewyon’s feathered chest and pulled quickly away. No one in their right mind would willingly hug a gryphon by the neck, certainly not if they knew the beasts considered humans a delicacy.

“N
o
! Lewyon, do nay encourage her!” Jerking the stack from her hands with ease, he dropped them back onto the table
. Grabbing
her by the arm
, he said,
“Come, we’re leaving now.”

At the door she spun so quickly he nearly knocked into her, which would have been a very bad idea.

“Why?”

“Because it’s best if Henry never knows ye were here, and because I’m already in a foul mood.”

Amie shook her head, glaring at him as though she longed to gouge his eyes out. “Not that, stupid. Why did you call Feather Lewyon?”

“Because
it
’s my name, lass,” the gryphon answered with a purr.

“You could have told me,” she said, in a voice softer than Emrys had ever heard directed at him. For some reason this made him even angrier with the furry bird.

“But I like that you call me Feather, lass. Not one of my kind among the living has called me that since I was a hatchling,” the beast answered.

Emrys turned the worst of his dark looks on his accomplice. Technically, not even the gryphon was supposed to be here, inside the castle. It was only because of Jessamiene that Henry’s defenses were weakened. If they were completely forthright, things in Silver Hollow had been in decline long before her arrival.

“Enough!” he shouted, interrupting their smiles and cushioned words. Emrys was about to be sick. “Iudicael has informed me I am to teach ye the dances before the ball. Let’s not disappoint all of your guests, love.”

“
You
are going to give me a ballroom lesson?” Amie snorted before falling into a fit of giggles that made his hair stand on end.

Suppressing a shudder, he dragged her out the door and prayed she never asked Iudicael about his supposed instructions.

Chapter 36

Between Light and Darkness

“No! Wrong again
,
” Emrys hissed when she stumbled and nearly fell into him. Propping her up once more
,
he began to give her more instruction. They had already wasted precious hours Amie could have been researching with Feather in the library. Going through the ancient dances of the Vale was hardly on her priority list to liven up a dull day.

If Emrys was acting normally, like the typical self-gratifying narcissist he was, then it would have been easier to keep him in that special category of potential enemy. Had he not given her more than enough evidence to prove him worthy of that title? He
had
left her to die in the woods with no explanation and treated her rudely at every opportunity, almost as if he were punishing her for something she had yet to do. He was always watching, judging her, waiting for some revelation she felt would never come. And when they kissed the other night she had seen too deeply into his emotions for comfort.

Taking turns glaring and avoiding each other’s stares was not aiding her coordination or his foul temper. “Wrong! Ye step with yer left, not your right foot
.
” His arm attempted to right her in
the
other direction, dragging her heels across the painted floor of the Armory. The gramophone looked odd enough in a room full of weapons, never mind the fuzzy violin music emanating from its horn.

Amie broke from his embrace and the cool heat his touch thrilled in her.
“I ca
n’t do this with you yelling in my ear!” She nearly blanched when his eyes lit with cold fury, burgeoning accusation. Dropping her arms
,
he turned his back to her and dug his fingers through his unruly black hair. “What?” she said. “Can’t handle a human girl who isn’t falling all over herself to please you?”

He shook himself, barked a laugh and mumbled words too silent for her to catch.

“Come again? You need to speak up when you talk to me, since I’m just a human and so easy to take advantage of.”

“You don’t understand anything
,
Jessamiene!” Emrys seethed when she forced him back round to face her.

Voices whispered around them and Amie shivered as she could have sworn she felt so
meone touch her arm and her leg
. Perhaps it was that rather than the heated look in his eyes that made her lose her mind, finally. “I am sick and tired of people telling me I can’t understand! Do you really think it helps any of you by keeping me in the dark here? If you wanted me to help you so badly you should have had a clue and asked first.”

Stepping back from her touch
,
he blinked as though startled, then narrowed his dark orbs suspiciously. “Why do ye speak in riddles, lass?”

Amie rolled her eyes, delved a bit deeper into the ring’s secret magic and gasped as she felt the power of a curse
lingering
over the house. It was a black, dripping thing to her mind’s eye
. L
ike a
thickly
woven
spider’s web
,
it had been
bound
tight and securely. Without tearing her gaze from the curse, she whispered, “Do you remember the first time we kissed?”

Emrys shifted on his feet, stumbled even at her blunt question as though it actually affected him. “Aye.”

“Something happened to me. I could feel you differently after that. Up until this morning I’ve been able to tell when you’re coming before you even get there.” Keeping a neutral expression was difficult when she wanted so much to
nix
him. Emrys’ eyes widened when she began to slowly advance towards him. “You said you’d tell me what I wanted to know. I want to know who you really are and why you tell me things the others don’t want me to know. Why did my dad leave all those years ago and who is hunting us?”

His eyes focused anywhere but her. It was some time before he spoke, during which he turned his head listening to things her ears were ill attuned to. “What are ye trying to prove?”

Amie clenched her fists, containing the energy flowing from her fingertips. “You don’t care about anyone but yourself, but you saved my life
the
night I was attacked. If you hadn’t been there and...
fixed me
…I wouldn’t be alive. I want to know why you saved my life.”

“Jessamiene
,
this isn’t the time or the place
,
”
h
e growled
,
when she hit him square in the chest with her fist. Silence followed between them, through which Emrys’ eyes lingered on her lips and Amie tried to get a grip.

You’re losing it
,
Wenderdowne…calm down and focus! You’ve got him right where you want him.

Emrys stared at her clenched fist and slowly lifted a scarred hand to cover it. Tension thickened the haunted room, echoing still with the memories of lifetimes ago. In a pulse
-
pounding moment, he played with her fingertips, slowly coaxing them loose while fingering the translucent vein of her wrist.

She
stared
at his hands, the scarring which
had captivated her attentions about him. He had never told her how he obtained those scars, too numerous and overlapping to count. And as he recognized her attention, remembered the night he pulled her from the faerie garden and first felt her tug at his soul, Emrys softened.

“Ask me again after the Ball tomorrow night
,
and I shall tell you.” Their eyes locked and the shadows in his eyes threatened to draw her in. Before she could protest he propelled her back into his arms, knocked her into his chest and steadied her with a hand at her waist. In a decidedly gentler voice he continued, “
’
Tis no time to speak of war yet
,
love. The enemy is powerful, and while your uncle prefers to hide behind a witch’s skirts, I tell ye they will come. They will come and there be nothing ye can do to stop them. Only learn to savor peace while it lasts. Learn to enjoy the moment. In a thousand years I’ve learned that sometimes
’
tis all we have.”

Amie couldn’t breathe when he held her like this, the memory of his consuming kisses so close to her thoughts, the hours they had spent laboring over her latent gifts. Everything Amie knew of her new identity came from him. And maybe he knew this, could see through her as much as she couldn’t see through him.

“Now, shall we try the
lackadaise
again?” His brow quirked into a
n
arch, ochre eyes caressing the parts of her face his fingers could never again.

Savoring her befuddled silence, Emrys the Merlin drew her to him and danced.

…

She pushed the gown’s luminescent fabric down, watched it sparkle in the dying light of her window. Beams of sunlight reflected off the full
-
length mirror of her wardrobe and caught
the space
above her eyes and Amie felt the complete grip of her supernatural heritage. She should have been excited, should have run down to the gnome’s garden and shown Puck what his distant cousins had sewn for her.

It was the first time she tried on one of the dresses Morcant had ordered for her. Amie didn’t want to know how the witch had known her measurements. Underhill had been ecs
t
atic once they pulled Rado and the faerie’s creation over her head. Hours later, Amie still couldn’t believe she looked this good.

Not like I’m going to strut or any
thing like Saturday Night Fever.

Passing time before the dreaded dinner in the Dining Hall with Henry and Emrys, she wandered the castle aimlessly, hoping to find another way besides the kitchens or castle doors to reach outside. Both exits were too frequented and defeated the purpose of sneaking out.

Dancing lessons with Emrys
had
ended with Amie stepping purposely on his toes, making some awkward excuse and running out of the room like an adolescent. She knew better and still she feared the way this
w
ight
made her feel. She knew he was bad news, was way beyond it actually. But there had been such promise in his eyes as he regarded her then, Amie was worried she wouldn’t be able to keep a level head around him anymore.

She expanded the orb in her hand and turned to a pitch
-
black tapestry in front of her.

Weird…

None of the tapestries were this dark, besides those scorched in the west wing.

Her ring burned on her finger and somehow she
knew
what was waiting behind the threadbare fabric. Shoving the tapestry aside
,
Amie found a rusted
-
over door knob. Gritting her teeth
,
she twisted it and nearly sprained her wrist and grinned when it clicked open.

The tunnel she discovered was dank, the air thick with disuse.
Here was the sort of place
smells clung to. The further she walked the more the outside had pressed its way in.

Must have been some escape tunnel
.

She cringed at the thought that the men who made it might not have escaped after all and tr
o
d more carefully.

A silver sliver of moonlight cast its shadow in the near distance. Quickening her step to meet it, she didn’t have the patience to scout ahead with her inner
nixy
. It was still a new concept for her, being able to probe her surroundings and identify other people’s signatures.

From the shadows a pair of
bold blue eyes
watched her with increasing anger. A pair of muscle
-
bound arms lifted her back into the air and crushed her into a solid chest. She didn’t shout or scream. Instead a keening wail rose up from deep in her throat, an inhuman cry accompanied the silvery streams of energy escaping her skin. The silver tendrils looked like an electrical current as they entered his skin. As she bucked and kicked his shins, his bare hand clasped her neck and then the real pain began.