Merlin's Children (The Children and the Blood) (2 page)

Tanya drew a ragged breath. She needed to consider that the giant’s words could be a lie. After all, she had to be smart. Missy was counting on her to be smart, even when everyone else was always so damned dumb.

And yet… and yet…

For eight years, Howard had treated the youngest princess for whatever happened to her at the beginning of the war. But to do so, he’d needed to know where the royal children were, even while in hiding.

And that had been always such a threat to the royals. Such a terrible threat.

So maybe, when the princess didn’t show improvement, the council and the king had started to wonder why they needed him. Or her. Or Missy. For Tanya’s part, they’d only kept her alive after Howard died because she might have had information on the ones to whom her husband had supposedly sold out. She’d lived in terror for months, hearing over and over how they’d kill her or Missy if they became a problem, or if more ‘evidence’ against her family came to light.

How she’d dreaded their lies…

She stared at the wizards, a shiver running through her that, for once, had nothing to do with fear. Because she loved her husband, she’d done whatever the council asked. She’d followed their edicts and obeyed their rules. After the war started, she’d moved and moved, living in so many safe houses, she’d lost count in the first year. And sure, it meant she’d left everyone she’d known, and sure, it meant her own daughter had spent so much time in basements, Missy had been three before she’d gotten her first glimpse of the sky.

But the council had to protect the royals. Regardless of what it cost, regardless of how much it hurt, she and her family still had to be locked away.

Because the council had to protect the royals.

Tanya paused. Her lip twitched.

How they’d feared what she knew…

“Safe houses?” she repeated.

Her mouth curved as she looked up at the giant, and the shivering strengthened with the feeling of her own smile.

“I think I can help.”

“I’m just saying, we should head back to the city. Give the bastards a piece of our mind.”

Ashe closed her eyes, fighting the urge to yell at the portly man. For most of the past half hour, she and Elias had been arguing with the remnants of the Merlin council, with precious little to show for the effort. Stubbornness wasn’t the half of it. After months of hiding in Darius’ shadow, the survivors were desperate to prove they weren’t incapable of being leaders after all.

“Arthur, didn’t you hear us the first time?” Elias asked tiredly. “These aren’t just a couple of random wizards we’re dealing with here. They’re incredibly organized and they run
Taliesin
. We go after them ragtag, we’ll get killed. We need to regroup.”

“They just got lucky today,” Arthur insisted, turning to the others rather than answer. “Now that we know they’re out there, they’ve lost the advantage. We can get the drop on them.”

Ashe rose from her seat on the mobile home’s steps as several councilors began to nod at the man’s words. “Excuse me,” she muttered.

No one seemed to notice as she walked away.

They’d be leaving soon, regardless of whether the council agreed. Neither she nor Elias wanted to be anywhere near Croftsburg when the Blood solidified their hold on whatever remained of the factory and any other wizard hideouts in the city. It was only a question of how soon the wounded could be moved and where they were going to go. Everything else was just nonsense she was amazed anyone was taking time for.

Sighing, she ran a hand through her hair and glanced around the yard in the twilight. Several acres of grass and trees surrounded them, centered around a dilapidated blue mobile home and an equally dilapidated blue garage. All of it belonged to yet another friend of Elias’, though unlike Joe’s restaurant back in Croftsburg, this place looked as if it’d been abandoned for years. The survivors had quickly turned the property into their camp, however, and with the help of her assistant, Ermengarde, Katherine had methodically sorted the worst wounded into groups looked after by those still able to walk. Nathaniel’s guards encircled them, watching the country road beyond the property while, by the far side of the garage, several teenagers kept the littler children distracted with games invented on the spot.

Ashe paused as she caught sight of Lily. The center of attention whether she realized it or not, the girl sat picking at leaves beneath a young oak tree a few yards from the garage. Cornelius stood some distance off, watching Lily as he’d done since the moment they arrived, and it was anyone’s guess what was going on behind his eyes. Nathaniel waited closer by, as protective as Ashe had asked him to be, while Cole sat beside Lily and studied them all as if taking odds on whether the wizards would suddenly attack.

“What do you
think
is happening, you old fool?” Elias barked, causing several people to glance over at the noise.

Ashe shook her head, not bothering to turn around.

“He’s going to get himself killed,” Katherine murmured, coming up beside her.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” she retorted. A heartbeat passed and she closed her eyes, regretting the sharp tone. “How’s it coming?”

“The wounded should be ready in another few minutes. Ermengarde and I will stay with the worst injured, but the rest should be able to travel with friends, families… whoever remains.”

Ashe glanced to her.

“Most hope their relatives escaped through other portals,” the woman supplied. “And for those who know their loved ones did not…” She sighed. “They go on.”

By the steps, the overweight councilman snarled something incoherent at Elias and then stormed away.

“Guess that ends the debate,” Katherine commented.

Ashe looked over, taken back by the closest thing to a joke she’d ever heard the woman say.

The suggestion of a smile hovering on her lips, Katherine bowed her head. “Whenever you wish to leave, your majesty.”

Turning, she headed for the injured.

“Of all the stupid, incompetent…” Elias muttered, stalking across the yard.

“So how’d that go?” Ashe asked dryly.

An annoyed breath escaped him, degenerating into a scoff by the end. “They say they’ll run, though I’d not recommend putting them in any group that wants to stay away from Croftsburg for long.”

She sighed.

“Katherine got the others ready to travel?” he asked.

“In a few minutes.”

Elias nodded. “Then we need to decide what to do about…”

He trailed off skeptically.

She followed his gaze to Cole. “What?”

“He presents an issue for transport,” Elias said carefully.

“He still needs to come with us.”

“Your highness–”

“No, Elias,” she cut in, exasperation hitting her. “He’s coming with us.”

The man grimaced.

“You know why,” she said.

“He’s a cripple.”

“And we need his help to identify Blood wizards.”

“So we bring him wherever you go. We can’t put you and Lily in danger by traveling slowly on his account.” He paused. “Your highness, the city was one thing. But we need to get you both as far from this part of the country as we can, and the time it would take–”

“Is better than the possibility of going someplace and having no one to point out the Blood wizard waiting there.” She paused, the edge in her voice fading. “We stay together, Elias.”

He looked away.

“So you can get us a vehicle?”

A moment passed and then he closed his eyes. “There’s a van in the garage that should give us enough room.”

“Thank you.”

He bowed slightly and then headed for the garage. She sighed as he walked away. Of its own volition, her gaze slid back to Lily and Cole.

They needed him. With Crystal and Ghost dead, and Mud betraying them, Cole was the best shot they had at identifying the Blood. Everything she’d told Elias was true.

To a point, anyway.

She bit her lip, disquiet moving through her. Something was off about Cole. And it wasn’t just that he kept watching the wizards as though all the reassurances in the world of their trustworthiness wouldn’t make him relax. The look on his face the moment before she dragged him through the portal in the factory was nagging at her, leaving an increasingly uneasy feeling she couldn’t seem to shake.

He hadn’t looked scared by the Blood wizards. Horrified at what was happening, yes. But that hadn’t been the only thing.

Lost. That was the only word she could think of to describe it. Like someone had taken something from him. Or possibly had, anyway. Like, if he could have, he almost might’ve stayed to see if he could get it back again.

Her brow drew down as she watched him. She wanted to ignore the way the memory of the look on his face made her feel. Whatever she thought she’d seen, Cole was on their side. He’d rescued them the night the Blood came to their farmhouse and he’d obviously been keeping Lily safe ever since. That should’ve been enough to end the discussion.

Except she couldn’t quite let herself be that naïve anymore. Not after Darius and the council and the way she’d let herself believe them too. Fact was, she barely knew Cole. His actions on the night her dad had been killed notwithstanding, she’d only met him for a few minutes before she’d thought he and Lily died, and she had no idea what he’d even been doing at their farm in the first place. He’d helped Lily, sure. And for that she was incredibly grateful.

It was just everything else that neither he nor her sister had yet explained.

She couldn’t bring her discomfort up to the others, though. Since the factory, Nathaniel and Elias seemed to have fallen back on a view of her safety that shared a lot in common with a scorched-earth policy. Wary enough of Cole on their own, there was no telling what they’d do if she mentioned she had misgivings about the boy too. And then there was Lily, who clearly trusted Cole implicitly and wouldn’t take well to the idea that her sister didn’t feel quite the same.

Though really, that was only one of the issues with the little girl.

Never particularly comfortable around any wizard she’d seen since Ashe found her again, hearing that the portal could have killed Cole had left the girl practically glued to his side. For the past half hour, Lily had regarded every wizard on the property with near-rabid defensiveness, as though daring them to try to force either her or Cole to go anywhere near magic again.

But that hadn’t stopped the Merlin’s interest. Curiosity about Lily was rampant, and nothing short of having Nathaniel stand guard over the girl had thwarted the wizards from trying to prod Lily for answers to the question plaguing them all. The girl looked human. And after seeing the equally human-looking Blood lay waste to the factory, no one was content to just idly wonder why.

Her lip slipping from between her teeth, Ashe tensed as yet another group made good on her thoughts and started toward Lily again. Nathaniel shifted position warningly, bringing the wizards to a halt. The closest said something, at which Nathaniel’s face darkened, but after a moment’s consideration at his silence, the wizards scowled and then retreated.

Ashe exhaled, trying to calm down as she watched them go. The whole mess was getting upsetting. More so, anyway. And that was without bringing into it the issue of the staff or why Lily’d had it when Ashe found her and Cole outside Chaunessy Tower, or even what the hell they’d been doing there at all. Between the two of them, they presented so many questions she didn’t know where to begin.

Assuming she wanted to, anyway.

From the grass, the little girl tugged out a peculiarly shaped leaf and showed it to Cole with a comment too quiet to be heard over the distance. At her words, the young man’s mouth twitched in a smile and Lily grinned.

Ashe’s brow drew down.

Cole glanced over, catching sight of her watching them. The little girl followed his gaze, and her face clouded with confusion at whatever she saw in her sister’s eyes.

Quickly, Ashe turned away, cursing internally. She was slipping. Letting herself get distracted by everything that had happened over the past half hour, let alone the past half year, and it was showing.

But she’d be damned if she allowed it to upset Lily.

“Your highness?”

The words broke into her thoughts and she looked over sharply. Across the yard, Katherine stood beside a group of guards, a few of the wounded already supported between them.

“We’re ready,” Katherine called.

Taking a breath, Ashe nodded. Pushing the thoughts aside, she strode over to help the woman, determined to at least address the problems she knew how to solve.

*****

Cole watched as Ashe faltered and then hurried toward the wizard who looked like a schoolteacher from hell. Katherine, he thought Ashe’d called her. Yet another one to keep track of.

He grimaced and then buried the expression, careful not to let Lily or Nathaniel see. The man was starting to remind him of Geoffrey Carnegean, his ostensible uncle back in Washington who’d tried to kill him, and the implicit threat that seemed to live on the wizard’s face wasn’t helping dispel the similarity.

And Lily had enough worries for ten people. He didn’t need to go making her think there was reason for more.

Exhaling, he looked over at the girl. Her black hair glistening in the fading sunlight, Lily was spinning a misshapen leaf between her fingers, the unease on her face deepening as she watched her sister walk away.

“Hey,” he whispered to her, surreptitiously checking Nathaniel. The man had turned his gaze on a few wizards who, at the look in the guy’s eyes, immediately reconsidered walking anywhere nearby.

“It does kind of look like a cat,” Cole said, nodding to the leaf.

For a moment, a ghost of the little girl’s grin resurfaced. “Like that big one. Candle.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, though he couldn’t place the name among the innumerable cats roaming Ben and Sue Summers’ farm.

Lily’s gaze dropped to the leaf, her smile fading. “Do you think we could go back there?”

He hesitated. “It’s not really–”