“How long till they wake, do you think?”
“I don’t know,” said Marcella.
As it happened, the draught they’d used to sedate the entire hall had been concocted by none other than Marcella, using, of all things, Morwen’s cauldron in the courtyard. All the while Rhiannon had been forced to endure Morwen’s company at table, Marcella and Cael had been in the process of orchestrating the drogue’s administration. As potent as the philter was, only a few drops in each of the ewers had been enough. Just to be certain, they’d waited until Morwen was affected, then sent kitchen maids to administer the rest to the guests. Only Aelwyd had known what they were planning, and she was sent away for her own protection. If everything went according to plan, Morwen would wake with the castle aslumber, and no one the wiser. Then, it would be up to Cael to convince her that he hadn’t had any part in the ruse, but was he clever enough to beguile a woman with the power to read minds?
Only the Goddess knew.
However, if Rhiannon knew her mother at all, she wouldn’t wait about for explanations. She’d sooner strike him down than ask questions. There was no way her pride could withstand losing yet another daughter. She would be out here forthwith, combing the woods, with Mordecai and her ravens at her side…
“How did you know the draught would work?”
“Because,” Marcella confessed. “I tested it on myself.”
“How does that signify?”
“I am dewine.”
Rhiannon blinked. “You?”
“Aligned to earth, alchemy my calling. Apparently, you are not so attuned with the aether as you’d like to believe, Rhiannon. Even unshackled, you did not read my aura.”
Rhiannon bristled, though it was true. It was only then, in that instant, that she perceived the faintest trace of pink in Marcella’s aura—so faint that it was no wonder she’d missed it before.
Pink, you see, was the color of Rhiannon’s kindred—those who bore the blood of Taliesin. Although it seemed that, by its measure alone, Marcella’s blood was much diluted—that, or the ill effects of wearing those manacles might be permanent.
“Dewine?” she said, again, because so long as she’d lived, Rhiannon had never once encountered another witchkind, much less a sister of Taliesin’s blood. Certainly, she’d suspected there were others, but if Marcella was a dewine… what then was Cael?
Not dewine.
Even with her manacles, Rhiannon would have sensed it. And so it would appear… the more she knew about Cael, the more of a mystery he became—a mystery she fully intended to solve once they were out of Blackwood’s shadow.
Warkworth Castle
It was the crow on the windowsill that woke Seren.
Again.
Silent, watchful, it sat perched on the sill, its lustrous blue-black feathers catching a hint of moonlight. “I’m awake,” she groused to the bird, giving it a thankless glance. It was impossible not to sense the beady-eyed gaze, even under a veil of slumber.
Alas, with the gargantuan bed so painfully empty beside her, she was finding it more and more difficult to rest.
Rising up with a breathy sigh, she swung her feet over the edge, searching for her slippers. She didn’t intend to remain here in this bed—not tonight, with her mind scattering all her thoughts to the winds.
No one had heard from Morwen, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t out there, somewhere, scheming. Now, more than ever, Seren felt time slipping away, like sand through a glass. Over and over, Isolde’s warnings kept ringing in her ears: You will be the Regnant—you and only you, and if not you, no other in this day and age. Earn your laurels. Find your true self. Only then will you find your answers.
The problem was… Seren didn’t know how to find her true self. Neither did Rosalynde or Elspeth. And neither did Isolde, for all her cryptic words.
Sometimes it seemed to her that only Arwyn, for all her lack of affinity, had ever truly understood her true purpose in life. Once the occasion had presented itself, her sister had done what she’d known she must, without hesitation.
To the contrary, she, Rose and Ellie were all like blind women leading the blind.
And Rhiannon—where was she? For all her promises, Rhiannon was silent as the grave.
Muttering crossly, she found and donned her slippers, sliding her toes inside, before making her way across to the dressing table to find a taper.
Not bothering with a fire steel, she lit the wick with her will and sighed again—at least her fire affinity was growing stronger.
The wick flamed to life with a deep, amber glow, startling the crow. It took flight from her windowsill and vanished into the night, and Seren took the taper and shoved it into a pricket. “Good riddance,” she said, though she knew she should be grateful for any sort of champion at all, even a puny little crow.
This particular bird had appeared weeks ago, around the same time Isolde came to call, with all her cryptic stories and all her mysterious divinations. As it happened, the old woman and that crow were never in the same place at the same time, and every time Isolde went away, that damnable bird returned. Even so, Seren had never actually witnessed a transformation, so for all she knew, it was only a stupid little bird taken to loitering in her window—night after night after night.
It was a good thing Wilhelm was gone, because he’d already threatened to take a sling to the bird.
Shaking her head, she made her way down the hall, holding a hand beneath her pricket, lest the wax mar her husband’s perfectly polished floor.
Indeed, shapeshifting was a rare talent, one most practitioners of the hud did not know how to perform. It was, in fact, a form of hud du. Her grandmother had said that all knowledge of those dark arts—if ever they’d existed—passed away with the fall of Avalon. But this was not precisely true. Morwen was a practitioner of the dark arts, and if, in truth, Isolde was a shapeshifter, as well, then she too was a student of hud du. Alas, the old woman was nearly as mysterious and elusive as their mother, arriving without announcement, then taking her leave without good-byes.
Whenever she was about, she rambled on and on about prophecies, giving more than enough warnings, but answering all their questions with riddles that left Seren scratching her head. Without the grimoire, how was she supposed to learn if Isolde wouldn’t teach her?
By now, Seren had all but given up asking that woman for help, because it seemed she was disinclined—or else she’d forgotten everything she’d ever known. How fortunate for Morwen, if that be the case.
At least Elspeth and Rosalynde had had the opportunity to skim the grimoire at their leisure. That was how they’d learned to concoct a form of witchwater for the motte—a strange brew for transmutation that was made mostly from spoilt mushrooms. It was that very concoction that was responsible for turning a visiting merchant into a thief, and a number of small stones into fish. By now, the poor motte was filled to capacity, and the fishes were jumping about for air, though at least the villagers had their fill of smelt.
Looking back on it now, the simple fact that they’d managed to thwart their mother at the Widow’s Tower seemed more of a miracle than it was any sort of achievement. To their good fortune, fate had intervened that day, bringing all three sisters together by chance. Seren had discovered her true destiny only because of happenstance. In the end, they’d won the day simply by virtue of the fact that they’d survived—no small thing to be sure, but they’d lost so much that day, most notably The Book of Secrets.