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One moment he was there.
The next moment he was not.
The Iron Crystal shuddered, the giant spider stumbling with the change of weight, as if some terrible burden had just been placed on top of it. Or within it. The Crystal flared, the cracks glowing with opalescent power, before quieting.
The first Iron Crystal was always leaking, he had said. Something told her that, as a prison for one, it wouldn’t have the same problem.
Gwen fell to her knees and wept.
Mordred was gone.
EPILOGUE
Mordred was gone.
And Gwen was drunk.
Doc really was a terrible influence. The four remaining knights were gone. Galahad had stayed behind to check on her, but she didn’t want to see him. He, too, would leave soon. The Gossamer Lady had taken the large iron spider and gone somewhere with it, and Galahad would not be parted from her for long.
Gwen sat in Mordred’s study, in his chair, curled up by the fire, a bottle of wine next to her and the dog sprawled out in front of her.
Doc was sitting in the chair next to her, silently working on his own bottle.
Mae had fussed over her until she had eaten something. She supposed she didn’t want to get blackout, puke-it-out sick. So she picked at the tray of food next to her from time to time between downing glasses of red wine.
And she thought.
And schemed.
“If I free him, he takes his army against the elementals, and everybody dies.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Yep,” Doc confirmed. “Total bloodbath.”
“If he stays in the Crystal, the elementals start their bullshit again, and innocent villagers start dying again.”
“Yep. Total bloodbath.”
She shut her eyes. There had to be a third way. Two armies—elemental and Mordred. How could she disrupt that? How could she get in between them and keep them from murdering each other?
A third way. A third option.
Her eyes flew open. She jumped up to her feet.
A third way. A third option.
A third army.
The only way she could stop them from killing each other was if she actually got in between them. But she couldn’t stand against Mordred’s army, or the elementals, on her own. She was just one idiot witch-wizard-whatever, pitted against two groups who despised each other.
So she’d need help.
A lot of help.
And she kind of thought she might know where she could get it. The villagers of Avalon are probably super sick of getting murdered. Maybe they would help her, if they thought they stood a chance.
She reeled toward Doc, almost falling over from the alcohol.
He was grinning like an idiot.
“Doc.” She caught her balance and her breath. “I—I need an army. I need an army to save the world.”
He downed the rest of his glass of wine. “I thought you’d never ask.”
To be continued…
