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Of course, climbing up the window to the commander's hut to listen in on their conversation probably doesn’t count as staying put. I’m getting more irked by the moment at Leon’s high-handed attitude in excluding me from their conversation. How am I supposed to figure anything out if I can’t hear anything? I’m not a fan of being treated like a schoolbag. Something to drag around and drop whenever convenient. Or, in Leon’s case, to leave in a college, without considering that maybe the schoolbag’s owner was attached to its contents.
At my rising frustration, the bond begins to burn again, and my body flushes with even more heat, my dress now uncomfortably tight.
Of course.
How dare I have a single negative thought about the man?
My body is starting to react further to the bond as I grow more bitter with each passing wave of heat. Taking deep breaths, I try to replay the sound of a yoga video I often watched from memory.
I’m saved from having to start the visualizing exercise when Leon opens the door and exits, taking my hand without saying a word as we leave the courtyard. Rydon is nowhere in sight and doesn’t come out to give a farewell.
Leon looks excited. I wait a few breaths, but when he says nothing, I cave and ask. “What has you in such a good mood? Do you know where Morgana is?”
Leon grins as he keeps walking forward. “Not yet, but I know someone who just might.”
Chapter 22
LEON LEADS ME BACK INTO THE CASTLE, AND I’M ONCE AGAIN LOSTin the labyrinth of halls. I can’t be certain, but I don’t think this looks like the way we came from. I’m terrible with directions. Yet another reason my life is a hazard.
“That’s great!” I respond to Leon. The less time Morgana spends with the proverbial red button to a universal nuke is a win in my books. At this rate, I’m hoping I might even be able to get back home before the end of my fall break.
The thought of my apartment gives me another pang of sadness. There is likely a ton of damage from the forsaken. I’m so getting evicted. Before the sadness can swallow me, I remind myself to be present. To focus on what I can control.
“So where are we going?” I prod when Leon doesn’t volunteer any extra information.
We exit out one of the castle doors and enter a large garden. Leon pauses, giving me a chance to take in the utopia we’ve ventured into. There are ornamental trees and beautiful flowers scattered throughout, and further ahead, there’s a massive wall of hedges covered in a rainbow of flowering vines. The hedges must be thirty feet tall, and though I can’t tell how far they extend since their height blocks out much of what lies beyond, I can see an upper canopy of forest hundreds of feet beyond it.
I gasp at the beauty of it. The flowers are unlike any kind I’ve ever seen in my world; the blooms are the size of basketballs. A small rocky stream winds through parts of the garden, providing the ambient sounds of a soothing brook. It’s uncannily familiar to the sounds I’ve heard in sound machines when I’ve had difficulty sleeping.
Leon smiles down at me as I take it all in and then pulls me along as we make our way down the marble garden path. “Morgana used to have countless spies that worked in the council.” He explains. “She was one of the most esteemed members of the council and even trusted with the key to a Destroyer because he was so dangerous, and she is very powerful. Her loyalty had never once been questioned. It wasn’t until the fall of Atlantis that the council became aware of her treachery.”
I frown up at him, surprised that the timing coincided with my previous life. The threads of this tangled web continue to grow. Leon continues. “It was discovered that Morgana had been secretly planning to overthrow the council for millennia. The council is naturally made ofboth light and dark creatures. Need has only ever wanted balance and insisted on representation from either side. But Morgana is not content with the balance. She wants to tip the realms into pure darkness.”
Shivering at the thought, I pause at an inconsistency in Leon’s story. “Leon, if Morgana is the Keeper of the dangerous Destroyer, then hasn’t she held his key for thousands of years? Why is she a problem only now?”
I replay my conversation with Need in my mind. I’m sure Need made it sound as though Morgana had only just attained the key. With that thought, though, my mind starts to fill with that same drunken fog. I try my best to hold onto my thoughts, a part of me knowing that it’s important.
Something isn’t adding up.
The more I fight the fog, the more my body fights back. My ears start to ring, and a blinding flash of light sears my brain, burning away the thought before I can mull it over any further.
Slowly, I blink up at Leon, trying to remember what it was we were discussing, but Leon is preoccupied. We’ve reached the hedges, and he looks like he’s searching for something. A moment later, he reaches into the hedge and catches a small, green creature. It looks like a cross between a squirrel and a gnome if gnomes had prominent front teeth and a bushy tail. The creature wiggles furiously, trying to escape Leon’s grip. My eyes widen at his treatment of it.
“Leon, I think you’re hurting it,” I exclaim, worried.
Leon laughs at my concern. “Don’t worry so much, Vivian. This is garden vermin, but they do have one particular skill I’d like to make use of.”
He looks down at the creature and squeezes it a little harder so that it stops struggling. The creature looks up at him with small, terrified eyes. “Open the door.” He commands it. “And then take your friends with you. I want no one to enter while we are here. Understood?”
Again, his fist flexes and the creature’s eyes bug out even further. I immediately reach over to his hand to try to free it. “Leon, stop.” My voice is urgent, pleading.
Leon only rolls his eyes and releases it. The creature dashes back into the branches, and magically, some branches in front of us twist and move away, opening into a door. Leon takes my hand again and pulls me along as we enter. Behind us, the branches close again.
I can hear the creature scrambling away, chittering to others. Once again, I feel irritated with Leon for his piss-poor attitude, but the bond hums through me, fogging over my thoughts yet again.
My body gives an involuntary twitch at the wave of heat that comes through the bond, and my hand squeezes Leon’s. The connection makes the bond between us almost purr with pleasure. The thoughts of the green creature aren’t forgotten but feel muddled. Like I’m trying to hear my thinking underwater.
Trying to shake off the brain fog, I take deep breaths and look around to see where Leon is leading us. Monolithic hedges surround us, and I can see their corridors extending in all directions. It’s also deathly silent in here. The sound of the brook isn’t penetrating through, even though we are only a few steps away from the garden. “Is this…” I pause, trying to see around the corners where the paths turn. “Is this a hedge maze?”
