Jack and I shared a look, and I wondered if I looked as hopeful and excited as he did. We practically sprinted up the stairs to his room, where we found a note on Phil’s bed:
GO FOR IT YOU ABSOLUTE SLUTS xx
I smirked at Jack, fanning myself with Phil’s note, and a devious grin broke out on his face.
“I believe you mentioned ‘later’?”
Chapter30
Captain Morgana Silversword
The journey back to the Capital was much trickier than the party had bargained for. The bards at the college were able to open a portal back to their home realm – again, for a cost; they were really burning through the stipend Lord Arnault had given them – but it transported them not to the Capital, or even to the grove through which they’d entered the fae realm, but to a random forest in the opposite direction.
Three days into their estimated ten day journey back to the Capital, assisted by a horse-pulled wagon they’d bartered for in the last town they’d passed through, Morgana called the party to a halt. They were on a quieter portion of the Queen’s Road, and they hadn’t seen anyone for several hours. But when she saw a twitch in the trees up ahead and heard a clicking noise carried on the strong breeze, something in her recognised trouble. Thrormir, who was sat next to her as she drove the wagon, looked over at her with confusion in his eyes, and she pointed to the trees.
“Take the Sphere and go,” she whispered to Calamity, who was lying down inside the wagon with their belongings. Calamity nodded and whispered her newest spell. Still lying down, she grabbed the Sphere and started to fade out of sight, fully invisible in under a second.
The back step of the wagon creaked slightly, and Morgana knew Calamity was out. She clicked her tongue, urging the horses forward, though even they were tentative in their movements, picking up on her nerves. Morgana brought her hand to the hilt of her sword just as they passed under the trees where she’d seen the movement, prepared to strike whenever someone charged or jumped them.
Sure enough, almost as soon as they’d passed under the trees, two figures dropped onto the wagon. Morgana didn’t even hesitate to suss out what was happening; anyone who dropped onto someone’s wagon from above uninvited was an enemy. She reacted instantly, slicing through one of them with as much force as she could muster, and realised, as she felt her blade clatter against bone with little resistance, that it was a skeleton. It fell to pieces in the footwell.
“Undead!” she called, just as four more figures ran out into the road. She and Thrormir jumped down from the wagon, and Gorlag and Yorick emerged from the wagon. The other undead was still up on the wagon, where it started tearing through their belongings. Morgana hoped that Calamity was well clear of the skirmish.
Morgana, Thrormir, Gorlag, and Yorick dispatched of the remaining undead, then turned their attention to the one still ransacking the wagon.
“Allow me,” Thrormir said, holding up his amulet with the symbol of Chaius.
“I need healing though,” Gorlag said, motioning to a tiny gash in their arm.
“Me too,” Yorick said; Morgana couldn’t see a single wound.
“Just let me do this first,” Thormir said with a sigh, “and I promise I’ll heal you after.”
He held out his amulet and started muttering under his breath. They all watched as the cloaked skeleton continued tearing through their packs, pulling open Morgana’s bag of rations, and then suddenly exploded into a cloud of dust. The cloak blew away on the wind, and when they leaned over the side, there was no sign the undead had ever been there other than the mess it had made of their belongings.
“That’s a cool trick,” Calamity said to Thrormir, appearing in the middle of the road with the Sphere in her hand.
Morgana began to look over the body – if it could be called that – that was still crumpled in the footwell; it had no other possessions except for a small, standard dagger. The cloak, however, was of interest. Because on the outside of the hood, stitched in blue, was a twelve-pointed star.
Chapter31
Morgan
Iwas well and truly in my Lover era.
As concerned as I’d been that the novelty and heat would wear off and we’d be left with nothing to say, a month later we were still just as comfortable in each other’s company as ever. Except maybe more now, because we could jump each other’s bones whenever we wanted instead of just letting the tension eat at us. Instead of throwing up our walls left and right. After months of mounting tension, Jack and I were now … well, just mounting. Constantly. At mine, at his, anywhere we could. We were both completely unburdened, and often undressed.
The best part about finally being together was that we could finally call our little adventures what they actually were: dates. Our trip to the botanical garden was romantic enough to putBridgertonto shame. Our wild swimming plans became skinny dipping in the moonlight. He’d come along to walk Pablo a few times, and they’d got on so well it was like they already knew each other. We’d even exchanged spare keys.
I had a date to the gala, too; Jack wanted to be there for me, and whilst I knew I wouldn’t have a ton of time for him, I liked the idea that he’d be a safe place to crash amidst the madness.
We still hadn’t told the rest of the group, though; we’d talked about it, and we both felt that we wanted to just beusfor a while. Not complicate it with other people’s hopes or expectations. But I knew it would cause a splash when we did fess up, especially for Chloe, who had been asking me more and more pointed questions about how busy I was.
In the meantime, it had me feeling even more conflicted about my search for the perfect career, and the perfect place to live, and everything else. I’d been really enjoying my freelance work thanks to Greg’s word of mouth, but I knew I wasn’t ready to try to freelance full-time, so I was still planning to get a new job. Now that Jack and I were together, was there an expectation that I wouldn’t move? He’d said it was fine, that Jared and Fatima could be the blueprint for making it work, but how serious had he been?
I was afraid to ask, because part of me suspected the answer was yes, that things had changed. But the reality was that I had already been invited to a couple of interviews from the jobs I’d applied to.
One was for an agency in London that used cringey language like “design rockstar” and “disruptive innovation”, so I’d checked out about halfway through the call. I’d never heard back from them afterwards.
