Kingston rubs the front of his throat, his face the closest to a scowl I’ve ever seen.
For my part, I’m too astonished to be mad. I knew Emrys was a mage—a theoretical mage, as he put it—but I’d never actually seen himcast a spell.“Since when can you do things like that?”
“Oh, forever.” Emrys shrugs. “I’m adept at party tricks, and that’s about it. Try not to deploy them unless absolutelynecessary—although you have no idea how tempted I am to use that in class from time to time.” He exhales. “Can we proceed civilly?”
Kingston nods. I do, too.
“Thank you. Now, as I was hoping to ask—and I am truly, sincerely loath to ask it—but ask I must.” He levies his even gaze at me. “How, exactly, did they try to kill you, Ms. Vale?”
The question knocks the wind out of me. The kind of thing I haven’t been asked since Roaring Brook, demanding a memory so heavy I can barely turn it over in my mind without the weight of it crushing me.
But I suppose I have no choice. So I try. Eyes closed, hands on my knees.
“They put me in the church,” I recite. “It was full of flowers. Icons. The throne. And they put me in…”
My memory wavers, remembering the girls ripping off my clothes, my naked skin in the chill air of the sanctuary, their strange songs and eerie laughter…
“In…”
I can’t do it. My eyes fly open. And when I do, Kingston is staring at me from across the dark room.
“Wait here,” he says.
He takes a taper candle from the mantel, lights it in the flames, and disappears—disappears downstairs, I realize. Far downstairs. To the secret heart of Camlann House.
When he returns, he’s holding something.
Folds and folds of red fabric, embroidered in bright blues and yellows. A flat red disc, glimmering...
My stomach seizes. It's the clothes.Thoseclothes. The ones they put on me in the church, the wretched dress and heavy crown that went on my head.
I didn't realize he'd saved them. As soon as we'd secured some normal clothing for me back on the mainland, I'd castthem off like they were burning me. I'd assumed they'd been thrown out.
"These," Kingston says simply, and sets them on the coffee table. “They put her in these.”
Emrys keeps his brows knit, leaning over the material like they’re some sort of ancient artifact--which, for all we know, they are—and examining them in the flickering firelight. “I see.” He looks to me. “Did they elaborate on the…nature of these items, Ms. Vale?”
Kingston, too, looks at me.
"Not really,” I admit. Now that I know it's here, out on the table, I can't look away. My eyes are glued to this strange costume, transfixed. “They didn’t explain much.” Or maybe I can’t remember much. “Mostly the part where I had to..." I hesitate. "To die."
"Hm." Emrys nods. "I presume there's some ritual meaning to these. But whether symbolic, representative, or--"
"Imbued?" Kingston finishes for him. Emrys nods.
“Yes.”
I frown. "I don't follow."
Emrys leans back a bit. “Objects may have magic bound to them, Ms. Vale. Only certain types of spells--protective, usually--and only certain objects. That leaves themimbued.Still, the observable effects are…subjective. Does the imbued object carry real power, or does its bearer merely think it does and act accordingly?” He shrugs. “Arguably nothing more than superstition, really."
I think of Morgan, surveying the scapular Kai had thrown on the table at Easter.And you claim this is totally different from magic.
Or earlier. When we’d been crossing campus with Lanz, so many weeks ago, right before we’d left for St. Ignaty’s, when Morgan had copped to making Elena a dummy love potion.
Get someone to believe that things work a certain way—like really, truly, believe it—and they’ll do everything it takes to affirm that it’s so. Even if it kills them.
"The line between what is agenuinelyimbued object versus simplytreated and revered as suchis fuzzy, at best," Emrys goes on. "And I'll admit it's not my area of expertise--material culture never has been. But Mr. Pendragon, I believe, has?—”
