"Well," Morgan says, her eyes alight with the spark of someone who's thought far too long and deeply about a subject and has been waiting for a chance to unload. "If you ask me, and I guess you did ask me, yes and no." She chews her bottom lip. "I think, based on what I've been able to piece together, that she was just naturally good at it, and her mentor was so eager to teach this brilliant young student that her training wheels ended up coming off too fast. The magic started takingherfor a ride, not the other way around.”
I frown. “Her mentor?”
“Whoever was training her.” Morgan shrugs. “I’m team self-study, but I’m not trying to, like, re-knit the fabric of the universe, or whatever. The level Vivian was operating on would have needed someone to show her the ropes.”
“Someone here?” Now I look at the photograph, the students and professors posing on a long-past summer’s day.
“Maybe,” Morgan says. “It’d be pretty fitting for medievalists here, wouldn’t it?” She shrugs. “Whoever it was, either they couldn't keep up with her, or they let her run too fast on purpose."
Something about the way she says it makes me uneasy.Let her run too fast on purpose.The back of my neck prickles.
"Why would someone do that?"
“Dunno,” Morgan says simply. "Maybe they wanted to see what would happen. And…what happened was she got magicallybound to a lake for eternity.” She sips her beer, thinking. "I guess in that sense, I kind of see Kai's objection. Kind of a raw deal.”
I’m about to ask Morgan what she means by that when a shriek rips through the air.
“Oh my God!”
There’s the scuffling sound of feet, and then a heavy, ugly thud.
Morgan’s on her feet immediately, leaping to where a crowd has knotted up by the bar—around someone on the floor, I realize.
“Oh my God,” I murmur. “Is that?—”
“Elena!” Small, blonde Claire’s face is racked with panic as she falls to her knees, glancing from Elena’s crumpled form to the bystanders. “Someone do something!”
“Move,” Morgan all but barks, and for once Claire obeys, darting out of the way so that Morgan can roll Elena to her back. And when she does?—
“Jesus,” I gasp.
Elena’s face is covered in purpled, bleeding lesions.
“Oh my God!” Claire falls backward in shock, a hand pressed to her mouth. Morgan grimaces, but doesn’t flinch, pushing away people by the shins and trying to peer more closely at Elena. “She’s dying!”
“Not if I can help it.” Morgan jumps to her feet, snaps her fingers at one of Elena’s guy friends—her boyfriend, maybe? “You. Pick her up. We’re going to carry her back to the dorms. Then I can take a better look at her.”
The boyfriend nods and crouches, scooping Elena gently from the floor. Morgan strides back to our booth for her coat, and I rush after her.
“Morgan,” I say, voice low but urgent. “Elena—she told me she was getting over the flu. She might just be?—”
“Does that look like the flu, Gwenna?” Morgan’s voice is firm. “It’s worse than that. And I don’t need honey to tell.” She swings on her coat, grabs her bag. “It’s not just the land dying anymore.”
I’m frozen in place, stunned. One single thought running through my head on loop.
Is this my fault?
And not for the first time, I wonder if Morgan can read my mind. Because out loud, she says, “I’m sorry, Gwenna.”
Like even she’s running out of ways to help me from ruining everything.
TWENTY-SEVEN
GWENNA
I haveto get back to Camlann.
The bruise-colored sky is streaked with clouds, and the ground is mushy under my boots as I walk, march,runback to the house, not even bothering with footpaths. I need to go fast, to get away from what I just saw and is looping through my memory—Claire’s scream, thethudof Elena’s body, her wretched face,I’m sorry, Gwenna. I can’t piece it all together, can’t even catch mybreathas I fly up the stairs to the porch and into the foyer.
