Something sly moved across her expression as she folded her arms, looking pointedly at the door. “Is this really what you want to argue about? Or can we, you know, escape?” she demanded. “Iam a bit focused on not being tortured, debased, and turned into a hollow shell of myself.”
Mordred rarely lost, whether it be a joust or a bet, a game of politics in court, or a decision made in the heat of battle. “Let us escape,” he confirmed with a nod of his head instead of confessing that Nyneve Or’Afon was the only game he enjoyed losing.
They both moved toward the large, arched door, coming to a halt in front of it, shoulder-to-shoulder. Mordred reached out and rested his hand on the handle. Turning to look at her was a mistake. Those damned eyes captured his, the scent of river water and poisonous petals flooding his senses. His breath hitched.
“How are we escaping?” Nyneve asked, her voice unsteady. She paused for too long, and a log in the fireplace crashed. They both startled, something about the moment splintering, their gazes returning to the door before them. When Nyneve spoke again, her voice was stronger. “Violence? Trickery? Disguise? Bribes? Seduction?”
“I was hoping some seduction and a little bribery would do,” Mordred admitted with a shrug. “But we must adapt to whatever circumstances we are given.”
“I prefer violence, for what it’s worth,” Nyneve replied. “But trickery might work. Youdorun your mouth a lot.”
“Still thinking about my mouth?” he asked, turning to look down at her.
Nyneve hauled back and punched him hard, her blow landing right on the rib she had just healed. He grunted; it was still sore.
Then she continued as if she had not just struck him. “Two guards at the end of the hallway,” she said, though her sentence tipped up at the end like a question. “Fourteen in the passageway between the fete hall and the visiting quarters. Two more at theentrance to the hall itself. How many at the door once the fete gets going?”
Mordred straightened. He should have known the Druid girl would be sharp enough to remember the guards, but he still found himself impressed. Something deep inside him, deeper than even the Cynosbythrae, drew taut. “Down to seven in the passageway, but there will be at least four at the mouth of the hill.”
“Oh, wonderful odds,” Nyneve said brightly, reaching for the handle and yanking the door open.
Mordred slammed his shoulder into the door, closing it again with a muffled thud. “Follow my lead,” he commanded. “I can still leave you behind.”
Then he opened the door and slunk into the hallway. He looked over his shoulder, gesturing for Nyneve to follow. She stood tensely for a moment before acquiescing, her hand ghosting over the empty scabbard where her dagger usually was. Mordred’s mind raced quick as a doe with a thousand decisions before he called to the Cynosbythrae in a soft voice.
The apocalypse that lived in his marrow had taken many years to learn to live with, and he still had not come close to mastering the beast—so unlike any other magic he had ever seen or practiced. Even Morgana had been mystified at first. There were no Threads to strum, no incantations or charms, no vivid imagination or vicious self-discipline required. Mordred had found that it was more like a bloody, desperate wrestling match in the mud. His will had to be stronger than the Cynosbythrae. The great and terrible power did not bend easily, not even to its vessel.
As he slipped down the hallway, silent on the mosaic tiles, the darkness fought him as it always did. But Mordred was stronger. He had no other choice. In a few moments, he pulled theshadows cast by the torchlight around him and Nyneve, cloak-like. Not invisibility, not quite. But damn close.
“I know you will not divulge it,” Nyneve whispered from his side, “but I would very much like to know the working behind what you just did.”
Mordred answered too honestly. “So should I.”
In his peripheral vision, he saw her turn toward him, her brow furrowed. But then voices came from up ahead, and around the bend, he could make out the two guards at the end of the passageway. The dark hide of their horned helms shone softly in the torchlight, the carved bone blades of their spears bright in the gloom. Mordred held a hand out, gesturing for Nyneve to pause. She did, so close he could feel the heat of her.
Before he could listen carefully and figure out who was serving as their jailers, he felt Nyneve’s magic curl around his own. She deepened the intensity of the shadows around them and then covered them with a difficult glamour that Mordred also preferred: a working that made curious eyes want to look away. It was more complex than other glamours by half, but for those who could manage the working, it tended to hold up better under stressful situations and the weight of additional spellwork. Nyneve wove the Threads so elegantly. Almost like she was singing to them.
When they drew closer to the guards, Mordred motioned to Nyneve that he would go first. He took a deep breath, and everything within him went calm, placid as the surface of a lake and just as frigid. Carefully, he ducked under the cross of their spears. When he straightened on the other side, and the guards still continued their passionate conversation about a story—a wolf who was also somehow a witch, something about bells and a silver-haired man—he gestured for Nyneve to follow.
The sorceress stepped neatly beneath the spears. Her working held fast despite how hard her heart was hammering.With a grim nod, Mordred reached out and took her by the wrist, leading them through the warren of earthen passageways. They stuck to the walls of all the corridors, pausing before crossing in front of torchlights. The underhill was quiet, deserted. Mordred reasoned to himself that nearly everyone was occupied either in the fete hall or private chambers.
When they reached the main passageway, the faerie door bleeding its strange light at the far end, he pulled them into an alcove. “Almost there,” he murmured to Nyneve, as loudly as he dared. “There is a significant ward in our way.”
She nodded. “I can feel it. The one that takes my memory, I suppose?”
Mordred shook his head. “No. That working is hidden elsewhere.”
Nyneve raised an eyebrow, looking up at him with delighted interest. He had to force himself not to smile and shake his head again. She pouted at him, clasping her hands in front of her chest.
“It is to prevent any mortal from leaving without permission,” Mordred said, trying to pull his focus back to their escape and not the way Nyneve’s body was pressed to his, all her soft places meeting his hard angles. She glanced over his shoulder, peering into the hallway, just a tiny Threading of her magic seeking the ward. He knew she found it when she winced and jumped back a little.
“Oh,” she breathed, going pale. “That is... Mordred, I do not know if I can find a weak spot in it.”
“Nor can I,” he admitted, digging into the pockets of his aketon for the little pebbles from Guinevere’s childhood home. His mind strayed to the hag-stone Nyneve had placed on him. “The columbine on the hag-stone was a tidy working. No wonder you tracked me so easily.”
“Believe me when I say this was not my intended outcome,” she whispered, too loud.
“It still seems a viable option to leave you here and let you meet whatever fate the High Court deems worthy,” Mordred mused, more to prove to himself that he could still utter the words than anything else.
