He was tall, thin and very old, judging by the silver of his hair and beard, which were both long enough to tuck into his belt. He was wearing long robes, a purple cloak which swept the ground and high heeled buckled boots. His blue eyes were light, bright and sparkling behind half moon spectacles and his nose very long and crooked, as though it had been broken at least twice. This man’s name was Albus Dumbledore.
Sayfa 9
Slowly Falling for him
I glance at Talan cautiously. “Whose blood is on your sword?”
“Someone made the mistake of testing my patience. You’d think people
would have learned by now.”
Vague. Annoyingly so. “Another traitor?”
He cuts me a sharp look. “I won’t let anyone get in my way.”
A chill ripples up my spine as he stalks over the snow.
The air seems to grow heavier and otherworldly until the forest opens
into a clearing, a path lined with ancient statues and pale purple hedges. On
the far end of the path, the Lost Palace emerges from the wintry forest, a
haunting edifice of twists and curves. Ice and snow glaze the stones,
sparkling in the pale light. Fog billows around a frozen garden of heather
and bare yews. Moths flutter around us—not metallic, but real ones that are
bright blue. Corbinelle moths. Beautiful to look at, but they’re venomous.
Like Talan, really.
Stone arches frame a door of carved oak, peaked in the center. As we
walk closer, my gaze flicks up at the statues. I stop to stare at one of them, a
towering, crowned queen with long hair that drapes over her robes. My
gaze slides to the symbols on her wrists, and an ember of recognition sparks
in my mind. The encircled triple spirals remind me of the ones I saw in
Nimuë’s tower—and look exactly like the ones I’d seen on my wrists for a
moment in the bathtub. As I stare at them, cold magic slides over my wrists.
Talan follows my stare. “That’s Nimuë. She built this palace long ago.
She’s buried here, in fact. Did you know that before she was the Lady of the
Lake, my grandmother had that role? Before she was queen.”
I stare at the triple spirals again. Three Ladies of the Lake. “Queen
Morgan.”
Thank the ancient gods we don’t have the same grandmother in reality,
given some of the filthy thoughts I’ve had about him.
I draw a shaky
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She smiled at me, her eyes warm and sparkling, her hair shining in the sunlight. Everyone said how beautiful her sister was, but I couldn’t imagine there was anyone prettier than my mother in the world.
To save him...
“Fine. Now, will you tell me how to save Raphael?”
He stretches out a long arm and plucks an apple from a tree. “Of course.
To save him, we must learn exactly where they’re keeping him.”
“So, you don’t know where he is?”
“In my dreams, I see mere glimpses. He is in Auberon’s fortress, but it’s
a vast place, with countless dungeons, cells, and torture chambers. I need to
think.” He takes a bite of the apple, closes his eyes, and leans his head back
against the column.
I grit my teeth in frustration as I turn back to look at the banquet table.
He’s actually still got ancient wine in the decanters. Dust and snow cover
the plates and the faded gold tablecloth. There are food trays with silver
domes on them. I hate to think of what’s underneath them.
I have no idea what Mordred is doing right now. Eyes closed, he seems
deep in thought. He begins to hum, an eerie, haunting tune that raises the
hair on my nape and pulls my attention from the banquet table. The song is
uncanny, strangely familiar, and his body glows with silver. And for some
reason, I feel as if the tune is beckoning me closer.
After a while, movement catches my eye from above, and I glance up to
see a cloud of silver moths fluttering down from the ruined ceiling. As
Mordred hums, they twirl and dance in the air, their wings ignited by the
slate-silver moonlight. Mordred holds out his hand, and a moth lands on his
palm.
He opens his eyes and clamps his hand into a fist, crushing it. The rest
of the moths scatter, flitting away from him. He opens his hand again, and
my breath hitches. On his palm is a jeweled silver moth, its wings decorated
with tiny, sparkling stones.
“Take it,” he says.
I take it from his palm, a lifeless moth made of metal.
“This moth will be my ears and my eyes. Carry it into Auberon’s
He orders one of the literary cocktail creations at the bar, a Drowning Ophelia made with gin and lemon and fennel syrup, served with a spring of rosemary and a napkin with an appropriate Hamlet quote printed on it. Other guests sip Hemingway Daiquiris and Vespers garnished with complicated curls of lemon. Flutes of sparkling wine are served with ribbons that read “Drink Me” wrapped around their stems.
I wonder, whether the stars are sparkling in the sky so that one day each one of us can find his own again.
