Wicked Fire

Morgaine slammed her fists against the barrier separating her from Lily Archer, furious at being denied her prize. She’d been so close to freedom, and had lost her chance to destroy the last of that pestilential family. Screaming in rage, she sent a bolt of green magic into Omer’s wall, desperate to escape.

Everyone ignored her, save Myrddin, who gave her a look of sadness mixed with anger. Wretched mage. He had everything now, a wife and husbands, unlimited magic, and safety, all gifts Morgaine would be forever denied because of the Archers.

How could she have let herself be defeated by one young woman barely out of the schoolroom? She should have smothered Lily when she’d been an infant.

Unfortunately, she’d never been able to stomach killing a child. That bit of morality was going to cost her everything.

“We wish to encase her in stone, where her magic will restore that which she and Teran tried to destroy,” Omer said.

Morgaine laid her hands on the invisible wall separating her from everyone else and went silent. She couldn’t imagine such a thing being possible, but if it were, she might as well be dead already.

“For how long?” Myrddin asked.

Shrugging, Omer said, “Forever.”

“Nothing is forever, really. But it shall be for as long as it takes for her prison to turn to dust,” Sena said. “Or until the earth is destroyed. Whichever comes first.” Sena prodded the ground with the toe of her slipper, then lifted her arms. “Morgaine le Fay, your magic will correct the imbalance in nature that you allowed when you decided to help my husband turn the world to stone.”

Morgaine crept backwards until her back hit the barrier behind her. She could feel power fill the air as Sena called forth a massive menhir the size of a large cottage.

No. She would not be imprisoned. The wall at her back gave way and she nearly fell to her bottom. Scrambling, she turned to run.

Blue magic surrounded her, stopping her flight to freedom. Filling the air with terrified screams, she fought with the slow drag toward the stone with everything she had.

Crying furious tears, she looked up into Omer’s stern face. She would find no sympathy from him. He pushed her against the stone and she shivered at the rough scratch of rock against her shoulders.

“Before I do this, there’s something I want you to tell me,” Omer said softly. “I’d like to know why.”

Pressing her lips together, Morgaine shook her head. She’d failed in her task, but she wouldn’t give any of them the satisfaction of seeing her crumble and spill her secret shame. She’d rather let them believe she was petty enough to kill a family because Fergus dishonored her.

“Very well.” Omer’s hand tightened on her shoulder as the stone at her back heated. “Goodbye, Morgaine.” Without another word, he pushed her.

She let out a soundless scream as her body streamed into mist and dust. Every part of her was battered by the unyielding rock, as if Omer was some sort of unholy laundress beating the fabric of her body against a river stone.

Was this to be her fate? Unceasing agony until the menhir wore to dust? Why hadn’t they just killed her instead?

The pain stopped abruptly, and she was whole. Dropping to her knees, she retched, bringing up bitter bile. Panting softly, she shuddered, her muscles twitching with remembered agony.

Lifting her head, she sat up and wrapped her arms around her midsection as she gazed upon her prison for the first time. Roughly circular, it was more a cave than a chamber. Illumination shone from the ceiling, winking at her like distant stars.

There were no windows. No bed, no washbasin, no books, or even a painting she might look at. There was nothing but her and the clothes she wore.

The lights winked out, leaving her in darkness.

She didn’t stop screaming for a long time. Sometimes she cried and tried to hurt herself, but the self-inflicted scratches and gouges always healed themselves while she slept. Eventually, she lost track of the number of times she fell asleep. There was no way to measure the passage of days anyway.

“Morgaine, tell me a story.”

“I don’t want to. Go to sleep.” The high-pitched child’s voice always came as she was about to drift off. Part of her recognized she was probably going a bit insane, but the unnamed child was company.

“Please?”

“Will you go to sleep if I tell one?”

“Pinky promise.”

Morgaine didn’t know what that meant, but gave in to the child’s request. “Once upon a time, there was a girl called Cinderella. She lived with her stepmother and stepsisters, wicked creatures who treated her horribly.”

“Did Cinderella hurt them in the end?” the child asked. “Why did she kill them?”

Morgaine’s eyes flew open and she scowled. “Go away, Omer. You don’t get my secrets.”

She heard soft male laughter, and the child’s presence vanished. Slowly, as if Omer was giving her vision a chance to adjust, the lights came back on, revealing a folded piece of paper in the middle of the floor.

Muscles aching from lack of movement, Morgaine retrieved the note. She opened it, scowling down at the words.

“Today is the tenth anniversary of your imprisonment. Use the next ten years more wisely.”

She balled up the note and threw it across the chamber. To her shock, the paper unfolded and grew larger until it was several feet long and very wide. Magic flashed, blinding her. She rubbed her eyes and blinked at the sight of a freshly made bed. A small card resting on one of the pillows had Sena’s name written on it. Tossing it aside, Morgaine laid down and went back to sleep. It was rather nice to have the ability to cover herself with a blanket.

For the anniversary of her twentieth year of imprisonment, Omer gave her a newspaper. She read every page until it fell into tattered scraps of newsprint, the ink faded into illegibility.

Although every tenth anniversary brought a new gift, Omer never asked for her secrets again.

***

One hundred and twenty-eight years of imprisonment in a boulder within sight of the sea just east of Tintagel gave Morgaine a lot of time to think.

She didn’t mind her prison, well, aside from the obvious. The magic of the stone edifice meant she didn’t suffer from hunger or thirst, or the need to bathe. Being also the size of a large country cottage, it had a chamber more than sufficient for her few needs.

It was rather pleasant, once she’d gotten over the lack of windows and forty odd years of only the sound of her own voice for company.

Queen Sena of the dark Sidhe had been kind enough to provide her with a bed and books to read, and King Omer of the light had augmented her chamber with a radio, then a television, and eventually a laptop computer, though he never allowed her to interact with the wonders she found on the internet. She was only allowed to observe.

Society had moved on in her absence. It was a world of cell phones and celebrity politicians, mind-boggling amounts of information without rhyme or reason. One could be educated on nearly any subject if one knew how to navigate the web and had sufficient wit to avoid false and misleading websites. She’d even managed to teach herself a bit of coding, using her newfound skills to create games for her amusement.

She’d had a front-row seat to over a century of history, but only as an impotent spectator. Perhaps that had been for the best. She’d been tempted to correct Wikipedia articles more than once.

It was both infuriating and comforting at the same time. There was no place for magic in this modern world. People saw unbelievable marvels every day in movies, books, and even technology itself. She had to wonder how Myrddin was coping. Of course, he had Lily and their husbands to console him.

The Denforth duchy was still intact, although the minute she tried to find where Myrddin and his family were living, she found no end of broken links. Omer’s parental controls were in full force, even for so mundane a search, and there were consequences when she searched for things he didn’t want her to see.

The broken links would turn into animations of yellow creatures in goggles sticking their tongues out at her, even when she navigated to a new page. When she gave up and tried to watch television, every channel showed an inane purple dinosaur singing about love. The sponge in pants was worse. She’d spent nearly a week listening to the foul little beast before Omer relented. She couldn’t forget the time she’d tried to set up an email account. He’d given her reruns of Jerry Springer for a month for that particular sin.

That wasn’t to say she didn’t like television. Sometimes it resembled the theatre she remembered, and sometimes it was barely distinguishable from reality. And it made her feel a gamut of emotions. She’d never admit it, but she’d cried buckets over The Notebook.

Perhaps she was growing soft. A saccharine love story would never have moved her to tears when she’d been free. She’d have thought both participants completely mad, but those romances made her think.

Morgaine hadn’t dared tell Lily the whole story, but Lily had been right about one thing. Morgaine had been frightfully stupid to take up with Fergus all those centuries ago. She should have never believed his tales of devotion. He’d been so handsome, and so earnest. And she’d been young and naïve; ripe for the pickings for a seasoned seducer.

Which brought her to her current predicament, the blame for which rested squarely upon her own shoulders. Killing Lily would be impossible now, nor did Morgaine want to. Truly, she hadn’t wanted to harm any of the Archers, with the exception of Fergus, of course. He’d placed them all in untenable positions because of his selfishness and greed.

The things Teran had done to Lily had been ghastly. He’d tormented her, torturing her so badly that Morgaine had been sick over it. She’d wanted to stop it, but things had progressed much too far, and Teran was too lost in his madness to listen.

Not for the first time, she wished she’d gone to King Omer. Surely, there had been some way to get what she needed without dealing with the insane dark Sidhe king.

Lily and her husbands would probably say her prison was too posh for her crimes. Maybe they were right, but the few comforts she had were nothing compared to the endless years of self-recrimination.

The only thing that truly gave her peace was the knowledge that her magic wasn’t being used by a single Archer during her imprisonment.

Sighing, she reached for a book and opened it to the slip of paper she used as a bookmark. Perhaps the goings-on in Westeros would drag her out of her funk.

As she curled up on her bed, her chamber shifted and rumbled. The stack of books on the floor trembled and fell with a muted crash of paper and bindings. England had mild earthquakes on occasion, but none had ever made her prison quiver like a bowl of aspic.

Morgaine turned her attention back to her story. Omer and Sena were probably relocating her prison, although they’d never done it before. She’d spent fifteen years studying satellite maps of Tintagel. The landscape had become progressively more urban and they wouldn’t want her around people. The stone shifted again, and Morgaine sat up as a rain of small pebbles fell to the floor.

“Omer?” she called. The king never answered, but she was sure he could hear her. She sat up and drew her knees to her chest, suddenly afraid. “Sena? What’s going—”

With a deafening concussive explosion, her prison cracked in two, exposing her to freedom for the first time in over a century. Yet her magic was still bound to the pieces, and as the stone was broken into yet smaller chunks, her world, along with her consciousness, splintered apart.

***

“Oy, Jamie! Call an ambulance!”

Morgaine covered her face with her arm and rolled over. Everything bloody hurt, and she had no idea who was shouting, but if he didn’t shut up, she was going to do something very painful to him.

“We had a bit of an earthquake, dearie. Are you all right?”

The voice was growly and throaty with age, and not one she recognized. She cracked an eye open as something warm and heavy settled on top of her and realized he’d covered her with a jacket. Blinking, she turned to face the man and tried to burrow under his coat. It was bloody cold out here. After so long in a temperature-controlled prison, she’d forgotten how unpleasant England could be.

“I—”

“Don’t talk now. The ambulance should be here in a trice.” With a wrinkled hand, the man pushed a lock of hair from her eyes, and she resisted the urge to tell him off for asking her a question then telling her not to speak.

The air smelled strange, too. It was as if she smelled London, with its coal dust and sheer weight of inhabitation, but at a distance. Still polluted, but nothing like she remembered. There was no scent of the sea she knew must be close.

Blast it all, why had she taken off her dress? When one had no callers, nor anywhere to go, it had been easy to slip into laziness. The frock she’d been wearing when Omer and Sena had imprisoned her had ended up crumpled under her bed, and had laid there for years. She had nothing to wear but a thin shift, and it left her quite on the wrong foot. Women wore things much more revealing than her shift now, but surely, they wore coats over them.

In fact, she had nothing aside from that shift. No money, well, none on her. She didn’t know if her caches of wealth would be intact, and had no way to get to them if they were. She had no identification, means of transport, or even a home.

Why hadn’t Omer or Sena protected the standing stone in which they’d imprisoned her? Her thoughts whirled as sirens approached. She allowed the nurses to load her into their vehicle without fuss. No, they weren’t nurses. She’d learned from television what they were called, but the name escaped her.

One of them, a dark-haired young man dressed in a white shirt and black trousers, covered her with a sheet, then buckled safety belts around her, restraining her to the trolley she laid on. The vehicle’s engine rumbled and coughed, and soon they were on their way. Morgaine counted herself lucky she wasn’t able to look out a window. She wasn’t sure she was ready to witness herself moving so quickly. What had been wrong with horses?

One of the nurses said, “I’m Ed. Can you tell us if anything hurts? You don’t appear to be injured, but you were awfully close to the earthquake.” He shone a bright light in her eyes and she winced, closing her lids against the glare.

“No, thank you,” she said, turning her face to the side to avoid his light. “I believe I’m quite well.”

“All right. What’s your name?”

“Morgaine. I’m Morgaine F… Fenton.” She had no idea why she’d been about to give him her true name, but sensed it would be the wrong thing to do. After all, she didn’t exist to the people in this time.

“Good.” Ed peered at her, his face impassive. “Do you know what day it is?”

“Thursday. It’s the twelfth of April.”

“And the year?” he asked, his voice softening into a silky hiss.

Morgaine blinked as Ed’s glamour faded, leaving a light Sidhe dressed in black leather armor. Brushing dark hair away to reveal pointed ears, he smiled, though the expression never reached his tilted green eyes. “King Omer sent us to fetch you, and to give you a message.”

“What is the message?” she asked, her magic rising up. She’d been so muzzy from the shock of being thrust from her prison that she’d allowed him to restrain her. What had she been thinking? Yet if Ed had wanted to hurt her, he’d have already done so.

“King Omer and Queen Sena wish to give you one last chance at redemption and atonement for your sins.”

The vehicle turned abruptly, throwing her to the side. If she hadn’t been strapped in, she’d have fallen. After a few moments, it stopped moving and Ed unfastened the restraints. Gripping the sheet to her chest, Morgaine sat up as Ed threw the doors open. Without a word, he grabbed her arm and pushed her outside. She stumbled and fell to her knees as a satchel landed next to her.

She blinked up into hazy sunlight and got to her feet. Young oak trees surrounded them, their leaves showing the light green of spring growth. She could smell fertilizer and the scent of newly turned earth.

Following her out, Ed said, “There are clothes, a passport, and a one-way plane ticket to New York City. I have a gift for you, too.” Giving her a nasty grin, he looked over her shoulder and nodded.

Strong arms wrapped around her from behind, and as she was bringing her magic to bear, Ed held up a familiar jeweled collar. Morgaine screamed in horror as he snapped it around her neck. She’d made the thing herself to contain the magic of the last Archer prince she’d destroyed over three hundred years ago.

Her magic flickered and died, and she whimpered in pain at the loss as she tried to bring it forth. The collar blocked her from reaching it, as if a metal door had slammed shut between her and her power.

“The king and queen have a task for you, witch.”

“What is it?” she asked, struggling to get free of the tight grip the second elf had on her arms. Ed nodded, and he pushed her away, making her stumble forward.

“Teran of the dark has escaped his prison. We suspect he’s going to try to reach Lily Archer and her husbands. You will travel to New York, protect her, and recapture him without the use of your magic.”

“And the collar will be removed if I do those things?” she asked, trying to hold back her furious tears. How dare they fetter her? What gave them the right? And the task they’d given her was quite impossible. Even if she’d had her magic, the likelihood of her being able to recapture Teran by herself was ludicrously small. Omer and Sena must have gotten tired of sustaining her magical prison and were going to let Teran kill her.

Ed shrugged. “I hope not, but you might ask the king if you live long enough to see him again.” Without another word, he punched her.

She cried out and fell to the ground, the blow making her head ring and splitting her lip. She pressed a corner of the sheet to her bleeding mouth and looked up at him, wondering if he would beat her.

“And that’s a message from me for my sister,” he hissed, grabbing her collar to pull her to her feet. His hot breath washed over her, smelling of wine and anger as he shook her like a rag doll. “You murdered her husband, and I pray that Teran kills you.” Glancing down at his watch, he added, “You’d better move quickly. Your plane leaves from Heathrow in London in about six hours.”

Morgaine clenched her fists to keep herself from rubbing her injured face. She refused to give Ed the satisfaction of knowing how much it hurt, yet she could hardly blame him for his actions. “It will take days for me to walk there without a horse.”

Ed blinked and burst into laughter. Pointing, he said, “There’s a train station about five miles that way. I suggest you hurry.”

“But I don’t have a—”

The elves, along with their ambulance, disappeared, leaving Morgaine alone and mortal on a dirt road in the middle of western England.

“—ticket.” Sighing, she dropped to her knees and sniffed back angry tears as she opened the bag. If Omer thought he was going to intimidate her with this impossible demand, he was very much mistaken.

Omer and Sena were right about one thing. Teran could not be permitted to roam free. She was smart. There had to be a way to either kill him or put him back in his own prison.

It was right that Morgaine be the one sent after him. After all, she was the one who had whispered in his ear all those years ago, hoping her curse would be broken if Teran stole Lily Archer’s magic. In retrospect, it had been a foolish idea. More than likely, the curse would have transferred itself to Teran.

Shivering in the chill, Morgaine dressed quickly, not daring to complain about the inappropriate clothing. The flip flops left her feet bare and did nothing to protect them, and the thin t-shirt pulled tightly across her breasts, revealing stiffened nipples. She’d give almost anything to have her old dress back, but it was lost along with everything else she’d had in her prison cell.

Stumbling, she tried to get used to the awful shoes, wincing every time they slapped against her feet. She’d seen flip flops on the television, but found them dreadfully painful between her toes. The jeans were the only thing she liked. They were surprisingly comfortable and warm.

Morgaine reached the road and shivered. How the hell was she supposed to get to London from Tintagel? From experience, she knew it would take days if she was forced to walk, and with no money, she’d be sleeping outside. She was safe enough in the countryside. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d slept under the stars. The urban jungle of London would present its own dangers, and without her magic, she was as vulnerable as a human.

As if on cue, her stomach rumbled. Grimacing, she laid a hand across her abdomen as she experienced hunger for the first time in over a century. A massive conveyance blared its horn as it sped within inches of her chest, buffeting her with the wind of its passage. She leaped back, tumbling into the muddy ditch behind her. Furious tears welled in her eyes and she screamed as she pounded her fists against the muddy earth.

The truck came to a stop several yards ahead and she heard footsteps approach. Torn between beating the blighter with a stick and asking him for help, she looked up into the dark, twinkling eyes of a Roma peddler. Though handsome, his hair was unkempt, as was his shaggy beard, and he wore a threadbare jacket over faded jeans and a flannel shirt. Dusty boots covered his feet, the leather worn through in a few places. Gritting her teeth, she realized he was better dressed for the weather than she was.

“Morgaine le Fay, as I live and breathe.”

“What do you want? Come to see my humiliation?”

“Well, actually, yes.” He held out a hand and pulled her to her feet. “It’s more than worth a trip to the train station to see you crawling in a ditch.”

“What do you want in exchange for a lift?” she asked. She tried to be polite, but wanted to blast him into atoms with her magic. Unfortunately, she didn’t have enough to light a match, much less extricate herself from this untenable situation.

“Not a thing,” he said, his straight, white teeth flashing as he grinned and pointed at the open bed pickup truck that had nearly hit her. It was red, aged like it had been left to rust for too long. Still running, the motor sputtered and choked, sounding like an old man with coal miner’s cough.

He led her to the vehicle and helped her into the exposed cargo area, then tossed a dusty wool blanket after her that smelled appallingly like sheep. “I already have a passenger, so I’m afraid you’ll have to ride in the back. Have a seat near the cab and make yourself comfortable.”

Whilst this was perhaps the most ignoble method of travel, and quite possibly illegal, Morgaine didn’t have another choice. She wrapped herself in the smelly blanket and curled up near the wall dividing the cab from the bed. A dog barked, and she looked up into the face of a mixed breed hound poking his head through the rear window of the cab.

For pity’s sake! She’d been usurped by a dog. She lowered her head to her knees, knowing her humiliation was complete. She tried not to imagine it, but she knew Omer and Sena were watching her descent into abject poverty and laughing their fool heads off.

Not for the first time, Morgaine wished she’d never heard of either caste of Sidhe. They were far more trouble than they were worth. She planned to kick Myrddin in his knee for introducing her to them. She’d already kicked herself for thinking it was a good idea all those centuries ago.

Twenty minutes later, the Roma parked his truck in front of a small station where an odd-looking train waited. Clutching her bag to her chest, she said,” I might as well walk. I don’t have a ticket.”

His face softened and he took her arm to lead her forward. “Come on then. I’ll pay for it.”

Morgaine stopped, her feet skidding in the slippery sandals. “In exchange for what?” she demanded.

He looked over her head and smiled at something behind her. “Let’s just say I’m paying a kindness forward. All you have to do in return is be kind to someone else.”

“When did good deeds become coin of the realm?”

“They aren’t. They just make you feel good.” He leveled a beady stare at her, and added, “Perhaps you ought to try generosity instead of being such a bitch.”

“How dare you!” Her fingers itched to hurt him. Just one tiny shot of her magic would have him writhing on the ground at her feet.

“I’m not the one who’s destitute,” he retorted. “Come along. Your train is leaving in a few minutes.”

He bought her a ticket by swiping a card through the reader of an automated kiosk. She rather liked that. If she was ever in a position to have such a card, she could conduct her affairs without having to talk to people.

Hustling her forward, he led her to the door of the train and handed her the printed paper. With a tip of his cap, he said, “Safe travels, Morgaine. Try not to get killed before you redeem yourself.”

Without another word, he walked away. Morgaine hefted her satchel and stepped on the train. It took her a few moments to find her seat, squeezed between a snoring man and an elderly lady with a pile of knitting in her lap. The man didn’t wake, thankfully. The old woman spoke enough for three people as the train hurtled them toward London.

To Morgaine’s surprise, the old woman’s prattling took her mind off her upcoming meeting with Myrddin and Lily. It was bound to be unpleasant, and unless Omer had told them she was coming, they’d likely kill her before she got a chance to speak.

Of course, that would solve all her problems with the Archer clan, but Morgaine refused to contemplate that solution.

It was one thing to have seen the growth of London from satellite images, and quite another to experience it. Gone were the estates and homes of the wealthy. The fertile parkland and farms that had surrounded London were now packed full of shopping centers and homes squeezed so closely together that she thought she might be in Cheapside.

She’d tried to steel herself for the experience, but nothing prepared her for the noise and sheer number of people. As she walked towards the airport terminal, she clutched her bag to her chest, her belly roiling at the sight and scent of so many people. How could they all live in such a small area?

Tears pricked her eyes as she thought about the village of her birth, so small it hadn’t had a name. It had been so peaceful and perfect, and she missed it terribly. Although she’d taken steps to keep people out, it had been one of the many things Omer had refused to let her see. She prayed it didn’t look like London. Shaking away her despondent thoughts along with her fear, she looked at the logo on her ticket and found the same sign hanging on the wall, then joined the queue.

When she reached the clerk behind the tall desk, she handed over her ticket and the passport, hoping Omer hadn’t made any mistakes. Wrinkling her nose, the woman sniffed and handed Morgaine another stack of papers, stapled together.

Her face set in an expression of distaste, the woman peered over Morgaine’s shoulder and said, “Next?”

Morgaine seethed with a mixture of humiliation and fury as she moved out of line and people stepped away from the smell emanating from her. It was mortifying, yet she was glad for the bit of extra space provided by the unfortunate odors.

There was one benefit to having nothing to her name. There was no luggage for her to check, nor did security make her remove the collar. Not that she could have, of course, but it was as if they never saw it. She took off her rubber flip flops, putting them in the bin with her satchel before walking through the metal detector, passport and ticket in hand.

She glanced at the time and stepped into the washroom, hoping to find enough soap to dispel the distressing odor of sheep.

Too soon, and not soon enough, she was allowed to board the aircraft that would take her across the Atlantic Ocean in approximately eleven hours. Though she’d seen air travel on the television and internet, and understood it on an academic level, the thought of hurtling through the sky at such a speed was unfathomable.

Morgaine settled into her seat next to a young mother with a fussy toddler on one side, and a tired-looking man with a laptop on the other. As the plane left the ground, she tried to control her terror at the noise. It was like the roar of some great beast, hungry for prey. Gritting her teeth, she clutched at the armrests and closed her eyes as her belly tumbled into her shoes. She refused to show fear to anyone, much less to humans.

When the plane landed in America, it was all she could do to stop herself from kissing the ground. She’d never understand why so many people thought plane travel was an acceptable means of transport. Carefully following the instructions provided by multiple signs, she endured customs and immigration, following the crush of people making their way toward the exits.

Unfortunately, she had no idea where to find Lily and Myrddin. If she’d had a phone or her laptop, she might have tried looking them up, but it was unlikely they’d be listed in a directory—even if she knew what name they used. Liveried drivers waited with handwritten signs bearing names of other passengers. She gritted her teeth at the momentary stab of jealous anger that one of them wasn’t hers.

If she had her magic, they would fight each other for the privilege of serving her. She didn’t, though, and it was time to figure things out on her own.

As she walked toward the double doors leading outside, she saw a Sikh man in a yellow turban holding a sign with her false surname written in large black letters. Veering toward him, she stumbled through the crowd until she reached him. “Excuse me,” she panted. “Are you waiting for Morgaine Fenton?”

His breath stinking of garlic, he grinned and lowered his sign. “Yes! Yes! Come, I take you now.”

Sighing in relief mixed with trepidation, she followed him to a dilapidated yellow automobile, silently thanking Omer and Sena. If they hadn’t eased her passage, she’d have likely never been able to find Lily and Myrddin. Even if it wasn’t her preferred style of travel, it was better than walking.

The rear passenger door creaked, groaning mightily as he opened it. Morgaine slid into the vehicle, her bottom catching on the cracks in the imitation leather upholstery. The vehicle reeked of body odor, garlic, and other things that Morgaine didn’t want to identify.

The driver climbed in and buckled the safety belt around his shoulders and hips. With much swearing in a language she didn’t understand, he darted into traffic, barely missing a bus and several other cars. Morgaine closed her eyes and prayed, even though she had no idea who might be listening.

A large sign warned of construction as the driver sped down a massive highway, darting in and out of three lanes of traffic as if he had a death wish. Horns blared as the drivers jostled for space. Their vehicle darted to the shoulder and passed several cars. She shook her head and looked down at the cracks in her seat. Some things were best left unknown.

“Where are we going?” she shouted.

“Central Park West, ma’am! You get there faster than any other driver, and give me a good tip, yes?”

It was more likely she’d tip him on his arse for the appalling trip. She bit her lip as the cab stopped in front of a beautiful Art Deco tower facing a large park.

A long black car idled in front of them, its driver standing at attention as Lily and her husbands walked out of the building. Morgaine’s hands shook as she opened the door and stepped from the vehicle, trying to hide her shock at the sight of them.

She had a few moments to catalogue the changes in the woman she’d been determined to kill. Lily was beautiful, plumper than Morgaine remembered. Marriage with her husbands obviously suited her, and she looked happy and well-satisfied with her lot in life. Moses wore a dark suit, his face stern and unsmiling unless he was looking at his wife or husbands. Liam was ever youthful and cheerful, and grinned as he pinched Lily’s backside.

Morgaine’s old friend and nemesis, Myrddin, was unchanged. Well, truly, he looked like he had during the fade of the Roman empire. The long, beaded braids and black leather suited him much better than the trappings of a pampered British noble.

Ignoring the driver, she stepped from the cab and stood in front of Myrddin and his family. Lily snarled, her lips parting as she bared her teeth. A wave of heat struck Morgaine and she stumbled, her breath coming in short bursts of air as she tried to adjust to the sudden weakness that came whenever Lily used magic. It was infuriating that Lily could steal her magic when she couldn’t use it herself.

Scales glittered on Lily’s cheeks and the air around her grew hotter with dragon flame. This meeting was not going to end well.