“Hey. We’re heading to dinner. Want to join?”
I shook my head. “I need to finish this essay, and it’s taking forever. Bring me back something, will you? Lasagna, if they have it?”
Eva nodded, and they left. I resumed trying to focus on my essay, but after a few minutes, the sound of yelling from outside caught my ear. I peeked out the window.
Diana and Thor ran about the academy lawn, practicing battle magic. As I watched, my eyes widened. Thor, as his name would suggest, was a massive guy with the makings of a true warrior.
And Diana was kicking his ass.
She’s become even more aggressive.I cringed at the thought.
As the calendar on my wall reminded me every single day, we were less than two months from the Beltane Trial. The trial that would determine our rank and missions during the Grind year, as well as prospects for summer internships. I knew I should be practicing battle magic more, but our homework load had become so great that I often found myself having to work super hard to balance the practical side of magic with the academic side of spycraft, governmental machinations, and history.
I’d set my pen to paper and began to write once more, when another knock came on my door. Throwing the pen down on the desk, I pushed my chair back and gripped the sides of my head with my hands.
“Come in,” I said, annoyance clear in my voice.
Alex burst through the door. His blue eyes glinted with a wildness that I’d never seen before, and his glasses had gone crooked, probably from the sweat dripping down his forehead.
I shot out of my seat. “Alex! Are you okay?”
“What? I’m fine. I just have something to show you.” He looked at the mess on my desk, which I normally kept neat. “Am I interrupting something important?”
“Don’t even worry about it.” I eyed the book in his hands and swept the papers aside. “Here.”
I gestured for him to set the book down, which he did with the reverence that he showed every tome. Then he flipped the book open and turned straight to a marked page.
“I found something in the library. Something about Merlin.”
It took everything I had to not roll my eyes. “I told you, Alex, I—”
“I know all I had was guesswork before, but this is different.”
My mouth snapped shut. Alex never interrupted me; he always treated me with the utmost respect and consideration. It was that more than his tone or the frantic look in his eyes that shut me up.
“I’m all ears.” I perched on the edge of my bed and folded my hands in my lap.
Alex gave me a grateful look, before continuing. “I’ve been reading this book for a while. There’s a lot of Arthurian legend in it, and tall tales about Merlin. But today, I stumbled across something intriguing that I think might actually be true. Let me read it to you.”
When I didn’t respond, he continued. “‘Merlin, the famed wizard of King Arthur’s court, lived a long and varied life, of which there are many tales. He’s said to have transformed lives and performed miracles, but like most celebrated men, he did not do so alone. Merlin had disciples, pupils—many of them nearly as powerful as he. But one, Morgan Le Fay, King Arthur’s half-sister and a famed witch, was the pupil Merlin revered above all others. Morgan was young and beautiful and skilled in the magical arts. She was Merlin’s protégé, and as rumor has it, his lover.’”
I listened with interest. Of course I’d heard about both Merlin and Morgan Le Fay, although I knew little of either. I’d often stopped to gaze at their portraits in the halls of Spellcasters, especially Morgan’s because she was so striking. But most of my knowledge on the pair came from a Disney cartoon that my mom loved.
Alex went on reading for at least two pages, speaking of the trials and tribulations that Morgan and Merlin had undergone together. How they had shaped the world and made it a better place. The more he read, the more enchanted I was by the tale.
Then he stopped. “Odie, can you come here?”
“Is that it?” I was filled with sadness that the story was over.
“There’s a lot more,” Alex said. “You can read it later, but I want you to see something important first.”
I hopped off the bed and stood by my boyfriend. “Okay, show me.”
Alex turned the page, and an image illuminated with colored ink was revealed. It was of a man and a woman, working magic together, the vortexes of energy swirling between them. The caption identified those people as Merlin and Morgan.
“Do you see anything spectacular about this image?” Alex asked.
My eyebrows knit together. Anything spectacular? To me, the imagedefinedspectacular. Though the artist rendered it in common paper and ink, it was almost like looking at a photograph.
