“It’s not a thing any of us choose,” I continued. “That’s what I want you to understand: it’s not a weakness, and it’s not a failing. It’s simply the nature of water. It finds every crack, it gets into everything, and it doesn’t stop.” I held his gaze. “None of you will stop in your need for her. Not you, not Kay, not Lance, not Arthur, not that wretched dreamwalker. Not even me. The desire that lives in the call of deep water doesn’t release you, not until you meet your end.”
“You can be a very dour woman, Morgan le Fay.”
I looked at him. “Truth is a dour subject, Corvin of Blackhollow.”
He was quiet for a few seconds, and in those seconds, I could see his brain working.
“She wanted Lance even though he’s her enemy,” he said, and I had to admit I wasn’t surprised he was still stuck onthe subject known as ‘Lance fucked the woman you’re in love with.’ Clearly, Corvin was working through it methodically, the way he’d work through a tactical problem. “Even knowing her mission, she chose to give her body to him, someone she should have hated.”
“Hate is a very abstract word.”
He gave me a face. “That tells me something about her.”
“It tells you she’s human, which you apparently need reminding of.”
There was something sharp in his expression now. “Why tell me all this?”
I smoothed a non-existent wrinkle from my sleeve. “Because now it gives you the excuse you always needed.”
He frowned. “What excuse?”
“You always held yourself back where she was concerned, for whatever reason you gave yourself. Now you no longer have those reasons. So, when you free her, which you inevitably will since you’re The Ghost of Blackhollow, you shouldn’t wait.”
“Shouldn’t wait for what?”
I smiled. “The second you have her alone, you should bury your cock as deeply inside her tight little cunt as you can and claim her in a way that perhaps Lance never did or never could.”
He looked at me then. “You are the strangest woman I’ve ever met.”
“I take that as a compliment.”
His mouth curved just slightly. The dimple in his chin appeared and vanished in the same breath. “You should.”
“And... it’s worth telling you I don’t hold grudges.”
“Against?”
I smiled. “Men who turn me down. If you should decide you’d like to fuck me after all, I shall be staying in Caer Gwyll’s southern tower this evening, though you might have to contend with Vaelen for the privilege.”
He laughed. It was a short, quiet thing, but it was real, and it moved through the dark courtyard like a small warm light. Then it faded, and he was looking toward the castle walls again, toward whatever direction his mind placed Camelot, and the humor fell away from his face, leaving something I recognized.
Resolve. The particular, devastating resolve of a person who’s decided to love someone at a cost they’ve already calculated and accepted anyway.
I’d worn that expression once, a long time ago, before I’d learned what it earned you.
“Go get her out,” I said quietly.
He nodded once.
“And Corvin.” He glanced back. “When you find her...” I paused. “Don’t make her explain herself. She doesn’t owe you that either.”
The night held very still around us.
“I’ve always seen something in you, Morgan,” he said, his voice low and unhurried, the kind of voice a man uses when he’s decided to be honest and sees no point in dressing it up. “Every knight in every court has been warned against you at one point or another. Advisors, priests, men who know better than to trust a beautiful mouth.” A beat. “Yet, I never wanted to listen to any of them.”
“That’s not insight on your part.” I kept my voice light, almost idle, the way one discusses the weather. “It’s simply the shadows in you recognizing the shadows in me.”
He didn’t nod, but he didn’t look away either. He just looked at me the way men rarely do: not at the beauty of my face or the cut of my gown but at whatever lived further back than both. “Or perhaps it’s something far deeper than shadows.” The pause that followed had weight to it. “Whatever stories have been told about you, and I’ve heard a great many, I don’t believe them.”
