The Hunter's Prey (The Fay Morgan Chronicles Book 5) Read Online Free Page A

was equidistant between our faces. “ Wyneb cudd,” I murmured.
    Fingers of magic uncurled from the pink crystal and reached for our faces. Where they touched, I felt my nose grow. My cheeks widened. I watched Merlin and saw his chin grow longer and his forehead flatten. The spell would wear off within the hour, but for now, we did not look like ourselves, which might be necessary. When the spent spell was finished, I dropped the quartz on the ground.
    “Nicely done.” Merlin ran a finger across my cheek. “Shall we?”
    We walked forward and through the silver dome Merlin’s magic had revealed. Everything changed on the other side of it.

 
     
     
     
     
    4
    Hissing Peacocks
    The empty lot dropped away in a dizzying moment as the illusion disappeared and a new reality took its place. The golden pieces pressed to my fingertips dropped off as well. I glanced down and saw a pile of other gold pins littering the green grass we stood upon. We weren’t the first ones to have found this spot.
    Gone were the convincing weeds and vines, and in its place was the kind of regimented English tea garden that I'd always detested. Hedges sat in the shape of precise squares. Rows of perfect roses and climbing wisteria covered gazebos, with nary a stray leaf or blossom anywhere. An orange tree sat sculpted to within an inch of its life to resemble a mourning dove. The garden was the opposite of a witch’s garden, which was full of useful herbs and hearty weeds that were just as valued as the reddest rose.
    A bored peacock strutted by, dragging his overlong bruised purple plumage through the short and perfectly green grass. He stopped to hiss at us.
    A pea gravel path led downhill to the open doors of a small and opulent palace lying at the very center of the gardens. It was made of a pure-white marble that dazzled in the mid-day sun, and was topped with three golden onion domes that sat on top of carved columns in the shapes of voluptuous women stretching upward. The palace bespoke of wealth, of course, but also someone with impeccable tastes. In my experience, the wealthy tended to have awful aesthetics, for who among their servants and sycophants would ever mention how glaringly tacky their portraits were? Whoever owned this palace, whoever called this hunt, intrigued me.
    “You smell that?” Merlin asked.
    I inhaled citrus scents and the lush scent of cut grass. And then, something darker, underneath. A lot of somethings. The same magical scents we’d smelled before. “They’re inside?” I whispered.
    Merlin nodded. “I believe so. Lots of unders with darkness wrapped round their souls.”
    I raised an eyebrow. “Then we should fit in quite nicely with trouble and all her friends. Let us keep in mind that we can always leave. That whatever is inside is not our primary concern.”
    Merlin caught my eye and nodded. “Of course. Now shall we, Madame Tintagel?” He invoked an old name, an old place and castle, and with it came memories.
----
    It had been a warm day, and we’d ridden two black horses to Tintagel, a fortified castle often under siege and surrounded by the muck and tragedy of war. But not on this spring day that held the scent of honeysuckle and sea salt on the wind. We unpacked our picnic in sight of that castle and the craggy rocks that led to a tumultuous ocean.
    We were newly acquainted, Merlin and I, which was to say though we had battled each other for decades, we had just set aside our mission to destroy each other and had instead become lovers.
    I studied him, not sure who he was now that he was not the wizard at the end of some muddy field muttering and throwing spells at me. Not sure what to say now that we weren’t in the ecstatic moments that we’d so easily and often fallen into in the last four days.
    What did he think of me? I didn’t like how important the answer to that question was for me, and I would not stoop so low as to ask him. But what if this small and fragile thing so newly