Page 121 of Avalon Tower
I stare at him. “Well, she didn’t.” My heart thuds, and the pieces start to slide together in my mind. She and Tana were very worried I’d get kicked out. Tana saw something in her cards, and she knew it was about Raphael.
He straightens and starts unbuttoning his wet shirt. “I can’t say I’m surprised. Wrythe was spreading rumors that you and I were falling in love. He was going to use it as a pretext to get rid of both of us. Viviane tried to convince him that you had notions about me but that it wasn’t reciprocated.”
I arch an eyebrow. “She couldn’t have done it the other way around?”
Raphael grabs a towel and starts to dry himself off. I’m staring at his chest, my pulse racing. The moonlight tinges his muscles with silver and shadow. He towels off his hair. “I was trying to put the rumors to rest. Also, I needed you to be angry. That was in the letters I wrote, too.”
“So you did want me to be angry?” I try to reassemble everything I know. “After all that time telling me to ignore my emotions.”
"Anger wasn’t my first choice.” He freezes, and his silver eyes cut to me. “You refused to let Nivene remove your telepathy, and that meant you needed your anger to pass. It was a risk, but it worked.”
He starts to unbutton his trousers, and I’m tempted to stare. But one of us should be watching the mansion. I stand and cross to the window, picking up the spyglass.
I stare through the lens, trying to focus on Caradoc, but I’m partially thinking about the fact that Raphael is peeling off his wet clothes in the same room with me, and also trying to understand what he’s saying. “Explain yourself. Because it doesn’t matter how clear you made it in the letters if I never read them.”
“I tried to teach you to master your emotions, like I do. To let the creative force take control instead of expending energy on emotions. Anger can burn up magical force. But that’s not how you operate, is it? You spend so much energy telling everyone what you think they want to hear, trying to soothe people and placate them. Analyzing what people want, giving it to them so they stay calm. That’s how you grew up, isn’t it?”
My throat tightens. “Maybe.”
I steal a glance in the glass’s reflection. Raphael is turned away from me, pulling on a dry pair of trousers. My gaze sweeps over his half-naked body.
“When you finally screamed at me and told me what you thought, you let go of worrying about what other people felt, what they needed. You finally stopped wasting energy trying to manage other people’s feelings. Then you had more power for yourself.” He buttons his trousers and turns. “And what a power it was.” In the reflection, I watch him come up behind me. “Were you watching me just now, Nia?” he murmurs.
My pulse races. “No.” I clear my throat. “Fine, yes.”
He presses a hand against the window frame and stares through the window over my shoulder. I can feel the heat radiating off his body. “Getting to know you, I learned we don’t all use magic the same way. You channel the creative force through your emotions, not by blocking them. I remembered reading something Merlin had written about magic, and it didn’t make sense to me. Merlin said he used his emotions, his heartbreak and love and anger, and that made his magic stronger. On our first mission, I saw you disable the entire veil, fueling your power with fear. And your anger at me gave you that explosive magic we saw on your final trial. It’s what let you access a primal power for the first time in over a thousand years, Nia. You’re like the grapes at Douloureuse Garde.”
“I’m like the grapes?”
The corner of his lips curl. “Remember? The vintners would stress them to make them grow. They’d starve them of nutrients or water, and the grapes would grow stronger and enhance the flavor. For you, stress can make your magic thrive.”
I shoot him a sly look. “So, the fact that I thought you were an asshole—that’s what turned me into the next Merlin?”
A wry smile. “I didn’t say ‘next Merlin.’”
“Have I mentioned the Avalon Steel, though?”
“I wonder if Nimuë trapped Merlin in the oak because he wouldn’t stop banging on about his Avalon Steel,” he muses. “But yes. The fact you thought I was, as you say, an asshole, helped you pass the Sentinel test. I must admit, I didn’t anticipate just how angry it would make you.”
“You were very convincing.”
Across the street, the lights flick off in Caradoc’s library.
In the dark, all I can see is the glow of Raphael’s silver eyes.
“Might as well get some sleep while he does,” he says. “You take the bed.”
CHAPTER 42
Itake a bite of the lavender cake, and its sweetness melts on my tongue, with a hint of floral flavor. “Do you want some cake?”
“It’s all yours.” He’s already lying on the floor.
While I eat, I glance out the window again, and my heart skips a beat. Silver Fox is staring right up at me, peering through a spyglass. “Raphael,” I say quietly, “why are Caradoc’s guards spying on us?”
“What?” He leaps to his feet and joins me at the window. “Step back a bit.”
“They can’t see us in the dark, can they?”