Page 140 of Avalon Tower

To my shock, she lets me go and steps back. “Go on, telepath. Before I change my mind and decide that I might actually like being a single child.”

I hurry to Raphael. “Please don’t,” I plead desperately. “Let’s go together. Take her brother with us. She won’t hurt us if we have him hostage.”

“She will,” Raphael says. “It’s true what she said. Auberon will flay her alive if he finds out she had an agent of Camelot in her grasp and let him go. Especially the so-called Guardian of the Lake.”

“No, no, listen.” I lean closer to his ear, whispering. “They don’t know it, but they want me, not you. I’m the Lady of the Lake. I’ll give myself up, and you can get out alive—”

He shakes his head. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Raphael, I swear, it’s me they want—”

“I know that.”

I stare at him, stunned.

“Of course I know that. A single person who can stop Auberon? Of course it’s you. My Lady of the Lake.”

“You know?” I whisper in disbelief.

“Get in the boat. Stay alive. Stop Auberon. Please. For me. End the House of Morgan and keep the Tower safe. Do this. For me.”

I can see that his mind is made up. He won’t get off this pier. I try to find a way for this to be different, but no matter what I think of, it ends with Raphael dead or being captured.

I think of taking control of Raphael’s mind, of making him leave me here and take Maertisa’s brother as a hostage.

But I don’t. I can’t do that to him.

I turn away from him. Throat thick with tears, I get in the boat and switch on the motor. I’ve never sailed a boat myself before. I can hardly stomach being on one. But this boat has simple controls, and I drive away from the pier.

When I look back, Raphael is watching me, his blade still on Vidal’s throat. Maertisa waits patiently a few steps away, her red cloak fluttering in the wind.

My vision swims, and the figures on the pier become blurry as my eyes fill with tears.

CHAPTER 48

Iflee in the little boat along the shoreline until I meet with British Navy ships. I’m picked up, and once I’m verified, I’m supplied with transport to rendezvous with the MI-13 agents who had evacuated Dover.

There’s a war raging in the southeast of England now, and we’re heading back to Camelot to see how we can help them fight the Fey.

We’ve already slowed Auberon’s invasion and saved tens of thousands of civilian lives, but I can’t get my mind off Raphael and what he’s going through right now.

Sunset spreads a rusty mantle across the sky as the sun dips lower over the ocean. We’re at the mouth of the river to Camelot. The river gleams in the coppery light, and the old gibbet sways in the sea wind.

We glide up the river, fog coiling around us, and Camelot comes into view. Raphael should be here with us to see the oaks brushed with fiery shades of autumn, to feel the lure of home calling to us. And that’s what Camelot is now, isn’t it? Home.

When I first arrived, everything looked strange and foreign to me, like something out of a dream. No, not a dream, a fairytale that hardly seemed real, a world I was unprepared for. Now, the old Tudor-style houses and the soaring stone of Avalon Tower bathed in the ever-present mist are familiar and comforting.

Except that now, my home is missing someone very important. Jagged pain pierces me.

I have to get him back. No matter what happens, I will get Raphael back.

I cling to the railing, trying not to throw up as we sail closer to the tower. Maybe the only thing that hasn’t changed about me in the past six months is that I still need to puke every time I sail. And every time I think of Raphael, I feel more nauseated. I lean over the railing, my stomach roiling.

Avalon Tower looms in the distance, the spires rising from the fog. In my mind, Raphael is there, waiting for us on the dock.

But that is a fantasy.

“I remember when you first came here with me.” Tana sidles up and hands me a cup of tea. “You looked so lost.”