The Black Rose by James Bartholomeusz

Author:James Bartholomeusz
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy, Young Adult
ISBN: 9781605426426
Publisher: Medallion Press
Published: 2011-12-31T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter XVIII

the path to nexus

Jack was listless for the rest of the day. He wasn’t afflicted by even one of the emotions he thought he should be feeling: shock at Bál’s disappearance into the Darkness, anger for the destruction of the forest, hatred for the Cult, savage pleasure at Nimue’s suffering, guilt at Lucy’s predicament. It was as if all of them were attempting to cram into his mind at once and had halted each other in the process. Above all, he felt tired: in the wake of the day’s events, the rest he had managed to recoup aboard The Golden Turtle seemed to have dispersed.

Sardâr and Ruth kept their distance from each other and from him, all taking turns pacing, attempting to sleep, or engaging the fairies in conversation. Jack supposed they must be thinking hard about what to do and within a few hours would have their next move planned out to the tiniest detail. He couldn’t even begin to think beyond sleep, and yet whenever he lay down he found himself restless.

The fairies had spent several hours deliberating what to do with the remaining Cultists, during which time the sorcerers were held, incapacitated, by various trees and shrubs. Despite their part in the battle, the fairies were resolute in their pacifism.

Eventually, after ungagging and negotiating with a cruel-looking but obviously intimidated follower of Nimue, the fairies agreed that the Cultists would remain imprisoned in the commune until a given time after the Apollonians’ departure, when they would be allowed to go free and return to Nexus. Sardâr had begun to interrogate a Cultist but was obviously too ashamed to extract information by force. It quickly became clear that there was nothing to be got out of them.

As the sun dropped below the tree line and darkness fell, Jack went to sit up against a birch at the edge of the glade. Dannie was a few feet away, engaged in lively conversation with several fairies. The fairies seemed utterly unfazed by the trauma of the sorcerous attack. But then, despite the damage to the forest, they had not sustained a single injury among them. Dannie, unlike the other visitors, had also seemed to bounce back immediately.

That made Jack smile slightly. He really liked Dannie. She was fun to be around and always friendly. He hoped she’d come with them and join the Apollonians, not that he knew where they’d next be going.

He closed his eyes and tried to sleep again. An owl welcomed the night somewhere in the trees behind him. The breeze rustled the leaves slightly. Like Dannie and the fairies, the forest seemed to have recovered remarkably quickly from the Cult attack. He could hear the interplay of Welsh and Cockney accents drifting past him on the night air.

“…so what’s the deal with this place? How come we never hear of you down in Albion?”

“We’ve never had very good relations with your sort. There were several hundred years where our people and yours vied for control of the land: our Republic of Avalon against your Kingdom of Albion.

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