Page 18 of For the Love of the Quest

“Is that it?” Thomasin pointed a finger at the parchment. “Where’s the treasure?”

“About that,” Edith said haltingly. “The treasure isn’t actuallyhere.This is just the next clue.”

“What do you mean, ‘clue’?” Thomasin ground out. Edith’s eyes darted frantically around the room. She tried to sidestep, but Thomasin blocked her path. “Edith, did you know there would be no treasure here?”

“I never lied!” Edith insisted, her shoulders curling in.

“Well you sure as fuck didn’t tell the truth.” In the back of her mind, Thomasin knew it was beyond hypocritical to be mad at Edith for lying, but she couldn’t help it. Edith’s sincerity had completely blinded her. She had thought Edith was wrong about the existence of the treasure, but she had never once doubted that Edith believed what she was saying. Thomasin never considered that Edith might be lying to her, and that made her feel like the worst kind of fool.

“I said thepathto Avalon began here, not that Avalon itself was here. And that’s true! The path to the treasure does start here, with this first clue.” She waved the parchment in Thomasin’s face. “The treasure is still all yours! It’s just going to take longer than you thought to get to it.”

“You know what, I’ve got a treasure already,” Thomasin said in a slow, menacing drawl.

“What?” Edith’s brow dropped into a straight line as Thomasin brushed past her. She could feel Edith following close behind as she charged toward the marble basin.

“Who needs Arthur’s treasure when I’ve got a handful of gold right here?” Thomasin reached into the basin and shoved her fingers in the drain.

Edith tried to push Thomasin away from the basin, but she didn’t budge an inch. “You have to leave them. You have to surrender your greed!”

“Absolutely not. If there’s no treasure, then I’m sure as hell not leaving behind handfuls of gold.”

“You can’t,” Edith cried, pulling on Thomasin’s arm.

She yanked away from her grip and drew her thinnest dagger from the strap on the inside of her forearm. She angled the blade into the drain and scraped around, hoping to hit a gold coin with the tip. She didn’t know how deep it went, but it was proven to be worth the try when she was able to get the point of her blade wedged beneath a coin. Carefully, she dragged the coin up the side of the pipe.

Thomasin palmed the coin triumphantly and then was tackled to the ground.

“What the fuck,” she growled. Edith was lying half on top of her. Thomasin tried to elbow her off but froze at Edith’s sharp gasp of pain. Thomasin craned her head to look at her. Edith’s face was paler than usual. She grimaced in pain, and Thomasin followed her line of sight to see an ancient-looking arrow sticking out of Edith’s shoulder, just below her collarbone.

“Booby traps,” Edith whimpered hoarsely.

Thomasin firmly, but gently, extricated herself from beneath Edith’s tense body. With an arm wrapped around her waist, she helped Edith to lie flat on the ground. Edith gasped in pain when her arm touched the stone floor.

Thomasin kneeled over her, right next to the wound, examining it closely. The arrow, likely blunted by time, hadn’t gone all the way through. She had no idea what kind of damage she would bedoing if she tore it out. But she also couldn’t leave it in. Thomasin delayed that decision by ripping wider the hole the arrow had torn through Edith’s shirt.

“No,” Edith groaned.

Thomasin froze, pulling her hands back immediately. “Did I hurt you?”

“My adventuring outfit,” Edith moaned. “It’s ruined.”

Thomasin sighed and gave her hand a firm squeeze. “I’ll find you a new one.”

Edith’s skin was bright red where the arrow had pierced her. A mottled purple bruise was already radiating beyond the wound. Thomasin needed to clean it before infection set in, but she couldn’t do that with the arrow still inside.

“Alright, there’s nothing for it,” Thomasin said. “I have to pull it out.”

“It’s going to hurt, isn’t it?”

Thomasin wiped the beads of sweat from Edith’s forehead. She leaned over her, looking her dead in the eyes with an expression that she hoped was somewhere between comforting and commanding. “Yes. But it’ll be quick.”

Tears escaped Edith’s eyes, trailing down her temples, but she nodded. “Do it.” Her voice was shockingly steady, if a little shrill.

Thomasin wiped her sweaty hands on her thighs and forced them to shop shaking. She had stabbed an uncountable number of people in her lifetime. This was just an un-stabbing. Nothing to get all jittery and nervous about.

With one hand, she held Edith’s shoulder down, prepared for her to buck up against the pain. With the other, she carefully wrapped her fingers around the shaft and—

“Wait, wait, wait!” Edith cried, stopping Thomasin just in time. “If I die—”