Page 75 of For the Love of the Quest

“Neither are you.” Edith dropped her forehead against Thomasin’s. “But if we have no choice, then let’s have no choice together.”

Thomasin tilted her chin. Their lips were breaths apart. Just as she was about to surrender, about to close that cursed gap, a burstof light illuminated Edith’s face. For a mad second, Thomasin thought she had imagined it. But Edith’s eyes widened, and Thomasin knew she was seeing it too.

That single orange glow had suddenly been replaced by a beaming white inferno that flooded the room with light and had the crystals sparkling like stars. Thomasin pulled back, her eyes drawn to the source.

Upon the pedestal, where there had once been a single torch, there was now a floating orb of brilliant light. It was impossible, and yet there it was before her very eyes. As if entranced, both women rose to their feet and moved toward the pedestal.

Thomasin ghosted her fingers around the fuzzy edges of the glow, but jerked her hand away when her fingertips met with scorching heat. Edith stared into the center of it, awestruck. There was nothing Thomasin could say that would make even the slightest sense, and so they watched in silence as eventually the light began to fade, and the orb flickered and shrunk into nothing.

A shocked, euphoric laugh escaped from deep within Thomasin’s chest.

The orb was gone, but so was the torch.

Sitting at the center of the pedestal was a gear. It was polished and pure white.

“A sacrifice made for love,” Edith murmured. “To enter Avalon, you must no longer fear death.”

Thomasin lifted the gear from the pedestal and handed it to Edith. She held it in her hands like it was a holy object as she approached the door that had prematurely ended their quest.

Right there, just above the spoked wheel at the center of the door, was the empty space amid the intricate patchwork of gears. Edith lifted the gear to the door, and it slotted in just right, the teeth locking into place with the other gears.

Edith closed her hand around the center wheel, then looked at Thomasin. “Together,” she said, nodding her head toward the door.

Thomasin came up beside her. She took hold of the wheel, the tip of her thumb grazing Edith’s hand.

Together, they spun the handle, and with a great groaning sigh, the door swung open. Thomasin could see only shadows beyond the threshold, but they had grown accustomed to charging headfirst into the dark.

Thomasin and Edith wove their fingers together and walked through the gates of Avalon.

When her foot passed over the threshold, she became aware of only two things. First, a blinding light. And second, by the time Thomasin’s feet found solid ground on the other side, every single one of her injuries had been completely, utterly healed.

Chapter Thirty-One

Edith did not know what to take in first. That Thomasin stood next to her, free of bruises and broken skin, and that the sharp sting across her own neck had vanished. That they were no longer in a cave, but in a glen that glittered with dew and smelled of wildflowers. That it was no longer night, but the most glorious morning, with golden sunlight raining down on them.

Her first thought was that she had somehow smoked hash again, and this time entirely too much. There were actual treasure chests strewn around the glen, and beautiful, ancient artifacts lying around, pillowed by lush, tall grass. She spotted a shield emblazoned with a red-and-gold lion, a cauldron filled with a murky purple goo that bubbled and sizzled, a finely woven basket, a drinking horn, a chessboard with the pieces moving about as if they were being played by invisible hands.

And at the center of it all was a cerulean lake, the waters still and crystalline.

“Holy shit, Edith,” Thomasin said, her voice strangely echoey in the open space. Before the lake, there was a gilded sarcophagus with a marble statue of a crowned man lying atop it.

Edith couldn’t summon a response. She just nodded dumbly and took a step forward. When her boot landed softly in the grass, a tremor shook through the glen. Her heart stuttered as the waters of the lake began to ripple. Little waves radiating out that grew larger by the second until the center of the lake became a whirlpool of frothing white water.

A gleaming silver sword pierced the churning surface.

The blade continued to emerge from the water, pointing straight up at the sky. There was a pale hand wrapped around the jeweled hilt, the red rubies glowing in the sun.

A woman rose from the depths, Excalibur wielded aloft above her head.

Edith stared, mouth agape, heart racing. The ethereal woman floated above the surface of the lake, her bare toes dipping into the water. Her features were too sharp to be beautiful, and yet she was striking. Ghostly white skin, black hair that fanned out in a halo around her head, strands dancing on a nonexistent breeze. Long, willowy limbs draped in a golden dress that shimmered and flowed down her tall frame. A thin nose that was slightly crooked and wide eyes that narrowed down at them beneath a strong brow. Despite the impossibility of this floating woman, she seemed strangely human. There was a scar slashing across her lower lip, and freckles dusting her cheeks.

But when she spoke, any illusion of humanness drifted away. Her voice cut the air like glass. Edith felt each word vibrating underneath her skin. “Welcome to Avalon, travelers.”

Edith couldn’t get her mouth to work. Fortunately for her, Thomasin still seemed to be at least somewhat functioning. “What is … who are … what’s happening?”

“I am the Lady of the Lake.” She said it like she wasn’t a fairy tale, like she wasn’t everything Edith had ever dreamed of.

“Are you shitting me?” Thomasin blurted, which jolted enough sense into Edith for her to shoot Thomasin a reproachful look. Then, Edith curtsied, deeper than she ever had before. Honestly, she probably looked ridiculous. Definitely did, if she was judging by the confused, but equally amused expression on Thomasin’s face. Edith widened her eyes, jerking her head in the direction of the ground. Thomasin got the hint and offered a half-hearted curtsy of her own.