Wicked As You Wish (A Hundred Names for Magic #1) - Rin Chupeco Page 0,67

older. He said it might’ve been punishment, or that he’s no longer piggybacking off the Snow Queen’s magic, so he’s aging worse than everyone else.”

Her father was literally an immortal. Or he’d been one. Tala wanted to cry, and laugh, and break something.

“He saved my life too,” Alex said quietly.

Tala stared at him. “You never told me.”

“He didn’t want me to tell you. I think the idea you might somehow learn of his past frightened him more than anything else, even though he knew that was inevitable. I think he was trying to figure out the right way to tell you when…” he made some vague gestures in the air, “…all this happened. My parents trusted him with their lives. I know that it isn’t easy to forgive him for everything else he’s done, but I think that’s a talk both of you should be having once we find the others again. Your father, Tala… He never once asked us for forgiveness. He’s not well-liked in Avalon, but Father’s influence and your mother’s persistence were the only reasons he was tolerated.”

Tala looked up at the darkening sky. She didn’t want a war criminal for a father. But he was the only father she’d ever had. “I don’t know what to think right now.”

“I think your misgivings are completely understandable,” Zoe said carefully. “But I also think this is something we should put aside until we’ve reached safer ground. The firebird’s doing a good job of keeping us warm, but I’m not sure it can do that indefinitely, especially with the cold picking up. Let’s get ourselves to the castle first, then figure things out.”

“You’ve got us around, anyway, and we’ll keep you from trouble,” Ken promised.

Loki, Zoe, and West glanced at each other, then started laughing, the tension partly broken.

“Really, Ken?” Zoe giggled. “You, keep someone else out of trouble? I seem to recall someone being hauled up to the provost’s office on a near-daily basis at charm school. You had to clean out the chamber pots for slipping something into Connor Westfield’s drink.”

“Charm school?”

“The Cerridwen School for Thaumaturgy, but we call it charm school. Sort of an inside joke. That’s where we all met. Iceland’s neutral and has no extradition treaty with the Royal States if it involves Avalon, so they can’t get at us there.”

“Took three hours for Westfield’s nose to return to normal,” Loki agreed. “And then there was replacing half the practice swords in the courtyard with enchanted snakes. I thought they’d make you clean out the stables until you were ninety.”

“Charm school,” Tala repeated, feeling a little jealous. In some other lifetime, she could have been a part of that too.

“I’m hurt by all this lack of trust.” Ken sighed, clutching at his chest like he’d been stabbed. “First of all, Westfield deserved it. Second, if you two were keeping an eye out like you were supposed to”—he shot Loki and West a mock glare—“I would never have been caught.”

Loki rolled their eyes. “Says the guy who literally broke a library today.”

“That was different.”

“How?”

A pause. “I know I have a pretty good explanation for that, once I figure out what it is.”

Zoe groaned. “‘I’m sure they won’t be too much trouble,’ the Cheshire said. ‘I’m certain you are more than capable of handling three people for a couple of days,’ he said…”

“What about him?” Tala asked, craning her head to look back at Cole. For his part, the other boy was quiet, content to trail some distance behind them, ostensibly to keep watch over their rear, though it was obvious his relationship with the others was not that of camaraderie.

“We don’t know him that well,” Ken admitted. “Although his family has a reputation, so to speak. They’ve got property in Avalon and around the mountains bordering Beira too. Some ancestors of theirs were notorious for cheating people out of their lands. Or killing them to get it, then using the bodies for some kind of necromancer magic. Nasty stuff. I mean, look at that scythe of his.”

“Nottingham?” Light dawned. “Wait. You’re not seriously telling me his ancestor was the Sheriff of Nottingham, are you? The one who fought Robin Hood?”

“Robin of Locksley. Like I said, the Nottinghams and Locksleys have been going at it for centuries…Zoe could tell you more about it.”

“Tristan Locksley is Zoe’s fiancé,” West reminded her.

“For the last time,” Zoe’s said, exasperated. “I am not anyone’s fiancée. Doesn’t anyone understand what ‘dating’ means anymore?”

“Nope,” the two boys chorused in gleeful unison. Zoe