Which meant it was almost time.
“Ready,” I whispered back, licking my lips. Trepidation surged in my throat as he unfolded the mantle and shook it out, my stomach twisting with irrational qualms. What if it didn’t work? What if the mantle felt the way my magic had guttered since I’d been gone, and rejected me as Arbiter? What if—
Then the fabric settled lightly over my shoulders—and its spell ignited, burning out every last trace of nerves.
A sudden wind kicked up around me, swirling around my feet. It built upon itself, gaining in intensity until the Grimoire’s pages fluttered wildly in the gale like thrashing wings. A swell of magic thundered through me until I felt as though I were expanding, growing like the giant beanstalk in the tale, rushing up and up into the sky. Soon I loomed above the peaked roofs, turreted towers, and widow’s walks of the Avramovs’ manse, its wolf-and-serpent weather vanes whirling in the gusts of wind. I was somehow so tall that I could see Lady’s Lake glimmering atop Hallows Hill to the west, could even spot the glowing storefronts and the milling streams of tourists coursing down Yarrow Street toward the east.
Whooooa, I marveled giddily to myself, high on the magical equivalent of heroin. The mantle’s magic was immeasurably stronger than any spell I’d managed on my own before, and it felt nothing short of fucking spectacular.
Did not expect the Galadriel-puts-on-the-Ring effect, but must admit it is absurdly cool.
Amid the dizzying euphoria, I found that words had appeared on the page of incantations, emblazoned in a glowing script. And even though I felt miles high—and maybe even looked it in some way, judging by the stunned expressions in the crowd—the Grimoire was still exactly where it had been before, right within reach of my fingertips.
“Elder Igraine, matriarch of House Blackmoore,” I boomed, in a knelling cadence that sounded like some behemoth orchestra playing my voice, “Victor of the sixth Gauntlet of the Grove. Your time now comes to cede the wreath.”
A figure peeled away from the shadowy mass of people that seemed impossibly far below me. But I could see Gareth’s grandmother perfectly well as she approached, the silver wreath perched on a chignon of ice-blond hair. She really did look no older than when I’d left Thistle Grove, and even then she’d seemed uncannily youthful, just as Talia had said; her skin porcelain pale and smooth, a stern cast to her patrician face.
She took off the wreath and set it on the table in front of the Grimoire, giving me a grudgingly respectful dip of the head. But I could see the challenge blaze to life in her pale blue eyes, the way her hand lingered on the circlet before she withdrew.
As if she was saying, Don’t get too attached, my girl. Me and mine will be having this back.
Rebellion surged up in my throat, a revolt so hostile and potent it almost felt like it hadn’t come entirely from me. No, ma’am, you won’t, I thought back at her. Not if I have any say in it.
As Igraine rejoined the throng, I slid my fingers down the page, where more words had resolved. “I call now upon the combatants of the seventh Gauntlet of the Grove. Scions of Houses Blackmoore, Thorn, and Avramov . . . you may approach.”
The three of them stepped out from the crowd’s lip, moving to stand in front of me. Gareth wore a pair of titanium vambraces like some kind of modern knight errant, and flowing robes in the family’s traditional onyx and gold. Allegedly the colors of Morgan le Fay herself, though it was beyond me how the Blackmoores might know the favorite colors of an Arthurian sorceress who’d lived a thousand years ago, if she’d ever lived at all. I guess they figured what the hell; not like there was anyone around to prove them wrong.
Gareth must have known that it would be me, but the sickening recognition on his face as the pieces fell fully into place—Arbiter Harlow, Emmeline Harlow, the “new” girl from the Shamrock Cauldron—was immensely satisfying all the same.
Next to Gareth, Rowan Thorn stood swathed in a druid’s moss green and brown hooded cloak, holding a hazelwood staff in one strong hand, a tiny wren perched on its tip. He was much taller, broader across the shoulders, and even more handsome than I remembered, with his hair in waist-length locs and a sprinkling of freckles across the wide bridge of his nose. He shot me a closed-lipped smile, his hazel eyes warm as he tipped the tiniest of winks, as if to say, It’s on.
And then there was Talia.
Her cowl was pushed back, hair twisted away from her face and piled on her head in a gleaming mass. Under a mulberry cape, she wore a bell-sleeved charcoal kirtle with a plunging neckline; the Avramov garnet winked in the hollow of her throat, above the silver corvid skull pendant that nestled against her cleavage. She was all strong jaw and winging cheekbones in the firelight, her eyes ghostly pale against the shadows that played across her face.