I didn’t know what woke me. Maybe Meryl made a noise. Maybe the stone in my head reacted to what was happening. Maybe I sensed the dagger. How didn’t make a difference. What mattered was that I awoke to find Meryl standing beside the bed, the rune dagger clutched in both her hands, ready to plunge it into my head. We stared at each other for a long moment. Her arms trembled, her hands white-knuckled with strain.
In the dark, with the pale silver light of the moon coming through the window, she looked mythic, like a wild goddess intent on a sacrifice. Oddly, I didn’t feel fear. Something told me either she wasn’t going to do it or maybe I was going to let her. In the moment, though, I thought one of us was having a break with reality. The scary part was I didn’t know which.
“Did I leave the seat up again?” I asked.
Meryl dropped her arms, tears welling up in her eyes as she let the dagger fall to the floor. Sobbing, she did a slow pivot and sank to the edge of the bed. I sat up as she covered her face with her hands. Uncertain, I pulled her toward me, hugging her close. She let me but didn’t hold me. I caressed her hair as she cried into my chest. “This is awkward. I appear to be comforting someone who I’m pretty sure was about to stab me to death.”
“That’s not funny,” she said, her voice a strained whisper.
“Am I laughing? I don’t think I’m laughing.”
“I don’t know what to say. Maybe I was sleepwalking?” Meryl said between sobs.
“Well, that would explain the standing-up part, but not the dagger-to-the-head part,” I said.
She pulled away, running her hands through her hair, trying to collect herself. “I don’t know where to begin.”
I slipped off the bed and put my pants on. I didn’t think it was going to be a conversation that made any sense naked or clothed, but given the choice, clothes made more sense. “Were you going to kill me?”
“I think so,” she said.
I checked the windows. Plumes of essence rose from the rooftops. No one moved nearby though I sensed people, guards keeping discreet watch over me. The body signatures were normal, no one powering up essence, no one ready to fight. They assumed an attack would come from outside. “Why?”
She exhaled, the sound of tears and anguish. “It was like a compulsion. I saw myself doing it, and I realized what I was doing, but I couldn’t stop myself. If you hadn’t woken up, I don’t know what would have happened. Does that make any sense?” she asked.
I stared out the window. I remembered back to the night in the leanansidhe’s lair. I had become aware that I was draining Keeva’s life essence, but I didn’t stop right away. I almost killed her. “Yeah, I can understand how that happens.”
“You’re going to do something. Something terrible,” she said.
I pulled my shirt over my head. “Is this something you dreamed?”
She shook her head. “I saw it in the painting. I saw a circle of light with a spot of darkness. The darkness spread until it covered everything, then it faded away, and the canvas went blank. There’s no essence on it at all anymore.”
“Seems a bit cryptic to be killing me over,” I said.
An edge of anger crept into her voice. “I didn’t say that’s why I did what I did. It was a compulsion. The painting is something greater than itself. There’s a connection. I think you’re the darkness, Connor. I think you’re going to do something that spreads the darkness until it covers everything.”
“Let’s talk about this compulsion. Where did it come from?”
“I don’t know. It has to do with you. I’ve been combing the archives looking for references to the stone and reading them over and….” She stopped talking.
I whipped my head toward her. “What did you say?”
She held her hand up as she stared at the floor. “Give me a sec.”
I grabbed her by the shoulders. “What documents are you talking about?”
She pushed me away, her body shield shimmering into place. “I know what you’re thinking. I just realized the same thing.”
“You never told me you found more documents,” I said.
“I…. I know. I think that’s part of what’s wrong,” she said.
“I want those documents,” I said.
“Of course. But why did I keep them from you? And why don’t I care if you see them now?”
I walked away from her again. “I don’t know what game you’re playing, Meryl, but I don’t like it.”
She came up behind me and touched my shoulder. I shrugged her off. “Don’t touch me.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“How long has this been going on?”
She narrowed her eyes as she gazed out the window. “I found the first document my first day back in the Guildhouse. The one you found on my desk.”
“I wasn’t even looking for them then,” I said.
Meryl frowned. “It was the first thing on my mind when I went back. I checked on the leanansidhe, then went and pulled the doc.”
That seemed strange. “You checked on the leanansidhe?”
She looked baffled, as if trying to make sense of her memories. “I remember thinking I needed to secure the room in case anyone found it.”
“You knew she was there?”
“Yes—I mean, no. Before I returned to the archives, I did not know she was there. I’m sure I didn’t.”
“You said you found her when you were securing the archives,” I said.
Meryl sat on the bed, her face contorted with concentration. She was using her druidic recall, reviewing her memories with a precise clarity. “I did. I”—her eyebrows arched—“lied. I lied about it. I started to tell you but changed the details. The same thing happened when you were in my office. I started to tell you, but I didn’t.”
“You’re not making any sense” I said.
She stood. “Don’t you see the pattern? It’s all about you.”
“And?”
“There’s only one person who could have done this to me, Connor. Nigel must have known I might beat him at his own game. He made me his fail-safe. He put a compulsion in my mind,” she said.
Angry, tired, I leaned against the sill. “Convenient it was Nigel. Shall we ask him?”
“This wasn’t my doing, Connor,” she said.
“Where are the documents?”
“They’re all in my office,” she said.
“Go get them,” I said.
She hesitated, then started dressing. “I didn’t want this to happen.”
“It has,” I said.
She opened the door, her face stained with tears. “I stood over you for ten minutes fighting the urge to stab you in the head. I didn’t do it. If I meant to kill you…. if I didn’t love you, Connor…. you would be dead.”
I had nothing to say to that, so I gave her my back. The door closed, and I listened to her footsteps fade off down the hall. I stared across the rooftops, across the city at night, watching the essence play in swirls through the air.
I was alone.