He caught the scent again two miles outside the city. The source had hidden its trail with a lavish array of cloaking spells and spells of aversion, but Morgan was the better sorcerer. He shredded those spells like they were so much tissue paper.

Finally he came upon a cold camp hidden in a dense thicket of trees and overgrown foliage. No fire ring or woodsmoke gave the location away. It was how Morgan would camp if he wanted to keep his presence a secret.

The camp appeared to be empty, but his sharp, inhuman gaze caught the subtle, stealthy slither of a snake slipping away in the underbrush.

Gathering himself into a lunge, he caught the snake by its tail. Hissing, it whipped around and would have bitten him, except he grabbed it by the throat. The snake’s body heaved and bucked in his hands, and changed, and suddenly he clutched a lion by the throat. It roared in his face and thrust its powerful body forward for the kill.

Twisting his whole body in a way that made the wound in his side flare with fresh fire, Morgan lifted the lion bodily in the air and slammed it on the ground. Magic flared, a quick, desperate spell of corrosion. Morgan jerked his head back and rapped out a dissipation spell, while the lion melted away underneath his hands, and in its place, he held an alligator with a long, wicked snout filled with razor teeth.

The alligator twisted to snap at his legs. With another whole-body twist, he flipped onto its back, wrapped an arm around its neck, and locked it in place with his other arm. As he began to squeeze, he gasped out a null spell.

Silence fell over the scene, punctuated by the alligator scrabbling at the earth, mouth gaping, while both bodies strained. “Give in before I snap your neck,” Morgan growled. “I’ll do it.”

As he spoke, he felt the null spell dissipate. Before his adversary could attack again with more spells, Morgan spun quick threads of Power around him, binding his adversary’s magic to himself.

Suddenly the alligator’s body collapsed and melted away, and in its place, Morgan held a slim, wiry body roughly the size of a teenage human boy’s, only this was no human teenager. It was something older and much more dangerous.

Letting out a wail filled with equal parts rage and despair, it gave up the struggle. Once again, Morgan had captured Robin the puck.

Chapter Ten

Panting, Morgan relaxed his hold, rolled off the puck’s back, and came stiffly to his feet. Fresh wetness seeped into the bandages covering the wound in his side. He’d broken it open again. He pressed the heel of one hand against it.

At this rate, he would never heal, and actually, he was okay with that. The longer he could go between stabbings, the longer he could stave off that final, inevitable choice, and the more time he might have to find a way to break free from Isabeau.

As his weight lifted, Robin curled into a ball, both fisted hands pressed against his head in impotent rage. With his magic bound, the puck was no physical match for Morgan. Morgan was faster and stronger. If the puck tried to run, Morgan would only catch him again.

He asked hoarsely, “What are you doing here? Are you suicidal? You do know the Queen has ordered me to find you and bring you back to her.”

Robin lifted his feral face. The glow from the waning moon lit his gaze as he hissed, “And you always do what your mistress wants, just like the dog you have become.”

The insult rolled off Morgan’s shoulders. He’d heard much worse. He considered binding the puck physically but was suddenly so fed up, he didn’t bother.

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you and be done with it,” he snapped.

Robin’s thin, feral expression shifted. Suddenly he looked lost. “I can’t,” the puck keened. “I can’t give you one good reason. She’ll bind me with the burning rope again and make me do things I don’t want to do.”

In a burst of exasperation, Morgan bent down, grabbed the puck by his jacket, and hauled him to his feet. He roared, “Why her?”

“Tell me the Queen doesn’t want to kill my Sophie.” Robin’s face clenched. “Tell me that one thing, sorcerer, and make me believe it.”

A heartbeat went by, then another. Morgan could feel his pulse thudding in his clenched fists. “You know I can’t tell you that.”

Bitterness laced the puck’s voice. “And you would do it, wouldn’t you?”

“If she gives me a direct order to do so, yes, I will.”

“Yet you still wonder why I have done what I have done?” A touch of sly cunning flashed in Robin’s moonlit gaze. “The musician makes you want to disobey, doesn’t she? She may be the only thing that can. Isabeau will hurt her and hurt her, the way she hurt me, unless you stop it. Her fate is your choice, sorcerer.”

“You fool!” he spat. The impulse to violence took over, and he shook Robin. “You have no idea what you’ve done. You have no clue what is really going on.”

The puck laughed. “No? I know enough. Once, you were a kingmaker, and what a king he was. He was your best, brightest work, the most brilliant star in the night sky.”

Morgan went somewhere inside that was darker than the underground prison, undershot with red. He spat out, “You’re not fit to say his name.”

“Neither are you, anymore,” Robin said simply. “Now you’re just Morgan le Fae. A man without a real home or conscience, a man known only for his association with a people who are not his own. Why did you turn against him the way you did?”

“I never did,” he whispered.

The ache of that never lessened, never went away. Over the centuries, he had grown to live around the ache. That was all.

“But you must have. You abandoned him. He went to war, and he lost, and you did nothing to stop it or save him. What did she offer you that meant that much? How did you stop caring for a boy you raised to be both man and monarch, a boy you raised as if he were your own son?”

“I never stopped caring.” His throat closed as the geas tightened around it. After a moment, he said, “And if you could ask me that, you still know nothing. As unhinged as you are, your ignorance is the deadliest thing about you. Do you know what Isabeau did to Sidonie? She broke all her fingers and threw her in the dungeon.”

“I know.” As Morgan stared, Robin lifted one thin shoulder and said wryly, “I make a most excellent rat.”