Page 52 of For the Love of the Quest

“You never have to apologize to me, you lunatic,” Thomasin said.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Edith admitted. Her body didn’t feel like her own.

“You’re just crashing from the shock. It’s a perfectly normal reaction.” Thomasin’s voice soothed the deepest parts of Edith’s brain. “You’ll be okay in a few minutes.”

Edith nodded. “Just don’t leave me, please.” It was embarrassing how needy she sounded, but she couldn’t help it. She felt so painfully vulnerable, like a light wind could shatter her to dust, and the truth was that she couldn’t bear to be alone just then.

“Never. I’ll never leave you, Edith,” Thomasin whispered, and her voice was the most beautiful thing Edith had ever heard.

Eventually, Edith’s heart slowed down, the oppressive heat faded, and she regained control of her jelly-like limbs. Thomasin helped her sit, and then to stand. Only once she was solidly on her own two feet did Thomasin duck her head to pin Edith with a hard stare. “You scared the bloody life out of me.”

Edith opened her mouth to apologize, but her words were lost when Thomasin yanked her into a rough hug. Edith burrowed her face into the crook of Thomasin’s shoulder, while the side of Thomasin’s face came to rest on the crown of Edith’s head. Thomasin held onto her like she was afraid Edith would disappear, like if she loosened her grip at all, she would lose her completely.

The first time Edith said it, the words were muffled, lost against Thomasin’s skin. But she had said it, even though no one had heard it. It was out in the world now. She couldn’t take it back, didn’t want to. She didn’t want to think about whether it was right, whether she should wait, whether she was making a fool of herself. She had dangled on the precipice of death, and she realized there were things that needed to be said.

So she tipped her chin up, stared into Thomasin’s hazel eyes. “Thomasin Shaw,” she said, her voice shaking, “I love you.”

The words hit Thomasin like a physical blow. She blinked, flinching back. But then she crushed Edith even tighter to her, a fist curling in Edith’s hair. “Thank fuck.” Thomasin inhaled a stuttering breath. “Because I love you too.”

A wild laugh escaped Edith’s chest. “I love you,” she said again, just because she could.

Thomasin let out a loud whoop and punched her fist into the air. Edith startled but was laughing by the time the echo of her celebratory shout bounced back to them.

“You’re mad.”

She shook her head playfully at Thomasin, who kissed her hard and then said against her lips, “And you love me, which means you’re mad too.”

“I can live with that.” Edith smiled, kissing Thomasin right back.

Their lips dancing together, Edith lost track of time and reason. It wasn’t until Thomasin murmured, “We have a quest to finish,” that Edith jolted back to her senses.

She forced herself away from Thomasin’s arms, putting enough space between them that they could catch their breaths. Not that the space really helped. The temptation of Thomasin was overwhelming, her skin flushed and glowing in the firelight, her lips swollen and hair a wild mess from Edith’s fingers dragging through the curls. The heaving of her chest with every breath, and the white tunic that clung to every sharp line of her body. Her eyes, the way they burned as they watched Edith. There was lust and love. Longing and restraint. Desperation. She was almost impossible to resist. Thomasin was in a state, and it was all because of Edith. She had never felt more powerful.

But she forced herself to think about the frozen pool, how the water had felt when she’d first broken the surface. She imagined that feeling washing over her heart, her mind, because as much as she wanted to throw herself into Thomasin’s arms, she also had a quest to complete. In the stories she’d read, the knights of the Round Table often had to overcome temptation and master their lust in order to complete their noble duty. If they could do it, so could Edith.

She tucked her hair behind her ears, smoothed her still-damp skirt, and gestured for Thomasin to lead the way, resisting the urge to take her hand. It was best that she kept her hands to herself.

Against the back of the cave was another tunnel. Thomasin ducked her head as she crossed the threshold, and she had to stoop as she walked. Edith could stand upright, but it was a tight fit. Luckily, the tunnel was only a few strides long, and then it opened up into another cavern. This one was far smaller, about the size of Edith’s bedroom.

But as she looked up, she realized she was mistaken. The cavern rose up and up above them. She couldn’t even properly see how tall the room was, for the shadows swallowed up the light the higher it went. An earthen staircase wrapped around the edge of the room, leading up into the soaring cavern, but Edith hardly noticed it. At the center of the room, propped up on a simple wooden stand, was a staff.

It was carved from dark wood, curved and gnarled so that it looked like a thick branch. Symbols and ornate calligraphy spiraled up the shaft, debossed onto the surface with shimmering gold. The head of the staff was a rough crystal in the shape of an oblong rectangle. The edges were uneven, the surface unpolished and coarse.A moonstone, Edith thought. When polished, they were a smooth, milky white with a faint shine. But this staff was rugged, powerful. The gleam of the crystal was only a suggestion beneath the textured exterior, peeking out from behind the craggy stone.

Edith drifted toward it, unable to resist the pull of it. She wrapped her fingers around the staff, her touch reverent. It would take time to decipher the meaning of the symbols and words, but she recognized one, near the top.

Merlin.

Edith lifted the staff from the stand. Merlin’s staff. It was lighter than she’d thought it would be.

“The next clue, I presume?” Thomasin asked.

“Yes,” Edith breathed. But it was more than that. It was history and legend, clutched in Edith’s fist. She didn’t know what she had done to deserve this moment.

She stood frozen by the sheer magnitude of it all.

“Are you okay?” Thomasin drew closer to her and set a hand on her lower back.

“This is Merlin’s staff,” she said numbly.