Page 63 of For the Love of the Quest

Thomasin flipped the dagger and gave it to Edith, who immediately stormed back over to the door. Edith could feel Thomasin at her heels. Without preamble, Edith sliced the dagger across her palm.

“Edith!” Thomasin scolded, snatching the blade away from her.

That was fine. She had gotten what she needed. A steady trickle of blood seeped from the deep gash. She pressed her hand against the white stone, right at the center, where there looked to be a missing piece. Edith’s hand ached. She watched as droplets of blood slid down the door. Nothing happened. She pressed her hand harder against the smooth surface. The smallest grunt of pain slipped past her lips. She felt Thomasin’s hands on her shoulders, insistent.

“Enough. Nothing’s happening,” Thomasin said.

Edith pressed harder, fingernails scraping. Her wounded skin split open further. Blood coated her palm and snaked down her arm. The room spun just a little. It had been at least fourteen hours since she last ate. Edith just gritted her teeth against the wooziness.

“I’m done,” Thomasin said.

Edith ignored her again. But then arms were banding around her middle and hauling her up. Edith fought to keep her bloody hand against the door, but Thomasin was so much stronger. Edith was carried out of the amethyst room and back into Merlin’s tomb, where she was deposited gently on the ground beside the sarcophagus.

Edith stared at the door in the distance, and her failure stared right back at her. The blood had done nothing. Her sacrifice was nothing. There was no way forward. She knew it in her bones somehow that it was over. They had traveled all this way, and she had not proven herself worthy enough to enter Avalon. She would not vindicate her grandmother’s memory. She would not prove to the world that Excalibur was real. She would not be the successful adventurer Thomasin deserved. Edith would go back to being nothing. She should have known it was going to end like this. Why had she allowed herself to hope? This quest was doomed from the very beginning for one simple reason: Her grandmother wasn’t with her, and it was all Edith’s fault. Slumping against the sarcophagus, Edith mumbled, “I didn’t get here fast enough.”

“I don’t think the clue has anything to do with speed.” Thomasin slid down to sit next to her. She drew her legs up and rested her forearms on her knees.

“No, that’s not—” Edith pushed up from the ground, dragging her uninjured hand through her hair. “I should’ve been ready sooner. I should’ve gone on this quest faster.” She paced the length of the tomb. Thomasin stood up with that devastating, lanky grace. She reached out to take Edith’s hand, but Edith couldn’t handle it. She batted her away, heart clenching at the flash of hurt in Thomasin’s eyes. “If I’d gotten here quicker, if I hadn’t waited so long, then my grandmother would be here with me. Whatever I missed, she could have solved it. But it’s not just that! She deserved to behere, to see all the clues, and the Round Table, Merlin’s staff! She missed all of it because of me.”

Edith came to a stop in front of the sealed door once again, shaking her head. She looked at Thomasin over her shoulder. “I failed her.”

“You did not.” Thomasin strode over to her and took her shoulders.

Edith just shrugged away again. Her voice cracked and trembled with each word. A dam broke inside her, and all her shame came rushing out. “You don’t even know what I did! Do you know why we waited so long? I was too scared to go on the quest. She waited for me and then died before I could muster the courage. I—we were supposed to get here sooner. We were supposed to do this together. Her last adventure, her lifelong dream, ruined because I’m a coward. Serves me right that it’s a dead end.” Then Edith paused, met Thomasin’s eyes with grim determination. “I don’t deserve you,” she said. The knowledge of that, and the decision Edith knew she had to make, cleaved her heart in two. But she didn’t have a choice. She loved Thomasin, and that meant she had to do what was best for her.

Thomasin advanced once again, but Edith just kept drifting further from her as she continued to speak. “I failed my grandmother, and it’s only a matter of time before I fail you too.”

Thomasin threw her hands up. “Fail me all you want, that won’t change me loving you.”

“It will, though!” Edith shouted. “You gave up everything for me. You think you won’t resent me? Think you won’t realize I was never worth any of it?” Her mouth crumpled into a frown, and she felt the tears finally slipping from her eyes. “I ruined my grandmother’s dream. I have to let you go before I ruin you too.”

Thomasin grabbed her wrist, tighter this time. “Ruin me then, Edith. I can take it.”

“I can’t,” Edith said in a small voice. “I’m not being noble. I’m not being selfless. It’s just, you’ll realize I’m not worth all you gave up to be with me. You’ll fall out of love, but I’ll still love you, and I don’t think I can survive that.”

Thomasin’s thumb pressed into the pulse point of Edith’s wrist, the blood pumping at a punishing pace. “So you just give up, then?”

Edith smiled sadly. “We both knew I was in over my head anyway.”

Then she pulled away, right out of Thomasin’s grip. Her arm hung in midair for a second, like Thomasin still had her. At first, she couldn’t look away from Thomasin. But she had to.

She turned and fled. Out of the amethyst room. Through Merlin’s tomb, ignoring Thomasin’s shouts. She stuttered to a stop, one foot on the first step. Looking over her shoulder, she saw that Thomasin had followed her.

“Edith, please slow down. Let’s talk about this.”

The sight of her hurt Edith more than the sizzling blade against her open wound had. It was a ripping, tearing pain, made worse by the fact that Edith was doing it to herself. She didn’t have a choice, she reminded herself. She had failed the quest, and she had to set Thomasin free before it was too late. If Thomasin went straight to London, she could retake the syndicate, go back to her life.

“I’m sorry,” she said, the words feeble. She spun around to face the stairs and began her ascent. She stayed close to the wall as she followed the spiral up and up. It felt like running away.But it isn’t, she told herself. It was making a sacrifice. She could hear Thomasin’s light footfalls following her. In any other place, Thomasin would have caught up to her. But Edith’s feet were surer, faster, not hampered by fear of the drop below.

By the time she squeezed back through the tunnel, and out into the open air, her heart was hammering, and her chest washeaving. She hadn’t stopped to take a breath. Bending forward now, her hands on her knees, she gulped down air.

Then she heard the last voice she expected.

“Edith,” her father said.

She froze, lifted her head slowly, shock settling over her like a too-thick blanket. Twilight had fallen, painting the forest in dark gray, and somehow, Edith’s father was there, looking so out of place in his fine clothes amid the overgrown foliage. Edith’s shoulders were tense, her knuckles white where they gripped the strap of her satchel.

“Father?” The word was a shocked exhalation. She couldn’t wrap her mind around his presence. How had he found her here, on this forgotten island?