Page 98 of Kingdom of Locks

Chapter Twenty-Three

Amell’s eyes fluttered open, the fuzziness around him settling into his own familiar room. He suddenly became aware of an agonizing pain in his shoulder, and he lifted a hand to it.

“Best not to touch the dressings, Your Highness.”

Amell lifted his head, blinking in confusion at the face floating above him, framed by white hair.

“Bartholomew?”

“Who else?” the enchanter said cheerfully. “Do you think I’d let anyone else patch you up?”

Amell laid his head back down, groaning. “What happened?”

“In simple terms, you were shot in the shoulder by an arrow. Accidentally, the soldier in question assures me, but that’s not my area. I just do the fixing up.”

Amell frowned, trying to remember. His eyes traveled to the window, through which the thin light of early morning was streaming. In spite of his light tone, Bartholomew looked strained and tired, as if he’d been up tending Amell all night.

It wouldn’t be the first time.

“Shot with an arrow,” Amell repeated, reflecting that thiswasa first. A flash of memory came to him. Fabric soaked in blood, a dark forest around, and a beautiful, terrified face suspended above his.

“Aurelia!” he gasped, sitting upright and instantly grimacing in pain.

“Whoa, Prince Amell!” Bartholomew protested. “You need rest! Lie down again, there’s a good lad.”

But Amell was back in possession of his senses, and recovering was the last thing on his mind. “Where’s Aurelia?” he demanded. “Where did they take her? They didn’t hurt her, did they? I have to explain everything.”

He groaned. He couldn’t explain, could he? The magic wouldn’t let him. Then he remembered how he’d found the clearing even without the cloak, and hope grew inside him.

“Does this have anything to do with the truly excessive amount of magic that’s lingering around your person?” Bartholomew asked cautiously. “I thought it was your cloak, but that’s nowhere nearby, and you’re still positively reeking of it.”

“It’s Cyfrin’s magic,” said Amell, figuring it was as good an opportunity as any to test whether his tongue was still bound. Apparently it wasn’t.

“Cyfrin?” Bartholomew gasped, horror crossing his features.

Heartened, Amell nodded. “He kept going with his experiments in secret. He stole an infant to use as a vessel. An infant who happened to be Princess Aurelia of Albury. He took her with her carer, and the two of them have been locked in a tower not far from the prison ever since. He stored his magic in her hair, figuring that it was less likely to wrap around her core, and kill her when extracted. Not that he really cared about her. He just wanted to prove he was right, I think. And then later he wanted to marry her, for the status.” Amell shuddered.

Bartholomew was staring at him, his mouth opening and closing wordlessly.

“But lately he became obsessed with the idea of using a key,” Amell hurried on. “He transferred half of his magic into her core instead of her hair, thinking it would sort of be in her control that way. He thought that if she performed the key, thereby willingly releasing the magic to him, it would make it stronger, according to the—”

“Foundational principles of power,” Bartholomew finished weakly.

Amell nodded again. “He also wanted to manipulate the one about love, so he linked the key idea into his plan to marry her. He made the key her first kiss, but he hadn’t actually told her that.” A grim smile crossed his face. “So when she kissed me, completely unaware of its significance, she released all of the magic he’d stored within her core, and it sort of…” He shrugged.

“Wrapped around you,” Bartholomew said, looking half fascinated, half horrified. It was an expression he’d often worn when examining Amell’s more dramatic childhood injuries. “But you can’t wield it, can you?”

Amell shook his head. “I can’t control it, but it still seems to be active. It prevented Cyfrin from killing me, more than once. It sort of rebuffed the magic he was using, which was the magic in Aurelia’s hair.”

“My word,” Bartholomew said mildly, passing a hand down one side of his face. “It’s a lot to take in.”

“I have to find Aurelia,” said Amell. “The fact that I was able to tell you all that means that the concealment enchantment must have lifted. I’ll be able to explain everything to my parents, and to those soldiers who thought Aurelia was an escaped prisoner because of her hair.”

“An escaped prisoner?” Bartholomew repeated sharply. “I’ve been in here with you all night, so I don’t know the details, but I heard something about an escaped prisoner being involved in your injury. There was to be a hearing before your father this morning.”

Amell’s eyes widened. He couldn’t let Aurelia face such an ordeal alone, even if she would now be free to explain it all. Groaning, he swung his feet off the bed.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” said Bartholomew, alarmed. “You need to stay here, Your Highness. Let me go.”

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