But maybe none of that was true. Maybe it was just me?
And England expects that every man will do his duty.
I put my hand in Éven's.
* * *
We walked the streets while the city slept around us.
The traffic lights at the crossroads still changed from red to green, but the cars did not move. The young woman who gave out free newspapers lay slumped over her stack. A man on a bicycle rested his head on a lamppost and hugged it like a teddy bear. A woman who had been climbing out of a taxi cab and a man who had rushed to claim it now sat propped against the back tyre with shopping bags piled around them. Just as Hastings did not feel like Hastings without seagulls circling in the sky, London felt artificial without the constant flutter of pigeons.
It was too terrifying to think that Éven had this much power.
I could see that the power had changed him. He spoke differently. He carried himself differently. He looked at me differently. It was as if the power was burning away the last vestiges of the man I wanted to know.
"This is too much, Éven."
He put his hand on my shoulder, I think to reassure me, but it only made me nervous.
"I know that all this frightens you, Ben. It frightens me as well."
"You? You broke out of prison. You faced an army. You started a war. I don't think anything frightens you."
"You are wrong. Failure frightens me."
I looked into his eyes and searched for fear. I didn't find it.
"I have not forgotten who I am," said Éven. "I have been afraid from the very beginning. I am not so different from you."
A white stone building loomed ahead of us through the trees. It was the sort of grand, unusual building that can appear out of nowhere on otherwise ordinary London streets. The tall wooden doors opened to greet us as we approached.
The building looked like a cathedral, but the sign by the doors revealed this to be the Royal Courts of Justice.
I had never been here before. If my father had meant to take me here, he never made it this far down his list.
Éven leapt the low iron fence that separated the courts from the pavement and walked through the open doors. As soon as he crossed the threshold I saw black veins spread across the walls of the building. The white bricks turned to black. Éven's power wasn't only changing him; it was changing everything he touched. Everything but me.
I climbed over the fence, took a deep breath, and walked in.
No sooner had I crossed the threshold than the tiled floor shook beneath my feet and I almost fell. I steadied myself against the door frame and turned and saw the ground sink away from me.
Flying. Like St Paul's and the Globe, the building was flying.
The tree tops rushed past, and the rooftops. I leaned forward to look at the street that I had stood on a moment earlier, and it was at least a hundred feet below me already. The sight threw me off balance and I almost tipped forward.
Éven grabbed my arm and pulled me inside. The doors slammed shut.
"Welcome to the Dark Ship, Ben."
He led me into a long hall with arched alcoves between slender pillars. Blue moonlight shone through the tall thin windows and cast a midnight pallor over the statues of wise old men that lined the room.
YOU ARE READING
The Twilight Prince
FantasyWhat happens when your fairy godmother and your commanding officer don't see eye to eye? Ben Frazer frets about exams, university, and finding a boyfriend, but he has a lot more to worry about when he discovers the secret world of Britain's fairies...
Chapter Forty-One: The Dark Ship
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