Free The Dragon's Secret (The Fay Morgan Chronicles Book 2) by Katherine Sparrow

he murmured. “But this time I vow I won’t give up so easily. I will do everything in my power to ensure we will stay together for the rest of our lives. But if I’m wrong, and you do send me away again?” He licked his lips and said the words slowly, like he was uttering a spell that had the power to conjure something new in the world. “Then I will spend every moment until then with you, my love.”
    I knew I should tell him no. “Yes,” I murmured.
    Yes, and yes, and yes.
    Merlin was mine, and I was his.
    The end.
    Except … .

 
     
     
     
     
    17
    The Water
    I left Merlin sleeping in the wide bed of his messy penthouse suite, made all the more messy by our energetic coupling. The valet brought my car around. I activated a cloaking spell around my Mini, and drove much too fast to Pike Place Market. I have always loved the market late at night, when the drunken have drank themselves into stupors, the radicals have left the Alibi room in twos and threes, and the theater types stumble down the cobblestone road drinking red wine and singing showtunes.
    I let myself into the cold stillness of Morgan’s Ephemera. Alone, but not really alone ever again, not with Merlin, and not with … the thing I’d found in the white room inside of myself.
    The quiet room I’d made to hold the hidden thing.
    I licked my lips and felt my heart quicken as I double-checked the locks on the door, making sure no wayward Morgan le Fay seeker might stumble in. What I was going to do, no one must disturb me, and no one must know about. Ever. The thought felt jagged within me, dangerous, and I chose not to think about its ramifications.
    The door to my shop was locked and spelled, of course. I turned and walked to the back of the store, to another, smaller door that most people would never notice, and if they did have the magic to see it? There was no way they would ever get in. My hands trembled like a schoolgirl’s as I undid the powerful spells that kept it locked to everyone but me.
    The door swung open into a small and plain room, filled with shelves that sat cluttered from the spells and objects I’d stockpiled over all of my centuries.
    Just like the last time I was here, I noticed a small pool of water on the ground. A shiver of anticipation moved through me. I closed my eyes and savored the moment before I searched the shelves to see if it was truly there.
    I found the plain tin cup that I had forgotten about for all the many years I’d worn a forgetting spell. It was the exact same as the Holy Grail I’d seen in the white room inside of me: in that place where I could hide powerful things and end their effect on me. When I’d spied the Grail there, I’d guessed that it would be here. But I hadn’t known, not for sure, until now. It sat inches away from me: the most sought after object in all the world. I swallowed hard. I licked my lips.
    It was full of water. Grail water.
    My hand shook as I reached for it. Every atom and dancing electron within me filled with thirst. Thirst was too weak a word for the years of drought I’d endured, unknowing what I was missing. But now it was here. I forced myself to breathe and steady my hands, that I might not spill even one drop of the precious water. With a deep inhalation, I reached for the cup and brought it to my lips.
    I drank and drank the Grail’s water, wanting to slow down and savor it, but I couldn’t. It was life. The purest life. And everything else was a shallow and pale mockery of this moment. This now. The water was magic, and nothing else I’d ever known was magic. I drank and I drank until my throat clenched, suddenly empty and how could the water be gone so soon?
    Without pause, I dropped to my knees and licked the puddle of water on the stone floor of the room. That water was stale in comparison, yet still it trumped everything and anything else on this vast and green earth. The water made me whole and I was buzzing and huge, yet small and perfect. I heard the