Despite being cured, people still looked at me like I was stuffed with twisted Darkness—and for once, it had nothing to do with my fashion choices.
“Madeline?”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh yeah, there was that time I was almost mutated into a demon as a teenager. That might have something to do with it.”
“Prejudice is a trait of our past, not our future.”
“And you can’t turn it off with a flick of a switch. People thought you were a demon, but you turned out to be Excalibur. I was just a demon. No one’s forgotten.”
“I’ve been where you are,” he told me. “I almost lost everything rebelling against it, just like you are now.”
“Until Scarlett,” I said, my heart twisting. “Not everyone has a Scarlett or a Wilder.”
“This isn’t about us. It’s about your dangerous need to risk your life regardless of others and the exposure of our kind. You’ve seen more than anyone your age and experience. I hoped that you’d understand the need for upholding the tenants of the Codex the most out of anyone. I expected better from you, Madeline.”
I closed off my expression and became a wall of stone. It was tough when your boss’ boss’ boss—who once helped save me from full demonic mutation—still saw me as a kid.
“Get on with it then,” I drawled.
Wilder thumped his fist down on the table. “You’re being reassigned,” he barked. “The London Sanctum does not require the services of a rogue Natural.”
“What?” I argued. “But London is—”
“I have already made the decision.”
I lowered my gaze, knowing that disputing Wilder’s orders would only make things worse. “W-Where am I going?”
He scraped his chair back and rose to his feet. “Camelot.”
* * *
Mist clung to the hills, settling into the dips in the valley. The sun was out, but it didn’t stop the chill that was settling into my bones.
I grasped the roll bar on the pickup truck as it bounced over the rough track. My arse balanced precariously on the edge of the tray, but it was the only seat available.
I was the only grunt amongst the party. The others who sat in the back with me—two men and three women—were all researchers, archeologists, and scientists. Little flags stitched on their black duffle bags told me they were from all over the world—Canada, USA, Australia, South Africa. Unearthing Camelot had become an international Natural affair.
The human world knew this place as the Clee Hills. The area was known for its rolling green landscape and ruined Medieval past. Some of the highest peaks were located here—if eighteen hundred feet of grass-covered rock could be considered a mountain.
Ruined castles and villages dotted here and there, and ancient quarries still carved holes in the bedrock beneath. It was an archaeologist’s dream, but it was nothing compared to what hid beyond the veil cast by the Naturals.
The others were craning their necks, searching for the first glimpse of the castle, but my mind was elsewhere. I wouldn’t call it sulking, but I wasn’t necessarily jumping for joy, either.
I bristled thinking about the report that’d landed me in front of the Inquisitor. It was bad enough that I’d been reassigned, but when Wilder found out about the mystery man…? Being given a new babysitting gig would be the least of my worries.
It wasn’t until later that I realised the man shouldn’t have been able to keep my arondight blade active, not unless he was made of Light.
I don’t know why I left him out of my report. The existence of a demon-hybrid was bad news, but… I didn’t have the words to finish my reasoning.
The pickup came to a stop and the Naturals began to pile out the back. I swung my legs over the edge and pushed off, landing with a thud on the hard ground. While I’d been brooding, we’d passed through the ancient wards concealing the dig site.
I shouldered my duffle bag and lingered with the others as they gaped up at the outer edges of the castle. When I thought of Camelot, I’d pictured a castle with a few turrets, a gate, and maybe a moat—like Disneyland, but with more holes. Now that I was standing here, I realised the real thing was far larger than I’d ever expected.
Camelot wasn’t a castle, it was a city.
No wonder they’d only uncovered less than five percent of the site. I’d rolled my eyes and presumed they were just being slow, but the massive structure I was staring up at was only the outer wall. We hadn’t even glimpsed the destruction that’d torn the inner castle apart.
The wall rose like a silent monolith through the fog, made of solid granite nearly seventy feet tall. One end seemed to carve straight into the cliff face—the natural formation used to its full advantage. The other had crumbled around what used to be an outer postern gate, and stone blocks the size of the pickup were strewn across the hillside. Grass and heath had grown up around them in the last few hundred years, so they now seemed to be part of the modern landscape.
“Madeleine!”
I looked up to see Aiden Thompson walk down to meet us. His Wellington boots were caked in mud and the sticky clay made him stumble down the track like he had two left feet. It was hard to pair the reality to the surface of the man on first glance. I wanted to say he was a handsome Italian Indiana Jones-type archeologist with superpowers, but he was just a massive nerd with a mini-pickaxe.
It was easy to see why all the researchers fawned over him, but I couldn’t understand it. He was awkward, his clothes were always rumpled, and his curly brown hair was a bird’s nest. Despite his indifference to his appearance—which a little manscaping would fix—he was intelligent, passionate, and dedicated to unearthing the secrets lost in the cataclysm.
I looked up to Aiden like a student did
