Chapter 70Of Light and Letters

Deirdre wanted to move back to my room to talk. There was no reason not to. In fact, the whole atmosphere in the castle made me uncomfortable. Fortunately my room was still safe. It had been cleaned in the meantime, but nothing else. It wasn't uncommon for a students room to be empty for days, even weeks on end. You could say there was a shortage of beds, but once you got assigned a room, it was yours. Until the Masters might reassign it, of course if you got expelled, banned or anything like that.

Deirdre hugged me when I closed the door, she looked visibly shaken. Something I hadn't seen before with her.

"The Cult is in the castle. At least I think they are."

"What do you think is happening?"

Deirdre sighed. "I think our investigations have not gone completely unnoticed and have people moving faster."

I blinked. "But why here?"

"Think about it, if the letter in the Bleakfield inn was from them and they kept an eye on you here. If they noticed that your reactions weren't exactly as they expected and they slightly exposed themselves to you. Well, they must have known you are curious by nature, at least a little. So they're just moving faster than you can find things out."

"Why would I be important?"

She thought about that for a moment. "I don't think you are. Actually... i wonder if they even know of your... Light."

I blinked. "Why else would they contact me?"

She smiled. "Not you. The messenger."

I thought for a moment. Giving her ideas a chance. I wasn't sure they were right though. Why would they contact the messenger if they already had people inside the Castles? On the other hand, why would I be that important? As far as I knew, I was the only ... abomination in the castle. That was a thought though. Was I?

All this was leaning towards paranoia. It was not easy being used by everyone around us. Although my choice had been to serve the Masters, I wasn't so sure I did what they wanted. Maeve and Eavan were meddling quite a bit as well. Why did she want our blood anyway? A flash of memory, her light skin tainted with blood fluttered across my mind. The image was very mixed and realization dawned that the forest spirits were far from kind.

No, I wanted all of this to stop.

"Taran?"

Deirdre's change in voice made me look up. "Sorry, I was lost in thought."

"I could see that... eh..."

"What?"

"You were glowing."

"What do you mean?"

"Your eyes and your hands, they glowed a little. Not enough to give off light anywhere else. But they definitely were lighter than they are now."

I blinked. She wouldn't say something like that for no reason. "I want to stop being a plaything of everything around us."

Deirdre smiled. "Maeve is really pushing us, isn't she?"

I nodded. "It makes me wonder what she wants to hide."

A sound made me look around to the door. A letter had been pushed underneath it. I dashed to it, opened and looked in the corridor. But nothing, not even any other students. I tried to concentrate if there was any magic nearby. But it was completely useless. The castle was so saturated with Light that it made it very hard to feel specific things if it wasn't big.

Deirdre had picked it up and read it. "Now... this is interesting."

She handed it to me and I looked at it.

Abomination. Stables tonight at eleven.

No signature, and the writing was slightly erratic. No clue as to where this came from.

Deirdre looked at me, smirking slightly. "I think it's for you. Will you go?"

I closed the door and locked it this time. I took another look at the letter in my hand and sighed. Was this too dangerous to do? Of course my curious mind would not allow me to refuse this. But I could at least pretend I had some saying in the matter.

However feeble.

"Yes, I'll go."

Deirdre looked at me, opening her mouth to speak, but I interrupted.

"And I want you close."