Bethany wagged a finger at me. “Not could be alive. There’s never been any doubt he lives. What has been in doubt is whether or not he’s currently awake and wandering around Arkwell’s campus.”
I blinked. “What do you mean awake?”
Bethany grimaced. “Don’t you know the story ordinaries tell about what happened to Merlin?”
“Uh, no.”
“I do,” said Eli. “There’re lots of different versions, but most say he was imprisoned in some kind of magical tomb by a witch named Niviane or some such.”
I gaped at him, surprised by the depth of his knowledge on the subject.
“What?” he said, shrugging. “I have sort of a thing for mythology and folklore.”
Yeah, that might be even cuter than the cop stuff.
Bethany turned a pointed gaze at me. “Nimue was her real name. And she wasn’t a witch, but a Nightmare.”
I swayed on my feet. Nimue was my mother’s maiden name. There was too much coincidence here, too many threads that seemed interwoven in a deliberate pattern.
Bethany said, “Nimue imprisoned the Red Warlock in a dream. That’s what you’re seeing depicted here.” She pointed at the tomb and the woman standing behind the man. “And until a couple of weeks ago, when you first saw the black phoenix in Eli’s dream, we believed him still imprisoned.”
“Well, is he or isn’t he?” Eli stooped toward the engraving once more.
Bethany sighed. “Nobody can say for sure. The Red Warlock’s tomb isn’t in America but somewhere in Britain. The senate has asked the Magi Parliament over there to confirm whether or not his body is still inside but they either don’t know or are unwilling to tell us for some reason.”
“Nice,” said Eli. He pointed at the second man on the tomb, the one with the sword sticking out of his chest. “Who’s this guy supposed to be then?”
“King Arthur,” said Bethany.
Eli opened his mouth to say something, but I cut him off. “The senate thinks it’s the Red Warlock behind the murders, don’t they?”
“Most likely, given the regular appearance of the black phoenix in Eli’s dreams.” Bethany paused. “Or it could be someone trying to free him from the tomb by using the sword. Impossible to know for sure. There aren’t any recorded pictures of the actual man. Some say he cursed his own image a long time ago to prevent his likeness being recorded. He could be anybody. Young or old, there’s no telling. But it’s certain that if the Red Warlock has escaped he will come after Excalibur.”
“Why?” asked Eli, straightening up.
“Because it belongs to him. Always has.”
“But wait,” said Eli. “If Merlin was entombed in Britain why is his sword in America?”
Bethany shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “The Magi governments decided a long time ago it was best to keep as much distance between the sword and wizard as possible. So it was brought to the States and hidden away somewhere around here in case the Red Warlock ever escaped.”
“You mean like he might’ve done now,” said Eli.
“Precisely.”
I wanted to know more about the true history of the sword, but something more pressing occurred to me. “Do you think this is Merlin’s tomb?” I bent close to the crystal surface, cupping the sides of my face with my hands as I tried to see into it.
“I don’t know,” said Bethany.
“Let’s find out.” Eli put his hands on top of the tomb’s lid and pushed. He strained so hard he groaned, but it wouldn’t budge.
“I think you need some kind of key to open it.” Bethany pointed at a round hole just above the phoenix’s head. She was probably right, except I saw two similar holes on each end as well, and none of them looked like normal keyholes.
“No, we don’t,” said Eli. “This is a dream. Come on, Dusty, force it open.”
I shook my head. If Merlin was in there, I didn’t want to risk freeing the black phoenix. I was learning not to believe that everything in dreams wasn’t real.
“You truly think she’s strong enough to open it when you weren’t?” asked Bethany, her tone sarcastic.
“She can dream it open,” said Eli, “or whatever it is she does to change the stuff in here. She’s done it before.”
Bethany turned her fierce gaze on me. “You’ve been manipulating the content of his dreams?”
I fidgeted beneath her admonishing look. “Um, yeah, a little bit. I thought that was normal for Nightmares.”
Eli snorted his disagreement on my definition of little, but thankfully he didn’t elaborate.
“Is that bad?” I asked, guessing the answer already as I remembered how worn-out Eli had appeared the morning after I’d forced his dream to show us Rosemary’s death. Not to mention the furious way Bethany had reacted when my mom had done the same to hers. At the time I figured it was just Bethany’s animosity toward all things Moira.
“Very,” Bethany said, nostrils flaring. “It’s dangerous to manipulate dreams. The more you do the more fictus you drain from your victim. Of course, if you’d come to your dream training sessions with me, you would know that.” She pointed a finger at Eli. “She can trap you in your own dream forever if she’s not careful.”
My chest went tight at this news, making it hard to breathe. I remembered what Mr. Marrow had told me about how Nightmares had earned their bad reputation by sucking people’s souls out through their dreams, condemning them to a fate worse than death. Now it seemed I’d almost done the same to Eli without even knowing it.