Rise of the Fey Read Free Page B

her back so straight it looks like a plank of wood’s been shoved down her bustier. “Which is highly suspect in and of itself.”
    “Where the only guard present was her kidnapper, which is also highly suspect,” Arthur says, and I have the pleasure of seeing both Irene and Luther squirm.
    “Noted,” the judge says. “Miss Pendragon, once on Island Park you were, however, seen performing EM illegally. And not for the first time, I believe.”
    I blanch. To my surprise, Lance stands up, his perfect features blank of any expression.
    “Your Honor,” he says, “Sir Arthur and myself had been fighting Carman and were losing the battle. We would have been killed if Miss Pendragon hadn’t come to our defense. She also healed Sir Arthur who’d sustained severe injuries, and cured the Lady Jennifer from the Fey poison that claimed so many before. If it weren’t for her, none of us would be present here today.”
    I repress a grimace, wishing I could forget that last part—saving Jennifer is not one of my proudest achievements.
    “Yet she was there when Carman was freed,” the judge says. “Indeed, she was brought there, which can only mean that she was somehow crucial to Carman’s liberation. So tell me, child, how did you perform those feats? Did you perchance obtain some of the school’s more powerful oghams?”
    “Your Honor,” Arthur interrupts again, “no ogham was found on Morgan’s person at the time of her arrest, and there are plenty of witnesses that observed her performing these healings without their use.”
    “She could have hidden them,” the blond-haired KORT knight sitting next to Percy says lazily. “I don’t believe she was searched until Lady Irene finally apprehended her.”
    The judge eyes me carefully and I gulp. “I’m not quite sure about all the supposed EM, Your Honor,” I say, though Nibs’s explanations come back to mind. “I assumed it was because of the Sangraal.”
    There’s a collective intake of breath in the stands behind me at the name of the magical cup, but the judge’s face brightens. This is what he’s been waiting for all along.
    “How did the Sangraal come to be in your hands?” he asks.
    “I first found the cup here at school,” I say, “but then I lost it and didn’t see it again until it was brought to me up on the island. I think”—I bite on my lower lip—“I think I would have died without it.”
    The judge frowns. “Who brought it to you then, child?”
    I look down at my hands stained with black, the indelible remains of that one, horrifying time I tried to save Owen from the Siege Perilous. I rub them together self-consciously.
    “
Who
brought it to you, Miss Pendragon?” the judge asks again.
    “Puck, Your Honor,” I reply with a sigh.
    The jury pulls back in surprise.
    As if he’d been waiting to hear his name, I spot the little hobgoblin making his way into the training arena, hopping and skipping down the sandy floor towards the jury’s dais as fast as his little legs will carry him.
    Suddenly, his face whips upward and he skids to a stop to sniff the air. His horny head snaps over in my direction and I see his tiny, fluffy tail beat wildly as he launches off in my direction. But before he can reach me, he trips on his own two hooves and falls rolling to the ground, coming to a resounding stop at the foot of my stand. I instinctively try to kneel to help him up but the restraints tighten around me, keeping me locked in my upright position.
    “Who let that creature through?” Irene snaps, motioning for the guard to take Puck away.
    The hobgoblin’s head pops up above the platform’s wooden base, dazed, then splits into a beatific smile at my sight. As Puck struggles to pull himself onto my stand, I watch with some apprehension as the guard hurries over. But before the man can reach him, Puck hops into my arms and I hug him protectively.
    Irene stands up in anger. “Drop him!”
    “No,” I say, squeezing Puck closer to