Carrick shook his head. “No. Not that we know about. Boral will let us know if that changes. But she does have her followers out looking for it.”
Lucien relaxed slightly by that news, his gaze shifting off to the side as he pondered this. Carrick could almost see the wheels spinning inside his head.
“We know about Micah and Charmeine,” Carrick said softly, but the words landed like a boom of thunder.
Lucien’s head jerked, his eyes slamming onto Carrick. The pupils were hazed red, and a growl started low in his throat. “Why in the fuck didn’t you just lead with that?” he demanded.
“Dude,” Maddox said with a hint of apology in his expression. “The subject matter seemed to require some subtlety leading up to it.”
Lucien glared at Maddox before giving his attention back to Carrick. “You read Libri Mysteria. How did you even find it? I thought it was lost.”
“It was here in my library,” Carrick explained, filling Lucien in on how Myles had been told about it at a party, had seen it in the stacks, but hadn’t bothered with it since it was in Latin. “I’ve collected thousands of books and manuscripts over the centuries. Don’t even remember how I got it.”
Lucien heaved a sigh, letting his head fall back to stare at the ceiling. Keeping his eyes there, he asked, “And you’re sure the Blood Stone has to be used?”
“Yes,” Carrick replied.
“And you plan to get it?” Lucien guessed, his head lifting and his attention back on his brother.
Carrick nodded, then made the request. “We need your help. We don’t know how to get to Micah’s realm. We need force to take it.”
Lucien didn’t respond, but rubbed his hand over his jaw in agitation. The mere fact he didn’t readily agree to help retrieve the stone spoke loudly since he had already loyally pledged his help. Carrick felt a pang of guilt for getting that pledge before giving his brother the full story.
The silence extended, which didn’t bode well, and compelled Carrick to ask, “Is Charmeine still alive within the stone?”
Lucien shrugged, but there was nothing blasé about the action. “I don’t know. She was when Micah cast me out.”
“Why didn’t you go right back in and get her?” Maddox asked, because a demi-god against a Dark Fae would win every time. Even one with stone magic at his bidding. “You’re stronger than Micah. You could have made him submit.”
Lucien’s eyes dragged to his brother, a torturous pain rimmed with rage making the red of his pupils go deeper. “Micah said he’d kill Charmeine if he ever saw me again. So, I stayed away. I thought maybe in time, he’d let her out. Maybe she would learn to love him again, and she’d be safe.”
“Based on your description of the monster Micah turned into,” Maddox pointed out. “I seriously doubt she’d love him again.”
Lucien shrugged again. “The powers of the stone chalice made him that way. I’m sure the stone could have reversed all of the ugliness that had set in upon him. Hell, he probably could have used the chalice to make her love him again.”
“You don’t believe that for a minute,” Carrick assessed, paying careful attention to Lucien’s tone as well as the fact his eyes were still burning red.
“No, I don’t,” Lucien replied through gritted teeth. “Micah was a monster of the soul. The body was just mimicking his insides. He was beyond any type of salvation, so the most likely scenario is she’s still trapped in the Blood Stone and Micah’s still drinking his tears from the chalice.”
Carrick hated to use Lucien’s lost love as bait, but he had no choice. “If we get the chalice and the Blood Stone, we’d have the power to release her.”
Lucien shakes his head, the first real indication this conversation was going south. “Don’t you get it? If he sees me, he’ll kill her on sight. If you go in and try to take it, he’ll kill her. We should leave it be. If it stays there, Kymaris can’t use it, and all you have to do is find that bitch and kill her. I’ll gladly help you do that.”
Carrick took a deep breath and let it out. His heart squeezed in understanding of his brother’s pain and fear, but it wouldn’t deter him from what needed to be done.
“The Blood Stone is critical, brother,” Carrick said gruffly. “Leaving the stone be in the hopes Kymaris doesn’t get it would be foolish. We’re demi-gods. We don’t play from a defensive position. We have no choice but to retrieve it.”
Lucien abruptly stood from the table, sending his chair scooting backward several feet. “Figure some way to get the Blood Stone without me then, because I’m not going to risk Charmeine’s life for your quest.”
“It’s not a quest,” Carrick growled, also standing from the table. “It’s the fate of mankind. You need to prioritize.”
Lucien’s eyes gleamed as he turned it back around on Carrick. “Are you telling me if the situations were reversed, you wouldn’t put Finley above the fate of mankind?”
Lucien had him. Carrick would indeed let the Earth realm burn if it meant saving Finley, and because of that, there simply was no way he could argue. Carrick understood where he was coming from.
Shoulders sagging slightly, Carrick merely gave his brother a nod and then put his hands on the library table. Head bent, he stared at the glossy surface, mind already trying to figure out how they could find Micah’s realm.
Perhaps it was time to go back to Wells and pay for his information… if Kymaris hadn’t already done that. They had the relic from Hungary but no clue how to use it.
Carrick heard Lucien’s footsteps as he moved to the staircase, and he had no intention of stopping him.
But his head lifted when he heard Maddox call out in question to Lucien before he could ascend. “What kind of life does she have in that stone, brother?”
Lucien turned slowly to Maddox. “What did you say?”
Maddox merely shifted in his chair to look over his shoulder at Lucien, as if this conversation wasn’t important enough to warrant his full attention. But his words were sharp and pointed. “I said… what kind of life does Charmeine have living inside a fucking stone?”
Lucien remained mute, and Carrick had to wonder if the man had truly never considered that?
“Come on, bro,” Maddox taunted. “Do you seriously think she’s happy living inside a stone? I mean, what is that even like? Is she just miniaturized to fit inside a hollowed-out portion of it, or does magic give her some furniture to sit on? She has to be lonely, with no one but that monster crying in the chalice. She probably has to look at his hideous face as he cries into that cup and then drinks his misery. It’s no kind of—”
“All right,” Lucien roared, stomping over to his brother. Carrick braced for them to go at each other physically. Instead, Lucien just loomed over Maddox, who looked up at his brother with a bland smile. “Of course I wonder those things about her. It would be a horrid life to live, and there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t want to go in and rescue her.”
“Then why haven’t you?” Maddox queried, his head tipped in curiosity.
“Because… her being alive and trapped was better than dead,” he murmured, his eyes hard and resolute as he glanced up at Carrick.