The summoning of Maddox happened shockingly with an appearance of Cato in the midst of our gathering. He was a massive man, taller than even Titus, and impeccably dressed like a male fashion model.
The summoning was brief as he took in the crowd, gave a slight nod to me, which I thought was odd, then gave his attention to Maddox. “You have been summoned.”
“Fu—” Maddox started to say, but the entire expletive didn’t come out.
They both just disappeared.
And now we are standing here wondering what in the hell to do.
Carrick takes up cursing as the rest of us watch him, stunned and immobile.
“Where did he go?” I ask numbly.
“Who the hell knows?” Carrick grouses as he paces.
“Did the gods do this purposely to make it hard on us?”
Stopping to give me his attention, he shakes his head. “No. Cato doesn’t operate like that. But if Maddox has something to do for Cato, it will take precedence over him helping us.”
Discussions begin, wondering if we can adapt our plan and go without him.
Can we put this off a few days? Most likely not, because there’s no telling when Maddox will come back.
“We need a replacement,” Lucien concludes—basically the same thing we’re all thinking. We cannot wait to make our play for the Blood Stone. It’s too important to our end game.
“I’ll take Maddox’s place,” I say without hesitation. I’m the only one left out of me, Boral, and Zaid with the powers to protect myself.
“No,” Carrick, Rainey, and Myles all say at once.
“But—”
“Your powers are too new and too unpredictable,” Carrick says softly, giving me an apologetic smile. “We need someone with strong power because the minute Micah figures out there’s an imposter, he’s going to let loose with everything he has.
“I can glamour myself to look like Charmeine,” Boral offers, and I’m surprised he’d make the offer for such a perilous position.
But he’s quickly shot down by Carrick. “I appreciate the offer, but your powers are limited to pretty much glamour and strength. You’re not going to be a match for him if he comes after you.”
“I’m touched you care,” Boral says with a smirk.
“I don’t,” Carrick replies glibly. “You’d do more harm than good out there. Besides, I need you to stay with Finley and keep the veil open for our escape.”
Carrick and Lucien could easily open the veil to Micah’s realm, but Carrick did some magic mojo to the relic we found in Hungary that could find realms, and it will now keep the veil open for us as long as the relic stays close to it. That’s Boral’s job.
“I suppose I can handle getting the Blood Stone on my own,” Lucien offers, “and you can be the distraction.”
“No,” I say, shooting down that idea. “We need both of you to go for the Blood Stone because we need the redundancy if Micah takes Lucien out. We need someone else powerful that can get it out.”
This was something we talked about a lot last night. Carrick and Lucien going into the cave together to retrieve the chalice.
Boral, Zaid, and I are going to be relegated to staying near the tear in the veil in case we have to make a quick escape, with Boral in charge of keeping the veil open. Carrick admitted they were my bodyguards, but, truthfully, I know they are there to manhandle me if I refuse to leave if things get dicey. While Carrick didn’t fight me on coming, he doesn’t want me to actively participate in a fight. While I want to argue until I’m blue in the face against it, I understand where he’s coming from.
On top of that, if I were to get thrown into the fight, it would be a terrible distraction to Carrick, so I agreed for us to play watchmen and be the last resort if we were needed. Otherwise, I was prepared to let Boral and Zaid pull me back through to the Earth realm.
“Pyke,” Carrick murmurs, his expression disgruntled. “He’s the perfect one to take Maddox’s place because we know Deandra won’t help.”
“Do you want to bring him fully on board?” I ask, wondering if Pyke would agree to a binding.
Carrick shakes his head. “I don’t think we need to. My history with Pyke is usually him joining me in frays because he loves the adventure. I can pose it to him in a generic way—we’re going into a different realm to steal a stone from a twisted Dark Fae. It’s just the sort of thing he’d love. If I can find him, that is.”
And with that, Carrick bends distance and disappears, presumably to find Pyke. I assume he’ll start in Faere, so we have nothing to do but wait.
Rainey and Myles had to leave. Myles’ aunt and uncle were coming into town for a few days, and they were going to hang with them on the Fantasia. They both, in turn, gave me long, hard hugs with similarly stern lectures on safety and to do as Carrick says.
Zaid ambles off to the kitchen, and Lucien disappears back toward the man cave. Boral takes out his cell phone, places a call to which he merely says to the person on the other end, “Up for some trouble this weekend,” and moves out to the patio to continue talking. I shudder thinking what Boral’s definition of trouble is, but there’s a good chance it involves something evil. Contrary to Zaid’s worries about his dad, I haven’t forgotten what an awful, twisted Dark Fae he is, and I certainly understand he’s not helping us to be altruistic but rather for his own personal gain with his son.
That leaves Titus and me and I’m more than happy for those circumstances. We didn’t get a chance to talk last night. I nod toward the living area and he smiles, understanding my silent invitation to hang out.
I settle into a chair, sit in it sideways, and hang my legs over the armrest. Titus sprawls on the couch opposite me.
Grinning, he says, “So… you and Carrick are star-crossed lovers or something, huh?”
Titus got a lot of details last night to fill in my short summary, but my reincarnations didn’t come up. They weren’t relevant to the prophecy.
“Apparently, I had my first life in 1015 AD. I was a shepherdess in Ireland, and Carrick saved me from being raped by a Viking. My name was Eireann.”
Titus whistles low with an amazed shake of his head. “That is unreal. I’ve never heard anything like that.”
“Probably because it’s a god’s curse I keep coming back?” I reply casually.
That causes Titus to straighten slightly. “Say what?”
A welling of sadness hits me, and I push it down. Sadness for the horror that Carrick went through when Rune killed me.
I tell Titus the full story of Eireann and Banan, using both Carrick’s narrative and the memories I saw in the Hall of Histories. He learns of our love, Banan’s desire to make Eireann immortal, and his foolish attempt to take the only means to do it from a god. Titus winces when I tell him the part where Rune killed me and then cursed Carrick to have me and lose me, over and over again.
When I finish, he shakes his head sympathetically. “I can’t imagine Carrick going through that. He never said anything.”
“Zaid, Lucien, and Maddox were the only ones that knew about me,” I reply softly. “It wasn’t something he easily shared, I guess.”
“What’s up with you two after this prophecy?” Titus asks hesitantly. “Because you and I both talked about the perils of an immortal and mortal being together.”