Everyone gathers around the kitchen island at their usual seats, but this is the first time Boral has taken a meal with the entire team. It’s the first time he was not specifically excluded.
Zaid pulls out the fixings for a club sandwich, and I grab a bottle of water from the fridge before I take the stool in between Rainey and Carrick.
While I’m sure they all heard from Zaid what had happened at Arwen’s home in Faere, Rainey asks me to tell it again.
So I do.
“Why didn’t you just open the veil and leave the minute you heard Pyke’s voice?” Myles asks.
The question is legit. In hindsight, I wish I’d done that. All I can do is shrug. “I thought he was a friend.”
“You were smart enough to have Zaid leave with the Blood Stone, though,” Maddox praises me. “Friend or not, he didn’t need to know you had it.”
“But he already did know,” I mutter, feeling foolish to have been taken so easily. “He had that damn tracking spell on it and—”
A thought strikes me, and I whip toward Carrick. “Did you put a tracking spell on the Blood Stone before you gave it to Kymaris?”
“I did,” Carrick replies, but his expression is grim. “It’s gone, though. I can’t feel it.”
“It was worth a try,” I say with a pat to his knee. “I expected someone of her power and cunning would check.”
Zaid slides a plate before me, my sandwich cut into triangular quarters with a side of chips. “Thank you,” I say, picking up a section of sandwich and taking a grateful bite.
“Where did Pyke take you?” Rainey asks.
I chew, chew, and chew some more before swallowing. “I don’t know. The house felt incredibly old European, and there was a dungeon complete with cold, wet floors and heavy chains.
“Fuck,” Carrick snarls, and I know that when he gets ahold of Pyke, he’s going to suffer.
“It wasn’t that bad,” I reassure him, not for Pyke’s benefit but for Carrick’s. “As far as chains can go, I was comfortable. Able to sit with my hands before me.”
“And did you see Kymaris?” Rainey presses for the story.
I nod, picking up my sandwich again. “I was surprised how much she’d healed from the explosion. But she doesn’t think much of me. Said I was nothing special.”
“Proving she’s as much an idiot as I thought her to be,” Carrick mutters.
Setting my sandwich down, I wipe my mouth with a paper towel Zaid had provided before pushing my plate back. “I need to tell you how they came to be together. It’s a decades-long relationship.”
“What?” more than one around the island exclaims.
“I just assumed he sought her out after we got the Blood Stone,” Maddox says incredulously.
I shake my head. “No, they met a long time ago when Pyke was able to see her through the veil that separated Faere from the Underworld.”
The entire story takes a few minutes, and my food goes ignored. I tell them how he saw her, talked to her, and traveled into the Underworld to see her. How they concocted the plan to take over the Earth realm, and how he’s the one who put the entire changeling ritual into place, as well as the one who visited my sister monthly to pump her full of magic once Kymaris went into stasis.
That gets a growl from Carrick. “I expect you might want to put Pyke down rather than let me.”
I swivel toward him with a smile. “I have to say… I hate him for what he did to Zora. The magic he put in her from Nimeyah’s staff was light in nature, but other magical fae twisted it to make it dark. They abused her for years… from the time she was a child. Whatever happens to Pyke, his death has to be slow and painful.”
“Agreed,” Carrick proclaims with fire in his eyes.
“I’m wondering,” Myles says pensively. “What exactly does Kymaris know about Finley’s role in the prophecy now that we know Pyke is in collusion with her?”
“Not much,” I answer, but look to Carrick for clarification.
He nods. “We kept Pyke pretty much in the dark. The only thing he was told when we first visited Faere was that Finley was part of thwarting the prophecy, and that was it. We never told him why we needed the Blood Stone, but, in hindsight, he probably already knew about it from Kymaris.”
“Does that mean Kymaris has no clue about Finley’s powers?” Rainey asks.
“No, she doesn’t,” I reply, giving her an encouraging smile. “Nor that Zora is my identical twin or that we have a connection. Those are our aces in the hole, so to speak. And while I used my shield to stop that tree from falling on us, Pyke was too busy fighting Micah to see it.”
I pick up my sandwich to take another bite. Everyone refrains from questions so I can get some food in my belly. I finish the first wedge before picking up the next. “I did learn one thing while in captivity… the ritual will be done at night on the new moon.”
“Of course it will,” Maddox chuckled. “All evil rituals are held in the dark of night.”
“And we know it will be in Seattle,” Boral adds, explaining, “All the Dark Fae have left town. Kaesar told me they’re laying low until the new moon when they’ll come back.”
Once again, I swivel to Carrick. “You weren’t able to take any of them out?”
He shakes his head grimly. “Like Boral said, everyone has left. I suppose blowing up her house put a little fear into them.”
“It was still the right thing to do,” Rainey says primly. “You saved human lives, Carrick.”
He nods in agreement. “It’s all about the choices we make with what’s presented to us at the time.”
“Like trading me for the Blood Stone,” I murmur, leaning over and briefly resting my head on his shoulder. A thank you, of sorts. “Although, you know keeping the Blood Stone would have been a sound choice.”
“No, it wouldn’t have,” Carrick rebukes, and I lift my head. “Putting aside the fact that I wanted you alive and well for my own selfish reasons, Onyx has said you’re going to have to be the one to battle Kymaris. I don’t think it was meant to be down in a dank dungeon. It’s going to be a final showdown at the ritual, I believe.”
It’s all conjecture at this point, but I have to agree with Carrick about the way things have been transpiring. Kymaris and her minions have gone into hiding. We can use the time trying to find them or trying to figure out where the ritual will be and making our stand there.
“Game isn’t over until the final buzzer sounds,” Maddox points out.
“That’s right,” Zaid says confidently. “We have nineteen days until the new moon. Anything can happen.”
“One thing must happen,” I say, setting my sandwich down as I slowly scan around the island so I can meet every eye. “We have to go rescue Zora. Now.”
No one says a word.
They all have varying opinions, and they stay silent because we’ve hashed them all out already.
Carrick, the one who has been the most skeptical of my sister, breaks the silence. “Agreed. That has to be our priority.”
Rainey looks appalled, but everyone else is immediately accepting as evidenced by their nods and determined expressions. She sees it, too, so she says nothing.