Wasn't that the 'him' Ilex was referring to?
Why warn her unless he was attempting to draw her out?
He'd looked so sad and tired when he looked up at her last night, the expression there before he'd seen her. It could be genuine, or could he have sensed her the way she sensed him and schooled his features before glancing up?
Ivy sighed, rubbing at her forehead as that sense of peacefulness vanished. “What do you think?”
Uriah gave a shrug, his hand rubbing up and down her back. “Despite the unknown source, it's sound enough advice. I don't much like waiting around for an enemy to surprise me.”
“The other shoe,” she murmured. “It always drops.”
Uriah gave a bearish grunt. “Not if we drop it first.”
Ivy brushed her thumb across the red letters written on the white petals. It was good advice. Something any brother might give his sister.
The flower withered in her palm, turning thin and papery, crumbling to dust that blew away on the wind. She wiggled her fingers until all the remnants were gone and looked up at Uriah with a nod.
“Not if we drop it first. I need to do some studying.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
All the girls waited patiently, except for Juliet, who sat drumming her fingers, leg bouncing, glaring at the bowl of peaches at the center of the table. Her agitation no doubt had to do with the lion enforcer currently holding up the wall with his broad shoulders, a look of aloof boredom on his face.
Uriah was by the door, and had he been in his fur, it would have been bristling with impatience.
Rowena finished sealing the dining room to prevent any Fae outside the room, namely the Brownies, from overhearing the conversation about to begin.
Ivy felt a pressure in her ears that made her pinch her nose and blow air through her sinuses until they popped, noticing no one else seemed to feel the discomfort. Evidence, she supposed, that the spell was working.
“Alright, let's get down to business,” Rowena announced, her cute pink kitten heels clipping across the floor as she moved to take her seat at the head of the table. “I assume you've finished reading your mother's journal?”
Ivy nodded, unable to keep from smiling when Uriah pushed away from the door to come and settle his hands on her shoulders.
His thumbs rubbed up and down her throat, offering her comfort and reassurance that he was there to lean on when she struggled through deciding her opening move.
Over the past few days, Ivy had leaned heavily on him, worried he would find her too needy or clingy. To her surprise and intense relief, Uriah seemed to thrive on her needing him.
In fact, it seemed to settle him. He took care of everything, of her, with a smile on his face and contentment in his loving expression.
“I did. She confirmed all of the things Le Doux hinted about in her letter, but I didn't learn anything about why my father is searching for me. I wanted to talk to all of you about the second message left for me. 'Pick your battles. Don't let him make the first move.' Uriah and I agree that waiting for the other shoe to drop is the wrong play.”
Astrid nodded as though having expected this, and for all Ivy knew, Astrid had the inside knowledge of exactly when and where Ivy's father would appear and to what purpose. Ivy had long ago learned that even if she did know, Astrid wouldn't share those details if it meant altering fate or destiny.
But, that nod in and of itself was telling. Ivy was heading down the right road.
“You want to summon him before he shows up with the upper hand,” Kerrigan said, pressing her fingertips together studiously. “I like it. Ambush?”
“Oh, I'm down for that,” Juliet purred wickedly.
Abel snorted derisively. “You would be.”
“Who asked you?” Juliet snapped back, her magic flaring with a loud pop.
Abel turned his bored gaze on her, and to the untrained eye, it only served to infuriate Juliet further. To someone who'd lived with the wild child and been her friend for nearly twenty years, it was plain to see how much that look hurt Juliet.
Ivy tried to imagine if Uriah threw such a disinterested glance at her, and it was enough to cause her stomach to sour and twist with agony.
Rowena reached over and laid her hand supportively over Juliet's. “Later.”
Ivy cleared her throat softly to get things back on track. “Not an ambush. I was thinking more of a parlay. My mother wrote in her journal that she'd felt like someone had been watching her for weeks."
As quickly and succinctly as she could, Ivy summed up everything she’d learned from her mother’s journal entries. When Ivy finished, Astrid rapped her knuckles on the table top and reached out toward her.
“Give me one of your rings.”
Eager for clarity, Ivy slipped off a thin silver band with a labradorite drop pressed into it and dropped it in Astrid's palm. Astrid shook her hair back and brought Ivy's ring to eye level. There was silence around the room as they waited for Astrid to do her thing.
“There's so much blood. Blood that birthed you, blood that binds you together, blood that's been sacrificed, blood yet to be spilled. Sacred power. Death and rebirth.” Astrid's voice was blank, her gaze fixated on the small stone of Ivy's ring, somehow managing to sound both detached and morbidly curious.
Astrid had one hell of a track record for being perfectly accurate when it came to divination and predictions. Uriah's hands tightened on Ivy's shoulders as a shiver worked through her.
Astrid sucked in a deep breath and shook herself out of the light trance she'd fallen into, offering Ivy her ring back. “There is something about your birthday, Ivy. The power of the day holds special significance to your father.”
Ivy took her ring back with a frown, confusion warring with frustration. Even accurate, Astrid's readings always held a level of vagueness that left much to interpretation, forcing the people receiving the readings to make their own choices as to how their future would come to pass.
“It is strange that we were conceived and born on a solstice day. My mom said the Green Man was disappointed we weren't both boys. It limited his options, apparently.”
“Prick,” Juliet muttered darkly.
“That's not technically true,” Uriah commented, tracing his fingers down the slope of her throat when Ivy tipped her head back to frown up at him.
Kerrigan beat her to the quick, asking the question on the tip of Ivy's tongue. “That her dad isn't a prick?”
“Oh, he's definitely a prick,” Uriah grumbled. “But no, I meant, Ivy and her brother were born seven minutes apart. Ilex at eleven fifty-eight, Ivy at five minutes past midnight. So, Ilex was born on the first, Ivy on the second.”
“Of course!” Callie leaped to her feet and ran from the room, her footsteps pounding up the stairs and after a loud whoop of triumph, back down a few minutes later.
With cheeks flushed and her short brown hair in disarray, Callie held a thick textbook up over her head with both hands. “Okay, you remember that class I took on Celtic Methods of Transmutography?”
Juliet snickered and snatched up a peach from the bowl. “Oh, we remember.”
“Professor Collins is soooooo hot!” Kerrigan cooed in a little girl’s tone of voice, clasping her hands over her heart, eyelashes fluttering dramatically.