Page 61 of Bombshell

A wizened, but handsome face flashed in my mind.

I’d had a sneaking suspicion that the voice in my head—the one that gave me the ability to create a barrier around Daphne’s baby—was the very Source that everyone kept talking about.

I frowned, rolling onto my back with a soft groan.I thought you were a magical artifact.

I am, was her simple reply.

Artifacts can’t talk.

There was a small, sad giggle.But I can.

“Alexander, If we don’t do this then the entire town is about to be destroyed by a tsunami, and I don’t know about you but my swimming skills are limited to a temperature controlled lap pool,” Arsenio said, oblivious to the silent conversation I was having with his Source.

Even as he spoke I could hear a roar in the distance. My thoughts went to Dallan and everyone else at Monstrous Ink.

Why are you trying to destroy the town?I asked, suddenly panicked.What did we ever do to you?

Not you,the Source said,him.

Arsenio’s face flashed in my mind along with a scene that made my heart hurt.

The scene unfolded before me, the Source seeming to provide answers to my questions as I watched.

He was getting old. Druids live for a long time, but not forever, she whispered sadly.I started giving him some of my power to help him live longer. I thought no one would notice. That man never cared what I did as long as I maintained his barrier.

The druid Guardian in my vision started to de-age, and even started to sing and dance around the cave again, his laughter almost infectious.

It was like he was young again, like he used to be when he was first put in this cave,the Source continued.And then that man came and said he wasn’t needed any more. That he’d found a new Guardian. He made me stop helping him and…

The druid began to re-age at a rapid pace until he faded away into a cloud of dust.

He took him from me.A rage so palpable filled my head that it made me wince.

And so you started to mess with the climate,I finished for her, finally putting together the last of the puzzle pieces of the mysterious spring we’d all had.

I’m old. I’ve been alive longer than humans have walked this Earth and the only thing that breaks up the monotony of this dreadful life is my Guardians—especially since I can’t leave whatever hole Arsenio Sidhe throws me into.

Why can’t you just leave?I asked, confused.I can feel your power and I doubt even Arsenio can beat it.

Because he has my name.

I stiffened. To the fae, names meant everything and if the Source was a fae artifact, then it stood to reason they would be held to the same standard.

“I don’t give a shit if Port Haven drops off of the face of the earth,” Alexander continued. While I was talking with the Source, it was as if time had slowed down so that we could talk, but now it seemed to be moving as it should again and their conversation continued. “You are not trapping my child in a cave!”

For almost seventy years I’d wanted nothing more than for Alexander Finch to speak about me like this. To show that he cared. To stick up for me against Arsenio.

It was too bad that it took me being basically magically Gorilla glued to an ancient artifact being for him to finally figure his shit out.

With a groan I sat up and opened my eyes.

“I’ll do it,” I said, my voice rough like I’d been screaming despite having no memory of doing so.

“No,” Alexander said from where he was kneeling in front of Arsenio, looking worse for wear than I’d ever seen him. He had two black eyes, cuts on his cheek and neck, and the suit he was wearing had seen better days as it hung haphazardly off of his hunched frame.

He was also sporting a pair of lovely magic dampening handcuffs that had rubbed his wrists completely raw. “You don’t know what you are signing up for, Euphemia.”

“But I do,” I told him, putting my legs underneath me so that I could wobble to my feet. “I do this, the tsunami stops, right?”

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