Page 20 of Crown of the Fae King

Learning To Boke

Wickham hated telling his sisters anything, but the problem was this—if something went horribly wrong, Lorraine and Loretta were the next line of defense when it came to his family. They had to know what he knew—at least the important parts.

For instance, in case the worst happened, they had to know where he’d hidden his wife and sons before he went to the Black Isle to dispatch the old man. They needed to know that he had, in fact, taken the Grandfather’s mantle. Though he’d assured them, five years ago, that the old man and his two attendants had only been toying with them, leading his sisters to believe he waited in agony for Wickham to end his life, they still worried.

They needn’t know how he’d punished those attendants, or how he’d dispatched the Grandfather, who had tricked Wickham into replacing him.

From the window, he gazed out on the snowy landscape of County Kildare with a phone to his ear and reluctantly, ever so reluctantly, he told his sisters about the white mist.

Loretta was quick to reassure him.“It doesn’t mean you’re possessed, Wickham. I’m sure it was just like the power you took from Grey’s wife, Aries. Just a mist, that’s all. Just his power. And maybe a more substantial power takes on a more substantial form. If it had been a possession, you should have sensed its manipulation, shouldn’t you?”

Lorraine chimed in, agreeing.“But you haven’t said. Have you felt manipulated?”

“I have not,” he lied.

Lorraine sensed it immediately, perhaps by the tone of his voice.“Brother? You must tell us.”

He looked around the cottage for Lennon, then remembered she’d gone outside. Brian and Flann had their heads together, chatting in the kitchen. Wickham lowered his voice.

“There was something…fleeting. When I first stepped into the café to collect the woman, the…mist…seemed to recognize her. I felt it…reaching out. Almost…yearning.”

His sisters were silent.

“Dinnae mistake me. I feel no attraction. And though Lennon is perfectly lovely, my heart and soul are firmly with Ivy.”

“But how doesshefeel aboutyou?”

“Nothing there but fear and wariness. No longing glances. No flirting. And no matter how the mist might feel about her, it affects me not at all.”

“Wickham, be careful,”Loretta said.“You just said the mistfeels. You named it, called it the White One.”

He laughed lightly, relieved. To his sisters, it did sound as if he’d given more credit to the white vapor than he actually had. And the longer they spoke, the more he came to believe as they had at the start of the conversation, that the mist was just a power like all the rest. Like another power he’d accepted long ago, an unexpected development he intended to never share with anyone, besides the man whose head he’d removed.

Lorraine wasn’t ready to let it go. “I’m wondering,” she said, “if the mist was reaching out to her talisman or whatever it is. What does she call it?”

“Hank.”

“Is there a chance it was reaching for Hank?”

“No. She didn’t have it on her at the time.”

“Maybe a residue,” Loretta suggested.

“If that were the case,” he said, “then it should have reacted when we came in contact withHanklater that day. I sensed nothing at all from it.”

Once Wickham had eased his sisters’ minds and ended the call, he stared at the mysterious woman standing in the middle of the road at the top of the rise.

Just why woulda powerreach out to anUncast?

“We’ve made a prediction, so we have,” Brian called to him. “The lass is contemplating making a run for it. I say she’ll come back. Flann says she’ll flee without her breakfast.”

Wickham reached for his coat.

“Here, here. No influencing the horse, now.”

“She’s no racehorse,” he told the brothers and headed for the door. “But she might be the prize.”

I was still deliberatingmy escape from Wickham’s madness when he stomped up behind me. I kept my eyes on the horizon. “The acoustics out here are crazy. I didn’t hear you coming.”

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