Page 25 of Crown of the Fae King

I stepped close, reached in front of him, and pulled out the first box, the one with the loose papers. The chain, still attached to a loop at the bottom of the spine, made a ruckus when I moved. I snapped the glass box open, but it took some muscle. When the air flooded inside, the pages fluttered like butterfly wings before settling in the deep side of the box again.

I gently lifted one edge and heard hissing.

At the end of the row, watching over Flann’s shoulder, was a tall woman in a white lab coat. Her eyes shone with a purple light, her white teeth exposed, but she wasn’t smiling.

“Fingers to yerself,” she said. “They don’t care to be touched!” She nodded at the pages I was about to remove, looked long and hard at Wickham, then nodded politely at Flann. “As I said at the information desk, if ye tell me what it is ye’re lookin’ for, I might help. Or I might just call security.”

Wickham inclined his head. “Forgive us. I fear what we seek might…draw too much attention—the wrong sort of attention—just to speak of it.” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out something tiny, then laid it in his open palm and showed it to the woman. A small white gemstone, and considering the way it shattered and reflected the light, probably a diamond. “Can ye help us?”

“Out with it, then.” She held out her hand and let him drop the stone into it. Without looking closely, she shoved her hand into her lab coat pocket. “We’re all awake now, so we are.” She nodded at the box in my hand, then whispered something unintelligible.

The little pages ruffled again, on their own, and I nearly dropped the box. I mouthed sorry, closed the clear lid carefully, then squeezed it until it snapped tight.

“Uncast,” Wickham said. “We are looking for any reference to the Uncast.”

The woman clicked her tongue on the back of her teeth. “Dublin’s chock full of ‘em.” She gestured toward me with a purple fingernail intricately painted like the stars. I could easily imagine those tiny galaxies swirling.

Wickham nodded. “Aye. I kenwhatthey are. But I hope to find somepropheticmention of them. Some specificuse…”

The woman’s smile fell away. Her purple eyes bore into Wickham’s for a long time, and I knew her interest had nothing to do with how handsome he was. “No use ye could understand,witch,had ye lived a thousand years.” She looked pointedly at the box in my hand, then at the shelf, in an unspoken command to put it back where it belonged. “Ye cannae begin to know the answer, let alone the question. And neither will be found in these pages.” Again, she nodded at the shelf and stepped away.

“Please.” Wickham stopped her retreat with his sincerity. “There is something else. Two more questions.”

She moved back to Flann’s side and held out her hand once more. “Two more, then.”

Wickham reached into his pocket again, then placed two stones in the woman’s waiting palm. A larger stone of pale lavender and a small one of dark emerald green. “What does it mean when a creature claims he isolder than name?And what pray tell is theKing’s Covenant?”

Her mouth fell open, her purple eyes wide as she glanced from me, to Wickham, to me again. “Impossible! Impossible!” She shook her head rapidly. “How long? How long have ye…had these questions?”

“Five years.”

“Five!” In obvious rage, she pulled the stones from her pocket, threw them at the floor, and disappeared. Flat out disappeared. But her voice hung in the air.

“Despair, witch. Yer questions will not matter now.”

Seconds felt like minutes while the three of us stood staring at the empty space she’d left behind. Finally, Flann’s hand shook as he lifted the near end of the pole, ready to help lock up the books again.

Since we’d already been busted, I asked if we should take them all with us.

Wickham shook his head. “They’ll be easily followed. I won’t bring Fae wrath down upon Flann and Brian’s heads. Now that I ken where they are, I can come back if necessary. Besides, she admitted our answers arenae here.”

“She said it’s hopeless, right? Does this mean I go back to Idaho?” I couldn’t imagine anything more bleak.

“Nay, Lennon. Never trust a Fae. Not a word. Not a smile. And especially not a forecast of doom. At the end of the day, if ye dinnae wish to continue this hunt, I’ll take ye wherever ye wish and never bother ye again. But I’ll expect yer commitment, one way or the other, by the end of--”

“Where do we go next?”

He inhaled slowly and smiled. Gave me one of those proud-of-me looks. “It is time I introduce ye to the others.”

“Other Uncasts?”

“Ye’ll see.”

10

World’s End

The biggest city I’d ever been in was Denver, Colorado. It seemed like Edinburgh might have started out a similar size, but it spread as far and wide as gravity would allow, like a scoop of cookie dough made with too much butter.

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