Page 80 of Crown of the Fae King

“If he doesn’t already have it,” Kitch said.

I kept on thinking out loud. “We just have to figure out who these people are that were set apart. So we’ve traded one mystery for another one.”

Urban shook his head. “Nay, Lennon. We already ken who they are.”

“We do?”

He gestured to the monitor, to Persi, Wickham, and the brothers.

“The Muirs witches?”

“Aye,” Wickham said. “And I’m fair to certain we ken who holds the Naming Powers.”

No one dared breathe.

“TheThirds. I wondered why there have always been only a handful of them at one time. Always monumental powers. Soni was one of them, but no longer. And Persi…”

Persi was up on her feet, shaking her head. “I’m not one of those. I’m not!”

Wickham shrugged. “Perhaps not. But we must be certain.”

“Wait a minute,” Kitchens stood too. “If O’Ryan was looking for these powers and Persi was at the wedding, why didn’t he know he’d found one? Why didn’t his dogs…smell all the Muir witches in attendance?”

Wickham waved a hand encouraging us all to calm down. “After O’Ryan’s dogs found the Muirs in Oxford, simply by using their sense of smell, I gave Persi, Soni, my sisters and myself, and some extended family, that shoulder tattoo that ye’ve surely seen by now. And recently, our Irish brothers and our staff. It’s a ward against unworldly senses. I believe the rest of you should have one as well, witches or not.

“The protection apparently didn’t apply to Soni’s blood once it left her body to drip on the ground in her handfasting ceremony. And it’s likely the reason O’Ryan didn’t believe her at first, when she told him she was the one he was looking for. As for the monsters, they were poised to attack everyone. No need to sniff around.” He frowned. “I wondered at the coincidence. Wondered why the Grandfather taught me those tattoo wards.”

Persi and Kitch resumed their seats. I wondered how Wickham would take the news that I was terrified of needles and couldn’t possibly handle a tattoo. I also couldn’t keep my mouth shut. “Then you can protect any Muirs in O’Ryan’s path.”

Wickham shifted uncomfortably on his stool. “Perhaps. Or perhaps, since we have this information, we can discover O’Ryan’s weaknesses before he finds any others.”

“There’s no time for any of that,” Lorraine said. Her sister nodded beside her. “You have to find the Naming Powers before he does. It’s a race, Wickham. Whether or not the Grandfather planned it from the start—”

Wickham muttered to himself. “From the moment he signed his name—”

“You will have to play, brother.”

“And if you lose…”

“Destruction and sorrow for all. Aye, I heard.” Wickham poured another drink, but no one so much as coughed. “We have the advantage.” He saluted us with his glass. “Clearly, O’Ryan doesn’t know he’s looking forThirds. He only knows the Muir witches have the Naming Powers.”

The study filledwith murmured conversations that, as a whole, sounded very much like ice clinking in a glass. Loretta and Lorraine had their heads together. The Irish brothers picked out words in the contract and debated different meanings. Persi helped Wickham assemble an easel for a large whiteboard, though the only communication they exchanged was hostile looks. And the MacKenzies simply sat and stared at their tangled fingers. If I had to guess which two in the room were reading each other’s minds, I would have chosen the latter.

I, of course, was alone with no hand to hold but Kitchens’, and he wasn’t any more interested than I was.

“If we’ve set off the end of the world,” he said, rising from his chair, “then I’ll need another éclair and a whisky. Or two.” He lifted an eyebrow, but I shook my head. My preferred form of puff pastry was round and piled into a pyramid. And I never drank much for fear of spilling my guts about Hank.

There were still many questions, and I couldn’t help but think that my favorite professor might know the answers to a lot of them. Hell, he might even know what O’Ryan’s weaknesses were, and if he was, in fact, this character they called Ambition.

It seemed like the purple-eyed fairy knew all about things witches wouldn’t understand. Would knowledge of O’Ryan peg Griffon as one of the Fae?

I groaned quietly, frustrated that there was a handsome, kind, and loveable man out there who wanted to be with me—at least until he knew I was broken—trusting him was forbidden.

Someone much larger than Kitch plonked down in the chair beside me. A knee covered with blue tartan nudged mine and I looked up into Urban’s worried face.

“Large or small?”

I shook my head. “Large or small what?”

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