Page 22 of Crown of the Fae King

“Me?”

Wickham held up his hands in a sort of surrender. “Aye. But something of our world has come to her. Her eyes are open. A mortal who is no longer oblivious to us is technically an Uncast.”

Flann nodded and went back to eating, but he scowled at his food until his brother knocked on the table.

“Ye owe me five quid,” Brian said.

Flann snorted. “I owe ye nuttin’ a’tall.”

“A bet’s a bet.”

“Ye interfered!” Flann pointed his fork at Wickham. “He interfered, after ye taunted him. So technically, ye interfered with the interferer. Therefore, the bet was null. If anything, ye owe me five quid for interferin’.”

Wickham rolled his eyes but didn’t bother explaining what the bet had been about. The rest of the meal was finished while the brothers explained to me the finer points of honoring a wager and the trick to cooking a Full Irish (breakfast) so as to serve everything hot at once.

I still couldn’t bear to open that green suitcase, so I had no change of clothes. Wickham promised to take me shopping that afternoon, but insisted we go to the library first. I was hardly dressed for a college campus, and there was nothing more appropriate in my suitcase. At least I was wearing my best shoes—a pair of slightly worn black Nikes I’d found at a secondhand store in Twin Falls. I couldn’t do anything to sober up my rose-colored coat. Even I wasn’t a big fan of pink, but in Idaho, warmth trumped everything else.

Wickham and I sat in the back seat of a small car with a steering wheel on the right. Just before the freeway, Brian pulled off to the left side of the road. Flann got out and opened my door, then insisted I sit up front.

“Why?”

He held out his hand and winked. “Because I sense ye’re about to boke, and I’d rather not be sittin’ in front of ye when ye do.”

I took his hand and climbed out, privately grateful I’d be able to watch the road. “What does boke mean?”

“Vomit. I take it ye have—”

“Motion sickness. Yes, I get sick easily. But how did you know?”

He laughed, waited for me to get back in, and closed the car door. Then I remembered Wickham saying he’d been able to read minds much better before his twin had died.

I turned to Brian. “Can all Muir witches read minds?”

He shook his head and pulled back onto the road. “Just the unlucky ones.”

9

Galaxies And Fingernails

We reached Dublin just after noon, and the ancient, gothic architecture of Trinity College made me feel, again, as if Wickham had taken me back in time. I considered my wardrobe again and had never in my life felt so much like a hick.

I wouldn’t have minded if they’d asked me to wait in the car.

Brian had spoken in the car about the Long Walk and the Long Room. It turned out the first was a path of white bricks that ran in front of a long line of campus buildings. The Long Room was apparently the part of the library where the oldest of books were kept.

At the library entrance, there was a sudden bottle neck in the line to get in. I couldn’t help noticing that everyone else looked like they were dressed for church. Layers of wool and scarves and serious shoes. Not a Nike in the bunch. But no one else seemed to be looking at my shoes, so I relaxed a little.

Sitting on the desk at the front of the line was a classy sign in black and gold that said mobile phones must be silenced. I almost expected the gatekeeper to be dressed in a black robe and resemble Severus Snape, but it was a young cheerful girl with red hair and freckles. She smiled widely at each entrant, then peered close at their identification before making a lovely gesture with her hand and repeating, “I hope ye find what ye’re lookin’ for.”

Brian and Flann set their cards on the high desk. “Two guests,” Brian said.

The girl glanced at Wickham, then me, then Wickham again. Without missing a beat, she pulled out two small scraps of paper and asked us to fill them out. “We like to know where our guests are from.” Then she waited patiently while we filled them out. Her fair skin couldn’t hide her blush, but I couldn’t blame her. I was pretty sure my own blush had been stuck in theonposition since Wickham Muir had walked into Twila’s.

When I handed back my form, she read the word Idaho aloud with three distinct syllables, then rewarded me with the same lovely gesture and repeated her welcome as if saying it for the first time that day. “I hope ye find what ye’re looking for.” But there was a wistfulness to her voice, as if she were secretly wishing she could find a handsome Scotsman like the one with his hand on my back.

We wandered down hallways and paused while the brothers tried to decide which room to enter. Kind of like following teenagers around a shopping mall, waiting for them to choose a store.

“Here we are,” Flann said, then led us around a corner and into a room the size of a modest cathedral. “The Wren Library. It dunt have what we’re looking for, but I thought ye should see it, so I did. In case ye never have a chance to visit again.”

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