Page 82 of Crown of the Fae King

Wickham wrote Year of Contract,Denoy,Carew,thenSeparate Twins,each on their own line. Then he drew a line through the latter, letting us know he’d already taken care of matters.

“What if…” I stopped, wondering if I should ask this question in front of everyone or if I should wait and ask Wickham in private.

“Go on, Lennon,” he said.

“What if a certain professor who teaches Fae studies at a prestigious college might know the answers to all of them?”

“Same problem we had at Trinity. We’d be revealing ourselves—”

“To whom? O’Ryan? What if all fairies aren’t in cahoots with him? What if we…didn’t let Griffon get away until we knew for sure?”

“Capture him? Like the purple fairy did to you?”

I sighed. “It was just a thought.”

“Jeez, Lennon,” Kitch said dramatically. “If you want to tie up your boyfriend, we don’t need to get involved.”

By consensus,Locate Thirdswas designated our first priority. The other concerns just hung there on the whiteboard, waiting for their turn. With so many of us searching we were bound to cross a few things off our list as we went along.

Wickham left to go visit his niece, Soni. If she was no longer a witch, I thought it might be kindernotto tell her she was partly responsible for breaking a contract between Fae and Man. But then I realized I wouldn’t like being left in the dark.

The rest of us googled, we ate, we skimmed the books Brian and Flann had brought from home and a few they’d been allowed to check out of the Bod. After a long discussion, with Wickham joining us at the end, it was deemed safe for me to ask Griffon two questions only, which were essentially the same question in two ways.

How old is the Covenant? And has anyone carbon-dated it?

We hauled the mess to the kitchen, signaling the end of our meeting for the day. Left with an open evening, I regretted not making plans to see Griffon, but my chaperones were worn out.

Excitement takes a lot out of a body.

33

Busted

Ibundled up and went for a walk. Unlike Edinburgh, I could get away from the house without leaving the property. I just walked along the outer wall for a while. Bright green grass was winning the battle for space against the dead yellow blades that hadn’t survived the winter. Here and there, patches of daffodils were proving they had.

It was nice to be alone for a change. Out in the fresh air. Hearing my own breathing, my own footsteps, and no one else’s.

I had been both disappointed and relieved when The Covenant had no mention ofcloch realtas. I would have liked to know my purpose in Wickham’s scheme of things, but it was a relief Hank’s secrets hadn’t been revealed, and nicer still to hear that I wasn’t really necessary. Maybe my usefulness was over.

And maybe I had saved a life or two with my whining. Maybe Meral and Reem might have been the next victims along the Ninth Meridian East.

I thought back to that version of me in an ugly orange dress and barely recognized myself. If I met Andy Weaver in a dark parking lot now, I would fight first, ask questions later. And I didn’t know any moves yet.

Of course, I still felt an irrational need to refill coffee cups, but that was fading.

Wickham had changed a little too. In Ireland, he’d been adamant that he would never take the job of Grandfather. I wondered if him playing the Grandfather card was the same thing as accepting the gig, or if he was just taking the first bite out of that elephant.

The independence I had once waved like a flag meant nothing to me now. Even when all this was over, if we did thwart O’Ryan and avoid the war Urban saw coming, I didn’t want to go back to being alone. If I did, there would be no one I could tell my fantastical stories to. Like meeting enchanted pages in the restricted area of the Trinity College Library…

Even now, I wished I had taken one of them with me, to carry around Oxford to see if it could ferret out answers there.

I patted Hank, hanging around my waist. “Too bad you can’t do that. I’d ask you if Griffon is Fae.”

The next dayI wore my favorite Alexander McQueen slacks, a gray turtleneck, and the loosely woven cardigan that hung open to my navel. Since my little knife would set off the metal detectors, I silenced my phone and slipped it through the slit inside my pocket, then strapped it into the little holster instead. As far as Griffon knew, I didn’t have one, and for the time being, I had to keep it that way.

I put on the olive leaf jewelry along with the redfleur de lisnecklace to remind me of the red underwear hidden beneath it all. At the last second, I decided to take Hank and slipped the money belt under the waist of my pants.

I was anxious to meet up with Griffon, and thankfully, the Irish lads kept up as I hurried to the quad. Kitch lagged behind, in no hurry to start his boring day of guarding people while they read.

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