Page 98 of Crown of the Fae King

With my idyll shattered, I followed him down the stairs, caught up, and wrapped my arm around his until we reached the ground floor. “I’m sorry I worried you.” I gave his arm a squeeze and was rewarded with a wink and a smile.

He put his hands to the side of his mouth and bellowed, “Found her!”

Wickham and Kitch arrived at the front hall just as we did. Kitch took one look at me and the book, leaned on his knees, and laughed with what little breath he had. “Told ye,” he said, presumably to Wickham. “She’s no gantin teenager.”

It wasn’t hard to guess what gantin’ meant. “I’m not a teenager, at least.”

He laughed again, then shook his head. “Maybe you need to get her…something.” He waved in the general direction of my crotch.

I couldn’t let him get away with it. “What? A chastity belt? A…male escort? Maybe…a Welsh professor? Or didyouintend to volunteer?”

Urban stood beside me, his arms folded, his eyes shooting daggers at the shorter man. Kitch held up his hands and backed away. Wickham closed his eyes as if praying for patience.

I turned to go to my room, sent Urban a discreet wink, then called over my shoulder. “Someone want to bring me a tub of ice for my bath?”

Having goneto sleep early the night before, I was up at dawn and took my breakfast out to the veranda to eat in the sunshine. The chill was worth the solitude. Besides, when no one saw me at the breakfast table, I wanted them to worry I was still holding a grudge.

I wasn’t.

I sat at a table in the study, surfing the internet incognito, when my friends came through the door. Kitchens came to his usual chair beside me and waited for a smile before taking his seat. I liked the way we communicated. No need to talk each other to death. A smile for an apology. A smile for forgiveness.

Everyone else did their little checks in the same way. A raised brow asking if I was okay. A nod from me and it was over.

Wickham was intense from the second he walked through the door, the previous night forgotten. “Everyone here?” He looked for his sisters smiling and waving on the TV screen. Brian had already set up the call. Wickham waved back. “Grand. Let’s get started.”

He hung a large white poster against the wall and pushed pins into the corners. “These are the eight Naming Powers and the names of those to whom they were given.” He turned to show us how pleased he was to be able to announce such a thing. I was impressed he could have figured all that out from our conversation with The Great Discourager.

He played a bit of the recording of Sarah putting names to her dolls and telling what they protected her from. “I believe these line up with a list Brian and Flann found in one of their books last night. A book called the Ethos of the Fae.

“These are the Eight Ideals, supposedly.” He pointed to the first of four columns and read the words aloud.

“Beauty

Hope

Fertility

Peace

Art

Light

Youth

Life”

“Now, if we look at what they found in another book, translated loosely as the Eight Corruptions, they line up perfectly. Opposites of the Ideals.” He read the last column.

“Vanity

Despair

Famine

War

Destruction

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