Page 40 of Crown of Tides and Fury

“Lennon. I’ll ask ye to remain here with everyone else until I return, or until the end of the week at least. Do not go temptin’ Carew. Do not seek his help or put questions to him unless ye have no other options left to ye. We’ll trust Brian and Flann to ken when that time comes. Just pray that he’s got no alliance with Orion. And never forget he’s Fae. Never take anything he says at face value, no matter yer feelings for him. Stick with the team and ye’ll be safe. Ye’re still a key here, even if we’ve not found the why of it. If I can glean more about that from the auld man, I will.”

I knew they were in a hurry to be gone, but I asked for a private word with Wickham first. The two of us stepped into the hallway.

“Wickham?”

“Aye?” He looked a little nervous.

“Griffon thinks you’re the one who killed the Fae King.”

His dark eyes sharpened. “Why does he think that?”

“He said, after he returned me to Dublin, he suspects whoever killed the king is the same one who’s responsible for the disappearance of his family. And that’s us, right?”

“Not us, Lennon. Ye had no hand in it.”

If I hadn’t tried to run away, none of it would have happened. But I waved off that argument for another day. “We’re talking about the Fae King.”

“Right then. What do ye believe?”

“Honestly?”

“Please.”

“I think you’re keeping something from the rest of us.”

He snorted. “I keep many things from ye. Dinnae suppose otherwise. If ye’re waitin’ for me to bare my soul to the team, ye wait in vain.” He stepped closer until there was only a foot between us. I could feel his breath on my face as he looked down into my eyes. “I said ye should stay with the team. This is where ye belong. Withthem. But I am nae yer BFF, Lennon. I am nae yer brother. I’m nae yer savior.”

“But you did save me—”

“For my own ends.” He stared at me for another minute, then stepped away. If he had to put in a little more effort to escape that strange gravity between us, he hid it well. “Ye’ll be better off, in the end, if ye dinnae put yer trust in me.”

If he was being so honest, I thought it was a good time to push him. “So, you’re not going to confess?”

“Confess what?”

“Do you…already have one of the eight?”

He didn’t move, didn’t blink, and was careful not to give me anything I could read into. I assumed that meant he did.

“So we don’t really need to be doing any of this. We can all go back to—”

“Don’t need any of this? Don’t need to find the powers, ye mean?” He stomped away from me, then back again, hissing things I couldn’t decipher. “I dinnae have the king’s power. This face has always been mine, ye ken? I did not kill the Fae King so I could have the power of Beauty or the corruption of Vanity.

“Just because yer lover has possession of Mercail’s power—for the now—we’d be inviting doom through the door if we ignored the rest. Ye think Orion can do no harm without all eight? Ye think he’ll sit on his hands until the set is complete? Or do ye think he’d use whatever power he can get to help him acquire the others?

“A weapon is a weapon, lass. This is not a matching set of jewelry, a collection of old books to set on the shelf. These are theNaming Powers—perhaps the very powers that created our world. And with even one of them, Orion can beginundoingit.

“We need to find out more of Moira’s vision. We need to ken who the DeNoy are or were. We need to find as many powers as possible—so we’ll have something with which to fight back. And we need to find that child. Then, and only then, can we worry about rescuing all those twins—”

“He’s not, you know.”

“Pardon?”

“Griffon is not my lover.”

Wickham closed his eyes, sighed. “Of course, he isnae—”

“We never…were.”

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