Page 112 of Crown of Tides and Fury

43

Silver Strings And Cat’s Cradles

Seraphim neverlosefeathers.

Whatever feathers Griffon had removed from his arsenal, he’d removed on purpose. The tiny pinfeather he’d tucked into Lennon’s pocket, before she’d regained consciousness in Dublin, hadn’t been his first, but the move had been inspired. He’d been able to keep tabs on her despite Wickham’s enchantments.

Now, the pinfeather never moved.

He fought to keep a level head where Lennon was concerned. The fact that she had kept the feather with her at all times might have been flattering to anyone else, but he couldn’t afford to think that way. All the time she’d carried it, it might have been lost in her purse or the pocket of her favorite jacket. It didn’t mean that she thought of him daily.

He also couldn’t read into that tickle he felt, almost daily, beneath his clavicle. A brush of her fingers when she put her hand in her pocket could cause it. Or it might be pure imagination. Perhaps it wasn’t Lennon who thought of him every morning, but rather it was he who thought about her.

In any case, it had tethered them together in a way he couldn’t explain to any other creature. And he would never try. Even when he’d been enraged with her and her friends, there’d been that string pulled taut between them. And he had an unreasonably romantic notion that when there was nothing left of this world, if worse came to worse, that little string would remain.

He imagined some ancient being coming along to survey the vast desolation that once was Earth. They might stumble, look down, and see this precious bit of pristine silver thread that couldn’t be destroyed. Maybe they would know, intuitively, what it was.

Love.

Dammit! Why did he have to love her?

Griffon stared at the Cat’s Cradle string wrapped around his fingers and waited for Fallon to relieve him of it. The silly child thought her fingers were big enough to perform the moves that would change the pattern to a witch’s broom. And for the two-dozenth time in as many tries, she would fail again. But he wouldn’t be the one to suggest she give up. That was a lesson she needed to learn on her own.

And so he sat, patiently, while she tucked a finger here, a thumb there, grabbed the string, and…

She did it!Those plump little fingers had finally done it!

Her round cheeks grew rounder, rosier, and her little blue eyes lit with triumph. They lit his soul. “I did it!”

“You did it!”

She skipped around the kitchen, holding her hands as if showing off to an audience, and as she ran, the string slipped off one finger at a time, leaving her with a limp circle of bright green. Her grin changed to shock.

Griffon held his breath, prepared for her usual burst of tears and a bone-chilling scream.

She blinked a few times, then the grin came back and she laughed—a tune plucked out of a magical harp that melted him each and every time he heard it. How could he ever give her up?

The door flew open, and Annag marched through it, carrying two paper bags full of food.

Fallon waved the string. “I did it! I did it! Only I lost it.”

The woman snorted. “Well, ye can find it again later. Help me put these things away.” She glanced at Griffon. “Ye’ve been playin’ Cat’s Cradle since I left?”

“Certainly not.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, aye, ye have. I thought she couldnae be spoilt any more than I’d already done. Once we leave here, I’ll be the one who’ll have to correct her character.”

“Don’t you touch her character. She’ll grow out of it.”

“Had a lot of experience with children, have ye?”

A giant fist reached into his chest to squeeze his heart and prevent his lungs from filling completely, but he managed to get the words out anyway. “I was grown when my sister and brother were born, so…aye.” It was all he could manage. Once upon a time, Daphne was a five-year-old like Fallon. Spoiled every day, and yet the tantrums seemed to disappear in the blink of an eye.

Now that he considered it, Archer’s tantrums lasted until he was seventeen…

“Ye’re lookin’ weary.” Annag stood before him. He hadn’t been paying attention. “Shall I take her alone to the beach today?”

Griffon shook his head, forced a smile. “And let the two of you escape? Then who will play games with me?”

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