Page 66 of Crown of Tides and Fury

Persi was amused. “Another ward?”

“Another trick.” Wickham tried again and again, but the book wouldn’t open.

Kitch asked for a chance, but the book wouldn’t open for him either. “I thought, since it wassupposedlyleft for us, it might not open for ye. But I reckon not.” He passed the book around. Each of us gave it a try. The book held tight, as if each page had been dipped in crazy glue.

Again, Wickham tried and failed. Then he bit his lips and looked around the circle. “Brace yerselves.” He closed his eyes. A tendril of white mist snaked out of the end of his finger, became a hand, two hands. They reached for the book, lifted the cover easily, then dissolved.

Urban jumped to his feet and put himself between Wickham and his wife. “What in the bloody hell was that?”

Wickham shrugged. “The power of theSeanair,” he said, like it was a sheriff’s badge he’d been carrying around in his pocket for emergencies. Which, apparently, he had. “I’d been worried, since I’d become… I worried I’d been possessed, but in our last conversation, he said it wasn’t worthy of a name. It was just a power. I admit, I was relieved to hear it.”

Urban cursed, kissed the top of his wife’s head, then begrudgingly resumed his seat on the floor. “So, if something had happened to ye, none of us could have opened the book a’tall. The world would be lost.”

“If something happened to me, this power would have gone to someone else. They could have opened the book.”

“Small comfort, though, aye?”

Wickham read aloud,“The True History of Clan Moire, adapted for the modern tongue by Afi Cean More, Chieftain of the same.”

“Moire! Not Muir!” Brian was giddy. His brother looked ill.

“Contained herein is the lineage through which each of the Seven Naming Powers have flowed from the beginning to present.”He skimmed, mumbled.“Eighth and final power remains with Ghloir, King of the Fae.”

“He was quite old when he began transcribin’, but I’m familiar with his hand. No beatin’ about the bush.” Wickham turned the page. “The Fain Moire to whom Mercail’s power was transmuted was called Iona…Fain meaning willin’. It goes on to list her parents and where she could be found on the Isle of Erin.Ireland.No towns. No years are mentioned. As if there couldn’t have been more than a dozen Ionas on the island at that time.” He skimmed whole pages. “Then here.At the death of Iona, the power was born again in Medb, fain or no.Looks like the next section is about her.”

He shuffled through larger chunks, looked back and forth, fingered single pages, then stopped.

“Here. The Fain Moire to whom Thessa’s power was transmuted was called Gráinne. Seven Powers. I assume, seven sections. No hunting for them. The last name at the end of each section is our best lead, then. We needn’t waste time studying every page. He’s done the work for us.”

“Easy, love,” Ivy warned. “You almost sounded grateful.”

Wickham chuckled. “Perhaps, for this one thing, then.” Suddenly his eyes widened, but I might have been the only one to notice. He flipped to the end of the book, went back a few pages, then read again.“As of this telling, these Thirds, these protectors of the Naming Powers, are hale and healthy. If ye have found the other two books in my meager library, they can only be opened by the Fae king himself…if he dares.”

He went back a few pages more, read silently, then snapped the book shut and sat still for a long time. Finally, he blinked and looked up.

“We’ll compile a list in the morning and have a go at opening the other boxes. For the now, everyone back to bed. We willnae be sittin’ on our laurels any longer.” He accepted a kiss from his wife, then told her to go on ahead of him, that he’d be close on her heels.

I was the last one out and closed the door behind me. Since no one was paying attention, I stood there, listening. When the hallway cleared, I pressed my ear to the door, wondering if Wickham was hiding the book. There was no reason to, but he’d acted so funny at the end, it brought out the snoop in me.

I shouldn’t have done it. Shouldn’t have stayed. Shouldn’t have pressed my ear to the door if I had any hope of getting back to sleep before morning. What I heard was too disturbing, too illogical.

The sound of ripping paper.

26

Sleep Walkers

For a couple of hours, I honestly tried to go back to sleep, telling myself I hadn’t heard what I’d heard. I finally gave up, got dressed, and went down to help Alwyn, Meral, and Reem in the kitchen. The chef hadn’t been in the study that morning and didn’t mention the books, so I didn’t either. He showed me how to cook the eggs three different ways, then foolishly trusted me with them.

In the end, the eggs weren’t pretty. The fried ones had to be fried again, but the others were edible. I, on the other hand, looked like a walking zombie, which was a few grades better than how I felt. The last few hours, my brains had been poured into a machine and whipped into wispy threads of cotton candy.

I watched Wickham throughout breakfast, waiting for his eyes to shift, waiting for him to look guilty. He caught me staring once and frowned in question.

“Just watching for that ghost to come out of your fingers,” I joked.

He leaned toward me. When I bent my head to him, he whispered, “it is the white mist that reaches for ye when I stand too near. One day, we’ll discover the why.”

He announced he needed the morning to get Alexander situated at the Edinburgh house, so we would gather at one in the afternoon to identify our new targets. It sounded like he expected us to sit on our laurels after all, but I didn’t say it out loud.

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