Page 74 of Crown of Tides and Fury

“Youth,” Brian said, then rubbed his hands together as Wickham brought him to the book. “Last name…” He shuffled pages quickly, stopped, then backed up. “Last name listed for Neia’s power is….Guillaume. Gaeten Malo Guillaume. A man. Last known…Los Angeles, California.”

Kitch fed the name into various websites while we waited. He pointed to the big monitor on the wall and an article appeared.Kidnapped, UCLA Leading Scientist on RNA Decay.The date at the corner of the article was August 13. “Three days ago.”

“At least he’s not peddling water bottles,” Urban said, “and claiming it’s from the Fountain of Youth.”

Wickham took a seat on the sofa and closed his eyes. “I reckon he’s not doin’ anything at all—if Orion took him, he’s already dead. Looks like our celebratory dinner was premature.”

Urban slammed his hands on his table and cursed.

Brian stood and went to the wall, crossed off the zero below Orion’s name, and made a hashmark. Orion 1. Then he did the same below Wickham’s name. Orion had Neia’s power and we had Palida’s—in Persi. Griffon had Mercail’s power—in Fallon. “A three-way tie.”

Everly leaned back in her seat and smoothed her ponytail. “At least Griffon doesn’t know the game.”

Wickham shot me a look. “Yet.”

I shot right back. “You think I’m going to tell him? When? Just before he slits my throat?”

“Your throat looked safe enough in the library.”

I smiled sweetly and spoke slowly. “Kiss…my ass.”

Still standing at the head of the room, Brian cleared his throat and waited for the class to settle down. “If we accept the assumption that Orion has Neia’s power, that means, technically, there are only three powers left in play. Thessa, Gilliam, and Deona’s—Fertility, Peace, and Creation. Rowena’s is lost, as is Ghloir’s, to whoever eliminated the Fae King. So let’s stop debating and slip those three into our pocket whilst we can. Only then might we afford the time to ponder how Orion found Gaeten Guillaume in the first place.”

“I reckon he’s gotten his new knowledge from torturing captured Muirs,” Kitch said. “The clue that took us to Fallon came from Muirsglen. It’s reasonable he acquired the information about the UCLA professor in the same manner. I doubt the old Grandfather was foolish enough to make a second books of names, or even a list, where it might fall into Orion’s hands.”

“No.” Wickham stood again. “We assume Orion has a list of names as well.” He huffed out a loud breath. “We must find these three lasses…and we find them today.”

29

Second The Same

All the research, all the history, all the revelations boiled down to three names. Rinky Moore, Bailey Rosier, and Felicity Orley. These were our primary targets. Our objective was to bring all three of them to Hope House. Anything else was secondary.

The smart move might have been to split up, search for all of them all at once, but with our increased chances of running into Orion, Wickham opted for travelling in the largest pack possible. Which meant Wickham and me, Persi and Kitch, Urban and Everly, and the three bachelors, Brian, Flann, and Alwyn.

Ivy wanted to go, but wasn’t trained. And with Alexander now in Edinburgh, she wanted to wrap her arms around her other two sons for a little comfort. She made one thing clear, though. “I expect to start training tomorrow.”

We gathered in the foyer at six that evening. Alwyn passed around a platter of hand-pies, or what they called pasties, pronouncedpausties. They were a sort of turnover with meat, peas and carrots, and gravy on the inside. I could have eaten a dozen.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Urban stick a couple of extras in his sporran.

“First,” Wickham said, “we’re going for Bailey. She’s in a war zone, serving meals. We got a general location from someone who works for World Central Kitchen, but no definite coordinates. Ukraine is an hour ahead, so they’ll probably be in the thick of service, but we’re taking her out of there, whether she agrees or not. We’ll deal with the fallout later.”

Kitch raised a hand. “Speaking of fallout, how close are they to the front line?”

“Kharkiv,” Wickham said, and we all sucked in a breath. She might as well have been on the Russian border. “In and out. Keep it simple.”

We grabbed onto one another and popped out of our warm foyer into a windy street, clutching each other for balance as we shifted our feet amidst the rubble.

Whenever I’d seen war scenes, in the movies or on TV, I’d assumed the gray, bleak scenery was created by some art department for the sake of mood and believability. But nearly everything in view was literally gray.

Gray streets covered with gray dust, gray rubble from concrete buildings. Gray uniforms, coats, clothing. Even our own team looked washed out. Had we been wearing gray as a fashion statement for a decade?

My eyes sought out and fixed on anything different. A woman’s coat with a black and white pattern. A red beret among a hundred army-green ones. A little patch of grass, the dying spots of dry gold.

A little sign, taped to a pole with a logo of yellow, red, blue, and green. “World Central Kitchen,” it read, and an arrow. Other words written over the top.“Darmowe Jedzenie.”

Wickham stopped an old woman in a loosely knitted white cap and asked her what it meant.

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