Page 146 of Ulune's Daughter

“I’m afraid of researcher bias. Everything’s starting to look connected, but maybe that’s because I’m in the middle of it all. I’m drawn to Isla Cedros, following the trail of a civilization that disappeared a thousand years ago behind a wall of mist. No one knows why. They’re barely even a legend anymore. On Isla Cedros, I find a huge grave. Ten thousand dead after sharing a poisoned cup. They killed themselves to stop the spread of dream demons.”

“Right,” Teddy says.

“I’m drawn to England to retrieve the cup of Sulis Minerva. Looted by the Nazis in the 1940s after sitting in the Polish royal treasury for almost a thousand years, given as a baptism gift to a Polish king. That’s an ironic use of a pagan cup, don’t you think?”

“Uh-huh,” Teddy agrees. “Year?”

“You’re seeing it?”

“Feeling it. How many cups kicking around through history with the power to kill ten thousand people?”

Kellan’s head drops forward. “It’s not just me.”

“Keep going. What else you got?”

“In Faery, the Crow Queens thwart the Oak King’s plans to destroy the dark fae. He gives a blessed cup to a fae lord to take to the court of the youngest Crow Queen. The Court of Cold Mist. Everyone in her court falls into a cursed sleep. While everyone’s sleeping, the high fae murder the Crow Queen and her consorts.”

“Cup, cup, cup. Sleep, sleep, sleep,” Teddy says. “I can see why this is bugging you. Also, what the fuck?”

“Have you ever read or heard anything about the high fae murdering a Crow Queen?”

“Never.”

“Teddy.” Kellan swallows audibly. “Darwin’s ancestor was one of the killers.”

“The fuck? You’re telling me the fucking Thistle Regent killed a Queen of Faery? I’m not saying you’re wrong, Kells, but they’re all bound with a million oaths.”

“When did he get the Regency, Teddy?”

“I don’t know exactly. It’s difficult to line up fae history with mortal history before the nineteenth century. The fae live so long they don’t track years the way mortals do and time isn’t perfectly linear in Faery. To say nothing of the fact each court keeps its own records and they don’t fucking agree.”

“I know but take a guess.”

The woman blows a long breath into the phone. “Tenth century. This is one of those things about fae history that gets argued all the time. Everyone assumes that the Oak King followed the European settlers to the New World. But I think the fae presence in the New World goes back five hundred years before that. I think the Oak King followed the Vikings.”

“Around the time a pagan cup of curses ends up in the Polish court.”

“Fuck. The Oak King rewarded Darwin’s ancestor for his part in killing another monarch of Faery with the Thistlemist Regency.”

“Yes,” Kellan agrees. “Ferran rises to Holly King at Ivywhile. Dominik Iron Hand gets Bloodelm. Five of them kill her. Three get their own courts. She takes one with her. One’s unaccounted for.”

“What if the fifth goes to Poland with the cup?”

“What if the cup goes to Poland and the fifth goes to California?” Kellan muses. “Maybe he was promised a court in the New World, too.”

“Okay, but how does that connect to Isla Cedros? The Magi of the Mist had been there for hundreds of years by then.”

“The sleeping curse. See why I’m afraid of researcher bias? Maybe I’m seeing a connection where none exists?”

“Mmm, have I ever told you about the theory of convergences in Chronomancy?”

“Yes, you’ve mentioned it before. It’s when the same people and things are drawn together in different Timelines, right?” Kellan asks.

“Uh-huh. When they come together, they tend to produce the same results, which gives rise to sticky events. The same event that happens across numerous branching timelines, drawing them back together.” Teddy’s quiet for a moment. “You’ve been drawn to Isla Cedros and the cup ... Kells ... you don’t have to answer this, but are you the youngest Crow Queen? Charlie said you were wearing a cloak of crow feathers that night at the cave.”

Kellan slumps into the pillows. I wrap myself more tightly around her. “Yes,” she whispers.

“We really need that girls’ night,” Teddy says quietly.

---