Page 79 of Ulune's Daughter

We stuff our faces then cuddle in one of the round snuggler chairs Teddy left behind. I have a fire crackling softly in the fireplace and witchlight gives the room a warm glow. I prop my laptop on a pillow and work on the catalogue, lying in the crook of Rhodes’ arm while he reads on his phone. It looks like legal texts, at a quick glance, and I assume he’s studying for the justiciar’s entrance exams. Rhodes hums softly to himself while he reads. His voice is deep, soothing, almost hypnotic.

Whitey plops himself between our knees and glares at Rhodes until he falls asleep.

It’s alarmingly domestic. Except I’m not alarmed. I’m mellow and happy.

“I don’t know what to do with the cup,” I tell Rhodes after an hour of working on the catalogue. A few more days and it will be ready to go to the museum curator for approval.

“What are the options?” he asks.

“Column Museum. Bevvy’s Museum. Anadl Draig’s Museum, that’s the school in Wales where my friend Teddy teaches. I’m against that, by the way. The fae courts. Hell.”

Rhodes waits a beat, then clears his throat. “Is that Hell as an exclamation or a destination?”

“Destination. Teddy’s husband Gabe has demon blood. His uncle, Jou, is a lord of Dis. I know him well enough to ask him to take the cup. I also know him well enough to say that mankind won’t get it back if I give it to him. But maybe that’s a good thing.” I sigh. “The cup has so much capacity for destruction and misery. Maybe it should be out of mankind’s reach.”

“That seems very final,” Rhodes offers.

“I thought so too.”

“Why is Bevvy’s Museum your second choice?”

“The museum’s not really set up to contain powerful relics or highly malignant magics, the way Column is. Although since you viewed my exhibit and had such a strong response, I’ve spent some time beefing up Bevvy’s wards.”

“There are nearly five thousand mages on this campus,” Rhodes points out. “If even a third of them contribute to the museum’s wards, wouldn’t that be enough to contain the cup?”

“Seems like it, doesn’t it? I’d have to ask the administration, but that makes sense. I don’t want it going to Column now that I know they’re pally with the jackalweres.”

“You recovered it. It should be in your museum.”

I shut my laptop and tip my head back to smile up at him. “It’s not my museum.”

He kisses the tip of my nose. “The museum of the school you teach at. Better? Come on, Kells. It should be here. It’s your find. Your achievement. Have it here with your name plastered all over it. You should be recognized for what you do. It pissed me off when that jackalwere called you a grave robber. I don’t know anything about magickal archeology, but I know that’s not what you are. You do what you do for all the right reasons. More people should recognize that.”

I grin. “Are you practicing for dinner with my parents?”

“Did I hit the right note?”

“A little more sycophantry if we’re really going for petty and vindictive.”

Rhodes returns my grin. “I meant it, though.”

“You really think I do what I do for the right reasons?”

Rhodes nods. “I won’t presume to say I know you, Kellan. But what I know of you? Yeah, I believe you do everything you do for the right reasons. Everyone has darkness in them. I know that. But your darkness isn’t evil. I felt it in that cave. There was death, but it was the natural order of things. Your darkness is like a winter’s night. Cold and secretive, but not cruel. Yes, being out in it unprotected might kill you, but it’s not personal. It’s just nature. That’s what I feel from you.”

I run a fingertip along his very firm jawline. “That’s not so bad, is it?”

“Not bad at all.”

“What about your darkness?” I ask.

A frown flits across his brow. “Someday, I’ll show you my darkness. And you can tell me if it’s evil or if I’m like you.”

“I think you are,” I reassure him.

“I’d like to be. I’ve worked hard to be ... I want to do things for the right reasons, even when the things I do seem cold and hard.”

I’m not sure what he’s talking about. Everything I’ve seen of Rhodes, other than his participation in the old boy network that protects jocks from their own idiocy, is warm and kind-hearted. But he’s right that everyone has darkness in them. I haven’t seen Rhodes’ yet. I hope, when we’ve built enough trust, that he’ll show me.

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