Page 119 of Cathmoir's Sons

We are driven by love of our families, too. You are unlike others who have come to plunder the Devourer’s secrets, Queen of Crows. I hope you return from the Devourer’s Breast.

I focus on my thanks and hope that we can learn from each other. The tritones’ luminous eyes track to Gabe; she nods her crested head at him.

If you return, bring your teachers to us here and we will trade knowledge. Father Ocean protect you.

I picture the Mother’s welcoming embrace and tug on the line connecting me to Rhodes. He tears his gaze away from the tritones. With his free hand, he makes a thumbs-up toward the surface.

I’m not sure why he wants to cut the dive short, but this is his Element. He’s the expert here and I’m always willing to follow an expert’s advice.

Chapter 33

Eye Tooth

RHODES

Before Kellan’s moronic team leader can bitch at me about cutting the dive short, I tell him, “I want to research the Shadow Sisters and that cave and know what we’re going up against. We’re going into a potential fight in a tight space. Only Gabe and I have our full powers underwater. It’s too risky.”

Caileán immediately nods. Arch looks annoyed but flops onto the invisible raft Caileán creates. We skim back through the half-frozen surf back to shore.

Once we’re on land again, I collar Law. “The tritones gave us a warning about guardians of the mound. Make everyone go back to the villa so we can do some research and arm ourselves. I don’t know if Arch’s powers work at all underwater. Kellan’s limited to spells that don’t have a breath or verbal component. I want some fucking weapons before we go in again.”

Law nods. “We have an issue.” He points back out at the ocean. A black-hulled boat, tiny in the distance, bobs on the white-tipped waves. “I’m not sure if they saw you surface, but if they did, they now know where to dive.”

“Who are they?” Caileán asks, coming up beside me and tucking her shoulder against mine. I slide my arm around her and squeeze her into the warmth of the heated towel she’s wrapped around her shoulders.

“Your tech mage says it’s the team out of Madavar. Something about internet signatures and ping rate,” Law answers. “I didn’t follow it all, just gathered that the competition has arrived.”

Caileán shrugs, her shoulders rolling against my arm. “It was only a matter of time, and this won’t be the first hunt where we’ve had stiff competition. You watch, Arch’s leadership will improve. He rises to a challenge.”

Law mutters something that sounds like, “he couldn’t get much worse.”

Caileán rolls her eyes. “Play nice.”

Law rolls his right back. “Give me incentive. Hearing you beg me to come, that was so hot. Five ruined orgasms tonight.”

“Benighted Mother, no. One, Law.”

“Six.”

She swats him. “That’s not the way you negotiate. I say one, you say three.”

“Seven,” he responds before she swats him again.

Caileán’s right about Arch rising to a challenge. Instead of having to chivvy him back to the mainland, he’s the one rounding everyone up, making sure all the equipment left on the beach is warded to the eye-teeth. Once we return to the villa, he delegates efficiently. He sends half of the team into the town to ensure rumors aren’t spreading about the dive site and to buy more groceries. He disperses the other half to collect material on mythological “Shadow Sisters.” The tech-mage holes up in the library Caileán and Luca have created. Within an hour, the house is filled with the burning copper scent of his magic.

Caileán and Teddy return, unsurprisingly, to the kitchen, with Teddy’s husbands and the two demons.

“I had no idea pregnancy would turn me into a hobbit,” Caileán tells Teddy as they assemble a fruit, meat, and cheese board big enough to feed twenty. “What’s the afternoon equivalent of elevensies?”

“Afternoonsies. And ugh, not that,” Teddy says, pinching her nose and pointing at a packet of cold cuts Caileán’s holding. “Garlic. I can smell it from here.”

Caileán sniffs at the packet, shrugs, and tucks it back into the refrigerator.

“Food and sex, best parts about being pregnant,” Teddy continues as she cuts apples into slices. “When I don’t want to hurl, all I want to do is eat and have multiple orgasms. Oh, and clean. That part came later with Carrie, but by the Mother, Thistlemist has never been as clean as when I was carrying the twins. Callan used to joke that I walked around with a cleaning cantrip in one hand and a bottle of bleach in the other.”

Caileán, who is in the middle of casting a cleaning cantrip at the three whole crumbs on the counter, shifts her eyes right and left before finishing the cantrip.

Law chortles from his vantage-point in the doorway. “Cats are fastidious anyway.”

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