Page 58 of Knight's End
Declan grabbed my hand and pulled my wrist to his face. He gave it a soft kiss. “I know, Bloss. I mean, I knew it. But now, I really know.”
I traced his cheek. “Love you.”
“Love you more.”
I shook my head as we walked toward the door that Ryan held open for us. “You can feel how much I love you, so you know that’s not possible.”
* * *
The three of us returned to the library to find everyone there, still researching. Connor, Blue, and even Quinn were shooting annoyed looks over at Donaloo as they pored over document after document. I could see a discarded pile of items at their feet. Donaloo was no help, of course, he’d worn borrowed trousers today and they kept slipping down as he danced around chanting, “A child is a mother’s heart, she is broken when they’re apart.” He slid on a discarded scroll and nearly lost his balance.
Dini tried to grow her petals large enough to cover his face. “Can I please just smother him?” she squeaked as she pressed the petals down. She squealed when Donaloo nearly ripped one of her petals as he freed his mouth. She shrunk back to her normal size with a grunt.
I stared over at her with a sarcastic raise of the brow. Donaloo might be a fool, but he’d proven useful. Which was more than she’d done thus far. “You going to create a mirror spell to protect the capital from djinn?” I asked her.
Her petals had fluttered. “You’re fighting djinn?”
Declan muttered, “And giants and sea sprites,” as he tossed aside another book. It landed with athunk.
“Sea sprites!” Dini squeaked. “Those are my cousins!”
“Yes, what do you know about a sprite named Mayi?” I asked.
“There’s no such sprite,” Dini responded, her petals slowly twisting back and forth like she was shaking her head. “My kind are rare. Sea sprites even more so.”
“Well, you’re wrong. There is such a sprite. We’ve seen her,” I argued.
“Not possible. The last sea sprite died in an underwater earthquake seventeen years ago. And his name wasn’t Mayi. It was Losho,” Dini crossed her leaves.
“How do you know that?”
Dini rolled her petals in an exaggerated fashion, like she was rolling her head and eyes at me. “Because sprites can communicate with one another, obviously.”
My stomach dropped. To my mind, there was nothing obvious about a flower communicating with anyone. But Dini was right about sprites being rare. I turned to stare at Donaloo, “Is that true?”
The wizard bobbed his head from side to side, causing Dini to smack him with a leaf. “Truth is … what you believe you know that you believe. Those cobbled facts that you perceive.”
“Do you know what a sea sprite looks like? Have you ever met one? Is Mayi one?” My questions tumbled out and stacked one on top of the other.
Donaloo just shrugged and turned his hands palm up.
I gritted my teeth. “Never mind. Quinn can Dini use your last bead for just a moment?”
Quinn took a bead out of his own hair and walked toward Dini, who cringed backward. “What are you doing?”
“This bead will let him transfer a mental image to you, so you can see who we see. If this isn’t a sea sprite we’re dealing with, we’re planning our attacks for her all wrong,” I clicked my fingernails together impatiently as Dini grew a small shoot so that Quinn could slide the bead onto it. If Mayi wasn’t a damned sea sprite, we needed to know what the hell she was. The witch was fighting Sedara now, but we needed to know how she could be defeated.
I could tell the moment Quinn sent Dini the mental images of Mayi that we’d picked up at the tavern. A shiver ran up her stem. “Oooh, you’re close! That thing is certainlynota full sea sprite. But she is a halfling. Oh, Losho must have gotten busy under the sea … but really? A human?” She made atsking sound.
Donaloo scolded her. “You scoff, but you fed at the same trough.”
Quinn and I shared a horrified glance at the thought of some sea version of Dini getting busy with a human. What would that mean? A human and a strand of seaweed? A sea urchin? I was tamping down on my gag reflex out of official royal politeness. Until Connor changed the direction of my thoughts.
“If Mayi’s half-human, then there’s a price for her magic.”
Those words rushed like a waterfall down my spine. A thrill raced through me. All of us turned to stare at him.
Connor stared solemnly at me, his dark blue eyes burning into mine. “If she pays a price and we figure out what it is ... we can end her.”
