“Taye?”
“The water,” she hisses.
“Is not a veil break,” Cormac states. “It’s probably all haunted. God only knows what spectral energy lies here.”
Wind and loose hinges, my arse. He knows this place is haunted to fuck.
“Come on,” Cormac barks, grabbing Taye by the elbow and hauling her up from the mud. “We’re done here. I’ll log it as residual ectoplasmic residue. Nyssa said she handled the sea beast; this is likely runoff.”
Bless Cormac and his profound desire for a warm fire and a whiskey over actual investigation. His aversion to damp socks is currently the only thing standing between me and a treason charge.
Finnian stares at the red steam dissipating into the rain one last time before holstering his flask. He doesn’t look convinced, but he follows orders. I move quickly around the front of the house, scraping my back against the wall until Ifind a sad-looking lavender bush to hide behind while they trudge back around the side of the house.
I wait until the heavy clang of the front gate echoes through the grounds before I peel myself off the wet stone. That was too close.
I look up as I sense someone hovering.
Dastian is in the doorway, looking insulted. “Residual ectoplasmic residue? I’m insulted. My residue is far more potent than that.”
I storm past him into the entrance hall. “Shut up. They know something is wrong. Taye tasted you.”
“Lucky girl,” Dastian drawls.
“Dastian,” Dreven’s voice cuts through the air like a whip. “Enough. Nyssa. You were told to stay away from the Order.”
“I overheard them talking and followed them, so they didn’t out you,” I snap, pulling the journal from my waistband and waving it about, “while looting the archives. You’re welcome.”
Chapter 35
Dastian
“Looting the archives?” I pluck the black book from her hand, ignoring the way Dreven looks ready to blow a gasket. “Treason, breaking and entering, and defying a direct order from the God of Shadows? Slayer, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were trying to impress me.”
Nyssa rolls her eyes. “I was trying to find out what awaits me in the Pantheon realm. And before you get all pissy, no, I wasn’t going to ask you because you’re all liars and deceivers. I wouldn’t get a straight answer out of you if I asked your name.”
Dreven scowls. “You took a risk.”
“I took initiative,” she corrects, tilting her chin up. “There’s a difference.”
“This is what you found?” I flip the journal open, scanning the frantic scrawl. The ink is old, the fear palpable in the jagged handwriting.
“It’s all I had time to find before the Order waltzed in, talking about the veil breaks. I see no one told me the original site was up here, not in the crypt.”
“Is that pertinent?” Voren asks, gliding in, his gaze fixed on Nyssa in a way that is too possessive, bordering on obsessive.
“Pertinent?” she mutters. “I would say so, yeah. But it begs the question why the madman opened the veil in the crypt.”
I shrug. “It makes no difference really. We will enter the Pantheon realm through the veil that was torn open and that you sealed.”
She snatches the book from me. “Does this tell me what I need to know without all the games and cryptic shit?”
Voren glides closer, his pale eyes unreadable. “The book will only tell you of the dangers. It will not tell you how to survive them.”
“That’s your job, is it?” Nyssa asks, her gaze flicking between the three of us. “This is the map. You are the tour guides from hell. Now, I’m going to read this, and then tonight, we will go and find this crown.”
I love it when she takes charge. It makes me want to break things. Preferably with her. Or just her. “Off you go then. Don’t let us stop you.”
She hisses at me and heads back out into the rain.
