“While I agree wholeheartedly with that statement, I’m afraid your days of revenge seeking are over.” Mathi returned his gaze to mine. “I’ll ring Cynwrig, hand over our prisoner, and arrange a retrieval from the compound. You should go home.”
I nodded. “Let me know when you have retrieved the rest of Macsen’s loot?”
“Of course. Do you want a lift home?”
“I’ll call an Uber on the way down. Henrick does deserve some downtime, you know. And yes, I’m aware he’s very well paid to make up for the lack of said downtime.”
A smile touched his lips. “Get some rest. And that bath.”
“Is that a polite way of saying I stink?”
The smile widened. “I would never be so uncouth.”
I laughed, drained the rest of my coffee, then popped the cup into the dishwasher. “Behave yourself, Macsen, or I’ll make sure the wind not only comes a-visiting, but drops you from a great height.”
His scowl didn’t quite cover the flick of fear through his eyes. “That’s murder.”
“Some might think so. Others might think it good riddance to bad rubbish.”
The fear in his eyes got stronger, but he didn’t say anything. My gaze fell on the trinket box, and instinct stirred. I bent and picked it up. “Mathi, do you mind if I take this with me? I might try to do a scrying and see what it comes up with.”
His eyebrows rose. “I didn’t think you needed to resort to scrying these days?”
“I don’t.” Mainly because the triune was generally faster and easier. “I just feel the need to examine it a little more closely, that’s all.”
“Then who am I to gainsay instinct?”
I dropped a kiss on his cheek, then left, calling an Uber on the way down. The thunder had given way to heavy rain, and though the Uber had parked as close as it could to the entrance, I still got very wet. It dropped me off near the corner of St Werburgh and Eastgate Streets—as close to the tavern as they could get—but by then the rain had become so bad I could barely see three feet in front of me. I waited until the Uber had left, then ran across the street. The streetlights barely lifted the gloom, and Eastgate Street appeared utterly empty. The tavern’s lights were as muted as the streetlights, but the warm chatter coming from the building cut through the storm, suggesting we had another good crowd in—always a good thing in the slower winter months.
I ran through the bollards and headed for the tavern. But as I passed the Italian restaurant a few doors up, the knife in my belt flared to life, pressing heat against my skin as it formed a shield around me.
A heartbeat later, a hand appeared out of the gloom; a dark-skinned hand holding a dagger that gleamed with silvery fire as it arced toward my heart with deadly speed.
Chapter
Eleven
The blade skittered across the shield’s surface, sending angry sparks dancing through the rain. I grabbed the knife from my belt and thrust it out and around, but it sliced through nothing but air. Then something—someone—hit me hard from behind, sending me stumbling forward. I flailed my arms in an effort to keep balance, but my feet slipped on the wet pavement, and I crashed onto my knees. Again, the shield flared, and more angry sparks flew. I swore and swept the knife around behind me, my knees protesting the sudden movement.
Once again, I hit nothing.
Worse still, the shield was fading, suggesting my attacker had already fled. But just in case, I caught the air and formed several leashes, snapping them forward in multiple directions. They, like the knife, caught nothing. My attacker was obviously using either a shadow shield or the far more expensive invisibility one, but that shouldn’t have prevented the wind from at least knocking her over.
Because it had been a woman who’d attacked me. Her hands had been long and slender, her skin smooth and flawless, and her long nails well manicured. Perhaps that meant she was a bird shifter, which would certainly explain her swiftdisappearance. I looked up, into the storm. The rain pelted my face and made seeing anything nigh on impossible, but the night was free of any sort of movement or anger. Whether or not my attacker had been a shifter, she was long gone.
I swore again, climbed to my feet, and continued on to the tavern, my knees protesting every damn movement. I wrenched the front door open and stepped into the small andverywarm ground floor room. People greeted me loudly as I made my way toward the bar, many of them ribbing me about being so wet. I asked Ingrid to organize someone to clean up the puddles before anyone slipped on them, then quickly made my way upstairs. I dropped the harp and the knife onto the sofa, then stripped off and jumped into the shower to warm up. My knees were red and beginning to bruise, but at least I’d avoided broken skin and blood.
After ordering a meal from the kitchen—it was a steak, egg, and chips sort of evening—I rose and put the kettle on. By the time I’d had a pre-dinner snack of tea and chocolate, my meal was ready. I scrolled through social media as I ate, catching up on all the local news, then grabbed more chocolate and another cuppa. It was tempting,sodamn tempting, to reach out to Cynwrig, not because I wanted some loving—although I definitely wouldnothave said no to sex—but because I wanted to sleep with the warmth of his arms around me. Wanted to rest secure in the knowledge that he was there, protecting me against all those who wanted me dead. I was no wilting flower, and I certainly wasn’t alone in this fight, but sometimes, I really wished I had someone to come home to at the end of the day.
But that was not to be my lot. Not if the gods had their way.
I sighed, picked up the trinket box, and examined it more carefully. I had no idea why I’d felt the need to bring it home with me, which was damnably frustrating. I carefully tipped the hair and the teeth onto the table, then lightly pressed my fingersagainst the latter. Gran had sometimes been able to get a feel for people with mere touch, but it had never been one of my gifts. Nor had it been Mom’s, though both she and Gran could scry with the best of them and sometimes used personal items to help direct what they were seeing. Neither the hair nor the teeth caused any sort of response in me, however.
The box itself was a plain but gorgeous old thing, its song gentle and distant, a background caress more than anything stronger. I deepened the connection, and that’s when I discovered it had a false bottom.
I pressed a finger around the inside of the box, but couldn’t find any sort of lever or button. Frowning, I examined the exterior, once again running my fingers across the wood, listening to the gentle song, letting it guide me. A rear leg moved fractionally under pressure, and, inside the box, the false bottom popped up.
I carefully eased it away. Inside was a folded piece of yellowed paper. I put the box back on the table and then carefully unfolded the paper. On it, someone had written out the alphabet, and above each letter was some sort of strange squiggle.
