Arthur stood by the window, his bulk leaning against a chair. Obelix purred in his arms. Rowan sat on one corner of the couch, looking about as uncomfortable as it was possible to look on the overstuffed sofa that threatened to swallow you whole. His eyes darted along the bookshelves, and I knew he was counting in his head. Jane sat on the other end of the couch, flipping through a stack of books, while Flynn lounged in the middle and bounced Connor on his knee.
“Now that we’reallhere,” Corbin’s eyes darted between Rowan and I, his expression unreadable. “Blake has told me something interesting that may be the key to why Connor was deliberately targeted by the fae.”
“Do we know hewastargeted?” Rowan asked.
“We do,” Blake said. “Daigh sent the fae after specific babies – children he knew hadn’t been baptized. He had a list of six of them, all born in Crookshollow within the last six months, andwe were going after them all. Apparently, becoming a member of the jolly old Church of England makes you somehow improper for whatever spell he’s trying to cast.”
“But you have no idea what that spell is for?” Arthur’s voice was hard, but that hardness didn’t reach his eyes. He was getting ready to trust Blake.
“If I knew, Arnold, I’d have told you already. All I know is that unbaptised adults would do in a pinch, but for the most effective results Daigh wanted infantas free from sin. That’s all he ever said about it. Daigh didn’t exactly trust me. He had this idea that if he loosened his reins, I’d betray him and run off to the human world.” Blake glanced over at me, and that wicked smile played across his face. “I wouldn’t dare.”
That smile reached right through my chest and grabbed my core, sending a shiver of desire through my whole body. My mind flew back to the sidhe, where Blake and Flynn had rocked my world, and to my bedroom, to that crazy thought I’d had that maybe Blake and Rowan together…
“Why did he send you into this realm in the first place?” Corbin said, his shoulders tensing. Unlike Arthur, Corbin was not ready to trust Blake.
“When he sent me up to manage Connor’s abduction, that was the first time he’d ever allowed me to enter the human realm. And I had to go to extreme lengths to earn that boon.”
“Such as?” Corbin demanded.
“You know that fae, Kalen? Dark silver tipped hair, eyes like broken glass, so dumb he needed to be watered twice a week? He was determined to do anything he could to place Maeve in Daigh’s hands, but you guys beat him up pretty bad. Well, now he’s not going to be a problem anymore.”
“You killed him?” Corbin’s eyes narrowed.
Blake shrugged. “That was what you were going to do to him, wasn’t it? But no, I didn’t kill him. Daigh did. I just implied thathis incompetence was an unacceptable risk during these crucial days, and Daigh happened to agree.”
“You admit that you double-crossed your own friend?” Corbin growled.
“I was never a friend of the fae.” Blake leaned back, folding his arms lazily behind his head, exposing the hard muscles of his biceps, ringed in black and grey knotted tattoos. “I was theirprisoner. I’ve been waiting for the opportunity to escape for most of my life. I dreamed that I’d fall in with a coven of kind, hospitable witches. Can we go for curry now? I’m starving.”
“But you didn’t?—”
“So we have no idea why baptism is so important?” I cut in over top of Corbin. I wanted to steer the conversation away from Blake’s trustworthiness and back to the problem at hand.
“Not right now.” Corbin held up a holey page of the grimoire. “I’m searching for an answer, but even with this new information it’s going to take some time. In the meantime, I think the most prudent thing we can do is try to protect the innocent babies of Crookshollow.”
Jane looked disgusted. “If I want to protect Connor from this happening again, I have to get himbaptized?”
“I think it would be the best option,” Corbin said. “We believe we’ve got a few days before the spell on the gateway wears down. I suggest you organize the baptism before then, and if we can figure out who the other child’s mother is – and any other unbaptized children in the area, maybe we can convince their parents to undertake the ceremony. The rest of us have got to figure out a more permanent solution to the fae, as well as what magic Daigh is trying to work.”
“Can’t we just extend the protective ward around the castle to include the sidhe?” I asked. “That way, as soon as the fae tried to come through, BAM.”
Corbin shook his head. “Those wards were put in place by an ancient coven who were more powerful than us. Blake’s spell is only holding because it’s focused on such a small area. Even then, it will only keep them back for a few days. When that time’s up, I have no idea what we’ll do.”
Corbin looked over to Blake, but he shook his head.
“Don’t expect me to have all the answers. Some of this you’re going to have to figure out yourselves.”
“Don’t you mean ourselves?” I asked.
Blake sneered. “You may be begging for my body, Princess, but your friends aren’t clamoring to offer me membership to your little club. I haven’t even gotten a curry yet, so I don’t see why I should stay and help.”
“I’m not begging for—” My face flushed. I stopped before I said anything that might give away what happened.
Rowan looked at me with curious eyes.
“Not that anyone listens to the Irishman, either. But for what it’s worth, I think Blake’s all right.” Flynn picked up the giraffe rattle Connor tossed on the sofa and handed it back to him. “He’s the one who got us out alive with wee Connor.”
Flynn glanced at me as he said those words, his blue eyes flashing with desire, and I knew he was thinking about what he and Blake did to me behind the sidhe.I’m with you, Flynn. I’d like Blake to stick around, too.
