Flynn grinned. “Luckily, I got Nurse Cissy McBimbo on the line and she succumbed to my Irish charm.”
“You flirted that information out of her?”
Flynn sank down beside me, handing me the phone. He didn’t deny it, but his grin spread across his whole face.
I wrapped my arms around him. “You’re the best.”
“I know.”
“Hey, give the rest of us a chance.” Blake pushed his way forward, patting his chest. “I could have got that information from the magical talking device if you’d given me the opportunity.”
“This isn’t a competition,” Corbin snapped.
“Everythingis a competition,” Blake replied.
“I have to see her.” I reached for my busted phone. “I need to get on the next flight to Arizona, but with everything that’s going on?—”
“Don’t even think about it.” Arthur took the phone off me and shoved it in his pocket. “Of course, you’re going to see her, but in the state you’re in you’re just as likely to book a one-way ticket to New Zealand. We’ll get you to Arizona, fae be damned. This is more important.”
“One of us will go with you.” Corbin grabbed one of the laptops off the table and flipped it open. “I’ll look at flights. We’ll get you there as soon as we can.”
“But—” It was too much.
All of this was just too much.
Could I lose Kelly, too?
“Got something.” Corbin clicked away. “There’s a flight leaving from Heathrow in five hours. We need to leave now if we’re going to have a chance in hell of making it. Flynn, can you call an Uber for me and Maeve? This is going to cost an arm and a leg?—”
“Wait a second, you can’t come with me.” Rational thoughts started to plough through the detritus in my head. “You’re the only one who knows where anything is in the library and you can lead the spells if something happens.”
Corbin looked set to argue, but Rowan nodded quickly. “She’s right. You need to stay here. I’d go, but I don’t have a passport.”
“What’s a passport?” Blake asked.
“I’ll go,” Arthur said. “I’ll drive us down in the Jag. That’ll be faster than the Uber.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Corbin said, but he quickly changed the name on the ticket.
And that was how I left the boys and Jane at Briarwood with strict instructions on how to monitor and record results from my scientific equipment, and Arthur and I ended up speeding down the M1 toward London in that ridiculous car of his. All the way there, he talked about sword fighting and Talhoffer’s manuals and how medieval masters used two-dimensional drawings constrained by specific religious rules to represent different tenets about timing and distance. Under any other circumstances, it would be fascinating stuff, but I didn’t hear a word. I think he was trying to get me out of my head.
It didn’t work. Over and over I replayed my last few conversations with Kelly, how I’d forgotten to call her back, how I’d brushed her off when I had more important things to do, howI’d been so wrapped up in my own bollocks to be the big sister when she needed me most.
When I didn’t respond to any of his attempts at conversation, Arthur asked if he could put on some music.
“Is it going to be heavy metal?” I made a face.
“Do you know why I like metal?” Arthur jammed a CD into the ancient Discman sitting on a shelf under the dashboard. Did they even make those anymore? Maybe he got it from an antique shop or something. “There’s nospace. The music fills you completely. It overpowers you and pulls you down this rabbit hole, so there’s just no room in your head for anything else.”
I thought about Arthur and how he struggled with anger, how his whole life was a balancing act, an attempt to stop himself from losing control. I’d always thought that listening to angry music was a bad idea, that it made people think and do bad things. But maybe I’d misjudged it. Maybe angry music was how he kept his emotions from taking over.
I could do with some of that right now.
The music started, low and heavy – bass strings plucking a mournful tune. A woman came across the speakers, her voice dripping with emotion as she sang an operatic melody. The words were in Latin or Italian or whatever language opera was usually in, so I had no idea what she was actually saying, but she sounded so achingly, impossibly sad. The music swelled behind her, the drums pounding, the bass thumping inside my hollow chest.
And then a man’s voice joined hers, not singing, butgrowling. Like a beast rising out of hell, he roared and rumbled through the speakers, burning a dark hole into my skin, over my heart. The riffs soared and the drums pounded like machine guns.
It was dark and heavy and intense andinsane. Arthur was right. I was so busy listening, putting all the componentstogether, being swept away in the intensity of it, the righteous power of it, that I didn’t break down when Kelly’s face flashed in front of my eyes. Instead, the music drove me to remain calm and strong for her.
