“I keep having this recurring memory from when I was a kid. I’m in this room, a lair of sorts, and it’s old and full of antiquities… A shop, I guess, selling weird things, like shrunken heads and weird body parts, rare weapons, and lethal poisons.”
“Things the witches like to fawn over?”
I nodded. “There’s this shop sign that begins with the wordPurveyor.That’s all I remember.”I couldn’t see past the memory any earlier. I had no idea what had occurred before and how my mother and I had got to Florin’s lair.
Nelle swiveled forward and swept her hands back and forth through the water, ruffling the surface as she thought about it. Her nose scrunched when she turned back to me and said, “Antiquities, you say?”
“Yeah.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Like rarities?”
“A-huh.” I guess that was another way to describe them.
“Purveyor…” she breathed, mulling it over. And then she suddenly slipped off my lap. Water splashed around her as she spun around to face me. A sly look sharpened her gaze.
A jolt of excitement speared through my chest.
My little bird knew exactly where I’d been.
Nelle straddled my lap and slipped her arms on either side of me, splaying her hands on the lip of the sunken bath. The sound of her fingertips drumming against the stone rim beat through the air, right before she admitted, “Imightknow where you were.”
My voice rose in eagerness. “Where?”
One freckled cheek rounded as her mouth twisted into a smug smirk. “Why, I do believe you’ve been to see the Purveyor of Rarities.”
I repeated the name,“Purveyor of Rarities,”feeling out the way it rolled off my tongue. “Where is the Horned God? How can I find him?”
“I know exactly where to look.” She leveled her gaze with mine, and a bossy glint gleamed in her eyes. “Take me to Ascendria and I’ll lead you to him.”
