“No, lass.” He filled the scrying bowl from the pitcher beside it. “Water thrice blessed by the full moon will grant us more power.”
“Thrice blessed?” She leaned closer, peering into the large onyx bowl that Mathison had secreted away from the Defenders’ stronghold when he’d been cursed.
“It was bathed in the full moon’s light three months in a row.”
She slowly rounded the table, eyeing the bowl as if expecting it to bare its teeth and attack. “The black blade on that knife looks wicked sharp.”
“The athame is obsidian. ’Tis verra sharp.” And it could be wicked, depending on whose magic wielded it.
She increased the distance between herself and the table while clasping her hands behind her back. “Sooo…what do we have to do?”
He nodded at the tall cathedral windows lining the gently curved walls of the circular room. Since this was the uppermost chamber of the tower, the arches looked out in every direction. The only blind spot was the narrow space for the door that led to the spiral staircase. “Once the sun reaches its zenith, we begin. As ye can see, we’ve not much longer to wait.”
She turned toward the windows and studied the view, squinting in the brightness of the clear Highland day. “High noon, then?”
“Aye.”
She stole a glance back at him. “To be honest, I thought we had slept well past noon.”
“Time passes more slowly here. In yer time, nearly seven days have already elapsed since ye passed through the Veil.”
She gave him a dubious look. “That’s like the myth I read about Thomas the Rhymer, who fell asleep on the fairy hill and thought he only spent one night in the land of the Fae. But when the queen allowed him to return to his life, seven years had passed, and everything in his world had moved on without him.”
Mathison snorted. He knew of that man. Thomas of Ercildoune, and he’d lived in Calia’s thirteenth century Scotland. “’Tis not a myth, lass. Since she wished him to stay, the queen cursed him with the inability to lie when he left. But due to his time in the Otherworld, he gained the gift of prophecy. I dinna ken if that was also a curse or a blessing. I have heard it said that ignorance is sometimes bliss.”
Her focus on him sharpened. “You knew him.”
“More like I knew of him.”
“How if he lived in my time?”
“I, too, have supped with the Queen of the Fae. She was verra fond of Thomas. It hurt her heart and her pride when he insisted on leaving her.”
“But you’re only seven hundred years old—right? From the thirteenth century to my century is eight hundred years, give or take, depending on what year you start counting, and what year you stop.”
“Not here or in the land of the Fae, and while the goddesses restrict me to the holy ground of Seven Cairns in yer century, they ignore if I travel to the Otherworld. The gods and goddesses despise the Fae.”
“Why?”
“Because the Fae are nearly as powerful as they are.” He pointed at the beam of sunlight cutting across the table with the scrying bowl. “As soon as it touches the water, we start.”
“Good, because the mathematics of your age, my timeline, and the land of the fairies is giving me a headache.” She moved to stand beside him. “Will we know right away if Mairwen hears us?”
“Aye. If she heeds the blood call, we will know.” He picked up the athame and rolled its haft in his hand, warming it with his magic. It had been a long while since he’d done any spellcasting. His wolf was still with Calia’s pale alpha in the in-between. A shame, it was. Dubh always enjoyed a good blood call.
Calia drew closer, frowning at the dagger as she slipped her arm through his. “What do you mean by blood call? You’re not going to hurt yourself, are you?”
“’Tis but a little blood added to the moon-blessed water. Dinna fash yerself, lass. It will be all right.” Her worry for him warmed his heart.
“I just don’t want you hurt.” She hugged his arm, clinging to him.
It had been a long while since anyone had worried about him—maybe even forever. His kin had always thought it a weakness or ill-fated to speak of concern for another. He tucked a finger under her chin and lifted her face to his. “’Twill only be a mere scratch, mo chridhe. I swear.” Then he treated himself to a taste of her sweet lips, groaning when he forced himself to break the kiss. “I will never get enough of ye.”
Her eyes shimmered with smoldering passion. “Good.”
The beam of sunlight hit the water, setting it aglow and shooting a column of blinding light upward. Mathison sliced the deadly blade of the athame across his left palm, then fisted his hand over the bowl, centering it in the shaft of light and allowing his blood to drip into the water in gleaming crimson droplets.
“Mairwen,” he said in a deep rumbling growl, “come forth, Master Weaver. Heed the blood call and the power of the moon.”
