He winced and took a step back, but nodded. “Agreed. It’s an awful thing.”
Fortunately, the drive from Davin’s apartment to the tea shop was a matter of minutes.
Less fortunately, Amelia and Arthur seemed to have a near-superhero sense for trouble, because within ten seconds of uswalking into the shop, they were both headed for us, looking worried.
Yeah, I’d come to see them, so it was good they were there, but I hadn’t meant to freak them out.
“Is everything all right?” Arthur was the first to ask. “It’s not like you to close the shop for a week. Is something wrong with Olive?”
Ahh. That made sense. I held up a hand, already shaking my head. “Everything is fine. Olive is fine, and so is her new granddaughter. But we’ve got some things we need to handle. It turns out”—I made a face at the realization that I was going to have to explain the whole sordid mess of Fearson, after what he had done to Arthur.
Ugh.
“We’re going out of town for a few days to handle something,” Davin finished for me, dodging the entire subject for the moment. “But we were hoping you could help us before we go.”
He turned to look at me expectantly, so Arthur and Amelia did the same. I could handle this part. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the ring. They both leaned in and looked at it, and Arthur whistled. “It looks like a Minoan piece. Beautiful.”
Amelia, though...she knew. She was frowning at it, her eyes narrowed and lips pursed in displeasure.
Her, then.
I looked at her till she met my eye. “Can you destroy it?”
Arthur gasped, but Davin patted him on the shoulder. “Not the whole thing,” he promised. “Just the magic in it.”
That, however, just made Arthur gasp again. “It’s an artifact? But they’re so rare. Priceless.”
I shook my head and met his eye, not a doubt in my mind that destroying the magic in it was the right choice. Just because a thing was rare didn’t make it good. “Albert Fearson was usingit to force his way into people’s heads, because that’s what it does. And you don’t even have to have magic to use it. It’s possibly the most dangerous thing in the world, and I won’t lie, I’m not gonna sleep well until it’s just a pretty art piece.” Davin nodded along with my words, and this time, Arthur stepped back half a pace and looked at his sister.
Amelia, clearly unsurprised by my explanation, nodded. She just stared at the ring, and after a second, I could feel it as the magic inside it simply unraveled and fell away.
I took a deep breath, then nodded. “Thank you. I’m, um, probably still gonna have nightmares for just a bit about the world melting around me, but at least I know it won’t happen to anyone else.”
This, naturally, made them both step in again. They pressed me toward a table, Arthur suggesting that chocolate was always good for stress, and Amelia suggesting a nice cup of tea. While I didn’t especially want to turn either of them down?—
“That would be lovely, but it’ll have to be to go,” Davin said, in that sexy ass take-charge way he sometimes had. “We appreciate everything, but we were on our way to the airport to catch a flight and we have to get going.”
“We just really didn’t want to leave that undone,” I said, waving the ring around. “In fact, I should probably give this to someone. If it’s”—I looked up at Arthur—“Minoan, you said? Then I’m sure it belongs in a museum.”
Davin rolled his eyes at me. “I wonder what person you know who could handle that. Maybe the very man we’re meeting at the airport?”
That was a good point. If anyone knew how to slip artifacts into the correct hands, it was probably Caspian.
It sure wasn’t me.
After that, it was just a few minutes before Amelia was shoving a whole bag of food and a drink carrier into my arms,and Davin was leading me back out the door toward his car. They wished us luck, and I quelled the urge to stop and tell them every single thing that was going on, because they looked so worried.
The whole truth wasn’t going to make that better for them right then, since it ended with “Davin and I are about to storm my grandfather the elder dragon’s castle in the middle of the North Sea. Hope he doesn’t kill us, see you later, maybe...”
The trip to the airport was as fast as any drive had ever been, though the walk from the car to the hangar was a little longer, since we didn’t know how long we would be gone, so we had to go all the way to the long-term parking area.
The plane, oddly enough, was already outside the hangar when we arrived. The people around it, a man in gray overalls with reflective tape and a woman in a deep blue suit, were clearly expecting us, since they waved and she motioned us toward the little rolling staircase without so much as a “let’s see some ID.”
I glanced at Davin, and he was clearly having the same issue as I was, because his brows were furrowed, and he actually paused before mounting the stairs. “This is Caspian’s plane?”
“Of course, sir,” the woman agreed, smiling, but not seeming in any apparent hurry.
He looked back up at the plane, his eyes focusing on the same thing mine had: the windows, at least from our angle, seemed to be open. They were airplane windows, so it wasn’t like there were holes in the side of the plane, but theywerewindows.
