And as much as I want to test his restraint, let him have me right here in this mausoleum, I am keenly aware of our timeline.
“I will explain, I promise.” I guide him out into the cemetery of the North Umberton Cathedral, less than five miles from Stillwater Hall.
We trek down a gravel path, then turn into a row of headstones, stopping at a grand one that’s nearly as tall asLachlan himself. There’s a sculpture on top, a wandering angel. A nod to Granny’s adventurous side that I convinced Uncle Edward to add. I hadn’t seen it until now—the sculptor was still working when I was pulled into the Otherworld. Now, it’s dirt-smudged and moss-stained, reminding me that though I feel I’ve only been gone four months, two years have passed on this side.
I kneel in the wet grass, croak out a wet and wobbly, “Hello again, you old bat.”
God, I miss the way we used to tease each other. Granny Maggie was my everything. Mother and father, guardian and enforcer, tutor and chief instigator. She understood my need to create, my yearning for adventure. I think that’s why she taught me to draw, so I could visit other worlds in my imagination whenever I wished.
“You’ve got some explaining to do,” I whisper, running my fingers along her name, the stone cool and damp. It was early spring when I left the human realm, but now there’s an autumnal chill in the air. Not the biting, relentless cold of winter, but enough to make me shiver beneath my wool jacket and leather pants.
“Come,” Lachlan whispers, pulling me from the ground. “We need to find shelter for the night. And I need to weave a glamour before anyone sees me.”
I rise, swiping wet leaves from my knees before kissing my fingers and touching the angel. Saying a silent prayer to Lachlan’s gods that Granny Maggie has found peace in the Afterlands. I have a suspicion she’d rather be there than in Breton’s heaven. Who knows? Maybe they’re one and the same.
“I know a place.” I pull the obscura compass from my pocket. “But don’t weave that glamour just yet.
“I have plans for you.”
Chapter
Forty-Five
We do two things as soon as we arrive at Granny Maggie’s thatch-roofed, two-story cottage in the southlands.
First, and after some very mild begging (the barest suggestion and a soft please), Lachlan fucks me standing up right inside the door. It’s fast and frenzied and despite our efforts to draw it out, it’s been too long and we’re far too desperate for each other to make it last more than a few minutes.
Second, Lachlan steps back outside to use the moonlight to weave himself a glamour. It’s not as powerful as it would have been in the Otherworld, so he’s only capable of a few minor adjustments. Outwardly, he looks human; he’s rounded his ears and dulled his eyes, shortened his fangs and covered his piercings. He left the tattoos, since most of them are hidden by his clothes anyway. Even with the tweaks, he cuts a striking figure.
After the wall-fucking and the glamouring and a quick nap in my old bed—I never realized how small it was until it needed to hold a tall, strapping faerie knight—we woke before dawn and began our search.
Fortunately, the cottage is in excellent shape. The furniture is covered, and there’s a layer of dust upon every surface, but not as much as one might expect after two years. All the hinges have been well oiled, and the windows look clean. Someone has been coming to check on the place. Perhaps Uncle Edward is trying to sell it?
Lachlan and I decide to divide and conquer, so he begins downstairs in the small library while I start upstairs in Granny Maggie’s studio.
Of course, we don’t find the fragment anywhere. I am not surprised, really. If it were here, the ring would have heated the moment I laid eyes on the cottage.
Instead, we spend the morning gathering anything that might provide a clue—the faerie tale books she used to read me, documents pertaining to her life after the Otherworld (marriage certificates, birth announcements, family obituaries, and the like), plus a king’s ransom of sketchbooks. Then in the afternoon, we sit at the kitchen table reviewing everything over a sad lunch of boiled eggs (pilfered from the neighbor’s chickens), apple slices (pilfered from the neighbor’s orchard), and bland tea (pilfered from the old tin I found in the cupboard).
“Anything?” He grimaces as he sips from his cup, then shakes it off as if he doesn’t want to insult my tea-making skills.
“Ring’s not warming at anything, yet.” I leaf through a sketchbook, crunching into an apple slice. “Although this book is nothing but drawings of me as a child?—”
“Let me see.” He swipes it up despite my feeble protest, and his smile grows as he flies through the pages. “You were quite the little scamp, weren’t you?”
I know what he’s seeing—me, covered in mud, holding up a frog; me, screaming my head off outside a toy shop when Granny wouldn’t buy me the stuffed bear in the window; me, leaping over the creek out back, barefoot in a ripped pinafore.
I remember the painting in the Eyrie, of Lachlan as a sad, angry boy, and a throat-stinging rush of love for my grandmother overtakes me. I could have easily lost my spirit due to my mother’s abandonment. But Granny Maggie never made me feel anything less than supremely wanted.
“I was a great deal of trouble,” I say proudly, clearing my throat.
“Was?”
I gasp, mock-insulted. “If I am too much for you, Sir Cathal, I’ll happily take my trouble elsewhere.”
“I am a celestial knight, Miss Fitzroy.” He cocks his head and bites his lip ring. “I can handle you.”
I almost ask if he’d like to start right now.
