Luckily, Nita laughs. “I don’t think Samhain would work on another date, but I’d love to have the four of us around the table for a meal. Several meals. Would you stay with us or?—”
“I think we’d stay at Luc’s place,” I cut in hastily. I’m not hiding my blood bags in fake nutrition packaging again. And I’mcertainlynot sexing up my mate in my childhood bedroom. Hard no.
I promise to check with Luc and get back to Nita with some potential dates. She sounds about to start menu planning when I ask, more out of something to say than any expectation that she will know, “Nita, have you ever heard of a lion’s gate portal?” The phrase has been stuck in my head since I first saw it, but Google has been of so little use with the other clues, I’ve not yet opened the browser for this latest riddle.
There is a pause where all I can hear is the sighing of the wind through the conifers outside and Nita’s focused hum as she considers my question.
“I think it’s a date, Charley. But I don’t know why I know that. Is it a crossword clue?”
“Closer than you think,” I mutter. “Yeah, it’s this thing I need to do for the boss. He doesn’t like our brains to rot.” Which is true, but also relevant as my parents are under the impression I work outdoors doing whatever manual labour tasks Dalziel sets me.
“I’m on my phone and I don’t know how to look it up without cutting you off, but I’m sure you can find out,” Nita continues.
“Yeah, I’ll do that—” I break off as I recall Dad’s instructions on the text. “I have to go! I’m not supposed to ask for help. Balls!”
“Charley, are you really okay? This boss of yours sounds scary. Is he making your life uncomfortable? Do I need to send your dad up to talk to him? We know you’re an adult but?—”
“Oh God no, please don’t do that. I might die of embarrassment.”I’d have to leave the country.“He’s fine, just a bit intense.”
It takes a while to reassure Nita that Dalziel is a very decent human being, God, another lie, then I send my love to David and hang up. I pull up a search engine and enter the phraselion’s gate portal.I frown as I scroll through the links. Am I supposed to be unlocking my innermost spirituality? That seems unlikely, seeing as August is long gone this year, and Dad knows better than to foist any kind of religion onto me. He’s weirdly Christian himself in certain ways, but fuck if I understand how his brain works most of the time, so I’ve consigned it to live under the heading ‘Old vampire shit’.
I check the clue.
The Lion’s Gate portal open’d
And behold a second born.
All right, this seems like I’m looking for someone born in August. Maybe. Possibly. Could it mean someone who was born on the eighth of August?—
Oh.Oh,Pops, you sneaky bugger. That’s Fergus’s date of birth. Fergus Millar, my much older and long-deceased infant brother. I re-read the riddle once more. Snowdrops appear here in February, which is when Lucan, the oldest of the three, was born.Born to rule this landcould be fancy speak for first-born child, because I know that Dad didn’t have a fucking bean to his name as a human peasant and he certainly didn’t own more than the shack he lived in, so yeah, poetic licence.
Which means the last part has to refer to Lizzie, my tiny older sister. Jeez, I still get choked up to think all three were just toddlers when they died. Life was so fucking hard back then. Just to exist until adulthood was a result.
I throw increasingly random combinations of Lizzie’s date of birth into Google until my eyes cross, but somehow I don’t think the fact Elijah Wood shares a birthday with a three hundred-year old ghost is relevant. Although, Elijah Wood was kinda cute in LoTR, so I’m not unhappy to drool a bit over some images from the films that pop up. Welp, have I always had a hard-on for non humans? Yeah, no, I don’t have the capacity to unpick that one right now.
It’s only when I add the year1717and the wordsultanthat I get a hit. Fuck’s sake, Dad, this is obscure as all hell! Some bloke called Mustafa was a sultan and born the same day as Lizzie. It’s no good, I’ll have to head to the churchyard and work out what the riddle means when I get there. This must be the right answer, as I’ve had the dates of my siblings burned into my memory banks from the first time I saw their combined headstone.
It doesn’t take long before I’m through the ancient, partially-restored hamlet where Dad grew up and into the churchyard of the small church that belonged to the village. I don’t come here often because I know Luc worries it might upset me like it did the first time, but I’ve learned a lot about myself since that day, and having a bonded mate tends to curb the worst of my pessimism about being abandoned. Still, I’m self-aware enough to recognise the drop in temperature and the curls of frost that appear and paint the greenery as tied to my emotional state and part of my Fae magic as I approach the headstone. It’s impossible not to feel at least a bit maudlin at the knowledge that Dad lost everyone he loved in his family.
The sultan reference must be a way of Dad saying that his angel, Lizzie, was more important than even some ruler of the Ottoman Empire. Fair play to Dad. I also think she was more important. I might not have known her, but she was my family, and family beats rulers of other countries every damn time.
I drop to a crouch and tidy away the fallen leaves into a pile to be composted later.God’s satisfaction.That has to mean something. Wiping my hands down my jeans, I search the meaning of the name Lizzie on my phone. Right down the page is a hit; apparently one interpretation of the name is ‘God is satisfaction’. That’s close enough for more poetic licence. I try the search again but with Eliza, the name I know Lizzie was baptised under. Aha, first hit this time.
Relieved I’ve worked it all out, I scrabble through the stones and moss for another clue. I almost give up, thinking I’m mistaken after all, when it occurs to me to check the back of the grave marker. And there it is, curled into the neck of a little vase that I assumed had gone missing. I tuck the clue into a pocket and spend a few minutes finding a suitable assortment of small twigs to make a decoration worthy of my deceased siblings. Happy with the arrangement and starting to feel chilled from the icy air, I retrace my steps as I open the paper.
Tyger, tyger burning bright,
This quest’s end is in sight.
Haste ye back and ne’er forget
The work involved in keeping a pet.
A delighted chuckle breaks free as I know exactly where to go this time. The tiger has to mean the rug in front of the fireplace on the ground floor of the tower I share with Luc. It’s a real tiger skin that Dad was gifted decades ago and has never known where to display it. He hates hunting (for anything except human blood), but is equally uncomfortable about the prospect of selling it. Luc thinks it’s amazing, presumably because it appeals to his wolf nature to stalk other creatures or something, although I feel weak about the idea of his wolf fighting a real big cat.
As I toe off my shoes at the front door, I stop dead, uncertain. I walked past the fireplace when I headed to breakfast this afternoon. There was nothing there. That would mean Dad waited for me to go out before hiding it. Would he do that? Yes, he would, because I can tell he’s committed to whatever this charade is. Swear to God, everyone thinks he’s a terrifying badass who will gut and drain you as soon as blink in your direction, but he’s an absolute dork.
I run towards the tower with anticipation burning through the chill the garden has left in my veins.
