Dani didn’t need to meet this Torquil character to know he was someone she didn’t like.
“Then best we appeal to his greed. Find some way to hide our strength and weapons within that which he wants.”
“Too bad we’ve no the trickery of a Trojan horse at our disposal,” Patrick muttered.
“Maybe we do,” Dani said, the thin threads of an idea taking hold. “Sort of an inside-out one. The Greeks filled a gift with soldiers. But what if we just pack our gifts full of power? We’re forgetting that we have access to the power of Faerie Magic. Let’s use it.”
After all, they did have a real live Faerie on their side.
“I would assume it’s my Magic you’re talking about.” Elesyria stopped her pacing to face them. “And though I’m more than willing to do whatever I can to help Malcolm, I’m not at all sure my Magic is the answer.”
“Of course it is!” Dani countered. “If you could zap me seven hundred years into the past, you’ve got to be able to do something to disable the people who are holding Malcolm and set him free.”
“You credit me far too much.” Elesyria sat down in the chair next to where she stood, heavily, as if her legs had grown weak. “Let’s just worry with the obvious complications. We won’t even go into the issue of my being prohibited by oath from using my Magic for anything other than what I came here to do.”
“Obvious complications?” Patrick asked, leaning forward in his chair. “Name them.”
“The Magic that guards over your family, for one thing. I sampled it when I touched Malcolm on the day I arrived. Though I recognize it as ancient Magic, I’ve not felt its like before.”
“Odin’s protection,” Patrick explained.
“Wait a minute.” Dani stared at the two of them. “That’s not really true, is it? I mean, Malcolm told me that tattoo on his chest was there because your family claims to be descended from Odin, but that’s just family legend stuff, right? He wasn’t really serious about that. Was he?”
She could accept people believing in Norse gods. What she couldn’t accept was that those gods might actually exist.
“Quite serious. He shared that with you, did he?”
Dani still wasn’t ready to believe what Patrick was telling her. “Yes. But a tattoo doesn’t prove anything.”
“It’s no a mark made by any man, Lady Danielle. It appeared when Odin chose my brother to be one of his own warriors.”
Right. It just appeared.Poof.All by itself. Patrick might be that gullible, but she wasn’t.
“And you believed Malcolm’s story about that? You never questioned him about when he had it done or who did it for him.”
“I’d no the need to doubt his story, as you call it. I’d a mark of my own appear shortly after my twelfth birthday.”
Experiencing it for yourself was certainly one way to know for a fact.
And who was she, after all, to argue with mystical beings and Norse gods? She’d spent the better part of her life believing in Faeries. And here she sat, seven hundred years from where she belonged, as proof that they existed. Elesyria had told her there were more Magical beings in the world than she could imagine.
“Everyone in your family bears this mark?” Elesyria still had questions.
“No, only Malcolm and I.” Patrick shrugged one shoulder as he continued. “Why us? No way to explain it, according to my father. Entirely a matter of Odin’s whim. Christiana was gifted with Sight. She has visions of what is to come. It’s because of her gift that Torquil holds her prisoner.”
“What about Torquil? And Dermid?” Dani was ready to hear almost anything at this point.
“The Magic skipped over Dermid entirely. Whether that’s because he was the last born or because, as our mother claimed, she prayed through her entire pregnancy that he might be spared, I canna say. And as for Torquil . . .” Patrick closed his eyes for moment, as if to prepare himself. “As firstborn, Torquil received the lion’s share of our bloodline’s gifts. None of us ken the extent of all that he can do.”
“That explains much,” Elesyria groaned. “I’m not at all sure I wield the power to combat Magic such as you describe.”
Sure or not, the Faerie was still the best chance they had.
“Then it’s time we find out, isn’t it? You told me yourself that you came here to determine what had happened to your daughter and mete out reward or punishment. You’re the one who decided Malcolm deserved to be rewarded. What better reward is there than helping to free him?”
“I already arranged for his reward,” Elesyria grumbled. “As you well know, since you’re it.”
“So you’re just going to let the man who did everything in his power to save your daughter—”
