Page 24 of The Trick of It

“I conjured it from the air,” she said immediately. “Behold and tremble.”

“Hm,” he replied, looking down at the swirl of golden liquid and its pillars of curling steam. “All right.”

“I smelled it in the kitchen and asked Hattie to get me some,” she said, sounding a bit exasperated as he took a sip. “I expect your dinner will incorporate it somehow.”

“Our dinner,” he said, sipping again and sighing in pleasure as the warmth spread down his chest. “You’re staying. Look how dark it is.”

“Hattie offered the coach,” she replied, and then she chuckled as he shook his head. “Fine. I’ll eat dinner, but I’m sleeping in my own bed tonight.”

He nodded and did not answer, continuing to sip his deliciously salty warmth. His eyes tilted up again, finding the Seven Sisters.

Neither dead nor alive.

“Libba gave me the dragon,” Seph said, following his gaze up to the sky. “This morning. Thank you.”

He gave a disappointed click of his tongue. “She wasn’t supposed to say it was from me.”

Seph chuckled, turning her head to look at him. “A dragon in red stone? Who else but a Welshman would send such a gift? I just can’t figure out why.”

He pulled a face, refusing to look at her. “Because it is a good idea. And when you have a good idea, it is torture to let it go to waste. Even if the only person who can make use of it is your nemesis.”

“Ah,” she said. “Of course. You know, the name Merlin on the envelope got me thinking. About another Welshman. Another dragon. Well … a Pendragon.”

Rhys couldn’t resist looking at her then, taking another noisy sip of broth. “What?”

“Arthur,” she said. “Legally dead, but only sleeping. Waiting for Camelot to need him again.”

Rhys laughed despite himself. “I can think of several times it has needed him and he just kept on snoring,” he pointed out.

“That isn’t the point,” she said. “The point is the wonder. The promise and hope of it. And it’s not limited to Wales, you know. My best customers are obsessed with ancient things, especially from Egypt. They have a king who died and came back too. Osiris.”

“The green fella,” Rhys said, nodding. “That’s true.”

“Yes, the green one,” she agreed, blinking at him in abject surprise. “Did Willa teach you Egyptian mythos too?”

He nodded. “And Norse and Greek and Roman and even some far-flung tribes that she’d read books on. Slavic and Celtic and Muslim too.”

“Huh,” she said, blinking. “So you know what those birds mean on the chairs in the parlor?”

“‘Birds’?” he repeated. “The gangly, white ones?”

“Ibises,” she said, nodding. “For Thoth. God of the Night.”

He couldn’t fight a smile at that, either, the muscles at the corners of his lips twitching. “You don’t say.”

He did not correct her.

He did not say, “God of the Moon.”

It was close enough.

“I do say,” she returned firmly. “We Celtic have half a dozen resurrections in our own ancient mythos, don’t we? Morrigan and Cerridwen and Bran the Blessed?”

“Yes, and now we have Jesus and Lazarus,” he said, rolling his eyes. “That doesn’t mean it isn’t nonsense. Hell, even Juliet is dead and not. Look how that turned out.”

“Ah, yes,” she mused, tilting her head slightly so that the blonde wisps of her hair brushed his sleeve. “And you too, Mercutio.”

He stared at the hair on his arm, at the golden wisps of it glinting in the moonlight. He squeezed his eyes shut, banishing the image that rose in his mind of the long-dead princess in his prized book upstairs and sighed.