To the Waters and the Wild ch. 18
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Just catching up? Read the previous installment here.
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It wasn’t Morningstar. I could tell that from the first touch. No, the prince of lies was cordial enough that if he was going to kill you he wouldn’t drag it out. Faust be damned. Which was all well and good I’m sure but that left me at square one as far as suspects go.
But then I caught a flicker in Daren’s power. As if something broke through. It was a dark reddish-green tinge that was trying to encircle Daren’s core, pulsing as it drove into his magic and retreating as he pushed it back.
I knew that feel. I’d seen it before. It was the same look and feel as the jewel on Puck’s collar.
And suddenly it all came together.
Yes I know that’s just so cliché and plot device-y, but sometimes stories are true and it really did happen that way.
So sue me.
The color, the slimy feel of that particular power, it was familiar and I wondered that I had not made the connection before.
I’d felt that same slime when the Lost had invaded. It was in the monster, sure. But it had also increased exponentially when Morgan had appeared. And I remembered wiping my hands down my jeans unconsciously when his claws had touched me.
It was all so perfect, his opportune arrivals and the easy way he took care of the Lost after it had injured me.
Hah, guess he underestimated my power of recovery.
Morgan was good with a sword, true. But it was almost as if he wiggled his fingers at the monster and it poofed.
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How could I have been so completely blind. Son not sun, dammit Puck. And she who might fall. Well that would be our resident snake lady wouldn’t it. Such a likely pair of conspirators.
And wonder of wonders, look who wasn’t here at his brother’s side.
Now. I had a fey prince to catch.
I bumped into Sir Chaucer on my way out of the hall. After making sure that Daren was still in stasis and nodding to the king I had work to do.
He looked nervous, tail in his hands and looking a bit rumpled. He was twisting the end of it nervously and when he noticed what he was doing, dropping it suddenly, only to have it back in his hands a moment later.
This was new, usually when he wasn’t drunk off his ass he followed the fey policy of keeping emotions in check. Well I suppose the situation was somewhat alarming. It was rare that the royal family let things go to such an extent that their members were obviously in such dire straits. Usually such things were hushed up and tucked in their chambers. Skeletons in the closet and all that.
But before I could slide past him with a polite nod he caught my arm in passing.
I tensed. Sometimes his odd looks made me forget that he was a poet too and had Kit’s potential.
But he let go almost immediately. “Lady” he cautioned nervously, for once understandable. “Lord Lucifer bade me return this to you.”
He was careful to use the word “return,” after all gifts from the devil were apt to be double edged.
It was a small pendant, made of amber and in the shape of a swan in flight. I remembered it, I had thought I had lost it after a ball in Morgan’s honor. It must have dropped in some corner and Lucifer had picked it up.
Sure I thought, because the Morningstar goes around picking up random pieces of accessory. But regardless it was a good source of protection. Morgan hated amber and it wasn’t just because of aesthetic snobbery. I didn’t know why but, to him, it did as much damage as cold iron.
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Read the next installment here.
