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‘Don’t worry,’ I muttered. ‘I don’t trust you or your fangy friend, or whatever it is the pair of you are plotting.’
He sat up, and rested his chin on his bent knee. Fixing me with a look, he dragged the silver knife along the gold chain clamped round his ankle. The knife made a faint metal-on-metal sound as it disturbed the tiny keys, setting my teeth on edge. He smiled, a quick baring of his own teeth, then pulled a long length of chain from the bronze pool, coiled it round and stabbed the knife through one of its links. He’d pi
Great clue, Tavish—not!
But his clue, whatever it meant, would have to wait. First, I needed to convince the Morrígan to give me what I came for: two tickets to the Tower of London.
I frowned at her. She was still contemplating the bull’s horn, bending over so she could peer at it from just a couple of inches away. She seemed to find it fascinating. Hopefully she’d stay that way, since fighting her wasn’t going to work; there was no way I could win against a goddess, not in the long run, so I needed to think of something else, and fast. I pushed myself to my feet, blinking as my head swam and the scene in front of me went fuzzy. I looked down to find my T-shirt and jeans were soaked with blood. Crap, I was wearing my last clean pair too. I touched my hand to my throat and stared uncomprehendingly at my blood-drenched fingers. Then I got it: she’d nicked a vein when she’d sliced me, and if it didn’t heal soon, fighting would be the last thing I needed to worry about.
What I really needed was Tavish’s fangy friend right now. Still at least this way, when Malik healed me, I’d end up with a two-for-one deal.
I tore the sleeve off my T-shirt and tied it round my neck in a makeshift bandage, then checked my shoulder, but compared to my throat, that was a scratch. I staggered over to the bronze pool, picked up the carton of milk and the crystal tumbler, but left the silver knife. Taking it would’ve put me within grabbing distance of Tavish and never mind anything else, he wasstill tied to the Morrígan. I continued my stagger until I was a couple of feet away from the Morrígan—not that the distance made much difference, not when the eel part of her body could keep extending, and extending …
She moved again, this time so her upper body was upright. ‘You have spirit, little sidhe,’ she said haughtily, ‘and more than I expected.’
‘You want something from me, Morrígan,’ I said flatly. ‘And I want two things from you. I’m willing to bargain.’
‘A sidhe bargain?’ She licked her blood-plumped lips, considering my words. ‘It has been sixty years since I was last offered one of those. The taste still rankles.’
Whatever. Cards on the table time. ‘First, I want the ability to pass into Betweenwithout using an entrance, for me and one other.’ I paused, then added what I hoped would the clincher. ‘Specifically, I want to get into the Tower of London.’
‘This is not a small thing you ask …’ She trailed off, then reached down and pulled out the bull’s horn, which came away with a loud sucking sound. The eel part of her body spasmed, and the wound gushed blood that hissed as it hit the grass. She held her hand out imperiously. ‘Give me the milk, little sidhe.’
I hesitated, worried I was giving away a bargaining point.
‘Come now; it is not like it can be returned to the cow, is it?’
I unscrewed the cap on the carton and handed it over.
She read the side of the carton and frowned. ‘Organic! Hmm, if humans did not scour the earth and deplete its fecundity with their pesticides and chemicals, there would be no need to label this so.’ She sniffed it, pulled an ‘it will do’ face, then poured it over the wound. It healed instantaneously. I briefly wondered if it would have done the same for my throat, but the chance was gone, for the Morrígan kept pouring, an expression of contentment on her face, until the last drops of milk splattered like white tears over the hissing grass.
Just my luck … Still, the itchy feeling at my throat meant it was healing, even if I did look like a victim at a vamp’s blood-fest. Maybe she hadn’t nicked a vein after all—or maybe the magic was helping me.
She dropped the empty carton and, smiling, held out her hand again. ‘Now the glass.’
This time I didn’t hesitate, just handed her the crystal tumbler.
She sniffed it too. Her hand trembled, her acid-yellow eyes widening as she inhaled again, longer and deeper. ‘An offering from a fertility fae,’ she whispered. ‘You are indeed fortunate.’ She held the glass above the bull’s horn—I had a sudden horrible thought about what she might be asking me next—and she started to tip the glass up.
‘No, my lady,’ Tavish called, ru
Yes,definitely no, even if I had an idea which fertility fae had made the donation.
‘No?’ The Morrígan turned her acid-yellow gaze to Tavish, her voice soft with menace.
‘Di
Okay, what was he playing at now?
‘It is but a drinking horn, kelpie,’ she said, in a deliberately casual tone.
‘Di
The bull’ s horn belonged to the MacCúailnge, her son?No wonder she’d been fascinated by it. Except he was supposed to have been executed. So was his horn just a grisly memento from the execution—and if so, how was that possible?—or had someone, oh, let’s say, like the Lady Meriel been economical with the truth?
‘Aye, ’tis one of the MacCúailnge’s horns,’ she repeated, mimicking his rough burr, ‘but tell me, kelpie, how would yoube in a position to recognise it?’
His gills flared, then snapped back against his throat as he spread his arms and bowed. ‘’Twas I who removed it from his head, my lady.’
Um, probably not such a good idea to go for the whole truth thing here, Tavish.
Her expression turned predatory. ‘You confess to me that you were the one to kill him, then?’
‘Nae, I willnae offer you such.’ His bead-tipped dreads clicked, the sound suddenly nervous. ‘But I will declare I had a part in … taking the Old Do
She backhanded him and he grunted in pain as he stumbled. He caught himself, and she hit him again, a casual uppercut to the chin that sent him bouncing off the inside of the magical dome and back down, landing heavily at her feet. I flinched as he groaned, and struggled to his knees. She gave the gold chain clamped to his ankle a vicious yank and upended him. ‘Stay there,’ she ordered. He slumped back, staring defiantly up at her as blood dripped down his pointed chin.
‘Now, little sidhe—’
Her voice startled me and I turned back in time to see her tip the contents of the glass into the hollowed-out end of the horn and then spit in it herself. She held it out to me. ‘Drink this, and I will grant you the boon you wish …’
Okay, even without the spit, eew! With it? Double eew!
‘… and the answer to that which you seek,’ she finished with a crafty smile.
I narrowed my eyes. ‘The answer to what?’
‘You seek the answer to the fertility curse, do you not?’
‘Yes.’ Cautious hope flared inside me.
Her smile widened, her one tooth protruding with triumph. ‘Drink then, little sidhe.’
I stared at the bull’s horn. All I had to do was drink, and she’d give me the answer. The deal was … persuasive. After all, it wasn’t like I hadn’t before; it wasn’t poison, and no doubt it was as organic as the milk had been. And what was a bit of spit between—two people not friends, one of whom was a goddess of fertility, among other things? And there it was: the problem. It was one of those magic/symbolic things, and drinking it was going to somehow end up with me up the duff. Not only did I notwant that, but if Tavish’s objection was a clue, drinking from the bull’s horn instead of the glass meant Fi