Spell of the Highlander

Page 94

“The white carafe has coffee, the silver is cocoa, and the ivory one has hot water for tea,” Gwen told her.
Jessi hurried to the table, gratefully poured herself a cup of coffee, and reached for a lightly iced scone, before taking a seat and joining them.
Commandeering a few scones into his mirror, along with the entire pot of cocoa—much to the amazement and delight of both Chloe and Gwen, who made him send it back out and resummon it again—Cian brusquely explained their situation to his descendants, amid swallows of creamy chocolate and bites of pastries.
Jessi had heard it before, and he didn’t add any detail to it now. No one could ever accuse the man of TMI—too much information. He advised them that he’d been bound to the Dark Glass by a sorcerer named Lucan Trevayne eleven centuries past, thereby securing immortality for himself.
“So, that’s what its purpose is!” Dageus had exclaimed.
Cian had nodded and continued, telling them he’d been kept hung on one of Lucan’s walls or another for the past 1,133 years. That several months ago something had happened in London that had taken down all the wards protecting Lucan’s property while he’d been out of the country; a thief had stolen Trevayne’s prized collection; and that the mirror had been transferred from merchant to merchant for several months before ultimately ending up in Jessica’s hands.
He advised briskly of the tithe sealing the Unseelie indenture, that it was due in a mere fifteen days, that he must remain free of Lucan for another fortnight, until past midnight on Samhain, and that he was formally petitioning their aid to help him do so, and to keep “his woman” safe.
She loved hearing those words! His woman.
“What then?” Drustan asked the same question Jessi had broached when she’d heard Cian’s story. “Once the tithe is missed and the indenture broken? What plan you then?”
Cian dropped his head down and forward, resting the top of his head against the inside of the glass. When he raised it again, his whisky eyes glittered with feral fury. “Then I will have my vengeance on the bastard who trapped me.”
The room was silent a moment.
Then Dageus said, “You said the gold tithe must be paid every one hundred years in the Old Way of marking time?”
Cian nodded. “Aye.”
“And that ’twas Lucan Trevayne who originally paid it?”
“Aye,” Cian replied.
“Hmm,” Dageus said. He paused a moment, then said softly, “Vengeance can be quite the double-edged sword, eh, kinsman?”
Cian shrugged. “Aye. Mayhap. But in this case, ’tis necessary I wield it.”
“Are you certain of that?”
“Aye.”
“Some blood is best not spilled, ancestor.”
“Doona be thinking you ken me, Keltar. You don’t.”
“You might be surprised.”
“Doubt it,” Cian clipped. “And you doona ken Lucan. He must die.”
“Why?” Dageus countered. “Because he imprisoned you? You seek vengeance for the slight? Is that vengeance worth everything to you, then?”
“What would you ken of the price of vengeance? What would you ken of the price of anything?”
“I ken many things. I broke the oath of the standing stones and went back in time to undo my twin’s death. For a time I was possessed by the thirteen souls of the Draghar—”
“Christ, you used the stones of Ban Drochaid for personal gain? What are you—mad? Even I gave that legend wide berth!” Cian sounded astonished.
“Appears to be the only thing you gave wide berth,” Drustan said pointedly. “Are you, or aren’t you, a sorcerer, ancestor?”
Jessi bristled. Cian was a good man. She was about to open her mouth and say so, but Cian said coolly, “I have done sorcery. It appears your brother has dispensed with the occasional Keltar oath, as well.”
Right. So there, Jessi thought. Nobody was perfect. She wasn’t quite sure she’d followed whatever it was Dageus had done, but it’d sounded pretty bad.
“Dageus did so of love. You’ve told us neither how you came to bear such extensive protection runes tattooed across your body, nor how you ended up in that mirror.”
“‘Protection runes’” Jessi echoed. “Is that what your tattoos are, Cian? I’ve been meaning to ask you if those runes are a language. What are they for?”
It was Chloe who answered her. “They hold the repercussions of meddling with black magycks at bay,” she clarified helpfully. “I’ve been reading about them lately.”