“Aye,” Chance said. “Is he there?”
“He was … but now … I don’t know.”
Chance stepped to the water’s edge, heedless of the sightseers, and cupped his mouth to shout, “Pestale! Do ye hear me, devil—do ye? I want ye to prepare yerself to say m’sister’s name, for it will be the last thing ye say before I gouge out yer eyes and yank out ye insides and feed ye to the buzzards!”
Royce walked up to him and touched his bare arm. Her problem had always been that she empathized with others. She felt for Chance and understood the anguish that governed his need for revenge.
There was nothing she could do for him, so she didn’t speak. He looked down at her, and their eyes met. A blast of emotion swept through her, and she was stunned by the charge. She looked at him and wondered if he felt it as well—an electric current that went through her insides …? Did he feel it? Did he?
“We shouldn’t give him warnings like that, Chance.” Trevor interrupted the moment. “He’ll leave the area now before we can get to him.”
“Doona be daft,” he answered Trev gruffly. “He already knows we be cooming for him. If he hasn’t left the area already, he will long before we can locate him, but we are getting closer, and he knows it. What I’m wondering is how he will manage to move the portal, for that, I’m guessing, is his plan.”
“I wasn’t being daft,” said Trevor, obviously taking umbrage. “It isn’t daft to work on a strategy,” he said irritably.
Chancemont’s pointer finger jabbed at Trevor’s head as he smiled at the young prince. “Ye think I doona have a plan? Again, don’t be daft.”
“Well, Chance, if you have a plan, it would be nice if you let me in on it,” complained Trevor, while Royce silently took it all in.
“When I know enough … when I know more, so I shall, lad … so I shall.”
Royce’s brow went up as she watched Chance turn on his sandaled heel and, without another word or explanation, stomp off.
Trevor gave her a crooked smile, shrugged, and said, “I tell you what, Red. I don’t know what is going on with that Milesian. Sometimes I just don’t understand him.”
Well, here was the thing, thought Royce. She was beginning to see just what Chance was doing. He wanted to draw the Dark Prince out. Keep him wondering what his little team meant to do next.
It might work. The Dark Prince was arrogant enough to believe that they didn’t stand a chance in hell of getting to him. Fine—let the Dark One think that.
Deep in thought, she left Trevor to his own devices and took a walk along the edge of the lake. She wanted to formulate a plan from the tendrils of her last vision. She needed to gather what she knew and put it together with what she had seen and felt. She needed to concentrate and remember everything she had noticed from when she saw him leaving the hotel to the moment they had locked eyes in her more recent vision.
She already knew that tracking black magic was next to impossible—for most Fae. She smiled to herself because she wasn’t ‘most Fae’. She was a princess with unique abilities. Her family’s house was Nimrough, which meant ‘the hunters’.
To hunt, one needed many abilities, and those abilities centered on earth, water, wind, and fire—just the elements she could wield to advantage. She put out feelers, stretching her senses and becoming one with the breeze. It worked all too quickly. She was suddenly engulfed in a cloud of darkness and mist.
She knew almost immediately, and too late, her magic was being turned on herself. Pestale had used his own brand of black magic at that very moment.
She felt its biting touch as the dark mist surrounded her. However, she had to pretend weakness. She had to give into it if she was going to follow it to the source.
She opened her eyes and realized she was no longer standing at the edge of the lake!
* * *
Chancemont made his way towards a cluster of oak trees and stood in their midst, looking up at the heavens and chanting. He paused after a moment and conjured up a fire in the center of the circle he had created with his mind. He watched as the flames lapped up air and then burned blue.
Trevor came up behind him and said, “You can’t leave me out of this, Chance. Either I’m with you or I’m not.”
“I am calling on the spirits of my ancestors to help us track. They might not like a Fae around,” Chance answered grimly.
“Well, I’m sure they can deal with it.”
“Do ye think that, indeed?” Chance said ruefully.
“I do. If they are powerful enough to help you, then they will immediately know you and I are on the same side.”
“Well then, lad, we’ll just have to wait and see …” Chance turned back to the high blue flames and whispered the chant once more.
A soft breeze touched them, and a voice to match asked, “What do you need, Milesian?”