A Discovery of Secrets and Fate (Chronicles of the Stone Veil 2)

* * *

It was awful watching the paramedics examine Adira and determine she was beyond any life-saving measures. It was hard lying to the police detective, shaping the story Zaid had fed me just before they pulled in. The worst was watching the coroner’s van come and take Adira’s body out in a black plastic bag on a stretcher.

The detective left me his card and said he was going to contact Adira’s family, who were all down in Arizona. I’ve never met them, and she’d go home at Christmas, but I can’t say if they were close or not. I know that if I went into her employment file at One Bean, I’m sure I had her parents’ emergency contact number, but once the policeman offered to call, I gladly let him take that burden off me. I only had so much strength left, and that was all being reserved to tell Myles and Rainey our friend is dead.

Carrick suggested—didn’t demand, which was surprising—that I pack a bag to stay at his condo for a few days. I really didn’t know what was coming at me, and I felt like the safest thing to do was to agree. Things are happening so fast now, and I need a safe place to genuinely think about where to go from here.

It’s something I contemplate as I climb the stairs to my room to grab some clothes and toiletries. Carrick and Zaid will take me to the Fantasia, where I’m going to have to deliver the news to Myles and Rainey, and he wants to check the protection spell there.

As I enter my room, my eyes are drawn right to where the dent should be where Wade had slammed me into the wall. I’m sure it’s there, just as he described, but now it’s covered by my Foo Fighters poster.

I look around and notice my Tiffany butterfly lamp is gone. It had been shattered when it bounced off Wade and hit the floor. I have to assume Zaid cleaned it up and placed the poster in case the police want to search the house. He’d even gone as far as to make my bed, which I never did, but now my room presents as neat and orderly and not the battle ring between a human and an incubus.

As it turns out, the police didn’t ask to search the house as the coroner had preliminarily guessed it was a heart attack. I invited them into my kitchen and offered coffee, and they interviewed us around the kitchen table, but they had no desire to look around any further.

It takes me no time to pack a small bag, and then Zaid is driving us south on 99, which will lead us right to Lake Union and the Fantasia, where I’ll have to break Myles’ and Rainey’s hearts.

Carrick and I sit quietly in the backseat. For the first time I can remember us sharing a car, he’s not ignoring me by surfing on his phone. Instead, he has his elbow propped on the door, chin resting in his hand as he watches the world whiz by, apparently deep in thought.

“How was the spell broken on my house?” I ask as I wonder about other factors that led to tonight’s outcome. “Did that incubus break it himself?”

Carrick’s head turns my way, and he shakes it. “They don’t have that type of power. It must have been broken before you got there.”

“But how?” I press. “You put it up. Is your magic that weak?”

I know I sound like a bitch, but damn it… his protection didn’t work.

Zaid glares at me through the rearview mirror, but I ignore him, waiting for Carrick to defend himself. “On the contrary, my magic is extraordinarily strong. Doesn’t mean there isn’t magic that’s just as strong or even stronger out there. It could even be pooled magic of more than one.”

“Like whom?” I demand.

“Fae high royal courts. Someone in possession of a stone, as far-reaching as that might be. The gods.”

“Which means if the stone is the least plausible, then—”

“Someone important might want you dead,” Carrick finishes grimly.

“Why would the gods want me dead if I’m supposed to help in the prophecy?” I ask in a small voice. I’m not prepared to defend myself against them.

“They wouldn’t,” he asserts confidently. “I can promise you that they want you alive.”

“So some king or queen of Faere or the Underworld did this?” I demand, feeling slightly hysterical since I don’t know where the danger is.

“I don’t know, Finley,” Carrick snaps. “I wish I had the exact answer for you right now, but I don’t. I feel bad enough it happened.”

There’s an awkward silence, and Carrick turns to look back out the window. Hesitantly, I reach across and touch his forearm. “I don’t blame you for this. I’m just trying to understand what kind of danger I’m in.”