Rituals (Cainsville 5)

I sighed. "Call me whatever you want. Now, since Lloergan lost Seanna's trail so--"

"It isn't her fault."

"I didn't mean it like that." I rubbed the cwn's neck. "It's hardly her fault that Seanna got into a car."

"I meant that the cwn cannot perform as well as she'd like as long as she still suffers from her injuries."

"We're working on that."

"They're deep wounds." Helia moved to Lloergan and reached to touch her torn ear.

"Rude," Alexios said.

"Quite right." Helia crouched in front of the cwn. "May I examine you, Lloergan?"

Lloergan turned her head, offering her injured ear. Helia checked it and fingered a few scars. The she settled in front of the hound and gazed into her eyes--the clouded one and the good one--before rising.

"Someone has done well with the ear," she said. "But more scar tissue can be removed to unblock the canal. For the eye, I would suggest a tincture of coleus. But most importantly, consider small doses of nightshade mixed with kanna and skullcap."

"Isn't nightshade toxic?"

"Not to fae. Mixed with other ingredients, it creates a potion that helps dull old memories. Traumatic ones. That's her greatest problem. Not the physical injuries, but the ones in here." She tapped Lloergan's skull and then patted her head.

"Speak to the Tylwyth Teg," Helia continued. "They'll know the recipe. It's a common one for fae." She offered me a half-sad smile as she gave Lloergan one last pat. "In such a long life, there is always something we'd rather not remember."

CHAPTER TWELVE

It was nearly 3 a.m. when we knocked on Patrick's door. It took a while for him to open it, and when he did, he sighed and shook his head.

"I knew you'd be by eventually," he said. "I just expected it at a decent hour. Silly me." He looked at Lloergan, standing at my side. "Protection against Seanna's return? Sadly, whatever her crimes, I don't think she's killed any fae. Otherwise, I'd say setting a hound on her is a lovely idea."

"Ricky's out of town."

"Ah, cwn-sitting."

We walked past him into the house. When I noticed Lloergan wasn't at my side, I looked out to see her on the front stoop.

"Staying out there?" I asked.

She grunted and laid her head on her paws.

"Good call."

We continued through the old house into the largest room, where Patrick had knocked down a wall to make an area that was half old-fashioned library and half modern entertainment center. An odd mix, one that embraced the different sides of the bocan himself: the scholar, the novelist, and the fae who refused to act--or look--his age.

I settled in on the couch. Gabriel sat at my side.

"We know you paid for Seanna's hotel. But she's gone. And she left a hell of a mess."

He sighed. "Figuratively or literally? No, wait. Both. Stripped the hotel room of everything of value, and management is threatening a lawsuit. Just give me the bill."

"Is that how you intend to handle Seanna's return? A trail of money leading her away?"

"It's worked before," he murmured, low enough that I suspected I wasn't supposed to hear.

Gabriel cut in. "You are correct that she left both a literal and a figurative mess. You are incorrect as to the nature of both. She appears to have feigned her murder...after conveniently telling another guest that she was my mother."

"Cach," Patrick spat. "Trashing the room just wasn't good enough, was it, Seanna?" He looked over at Gabriel and when he spoke, his voice was tight. "I presume the point of that stunt was to frame you and then magically reappear after you paid her off?"