A Battle of Blood and Stone (Chronicles of the Stone Veil 4)

We greeted him as usual. As he walked up to the kitchen island, I chatted amiably with him since I’m the only one who ever bothers doing so. He took a seat right in front of a yellow pad as I talked to him about the Underworld—one of my favorite subjects as I continued to work on a plan to save Zora. His gaze went down to the pad and when it did, I acted a little disconcerted it was sitting there. I made a big deal out of swiping it away from him so he couldn’t see what was on it, but I’m positive he saw the address I’d written on there in black sharpie along with the word “fallen” next to it.

Of course, it was a plant and the address was that of Maddox’s lady friend who has a mansion on the city’s outskirts. It was where we’d spent the night after capturing the incubus for information.

Turns out, Maddox’s lady friend is a Dark Fae, but she’s not a fallen. She’s also not in residence, but in Aruba, so it was a safe location to drop as bait to Boral. If he worked for Kymaris, the information would spur her to send someone to check it out. Maddox has been there the last four days, and, as he’s just reported, no one has come sniffing around.

And that is enough to confirm that we can trust Boral—to me, anyway.

Well, at least as much as a Dark Fae can be trusted, but it’s clear to me his loyalties are in helping his son over Kymaris.

Of course, my compatriots are not as easily swayed.

“Big deal no one has come yet,” Zaid grumbles as he empties his coffee in the island sink and then rinses it. “Doesn’t mean he didn’t give her the information. Maybe he didn’t even see the information.”

“Oh, he saw it,” Maddox confirms. He’d been watching carefully as Boral zeroed in on it before I snatched the yellow pad away.

Zaid grimaces. “Again, that proves nothing. I say we can’t trust him, and we should ban him from coming around.”

Zaid wants him gone, but I want to bring him fully on board. He’s our best chance at finding out more details about when and where the ritual will occur. It’s a gut feeling I have—that he’s important to our mission—but it’s going to take a lot more to convince these guys.

Which I don’t have the time to do right this moment.

“Forget about Boral,” I say to the two men, who now focus on me. “He can be important later down the line, but, right now, we are dead in the water. We know nothing more than we did three weeks ago when we learned about the ritual occurring on the October new moon.”

Except that Carrick is apparently my eternal lover, but not going there.

“I have a suggestion,” I say, ensuring my voice is strong and confident. “I want to reach out to Zora again.”

“Nope,” Maddox says while Zaid shakes his head. “It’s too dangerous.”

I narrow my eyes, moving them between the demi-god and daemon. “You can’t tell me what I can and can’t do.”

“True,” Maddox says with a lopsided grin. “But I’m going to remind you that we have bigger priorities right now. We have to find the demi-god who wrote the Libri Mysteria.”

“We’ve been trying.” I wince at the whining tone of my voice. “Nothing’s working.”

“What about reaching out to that guy Carrick talked to at the party,” Zaid suggests. “What was his name… Wells?”

For a moment, Maddox and I just blink, then I exclaim, “That’s actually a great idea. He mentioned being able to get information about the chalice.”

Although he wanted millions of dollars for that information, and I don’t have that at my disposal.

“I suppose I could appeal to the gods again,” Maddox suggests half-heartedly. But we all know that would be a dead end. They are not going to help us in that respect as he’d already asked once when he was inquiring about Carrick and had been turned down.

“So really, we’re back to reaching out to contacts and researching in Carrick’s library,” Zaid concluded.

An idea strikes. I know it’s asinine, but I still throw it out there. “I could just go hand myself over to Kymaris.”

Zaid’s eyeballs about bug out of his head, and Maddox growls, “Are you fucking crazy?”

“Just pointing out that reaching out to Zora isn’t the most dangerous thing I can do,” I quip, but then tone myself down. “But seriously… if I’m destined to somehow go head-to-head with Kymaris, why not just do it? If I go do it, isn’t that what I’m fated to do?”

“And you’re going to what… defeat her with your whip skills? Your little bubble shield?” Zaid sneers.

“Maybe,” I say suggestively, ignoring his taunts. “Maybe I need to face Kymaris to tap my powers. Maybe they’ll come to me when I face off with her.”