“I think I’m done,” I finally say, feeling like my brain can’t handle any more stimulation. I hand the crystal, which had gone opaque once the memories were complete, back to Temen. Looking up at Carrick, I ask, “Perhaps we can come again?”
“Of course,” he assures me.
I turn to Temen, dipping my head. “Thank you so much for your time.”
He bows with a smile. “It was my pleasure to help a friend of Nuesh.”
Carrick gives Temen a nod, then takes my hand, preparing for us to bend distance back to Seattle.
“Wait,” I exclaim as a thought occurs to me. I pull away from Carrick, then pivot back to Temen. “Do you have the ability to look up events with some nominal information?”
“I can certainly try,” Temen replies.
“Can you pull up a crystal for the time when a book called the Libri Mysteria was written and its surrounding events?”
“Holy. Fuck,” Carrick breathes out in astonishment. “So simple.”
I look over my shoulder, grinning. “Right? It just suddenly came to me.”
Temen turns to the wall, replaces my crystal, and closes the door. After more whirring and sliding of gears, he opens up the door when it’s quiet. The crystal that sits there looks similar to mine, except it’s much shorter, maybe only about three inches in length.
After he hands it to me, I hold it out for Carrick to touch so we can see the event together.
The crystal glows blue as we both touch it and scenes start to flash. Various places and people running past me in a blur, and, finally, a man—presumably, the demi-god who loved Charmeine—hunched over a wooden table with a single candle providing light as he copied words from a long scroll into a leather-bound book.
Carrick was right. It had been copied over at some point.
The crystal stops glowing. It takes a few seconds for all that to settle in as it appears the book was created over several years, transcribing it from many papyrus scrolls.
“Did you recognize the demi-god?” I ask Carrick.
His expression is disappointed as he shakes his head.
Damn it.
Handing the crystal back to Temen, I ask if he recognizes the demi-god. The crystal glows as he closes his eyes, but when he opens them, he also shakes his head. “I’m sorry, but no.”
“It was worth a try,” I reply glumly. I slide my hand in Carrick’s. “Let’s head back.”
“Wait a minute,” Carrick says, his gaze going to Temen. “Pull up the event for the original writing of that story on the papyrus scrolls.”
My eyebrows draw inward in confusion.
Carrick explains. “Just because that demi-god we just saw transcribed the story, it doesn’t mean he was the original author.”
“Brilliant,” I say with a beaming smile.
“Pull up all pertinent events surrounding the original writing on the scrolls,” Carrick instructs.
Temen does his thing, then switches out to a new crystal. This one is much longer than mine, at least eighteen inches, and the cylinder part isn’t smooth but rather gnarled and cracked. It doesn’t look well cared for.
It’s long enough that Carrick and I can both wrap our hands around it as it starts to glow.
Once again, places, people, wars, love scenes. A barrage of images flash through us, and my blood starts racing as I see a black stone chalice with a red jewel affixed to it. All of it blowing by so fast I’m afraid I’ll forget details. Yet, at the end, we see Micah.
He’s more grotesque than the Libri Mysteria’s author had described, his face deformed and hideous. He’s covered with matted fur and his back is hunched. Slime oozes from the corners of his mouth.
And then he’s battling someone—presumably our demi-god—for the chalice, but Micah uses some sort of magic. He expels that person from his realm in a flash of blinding light and without us being able to see many details other than the demi-god was built like a freightliner.
Finally, we see a man bent over a stone table, meticulously journaling his experience on papyrus scrolls.
Not the same author from the first viewing, and we can only see his back as he’s hunched over. When he reaches the end of the scroll, he lifts it and carries it over to a wooden trunk in what appears to be a tent of some sort.
He deposits it gently inside, closing the lid. When he straightens to head back to the table, I gasp so hard I start to choke.
“Fuck,” Carrick mutters as we take in the author of the Libri Mysteria.
Hair buzzed to his scalp, his gray eyes filled with ice and a look of isolation that I’d recognize anywhere.
Carrick’s brother, Lucien.
CHAPTER 8
Carrick
Settled on the couch in his office, Carrick tucked his hands behind his head and stretched his legs out, crossing one over the other at the ankles. It was almost three AM, and he’d just left a warm, naked, and sleeping Finley in their bed.