The Rise of Fortune and Fury (Chronicles of the Stone Veil 5)

So I do.

“Why didn’t you just open the veil and leave the minute you heard Pyke’s voice?” Myles asks.

The question is legit. In hindsight, I wish I’d done that. All I can do is shrug. “I thought he was a friend.”

“You were smart enough to have Zaid leave with the Blood Stone, though,” Maddox praises me. “Friend or not, he didn’t need to know you had it.”

“But he already did know,” I mutter, feeling foolish to have been taken so easily. “He had that damn tracking spell on it and—”

A thought strikes me, and I whip toward Carrick. “Did you put a tracking spell on the Blood Stone before you gave it to Kymaris?”

“I did,” Carrick replies, but his expression is grim. “It’s gone, though. I can’t feel it.”

“It was worth a try,” I say with a pat to his knee. “I expected someone of her power and cunning would check.”

Zaid slides a plate before me, my sandwich cut into triangular quarters with a side of chips. “Thank you,” I say, picking up a section of sandwich and taking a grateful bite.

“Where did Pyke take you?” Rainey asks.

I chew, chew, and chew some more before swallowing. “I don’t know. The house felt incredibly old European, and there was a dungeon complete with cold, wet floors and heavy chains.

“Fuck,” Carrick snarls, and I know that when he gets ahold of Pyke, he’s going to suffer.

“It wasn’t that bad,” I reassure him, not for Pyke’s benefit but for Carrick’s. “As far as chains can go, I was comfortable. Able to sit with my hands before me.”

“And did you see Kymaris?” Rainey presses for the story.

I nod, picking up my sandwich again. “I was surprised how much she’d healed from the explosion. But she doesn’t think much of me. Said I was nothing special.”

“Proving she’s as much an idiot as I thought her to be,” Carrick mutters.

Setting my sandwich down, I wipe my mouth with a paper towel Zaid had provided before pushing my plate back. “I need to tell you how they came to be together. It’s a decades-long relationship.”

“What?” more than one around the island exclaims.

“I just assumed he sought her out after we got the Blood Stone,” Maddox says incredulously.

I shake my head. “No, they met a long time ago when Pyke was able to see her through the veil that separated Faere from the Underworld.”

The entire story takes a few minutes, and my food goes ignored. I tell them how he saw her, talked to her, and traveled into the Underworld to see her. How they concocted the plan to take over the Earth realm, and how he’s the one who put the entire changeling ritual into place, as well as the one who visited my sister monthly to pump her full of magic once Kymaris went into stasis.

That gets a growl from Carrick. “I expect you might want to put Pyke down rather than let me.”

I swivel toward him with a smile. “I have to say… I hate him for what he did to Zora. The magic he put in her from Nimeyah’s staff was light in nature, but other magical fae twisted it to make it dark. They abused her for years… from the time she was a child. Whatever happens to Pyke, his death has to be slow and painful.”

“Agreed,” Carrick proclaims with fire in his eyes.

“I’m wondering,” Myles says pensively. “What exactly does Kymaris know about Finley’s role in the prophecy now that we know Pyke is in collusion with her?”

“Not much,” I answer, but look to Carrick for clarification.

He nods. “We kept Pyke pretty much in the dark. The only thing he was told when we first visited Faere was that Finley was part of thwarting the prophecy, and that was it. We never told him why we needed the Blood Stone, but, in hindsight, he probably already knew about it from Kymaris.”

“Does that mean Kymaris has no clue about Finley’s powers?” Rainey asks.

“No, she doesn’t,” I reply, giving her an encouraging smile. “Nor that Zora is my identical twin or that we have a connection. Those are our aces in the hole, so to speak. And while I used my shield to stop that tree from falling on us, Pyke was too busy fighting Micah to see it.”

I pick up my sandwich to take another bite. Everyone refrains from questions so I can get some food in my belly. I finish the first wedge before picking up the next. “I did learn one thing while in captivity… the ritual will be done at night on the new moon.”

“Of course it will,” Maddox chuckled. “All evil rituals are held in the dark of night.”

“And we know it will be in Seattle,” Boral adds, explaining, “All the Dark Fae have left town. Kaesar told me they’re laying low until the new moon when they’ll come back.”