Chapter 13

13

M y head connected with the table. Again and again. It was the ultimate head-desk, and I never wanted to stop. If I did, the anguish lurking in the corners of my mind might rush in and drown me. Lugh was gone. Both literally and figuratively. Uisnech had filled me in when I'd woken, still sprawled on Lugh's floor.

After the king had come to, he'd thrown me away from him and then leapt out of the window, falling like Spiderman himself onto the cobblestones outside the palace. Then he'd disappeared into the night. Luckily, he hadn't attacked any of the fae inside of Castle Wraith, but that had come with a price.

He would be lurking in the streets of Edinburgh now—stalking the humans.

"What do we do?" I pulled myself upright and blearily glanced across the table where Saoirse was sitting, purple eyes wide and unblinking. All the colour had drained from her face, creating a stark contrast between her skin and her waist-length dark hair. Boudica, Warin, and Nero had joined us, along with Uisnech. We hadn't filled the rest of the castle in on what had happened—yet. We needed a plan first.

Not that a plan could make much of a difference now.

We were fucked.

"We need to recover the spear," Saoirse said in a low voice, her eyes still unblinking.

I perked up a little at that. "Have you seen a vision?"

"Not in such basic terms, no," she said slowly, and then frowned. "Lugh's future as a nightmare wraith is as muddled as the future I tried to see between you and him." Her eyes suddenly went sharp. "It's because they're linked."

My heart thumped. Of course they were linked. That didn't make me feel particularly better, though. I couldn't get Lugh's request out of my head. He wanted me to kill him when he turned into a nightmare wraith. He wanted me to fulfil Caer's prophecy.

"Before anyone suggests it, I'm not going to kill him."

Saoirse's eyes widened. "I would never suggest such a thing. He's our king, regardless of his current state."

Warin leaned forward, pounding a fist on the table. We all jumped, and Uisnech let out a little squeak. "Has no one else realised what this means? Yes, it's a bloody nightmare—pardon the pun—that Lugh's lost his soul. But this only happened because someone broke his spear. Or sacrificed it."

Mouth dry, I nodded. He was right. I'd been so overwhelmed with trying to keep my shit together about Lugh that I hadn't stopped to consider the cause.

Eyes wide, I cast my gaze around the table. "They've brought back Nemain."

Warin gave a slow and steady nod, his lips set into a grim line. "Yep, which means that recovering the spear isn't an option."

"Because the spear no longer exists," Uisnech said in a low moan, running his long fingers along the top of his skull. "Lugh is gone forever."

We all sat around the table, staring at each other. I couldn't bring myself to speak. If I did, I knew I'd break down. I was barely keeping it together as it was. I had to focus on my anger and not on my sorrow. And not least of all, I couldn't let myself give up hope.

"Maybe not," I whispered. "He got his soul once. Surely he can get it again."

"It took deep and terrible magic, my honourable friend. That kind of magic does not exist in this world, not anymore." Uisnech sighed and shook his head. "As the years have passed, we have grown further and further from the creatures we once were. That dark magic, the deep, impossible kind that gave Lugh his soul…no one possesses such a gift anymore."

Blinking hard, I glanced at Saoirse.

She pressed her lips together. "He's right. It's dark magic that bound Lugh's soul to his body. The kind that druids possessed. No one practices that anymore. There are only a few of us left, and the newer generations never learned to tap into that kind of power."

"All power comes from the fae realm, right?" Boudica asked. "The portal is open. We can go back and figure it out."

"It's a nice thought." Saoirse gave a weak smile. "But it's a pointless trip unless we have someone who knows how to tap into that kind of power."

"Caer," I said. "She'll know."

"You tried to find Caer once," Nero pointed out. "And she refused to be found."

I sighed and dropped my head into my hands. "We just can't give up on him. There has to be something we can do."

"There might be one way we can bring him back."

I jerked up my head to find Uisnech crawling onto the table. He stood in the middle before us, his hands waving like windmills. "The cauldron! It has the power to raise the dead. We will find the cauldron, steal it, and use it to return Lugh's soul to his body."

My heart pulsed, with hope rather than fear. "You think the cauldron can really do that?"

"If it can breathe life into a rotting body, then it can certainly put a soul back into a living one," Boudica said, nodding.

Saoirse's wide and soulful eyes stared into mine. "The enemy has the cauldron."

A shiver went down my spine, even though all of us already knew that as the truth. "Then we will get it back from them."

"They will sense our objectives," she replied, her lilting voice transforming into something else, something much darker. "They will know we are coming, and they will set a trap. To succeed, we must go left instead of right."

I frowned, watching as Saoirse's eyes cleared. She gave a quick shake of her head, sighing.

Arching a brow, I leaned toward her. "Was that a vision?"

She nodded, still looking a little dazed. "It came out of nowhere. I wasn't even trying that time."

"What did it mean, love?" Warin asked with a frown. "To succeed, we must go left instead of right?"

Saoirse shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. I only repeat what I can feel, hear, and see. Those were the words that came to me, but I don't know what they mean."

"Shit." I pushed up from the table and began pacing the length of the Great Hall, mind whirring. As thoughts came to me, I shouted them out, so that the crew could hear me from even across the room. "So they know we'll try to get the cauldron. That much is clear."

"They'll be expecting it," Uisnech added, his ears perking up. "They will try to outsmart us."

I held up a finger as I passed him. "Which means we have to outsmart them instead. Quentin won't know that we know that he knows. "

"Oh god," Boudica said with a laugh. "This conversation is starting to sound like that Friends episode."

"Where Chandler and Monica try to hide their relationship from everyone," Saoirse added with a grin.

Saoirse and Boudica exchanged a very enthusiastic high-five.

Brow arched, I continued. "Right. Now that we have this whole Friends thing settled, can we move back to Saoirse's prophecy? We need to figure out how to trick Quentin into thinking we're not going after the cauldron but also for real go after the cauldron. Any ideas? And please don't tell me we need to pivot."

Boudica and Saoirse grinned at each other, shouting simultaneously. "Pivot!"

Warin groaned and dropped his head into his hands.

"To be fair," Boudica said, "we're not far off the mark. Saoirse's prophecy said we should go left instead of right, which is pretty damn close to what I'd call pivoting."

"Pivot," I muttered to myself as I stalked across the Great Hall once again. "How can we pivot?"

"Why don't we start with something easier?" Uisnech suggested. "What would the honourable warrior do if she wished to track down this cauldron?"

I narrowed my eyes. "I'd probably pay a visit to A Knight's End and demand that arsehole bartender tell me everything he knows about our mysterious nemesis. In fact, that sounds like a damn good idea."

"Which is why you can't do that," Warin added smoothly. "None of us can, regardless of how much we want to nail his balls to the wall. Anything else?"

"I would also probably be tempted to go back and question Jezebel. With my sword. She knew more than she let on. Of course, that's where we got attacked by vampires, so I'd be more cautious this time. Take some more backup. And more swords."

"I'm sensing a pattern," Boudica said with a smile. "Aggressive questioning techniques. Rushing in, swords blazing."

"It's my skill," I said with a shrug. "It's where I do my best work. Would you lot approach it a different way than that?"

They all looked at each other, murmuring slightly, and then finally agreed that yes—they were just as impulsive and aggressive as me. Even Saoirse. She might not go in swinging steel, but she'd happily put the bartender through some uncomfortable questioning.

"So if the aggressive tactic is out of the question, what do we do?" I asked.

Uisnech clapped his hands. "Nothing! You do nothing!"

We all looked at the goblin and frowned.

"While that will no doubt throw Quentin for a loop, I don't see how that will solve our massive, massive problem."

"He expects you to go on the attack. He will set a little trap and wait for you to rush toward the only contacts of his you know about. Instead, you rush toward Lugh."

"Rush toward Lugh?"

The goblin nodded vigorously. "Lugh will make some attacks on the humans. We need to stop him. He will also attempt to return to Faerie, to reunite with the nightmare wraiths. We also need to stop him from doing that."

"Trap Lugh first. Go left," I repeated after him. "And then go after the cauldron."

Warin had paled. "You want us to trap a nightmare wraith? That's impossible."

Uisnech grinned. "We will trap Lugh, yes. And then we will use him to draw the enemies out of their lair. Threaten whatever they are planning. They will want to destroy him themselves. And then and only then…we go get that spear."