Embrace the Mystery (The Blood Rose #3)(14)
Author: Caris Roane

“So now I’m here.” Her gaze shifted to Quinlan. “I’m so sorry, Mastyr, that I brought Margetta here and that you suffered.”

His brows drew together as he stared at her. “You are not responsible for the evil either of your parents inflicts on the world. You are as much a victim here as I was of the recent attack. Now all we need to decide is what needs to happen next.”

Lorelei slowly rose to her feet. “Please don’t worry about that. I know what to do, then you can get back to business as usual.”

She turned as if to leave the room, but Davido met Batya’s gaze and gestured with his widening hands. You can’t let her go. This must stop now.

“Wait,” Batya said. “We won’t let you leave.”

When Lorelei got to the doorway, she turned and blew them all a kiss, shifting afterward to her wraith form and sped away, floating swiftly through the air.

Batya’s entire being stiffened with sudden, powerful resolve. She tightened the enthrallment shield as she never had before.

At the same time, she followed after Lorelei and found her in her bedroom punching at the shield with energy blasts from her palms. “Let me out,” she shrieked, sounding more wraith-like than Batya would have ever thought possible.

“I can’t let you go,” Batya said, moving into the room. She knew both Quinlan and her father had followed her. She held the enthrallment shield with an iron grip, the value of a strong will in times of preternatural exchange.

Lorelei floated in the air, her hair weaving madly back and forth, her long black gown floating around thin spindly wraith-legs. “Let me go, Batya. You’ve done enough, given enough.”

“No, I haven’t. You’re my friend. I don’t desert my friends. Let me help you. We all want to help and we can. There’s a helluva a lot of power in this room right now.”

For the next few minutes Lorelei pounded hard on Batya’s shield and a couple of times Batya flagged, but either Davido or Quinlan put his hand on her shoulder and revived her.

In the end, exhausted, Lorelei resumed her fae shape and slumped to sit down on the floor. She fell apart at that moment and wept.

Batya would have gone to her, but Davido was before her. He gathered Lorelei up in his arms and jerked his chin at Batya. She took the hint and left the room with Quinlan.

She made her way slowly upstairs to her studio and crossed to look out the window. On the other side of the street, Margetta’s spy leaned against the opposing brick wall, puffing away on a cigarette with a pile of butts scattered around her feet.

Night had fallen.

She glanced back at Quinlan. “Didn’t you used to smoke?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I remember you always had a cigarette in your hand. Our friend down there smokes like crazy.”

“Gave it up. My doneuses didn’t like it so they ganged up on me about it.”

She laughed, then took in the absurd shirt and went to her closet. She pulled out the long-sleeved, black ribbed tee she’d chosen earlier from the stockpile the free-clinic kept on hand, and which she knew would fit him, then tossed it his direction. “Can’t have you battling with that on.”

He smiled and shrugged out of his shirt.

Rather than watch him disrobe and endure temptation all over again, Batya went back to the window to stare down at the spy once more. She worked to assimilate all these new, extraordinary things, from Lorelei’s strange DNA, to her immense power, and finally to the horror of the woman’s parentage.

“Monuments should be built in honor of women like Genevieve.”

Quinlan joined her by the window. “I couldn’t agree more.”

“She gave up her life for Lorelei.”

Quinlan sighed heavily.

“What are you thinking?” She looked up at him, his scowl as dark as she’d ever seen it.

“That my life has been very small.”

She snorted. “You’ve served Grochaire for how many centuries, without question? No, your life hasn’t been small, Quinlan, and you lay it down every damn night.”

“It doesn’t feel that way, not with the Invictus still operating in each of the realms. I should have done more, found a way to get rid of them once and for all.”

She thought he expected too much of himself and would have said so, but Davido arrived holding Lorelei’s hand.

“Lorelei thinks she knows where she can go next, a place she’s been trying to find for a long time, where Margetta won’t be able to touch her. Tell them.”

“Ferrenden Peace. I believe it lies on the border between Grochaire Realm and Walvashorr.”

Batya shook her head. “But that’s a place from childhood fables. It doesn’t exist. Tell her, papa.”

Davido shrugged. “I have reason to believe it might and that it’s been hidden behind an impenetrable wall of enthrallment, similar to your own, for a millennia. You can’t even see it on the maps, the enthrallment is that good. Just remember that most myths have some basis in fact, in history.”

Batya’s lips curved. “And did you once visit this fabled place, papa, in a previous millennia, perhaps?”

“Shrewd, very shrewd, daughter, but I’m not saying.”

Everyone tried to find out Davido’s true age, but he’d worked hard to keep it a secret. Batya thought it possible that not even Vojalie knew just how old he was or even half of the things he’d experienced over the course of his long life.

Quinlan, now looking magnificent in the snug tee despite the too-short pants, drew close to Batya and touched the back of her arm. She thought she understood. They both felt it, the need to do this thing. Yet she knew he wished himself anywhere but here and she hated the thought of going back into the Nine Realms.

But here she was with a mastyr touching her supportively, her father’s eyes expectant and glowing, and Lorelei struggling to control her emotions.

“We can get you there,” Batya said.

Had she really spoken the words aloud, committing herself to this path? And what would it mean that she’d be traveling with Quinlan for who knew how long?

Lorelei’s eyes brightened. “You can?”

“We can,” Quinlan added, his voice rumbling around her studio, taking command of the space. “I just wish we had a map.”

Davido snapped his fingers. “I’ll be right back.” He moved on quick troll feet, running from the room and down the stairs. Trolls had active, expressive feet.