“I assume the driver is taking us to Scotland. Anderson said the amber was discovered in the highlands. If we can’t escape before we reach the destination the Conclave has in mind, at least we’ll have an idea where to begin looking for the artifact when we return from seeing your mother, assuming that she doesn’t have it or know where it is.”
“But the president has Edie and Andre. We said we’d try to get the artifact. How come they’re kidnapping us?”
“The Conclave doesn’t trust us. Or anyone. They likely want to hold on to us until they have the amber.”
We spent the entire ride whispering to each other, with Bryn’s magic swirling around us to muffle the things we said from any devices or spells that might be trying to listen in. Yeah, wizards are tricky like that.
Since we’d already flown for eight hours, it was really annoying to have to drive for another eight. If we’d flown from London to Dublin like we’d planned, we could’ve been there with seven hours to spare, I thought bitterly. So far my international adventure didn’t have a lot of sights to recommend it.
I shuffled between the seats and kicked the small cooler that the driver had directed us to earlier, when he’d turned the intercom on to respond to my complaint that I was hungry. The cooler just had sandwiches. No cookies. No brownies. No Cadbury bars. I tried to get him to make a stop so I could get my Hershey’s out of my suitcase in the back, but nothing doing.
Huge jerk! Actually, he was much worse than a jerk probably, but I was reserving judgment until I saw what his reaction would be to our escape attempt.
* * *
I’M NOT SURE what I expected when we turned into the woods, but the road was rough and the trees were thick around us.
“Now we’re talking,” I said. “We must be getting close.”
We finally pulled up alongside a small cabin. The two sedans that had followed us the entire way flanked our vehicle. When the driver got out and unlocked the back door, sliding it open to let us out, we found five Conclave operatives dressed in cat-burglar black, with automatic pistols pointed at us.
The driver had a rifle slung over his shoulder and nodded for us to go inside the cabin.
I glared at him, but we followed him in. We took turns using the restroom, and I washed my face, which made me feel a little better. I would’ve liked to shower and change clothes. And we all needed sleep, but that wasn’t possible.
A female operative with short brown hair stepped forward. I guessed she was the leader.
“President Anderson said you claim to have no knowledge of the artifact,” she said. “You made phone calls outside Association headquarters. I assume if your mother or aunt was willing to disclose the location of the amber, you’d have traded the information for the release of your friends.”
Bryn and I exchanged glances, but didn’t disagree.
“We have reason to believe the artifact wasn’t taken far from the location of its original discovery.”
“How come?” I asked.
“That’s not your concern.”
“Does President Anderson know you kidnapped us?” I demanded. “Because he acted like we could find the amber on our own.”
A couple of the operatives smirked.
“A good Association president allows the Conclave to work at its own discretion on matters of national importance, which this is,” the leader said. She held out a hand. “Do you know the location of the artifact?”
“I couldn’t reach all the people I needed to reach,” I said.
“Well, until you do, we’ll go ahead with our own plans. But anytime your aunt or mother wants to rendezvous with us to turn over the stone, we’ll be happy to accommodate them.”
I frowned, but didn’t argue. What could I say? That I couldn’t reach Momma by cell phone because there were no cell towers in the Never?
“I’m hungry,” I muttered.
“I’d imagine everyone is,” the leader said, nodding at the team.
One of the operatives, a tall man with buzzed brown hair, laid out food from a cooler while the driver tacked a map to the wall. We ate standing up.
“Pay attention,” the leader said, waving me over. “You’re the key here. This is the pub. You’ll go in alone and order a hard cider. You’ll spend at least an hour drinking, and be sure they know you’re an American looking for a member of your family. If no one approaches you, this is the route you take back,” she said, pointing.
Mercutio, who’d slept the entire drive, was climbing on the furniture and doing his feline acrobatics.
“Hear that, Merc?” I asked.
Mercutio meowed.
“He’s got it.”
“He’s not going with you. You’re going alone,” the woman said.
Try to stop him, I thought. Mercutio was as slippery as a fish when he wanted to be. “So I’m supposed to drink for an hour and walk back here. Then what?”
“Then we wait. Hopefully the contact will come to the pub when he hears you’re there or will track you back here. If no one does, then tomorrow you’ll go back and have another pint.”
“And then?” Bryn asked. “If no contact approaches her tomorrow?”
“Drink, walk, repeat,” the operative said.
My jaw dropped. “That’s your whole plan? What the Sam Houston?”
“In the meantime, Lyons can walk through the woods with a couple agents. He’s from your hometown. If there are traces of your family magic out here, he should be able to recognize them.”
“You’re as able to detect magic as I am,” Bryn said. “Why don’t you just investigate any traces of magic you find?”
“These woods are old. There are lots of whispers of magic rolling through the place.”
Bryn shrugged and remained silent. I felt the tension in the room build. None of the Conclave members took a step, but it felt like they crowded us nonetheless.
“No harm in taking a walk,” Bryn finally said.
The room seemed to exhale. Except for Zach and me.
I didn’t like the idea of being separated from the guys. All our escape plans depended on our being together, of course.
“Van Noten, this is quite the team you’ve put together,” Bryn said to the woman with the spiky hair. “Fire, water, wind, and weather magic. I don’t recognize your fifth,” Bryn said, looking at the chubby blond girl who was about my age. She stared at him. Women often did.
“Don’t get clever,” Van Noten said.
“Blood and bones,” the little blonde said. She offered Bryn a cheeky smile.
“You? Blood and bones?” Bryn said.
“Too right. Wanna see?” she asked with a little smirk, and glanced at me.
“No,” Bryn said, stepping between us.
“Poppy, why don’t you clear this stuff away so we can use the table,” Van Noten said.
“I’m not maid service,” the girl said.
I glanced at all the other operatives, who were at least twenty years older than she looked to be. She must’ve been pretty powerful to have been so confident.
“I’ll take my dish, but no one else’s,” she said coolly.
Van Noten glared at the girl as she walked away.
“Always good to have a group of team players,” Bryn remarked.
“Poppy’s better at making messes than cleaning them up, but it doesn’t matter. Cohesiveness isn’t this team’s strength. Talent is. She could, as an example, flay the skin from your body with a six-word spell. Not bad for a little blond babe,” Van Noten said.
Bryn nodded. “I suspected she was more than a cute smile.”
The girl beamed as she walked back in. “If you think my smile is cute, you should see my arse,” she said, wagging her round butt.
I gave Bryn a sideways glance, but he didn’t drop his gaze. He only smiled. If Zach had been
the one flirting, I would’ve thought he really was in danger of falling for some foreign girl witch, but a newly engaged and newly abducted Bryn wasn’t going to be distracted by a sexy witch, especially not in front of me.
“Kato, you take Ms. Trask to the pub,” Van Noten said. “And wait in the blind.”
A scruffy wizard who reminded me of Shaggy from the Scooby-Doo cartoons nodded toward the door.
I glanced at Bryn and Zach. “So, I’m going to the pub. Anybody need anything?” I asked.
“Get going,” Van Noten said.
I rolled my eyes. “You know, I heard a lot about English people being real polite. So far I haven’t seen too many examples of that.”
“I’m Dutch,” Van Noten said.
“Hmm. And Dutch people are naturally rude? I didn’t know that.”
Kato held the door open, and Mercutio streaked out.
“For God’s sake,” Van Noten cursed.
“Want me to get the cat?” a small man with a sharp goatee and impeccably tailored clothes asked in a French accent.
“Good luck catching him,” I murmured.
“No, leave him, Mouclier. But if the cat interferes with the op, Kato, he’s expendable.”
“To hurt my cat you’ll have to go through me,” I said. “You’ve been warned, Mr. Kato.”
Kato smiled.
“So have you,” I announced with a pointed look at Van Noten, who just rolled her eyes. It made me mad, but it was probably a good thing. Being underestimated had often worked in my favor in the past.
10
THE WOODS WERE thick with trees that whispered to me. I didn’t speak treespeak fluently, but sometimes I got the gist of what the trees were trying to tell me. These were as old as the dirt, and they welcomed me.
“Hey, there, Scottish trees,” I whispered, and put my hand out to let my fingers trail over their bark as I passed. “Excuse me, Mr. Kato, we’re in Scotland, right?”
“Right,” he said.
My boots seemed to tighten, which happened pretty frequently to me in the woods at home. It meant my feet wanted to be turned loose from boots and shoes. It wasn’t their fault. It was nature calling to my fae side. The squeezing sensation became more intense until my toes started to curl and cramp.
“Hang on,” I said, dropping down to sit on a log. I pulled off my boots and socks. I rolled my socks and put them inside my left boot for later.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m a witch with earth magic. Sometimes I like to get in touch with the Earth.”
“If you try to conjure against me, I’ll flatten you. Now put your boots back on.”
“No, no. I’m not trying to raise power to cast attack spells,” I said, standing. “I just like to go barefoot.”
“Put the boots back on.”
“I can’t. They’re hurting my feet.”
“Do you really want to test me?” All the friendliness drained from his face. I took a step back as he muttered a few words. A light breeze ruffled the leaves and then shifted and seemed to flow to Kato. He inhaled like he’d suck the breeze right into him.
The trees whispered more urgently.
I know there’s about to be trouble, I thought, but I didn’t try to talk to them in case he thought it was some sort of spell.
“Listen, I swear I’m not planning to do anything bad to you out here. But if I try to put my boots on again, I won’t be able to walk very far,” I said, digging my toes into the dirt. The more connected I am to the earth, the stronger I am. I glanced around, trying to decide which direction I would dive to get myself out of the line of fire if he cast a vicious spell at me.
His hand snapped up, fingers outstretched.
“Don’t!” I yelled as I dived to the right and rolled away from the blast of magic. “Stop!” A branch swept down and whacked him in the back. He fell forward, his next spell coughing up clumps of dirt where his palms hit the ground. He landed facedown, and I sprinted into the woods.
Mercutio’s meow made me jerk my head to look his way. He ran with me.
“We’ve got to get out of here, Merc,” I said, panting. “But I don’t know which way to go. Do you?”
Mercutio can sense magic and has the best instincts a cat can be born with, so when he darted forward, I followed him.
“Hey, Merc, we should still probably go to the pub to see if I can meet up with whoever Momma’s contact was. If she really even had a contact!”
Mercutio raced through the woods, sleek and spotted, lightning made flesh.
“Did you hear me, Merc? About going to the pub?”
Behind me, the slap of shoes against the ground warned me that we hadn’t lost Kato. Mercutio looked back, slowing down.
“Merc! Come on!” I hissed, running past him. Mercutio turned and backed into some bushes, crouching.
“No! No attacking. Let’s go!”
Mercutio likes to run, but he doesn’t like to run away from a fight. Ever.
I hid behind a big tree and tried to catch my breath. I wanted to keep going, but I wouldn’t desert Mercutio. I looked around and spotted a long fallen branch. I grabbed it and dragged it, putting it between a pair of trees and then lying down on my belly.
“Merc, get him to chase you, and I’ll trip him,” I whispered.
Mercutio cocked his head. He much prefers to attack and does that from behind. “Come on! I want to get his gun.”
The footfalls approached, and Mercutio shot out of the bushes. Kato raced forward. I held my breath and lifted the branch as he reached the pair of trees.
He tripped and flew forward. I dived on top of him and snatched his gun from its holster. I rolled away and had it pointed at him by the time I was on my feet.
He rolled on his back and stared at me with his arms out in a gesture of surrender.
“Who trained you?” he asked with narrowed eyes.
“Nobody,” I said.
Mercutio sauntered over and gave a soft yowl.
“Yep, we did it. We got him,” I said, keeping the gun trained on Kato. “Okay, get up. You’re going to come with me to the pub.”
“If you planned to go to the pub, which is what we want you to do, why attack me?”
“I didn’t attack you. You attacked me,” I corrected. “Now, here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to go in before me and sit at the farthest table inside the place. If you try to leave the pub, to call anybody, or to cast any spells, I’ll take off and you can forget about me cooperating with any more Conclave plans.”
“You don’t need to hold me at gunpoint,” he said as I took his cell phone and pocketed it.
“Yeah, sure. As a Conclave operative, you’re totally trustworthy.” I rolled my eyes. “Not my first rodeo, Slick. Get moving,” I said, nodding for him to walk.
He rose to his feet, glanced at the compass strapped to his wrist, and strode through the forest. The trees whispered their approval.
“Yep. And thanks for the help,” I whispered back.
“You and your cat work well together.”
“We sure do. Unfortunately, we’ve had lots of practice fighting for our lives.”
“I wasn’t planning to kill you.”
“I suppose not, since you still need me. But after that, I wouldn’t be surprised a bit if your orders are to see that I don’t leave Scotland alive.”
He didn’t deny it, which made me shake my head. So maybe they planned to murder us after we helped them? The worst manners ever!
* * *
THE GREY WOLF pub smelled like beer, seasoned meat, and mountain men. The tables were crowded with guys who all shared a certain lumberjack quality. There wasn’t a single girl in the entire place.
I wouldn’t have to worry about getting noticed. There I was with flaming red hair and a blue sweater with fau
x fur and silver trim around the top and bottom. It had seemed like a pretty choice for Christmastime traveling, but it was totally out of place for the rough, rustic world of this pub in the woods. They were workingmen; I was a party favor.
I sat on the bar stool, glancing around. I didn’t like to have my back to the room, but Van Noten had specifically said I should sit at the bar. Besides, there were no open tables anyway.
Kato sat at the other end. I didn’t make eye contact, but kept him in view. If he tried to leave, I would follow.
A pair of young men with long hair and thick, trimmed beards stared at me. Was one of them Momma’s contact? Or were they just checking me out because I didn’t belong?
The bartender spoke to me, but I didn’t understand him.
“Um, hello. Do you speak English?”
He threw his head back and laughed. More men turned to look at me, and I flushed.
He spoke again, more slowly, and I recognized a couple of words. Welcome and now. As for the rest of what he said, he might as well have been speaking Greek. My brows furrowed.
“I’d like hard cider,” I said, hoping he understood me better than I did him. He quirked a brow and poured me a pint, then went into a room behind the bar. A minute later he returned with a bowl of stew, a slice of warm bread, and a small jar of honey. He set utensils, butter, and a napkin on the bar with the food and nodded.
I gaped for a moment.
Someone brushed my arm, and I looked up to find that one of the bearded young men had come to stand next to me. He was too close, given the amount of space available, but I sat still and waited. He smelled like wood smoke, dogs, and pine needles.
He inclined his head toward me, or maybe toward my stew—I couldn’t tell which—and then inhaled deeply.
“Hello,” I said, but he’d already started to walk away by the time I got the word out.
I buttered my bread and added heaping teaspoons of honey and then ate it with bites of the savory venison stew. After a few minutes I glanced over my shoulder to see if the young men were still staring, but they’d gone. Maybe they’d left to go and tell someone that an American girl who looked like Marlee Trask was having a fantastic snack in the pub.
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