by Dani Harper
“Word of mouth, m’ija. And I have it on good authority that Olivia Santiago-Callahan is desperate to find a big, strong worker to relandscape her backyard.”
“Are you making that up?” Brooke mouthed in Olivia’s direction.
“No, cross my heart,” said the older woman. “You try finding a contractor who has the time to spend on little jobs like a broken retaining wall. Landscape the big new airport? Sure thing—that’s a nice government contract with nice government wages. But someone like me who just needs her backyard done? Ha! Even if the contractor had the time and the manpower to spare, he couldn’t take it on—it wouldn’t pay enough to cover his equipment costs and his insurance and all his other business expenses.
“But Aidan, working on his own, could make some money for himself because he has no overhead. And I would finally get my yard done. After that, I have a basement to empty, and the outside of the house needs painting, and the gutters need cleaning…My dear Jack left me well looked after, but my children have their own lives now. They do their best—Will and George reroofed the garage last month—but they haven’t got the time to do all that needs doing, and I’d rather not have to ask them. Besides,” she said, with a wink, “it’s much more fun to boss around someone who works for you than your own children, I can tell you that!”
Brooke hated to do it, but she had to ask. “What if Aidan doesn’t know how to do some of the things you want done? I mean, you know, modern building materials and all that?”
“Then I will ask Will to show him. That much time he could spare. And he would be pleased if I had a handyman close by to call on, someone we could both trust.” Olivia looked at Aidan and clasped her hands together as if pleading with him. “So you see, everything would be perfect, if only you would agree to work for me. Well, at least until you find something else to do.”
Brooke resisted rolling her eyes at her friend’s theatrical antics and bit her tongue.
And of course Aidan said yes. What else could he say after a speech like that? They settled that he would begin in two days, after Olivia had had time to get some supplies delivered. And, Brooke suspected, make a very, very long list of all the things her new “handyman” could do.
SIXTEEN
After her friend left in high spirits, Brooke finished her coffee and rose from the booth. She got a garbage bag and began clearing the table. “Olivia’s going to work you to death, you know.”
“Work is—”
“What a man does. Yes, you told me. Well, you’ll feel very manly in no time once she gets hold of you.” She handed Aidan a large disinfecting wipe. “You can practice working here, if you like, by cleaning the table for me. And then you can use that dust mop over there to wipe the floor, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Don’t forget to do under the tables, please.” She started unpacking her box of new tarot decks and arranging them on the shelves of her shop. “You know, I’ve been thinking you’re going to need a place to stay for a couple days. Olivia will come up with something, no doubt—if she hasn’t already—but until that happens, there’s no reason why you couldn’t sleep on the long bench by the door right here in my shop. I’ve napped there before, so I know it’s pretty comfortable. There’s a pillow and a couple of quilts underneath.”
The bench must have once been for diner customers waiting to be seated, or more likely, customers who were just waiting for orders to go. It ran almost the length of the two front windows, about ten feet, and was about three feet wide. Brooke wasn’t sure she’d keep it—after all, it used up a helluva lot of space—until she discovered that it opened to reveal an extremely large storage space. It turned out to be perfect for books in particular—it saved her from trying to find them in the storeroom when she had to restock a shelf. So she’d had the big bench upholstered in the same turquoise vinyl as the booths and the stools, and then added a handful of bright vinyl throw pillows in citrus green, fuchsia, and orange. The effect was very pleasing, and the bench was the first thing that people saw as soon as they came in the door. Often as not, all three cats were sleeping on it in the sun.
“That way,” she continued, “you’d have access to the washroom down here, plus that kitchen corner in the back.” Strange to have to set up such a thing in a former restaurant, but all of the appliances were long gone from the cooking area, leaving only an empty room next to the storeroom. She had divided the space into two areas. One was an office of sorts, with a very large dining table instead of a desk—she liked to spread her papers out when she worked. The remainder was a pleasant little lunch corner, equipped with a microwave and coffee maker, plus a refrigerator. That way, if she was busy, she didn’t have to go upstairs to grab something to eat. The cats were down here with her in the shop anyway, so they wouldn’t be neglected. And perhaps someday she’d be busy enough to be able to hire staff, and they would need a break area. I can dream.
“It looks very comfortable, and I thank you,” said Aidan. “But I don’t want to be in the way of your business. What about the sofa in the greenhouse? Who uses that?”
“I do. It’s my little getaway place, especially when it gets a little cooler towards the fall. Sometimes when I can’t sleep, I go up there. Or if I need to think. I put a few strings of tiny lights in there, so it’s really pretty. Like a faery land—well, the way I imagined it would be.”
“The faery realm is beautiful, as one would expect. The Tylwyth Teg, the Fair Ones, are beautiful too, beyond mortal imagining. But underneath, they are coldhearted, and dangerous.”
“I didn’t know that until you told me. Hell, I didn’t know faeries were real until I met you—I thought they were just pretty little flying people in storybooks.”
“There are many other fae creatures, of every size and shape, that live in the realm as well. And most of them are not pretty.”
A chill skittered down her spine. Luckily, Aidan had finished what he was doing and was now checking out her selection of tarot cards with interest.
“Are these the type of cards you used with Florence and her dog?”
She couldn’t help but laugh. “I didn’t do a reading for Mr. Socks, just Flo, but yes, these are the same kind of cards. She comes in every Friday to have me read them for her.”
“What do they tell you?”
“All kinds of things, depending on what cards you draw. Where you are in your life’s journey. The future. Things to do, things to avoid. Things to be cautious of.”
“Can you read them for me?”
Brooke was caught off guard. Maybe she didn’t expect Aidan to be interested, but his request surprised her. “I have another client in about thirty minutes. But I could do a short reading for you now if you like, and perhaps a longer one later.” She was about to get her standard deck, the one she used for clients only—then something made her change her mind.
“Choose a deck that you like, one that speaks to you, that makes you feel something,” she said to Aidan, nodding at the display. “For this, we want to use a new deck that won’t have anybody else’s energy on it but yours.”
“These are your wares. I have no money.”
“You have no money, yet. We can barter—I give you the cards and do a reading, and you can be manly and move some big boxes in the storeroom for me.”
He nodded and reached immediately for a deck near the top of the display and presented it to her. She’d forgotten she had it—the deck was dedicated to Welsh mythology, something she’d chosen from the catalog while thinking of her friend, Morgan Edwards. It had failed to entice a purchaser, however, and had sat on the shelf for over a year.
“Well, I guess that one must have been waiting for you.” She led Aidan to the corner booth she favored for this type of work, and sat across from him. “Unwrap the deck.”
He struggled with the plastic, but she resisted the urge to help—every instinct she had was screaming that he needed to be the only one to touch that deck. Finally, he managed to free the cards, spillin
g a few onto the table.
“Okay, gather them up and shuffle them around a bit, roll them in your hand like this.” She demonstrated with the client deck she used with Flo. “You want the cards to have your energy, and you want to feel familiar with them, and they with you—no, don’t look at them, just juggle them around.”
He caught on quickly—she hadn’t expected such fine motor skills from a blacksmith, but perhaps she was making assumptions. Such work might require far more finesse than she imagined.
“Okay, now draw one card at a time, from anywhere in the deck. Lay them face down on the table like so.” She demonstrated again, laying out first a row of three, and a fourth below them. “That’s all. Now set the deck to one side and turn over your cards.”
The Fool.
Brooke frowned.
The Moon.
Coincidence. That was her mind’s knee-jerk reaction. Which was pretty stupid considering she didn’t believe in coincidence—yet right now, she’d gladly embrace the concept with open arms.
The Ten of Pentacles.
She could feel all the blood draining from her face. This is so not happening. It can’t be. Brooke gripped the table to steady herself as Aidan reached for the last card.
Death.
The next thing she knew, she was being cradled in strong arms, held close to a large male body, with her head tucked neatly between his chin and shoulder. It was steadying, and she took some deep breaths to clear the fog from her head. He smelled really good, she decided, and took a couple of extra deep breaths just for the pure pleasure of it.
Aidan’s voice rumbled pleasantly in her ear, even though it was edgy and full of concern for her. “Is my fortune so fearful that even a gwddon must faint?”
“No,” she said, and pushed at his chest until she could sit up far enough to look him in the face. “No, of course not. I’m sorry, I guess it was a shock to see that reading again, that’s all. Put me down now, and I’ll explain.”
He didn’t return her to her side of the table but instead placed her on his bench and moved in beside her. His big arm rested behind her along the top of the seat back—obvious, much? It was perfectly clear that if she so much as hiccupped, he was prepared to grab her. Independent by nature, she normally would have discouraged him. Right now, though, a big part of her was enjoying the notion of being protected. While no longer faint, she still felt iffy.
Brooke explained about the card readings she’d been getting before Aidan had arrived. “I can see it now. This reading must have been intended for you all along. Somehow I was picking up on you and your energy before you ever got here.”
“What about your own cards? What do they say?” he pointed to the four client cards she had demonstrated with, still lying facedown on her side of the table.
“Oh, never mind those. I wasn’t doing a reading for myself. I wasn’t doing a reading at all, just showing you. And I never use those cards for myself, only for clients.”
“Your energy, as you call it, is on those cards, is it not? You use them to read the fortunes of clients, but do you not touch them every single time?”
A little chill shot through her veins, and she suddenly realized she didn’t want to look at her own cards. Brooke had done at least a dozen readings for clients in the past week, and nothing odd had come up. It had been business as usual, with the customers choosing combos of major and minor arcana that were uniquely suited to their current circumstances. But she hadn’t dared to do a single reading for herself since the one she’d shared with George. I’ve just been busy, she told herself.
Chicken, said the voice in her head.
And damn it, Aidan could tell she was afraid. “Shall I turn them for you?” he asked.
“I can do it myself,” she said, remembering a favorite childhood book called The Little Red Hen. “And she did,” she murmured, repeating the key line of the story as she flipped the cards over as fast as she could before she could change her mind.
The Fool. The Moon. The Ten of Pentacles.
Death.
Brooke didn’t feel faint. In fact, the room didn’t even get fuzzy, maybe because she just plain wasn’t surprised anymore. She could feel Aidan’s big hand resting on her shoulder, just in case, and she reached up and grasped it with both of hers and leaned against him. Maybe they weren’t in a relationship together, but she could use the moral support anyway. The subtle vibration of magic that emanated from him mingled pleasantly with her own power, and that was comforting too.
“Okay, this is where I officially throw up my hands,” she said at last. “We need to get Olivia back here.”
Lurien preferred to do things himself. His home had not a single servant, as he valued his privacy. He valued his life too—and the innumerable intrigues of the Royal Court made it wiser that he trust no one. The Hunt had been strenuous this night as he fought to train a new horse, a wild fae creature he’d first had to capture with a silver rope. He welcomed the challenge, however. Perhaps that was what he would miss most about his former mount. Bayard had been matchless for speed and strength, but his predatory instincts were better suited to a dragon, and every ride was a fight. The big blue-gray animal had tried to kill Lurien on several occasions, making it more than a little ironic that the Lord of the Hunt had slain him in the end.
Dawn was breaking as he entered his chambers and peeled off his black gloves. One by one, he unfastened his weapons, unbuckling the finely tooled harness of his sword and the holstered throwing knives, slipping the silver bow from his shoulder and the quiver still heavy with silver arrows—there had been no quarry tonight. He enjoyed each tiny sensation of relief as their weight slid from him. He knew no true weariness of body, but he took his pleasures wherever he could find them.
The crumpled golden dress upon the floor reminded him of where he had not found the pleasures he’d hoped for. At least, not all of them. The satisfaction he’d gotten from sending the heartless tywysoges to the court without a single stitch of her finery was in itself somewhat pleasing. But not what he’d wanted, not at all.
He kicked the priceless golden fabric into the corner with the toe of his leather boot and set it ablaze with a look. Celynnen had been surprised at how easily he’d overpowered her, how potent his magic was—she relied heavily on the bwgan stone for almost all of her spells. A grave weakness. One shared by most of the surviving royals, except the queen herself. Like Gwenhidw, he had studied eons to earn his power, and he didn’t have to rely on an object to magnify it. That was the thinking of a warrior, of course, and a leader. It had never entered the princess’s head that she might someday have her toys taken away from her. She knew it now, of course, thanks to him. The downside was that he’d revealed his own superior ability. Even after she’d exacted revenge on him (or tried) for her naked entrance to the Court, she would forever consider him a threat to her.
What is one more enemy, more or less?
The flame extinguished itself. The finely woven fabric of the dress had been reduced to a scant spoonful of golden ash. A flick of a finger would send the debris to another realm—but Lurien suddenly paused. There is something in the ash…
A word from him instantly placed every particle of the dress’s remains into his cupped hand, where he commanded the ash to separate into its component parts. A miniature vortex rose from his palm as his order was obeyed, and he saw again the tiny fingernail shape that had arrested his attention.
With a shocked curse, he plucked it from the vortex and released the rest of the ash to sift its way to the stone floor. Vitrified now, glasslike from the intense heat of the magical fire, the object was still unmistakable: a reptilian scale.
How had such a thing come to be on Celynnen’s dress? Had the hem of her long gown unknowingly swept it up as she walked through the palace gardens? Or had she deliberately placed it in her pocket or her sleeve?
A dozen possibilities came to mind. If she was purposefully in possession of the scale, then most likely, she’d obtained
it as an ingredient for a spell. Legend held that drinking a potion made with one of these would render you temporarily impervious to iron. The metal was as poisonous to the Draigddynion as to the other races in the Nine Realms. But unlike the other fae, the dragon men were able to handle the dangerous substance for short periods of time before succumbing to its effects. But why would Celynnen need such a thing? Moreover, how would she get her pretty hands on it? The Draigddynion lived in the damp, deadly forests where bwgans also lived. Lurien himself had hunted those lands and could attest to their extreme dangers.
Had the princess obtained it from someone else? Received it as a gift? Who amongst the Tylwyth Teg would have contact with the reclusive chameleon-like creatures? For none of the Draigddynion had been seen or heard from since the assassination of the king by nine of their kind.
Lurien’s hand tightened into a fist around the scale until it cut into his palm. Only a conspirator would have any connection or commerce with the reptilian fae. He had to find out who had given the princess such a dubious gift.
But to do that, he had to question Celynnen.
“Why didn’t you tell me, m’ija?” asked Olivia. “You had all those readings, all saying the same thing, and you did not say a word? I’m in here almost every day!”
“I don’t know why. I really was busy, and I wasn’t thinking about it when I saw you. I mean, I usually look up my daily reading about six in the morning when I get up and make coffee,” said Brooke. “You come by later on in the morning, maybe ten or eleven. In that time, I’ve been trying to get the store open and look after my first customers and…” And those are all excuses, aren’t they? Ah, hell. “I was afraid.”
Olivia shook her head. “There are not many things in this world that make you afraid, Brooke Halloran. That should have warned you. Instead, I cannot believe you just kept it to yourself. Why would you try to deal with it alone?”
“I don’t know. It was so darn crazy that I didn’t want it to be real. Plus, the reading itself wasn’t a bad one; the prediction wasn’t dire. So even though I was afraid, it could have been just plain pride too—I wanted to be able to figure it out and handle it on my own. I didn’t want to run for help at the first sign of a problem.”