The Amulet of Caorunn (A Jinx Hamilton Mystery Book 7)

by Juliette Harper

  “I don’t know what to say,” I said, my eyes going back to Tori’s pale face. “I thought I’d lost her and . . . well, you’re the last person I ever expected to be thanking for anything.”

  To my surprise, Breena chuckled. It was a warm, throaty sound that I confess I instantly found appealing.

  “I envy the two of you the closeness of your friendship,” she said. “That is not an experience with which I have great familiarity.”

  What could I say in response to that? “If you hadn’t gone around playing political games and trying to kill people for several centuries, maybe you would have lived a different life?”

  Even though I didn’t speak the words, Brenna seemed to know what I was thinking. “I know that my singular existence is of my own doing,” she said. “I do not expect commiseration.”

  The fire crackled in the grate and outside the rising wind whistled against the pane.

  “Why did you do it?” I asked suddenly. “Why did you choose to become Creavit?”

  A cloud of pained retrospection fell over her features. “That,” Brenna said, “is a question I have asked myself many times since I awakened here in the Middle Realm and realized the Fates had chosen to allow me a second chance.”

  “Barnaby told me that your fathers and brothers were cruel to you,” I said. “Was that why you did it?”

  “In part,” she said. “In those times women, even Fae women, were regarded as little more than property by the men in their lives. When my magic failed to develop, my father saw no reason to treat me well. I could not be used to broker a favorable marriage that would cement any of the alliances he cultivated to better himself in the world.”

  I shook my head. “I’m sorry to say I really don’t know much about Fae history or culture,” I admitted. “This is all still pretty new to me.”

  Brenna smiled — a real smile that lit up her eyes. “Most people can be forgiven these days for not being familiar with things that happened in the 12th century,” she said. “I won’t hold it against you.”

  As shocking as this may sound, I realized I was starting to warm up to her.

  “If you would like to rest a little,” Brenna said, “I will sit up with her. The innkeeper can bring a cot into this room.”

  I hadn’t even been thinking about sleep, but as soon as the thought of lying down entered my head, a wave of fatigue crashed over me. Trying to shake it off, I said stubbornly, “Not until she wakes up.”

  From the bed, Tori croaked, “She is awake, and you look like roadkill.”

  Even with dark circles under her eyes and no color in her face, I could see she was back. The tears I’d been holding back for hours spilled out, running in rivers down my cheek.

  “Yep,” she said, “I knew it. Here come the waterworks. Get this woman a bed.”

  Smiling, Brenna went to the door and called to someone waiting in the hall. In seconds a pair of servants carried in a narrow camp cot and a pile of quilts.

  “You’re sure you’re okay?” I asked Tori, stifling a massive yawn.

  That actually won me a smirk. Wavering, but a smirk all the same.

  “Yeah,” she said, “considering I fell off a cliff, busted my arm, and went to the eagle free clinic. I’m good. Get some sleep, Jinksy. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

  “As will I,” Brenna said. “If Victoria will allow it.”

  Tori’s eyes tracked to her reincarnated ancestor and then back to me. “Grams has got this,” she said finally. “Sleep. That’s an order.”

  The last thing I remember before exhaustion claimed me was the look on Brenna Sinclair’s face as she and Tori talked quietly. Joy.

  37

  When I woke up, Brenna and Tori had shifted to chairs by the fire, a breakfast table between them. Before they noticed me, I just lay still and watched, taking in the nuances of their conversation as well as the details of the room.

  If the events of the day before hadn’t been so fresh in my mind, I might have thought we were still in Shevington. The furnishings had the same elvish curves I’d glimpsed in Myrtle’s quarters mixed with the vaguely Elizabethan architecture so common in the Valley.

  Someone had already been in to change the linens. The enormous four-poster bed was freshly made, and any evidence of Tori’s treatment was gone. A vase of fresh flowers set in the center of the mantle, an odd cross between the compact beauty of a tulip and the effulgence of a blooming rose.

  Truthfully, the women seated at the table seemed more out of place than anything else around me. Brenna like Greer preferred to dress in black from head to foot, but with her mane of deep auburn hair tied back, she looked surprisingly youthful in the early morning sun streaming through the latticed windows.

  Outside, I could hear the sound of a community waking up — neighbors calling out greetings to neighbors, the clopping of hooves on cobblestones. I almost had myself convinced the In Between’s reputation had been oversold when a shadow crossed the window and I saw what looked very much like a Spanish galleon floating placidly by — over the rooftops of the adjacent buildings.

  Still not in Kansas.

  My eyes drifted back to Tori, who was listening to Brenna tell a story involving monks and wizards in 15th century France. As the sorceress talked, her graceful, manicured hands emphasized the major plot points with elegant gestures. She had Tori caught in rapt fascination, and my bestie looked almost normal, especially when she let out with a, “No. Way! Really?”

  Brenna, who must have felt the pressure of my eyes all the while she was talking, turned to me and said, “Good morning, Jinx. Come, join us. There’s plenty of food and Tori tells me you’re not ‘worth shooting’ until you’ve had your first cup of coffee.”

  Sometime while I’d been sleeping, the two of them had not only made friends but “Victoria” had become “Tori” in Brenna’s vernacular.

  Tori has a superpower. She can spot a phony a mile out before one lying word can fall from their lips. The night before, when she’d called Brenna “Grams,” I had an inkling that even in her weakened condition, Tori’s radar wasn’t detecting any warning signs, but the current relaxed atmosphere between them confirmed for me that we were in safe waters.

  “Not worth shooting, huh?” I said, sitting up and stretching. “Don’t let her fool you. She’s not exactly precious and darling first thing in the morning either.”

  My feet came to rest beside a pair of soft, furry slippers. Without the warming layer of quilts, my body registered the cool air in the room and shivered.

  “There’s a robe there at the foot of your bed,” Brenna said. “Days in Cibolita always dawn cold, but that will change by noon.”

  Pulling on the robe, I went over to join them in front of the fire. Now that I was close enough to give Tori the once over, I could see lingering fatigue in her face, but the black smudges under her eyes had faded to pale shadows, and her cheeks had color.

  “You,” I said, taking her hand, “may be the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “Aw, thanks Jinksy,” she grinned, squeezing my fingers. “That’s sweet. You still look like three-day old roadkill.”

  Yep. Tori was back all right.

  Brenna laughed at our good-natured banter as she reached for the large silver coffee pot. “Perhaps we can take steps to improve that assessment, Jinx,” she said. “May I?”

  The fragrant coffee fumes hit my nose, and I tried not to start panting like a junkie in need of a major fix. “Please,” I said, “and thank you.

  The red-haired woman handed me my cup and lifted the domed lid of a serving dish. I recognized the potatoes and what I thought were sausages, but the bluish tinge of the meat put me off a little. The remaining item had the consistency of scrambled eggs, but again, I wasn’t sure because well, in proper Dr. Seus fashion, they were vaguely green.

  Sensing my reluctance, Brenna said, “Roast potatoes, Archaeopteryx eggs, and sea cucumber sausage. I assure you the flavors are similar to those with whi
ch you are familiar.”

  My grumbling stomach convinced me to push my reservations aside and just eat. As I filled my plate, I said, “Your patient seems to be doing much better. Is it all mouth or is her recovery real?”

  “She will have to answer that for herself,” Brenna said. “But she seems to be improving by the hour. I suggest you take as much food as you want now before she indulges in her fourth helping.”

  A three-plate breakfast was a good sign, strange food or not. I could have dealt with plague, famine, pestilence, and hell minions, but if Tori had refused to eat, the world would indeed be on the brink of ending.

  Still, mother hen that I am, I asked as I loaded up my plate, “Okay, how are you, really?”

  Reaching over with her fork to snag another sausage, Tori said, “Sore and my arm is stiff, but Brenna says that should go away after about a week.”

  I’d been so concerned by the gash in her thigh, I’d completely forgotten about the broken arm, also mended by Brenna’s magic.

  “And the leg?” I said.

  Biting into the sausage, Tori said, “Well, you were wrong about the scar. I can’t wait for Shark Week on the Discovery channel this year.”

  Stopping with my fork in mid-air, I said, with complete confusion, “What does Shark Week have to do with anything?” I asked.

  Tori seemed astonished by how dense I was being in the moment. “Jinksy!” she said. “This baby is getting sold as a Great White shark bite. Total Jaws plot line and I have the scar tissue to prove it. My Instagram feed is gonna explode.”

  Brenna looked to me for an explanation. Tori’s statement sagged under so many pop culture references I didn’t even know where to start.

  “Jaws,” I began, “It’s a movie about . . . never mind. She’s definitely better.”

  “That much I did manage to piece together,” Brenna said, smiling across the table.

  If I’d had a choice in the matter, we’d have spent the rest of the morning right there drinking coffee, finishing the food — maybe even ordering more, but that wasn’t in the books.

  “Can she travel?” I asked.

  A flicker of sympathetic understanding showed in Brenna’s eyes before she said briskly, “That should not be a problem, provided Greer and I have a successful morning. The baobhan sith checked on us late last evening. We devised a plan to merge my magic with her own to amplify the power of her flight. I am to meet her shortly. If all goes well, together we can transfer the entire party to Gwydion’s camp.”

  She excused herself. I waited until the sound of her footsteps faded in the hallway, and then I turned to Tori. “Two things,” I said.

  “Just two?” she grinned.

  Grabbing her hand again and holding on tight, I said, “Don’t you ever, ever, ever scare me like that again.”

  “No problem,” she said, letting me glimpse a hint of the fear I already knew she’d felt. “Wasn’t much fun for me either. What’s number two?”

  “Did we really just have our morning coffee with Brenna Sinclair?”

  Tori snorted. “I know, right?” Releasing my hand, she reached for another piece of toast, bit into it, and then announced, “Brace yourself. I like her.”

  “You feel it, too, don’t you?” I asked.

  Still munching on the bread, Tori nodded. “I do,” she said, “but I don’t know what it is exactly.”

  “The evil,” I said. “It’s gone.”

  The problem with knowing something like that is explaining it to someone else. About an hour later, I found Lucas sitting at the bar downstairs plowing through his own breakfast plate and knocking back coffee.

  “Where have you been?” I asked, sitting down on the stool next to him.

  “Hey,” he said. “Word has it Tori is on the mend.”

  “I’d say she’s mended, past tense,” I replied, nodding at the bartender who had just set a cup of coffee in front of me.

  Something about the man seemed odd, but I wasn’t sure what. Then he came out from behind the bar to start wiping down the tables, and I saw that from the waist down he had the body of a goat.

  While I tried not to stare at the man’s nimble, tiny hooves clacking on the floorboards, Lucas said softly, “He’s a Satyr. You’re going to see a lot of halflings around here. I went out this morning to get the lay of the land, and a Hatuibwari almost ran me over.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “A what?”

  “They’re native to the Solomon Islands,” Lucas said. “Honestly, I thought they were extinct. Head of a man, body of a serpent — but with arms and claws. Oh, and bat wings.”

  Right. Don’t want to forget the bat wings.

  Changing topics like we’d just been discussing the most normal thing in the world, Lucas said, “I saw Brenna come downstairs a little while ago. What’s your take on her?”

  That’s when I tried to explain — four times — that the sorceress was no longer evil only to finally throw my hands up in frustration when Lucas said, yet again, “How do you know it’s not an act?”

  “Because I just do,” I said through gritted teeth. “You’re just going to have to trust me on this one, okay? Do you really think Greer would be off flying with the woman right now if she thought Brenna wasn’t on the up and up?”

  Shoving his fedora back on his head, Lucas said, “You haven’t met all of Greer’s friends. She knows some pretty shady characters.”

  “Which, according to your logic, means I shouldn’t trust you either,” I countered.

  “Yeah,” he grinned, “but you have a soft spot for bad boy water elves. Admit it.”

  On reflex, I started to flirt right back, but then the visceral memory of Chase’s hands on my shoulders hit me, and I clamped my mouth shut. Even a guy as prone to ignoring subtleties as Lucas Grayson couldn’t miss the change in direction.

  “Hey,” Lucas said, softening his tone, “did I say something wrong?”

  Men. Just when you need them to stay clueless, they get all aware.

  “What? Uh, no,” I stammered. “It was just a long night, and we have a lot to do. Meet me halfway on this one, okay? We can trust Brenna.”

  His brows drew together in a frown, but he apparently decided to press me for an explanation wasn’t a good idea. Scratch what I said about awareness. Sometimes it can come in handy.

  “Okay. I’ll trust her if you say so, but I’ll still be watching.”

  That made two of us.

  “Watch away,” I said, “but don’t let it get in the way of what we came here to do.”

  As I started back upstairs, I spotted Aquila in the building’s rear courtyard. He was sitting on a bench, reading a book held delicately balanced in his talons. Remembering our exchange the day before, I realized I owed him an apology.

  I let myself out through a pair of double doors and paused to look up at the flawless blue dome overhead. The gryphon heard me come out and looked my way. “Good morning,” he called out, snapping his book closed. “How is your friend this morning?”

  As I crossed the flagstones to join him, I said, “Much better. Aquila, I owe you an apology for yesterday. I was scared. ”

  He shifted on the bench to make room for me. I sat down and studied the regal arch of his beak and the soft shimmer of light that moved through the pristine white feathers covering his head. Something in Aquila’s bearing reminded me of Beau, which I found comforting. What I told Lucas at the bar was the truth. It had been a long night, the latest in several long nights.

  The gryphon sat patiently under my scrutiny until I realized what I was doing, and blushed. “I am so sorry,” I said. “I’m being incredibly rude.”

  “Do not apologize,” he replied. “Either for your fear for your beloved friend or your curiosity about me.”

  His voice was so kind and understanding, my next words spilled out in a tumble of emotion. “I wasn’t just scared,” I said. “I’ve never been more terrified in my life.”

  “In the heat of battle,” Aquila said
, “the most dangerous companion is the man who claims to have no apprehension. Fear tempers all true courage.”

  “If that’s true,” I said, “I must be a whole lot braver than I think I am.”

  I meant the words to be a joke, but instead, the gryphon nodded sagely and said, “That you are, Mistress Hamilton, that you are indeed. In this place, that quality will serve you well. The Middle Realm constantly challenges one’s equilibrium.”

  By the end of that day, those cryptic words would become crystal clear.

  We left for Gwydion’s camp a little after noon without seeing any more of Cibolita than the Inn. As the swirling winds of the flight of the baobhan sith began to obscure my vision, I had a brief impression of other cities spread out across an immense, flat plain. Then Greer and Brenna took us to a land so different from where we’d awakened, my mind struggled to comprehend how the two could exist within the same realm.

  The In Between doesn’t deal in constants or points of reference. You may walk out of a desert and straight into a lashing typhoon. Endless, cloudless skies overhead can give way to impenetrable cavern walls or murky ocean depths. None of the rules or conventions of what we regard as reality apply. If you leave one land on a Tuesday, it may be Thursday at your next destination, and the previous Sunday when you find your way home again.

  Where Greer and Brenna set us down, there was no sky overhead, only a vaulted roof studded with mazes of dangling roots. Then I realized that what I had taken to be the stark skeletons of trees surrounding us were more roots reaching up. For the first time since we’d entered the In Between, I truly had the sense of being in the middle.

  In the distance, a high palisade surrounding the unadorned trunk of the Mother Oak. The living column of wood stretched from floor to ceiling, joining the two halves of the Great Tree to her existence in both the Otherworld and the Human Realm.

  In the few seconds I needed to register all those impressions, something else assaulted my senses — the cold rising from the ground beneath my feet. It resurrected in my mind a lost fragment of a poem long ago memorized and forgotten — “the wind came out of the cloud by night, chilling and killing.”