Though they were twins, there were significant differences.
Dageus’s long black hair was free this morning and spilled in a sleek fall of midnight silk to his waist. Drustan’s stopped about six inches past his shoulders. Dageus’s eyes were tiger-gold, Drustan’s sparkled like shards of silver and ice. Though both had powerful physiques and stood well over six feet and several inches, Dageus was leaner, ripped with muscle; Drustan was slightly taller, broader, and packed with it. Both were extraordinary men, but Jessi was willing to bet all Keltar males were. All those dominant-male, exceptional qualities that shaped Cian so uniquely were still there, present in his descendants, centuries later. There was simply something extra in their blue blood, programmed into their regal genes.
Gwen smiled warmly at her. “We thought you might like some clean clothes. Chloe and I rummaged through our closets and brought you a few things. We had a few other items taken to the Silver Chamber for you.”
Surprised and delighted, Jessi pushed to her feet. Clean clothes! The morning just kept getting better and better. As she hurried across the patterned rugs, Dageus and Drustan hastened past her, their fascinated gazes locked on the mirror.
“What make you of the runes on the frame, Dageus?” Drustan asked.
“I doona ken the language, do you?”
“Nay,” Drustan replied.
Jessi accepted the small pile of clothing, forgetting about the men for a moment. Gwen and Chloe hadn’t just brought “a few things,” they’d brought her everything she needed. There was a pair of low-ride, button-fly Paper Denim & Cloth jeans that she could never have afforded herself, a delicate pink tank with a lacy scooped neckline, and a matching, soft woolen cardigan. They also brought panties, socks, boots, and—wonder of wonders—a bra! She wasn’t going to sag prematurely after all. She fingered the plain white spandex appreciatively.
Gwen stepped closer and said in a low voice so the men wouldn’t overhear, “I know it’s not very pretty, but it’s the only one I had that I thought might fit. I wore it when I was pregnant.”
“Oh, it’s perfect,” Jessi said fervently. “It’s a bra. I couldn’t be happier. Thank you. Both of you.” She smiled at them.
“If you’re going to be staying with us awhile,” said Chloe, “we can go shopping. Or if you need to stick close to the castle, we can order some things off the Internet.”
Jessi blinked, feeling humbled by the two gracious women. Just like that, they’d accepted her. She’d burst into their home, unannounced and uninvited, they didn’t know the first thing about her, yet they’d made her welcome. They’d brought her pretty clothes. They cared that she had a pretty bra. “Thank you,” she said again, with heartfelt sincerity.
“There’s a half-bath just down the hall to the left, by the great hall, if you’d like to change there.”
Nodding, Jessi hurried off, looking forward to wearing clean clothes again.
When she returned to the library, the MacKeltars were seated near the fire.
They’d moved the Dark Glass from where it had been slanted against the bookcase, to the wall next to the mantel, facing them.
Cian stood, his powerful jean-clad legs widespread, his palms braced on something at the outer edges of the glass—she guessed a stone wall on each side—staring out into the library.
He was wearing the black Ironman T-shirt again, and the muscles in his tattooed arms rippled beneath the short sleeves with his slightest movement. She’d had those arms around her in just about every way imaginable last night. She was greatly looking forward to more of the same tonight, or whenever he could be freed next. An ottoman was propped at the base of the mirror to keep it from sliding on the polished wood floor.
On a nearby coffee table was an appetizing spread of iced scones, assorted fruits, cheeses and pastries, and three gently steaming carafes.
“The white carafe has coffee, the silver is cocoa, and the ivory one has hot water for tea,” Gwen told her.
Jessi hurried to the table, gratefully poured herself a cup of coffee, and reached for a lightly iced scone, before taking a seat and joining them.
Commandeering a few scones into his mirror, along with the entire pot of cocoa—much to the amazement and delight of both Chloe and Gwen, who made him send it back out and resummon it again—Cian brusquely explained their situation to his descendants, amid swallows of creamy chocolate and bites of pastries.
Jessi had heard it before, and he didn’t add any detail to it now. No one could ever accuse the man of TMI—too much information. He advised them that he’d been bound to the Dark Glass by a sorcerer named Lucan Trevayne eleven centuries past, thereby securing immortality for himself.
“So, that’s what its purpose is!” Dageus had exclaimed.
Cian had nodded and continued, telling them he’d been kept hung on one of Lucan’s walls or another for the past 1,133 years. That several months ago something had happened in London that had taken down all the wards protecting Lucan’s property while he’d been out of the country; a thief had stolen Trevayne’s prized collection; and that the mirror had been transferred from merchant to merchant for several months before ultimately ending up in Jessica’s hands.
He advised briskly of the tithe sealing the Unseelie indenture, that it was due in a mere fifteen days, that he must remain free of Lucan for another fortnight, until past midnight on Samhain, and that he was formally petitioning their aid to help him do so, and to keep “his woman” safe.
She loved hearing those words! His woman.
“What then?” Drustan asked the same question Jessi had broached when she’d heard Cian’s story. “Once the tithe is missed and the indenture broken? What plan you then?”
Cian dropped his head down and forward, resting the top of his head against the inside of the glass. When he raised it again, his whisky eyes glittered with feral fury. “Then I will have my vengeance on the bastard who trapped me.”
The room was silent a moment.
Then Dageus said, “You said the gold tithe must be paid every one hundred years in the Old Way of marking time?”
Cian nodded. “Aye.”
“And that ’twas Lucan Trevayne who originally paid it?”
“Aye,” Cian replied.
“Hmm,” Dageus said. He paused a moment, then said softly, “Vengeance can be quite the double-edged sword, eh, kinsman?”
Cian shrugged. “Aye. Mayhap. But in this case, ’tis necessary I wield it.”
“Are you certain of that?”
“Aye.”
“Some blood is best not spilled, ancestor.”
“Doona be thinking you ken me, Keltar. You don’t.”
“You might be surprised.”
“Doubt it,” Cian clipped. “And you doona ken Lucan. He must die.”
“Why?” Dageus countered. “Because he imprisoned you? You seek vengeance for the slight? Is that vengeance worth everything to you, then?”
“What would you ken of the price of vengeance? What would you ken of the price of anything?”
“I ken many things. I broke the oath of the standing stones and went back in time to undo my twin’s death. For a time I was possessed by the thirteen souls of the Draghar—”
“Christ, you used the stones of Ban Drochaid for personal gain? What are you—mad? Even I gave that legend wide berth!” Cian sounded astonished.
“Appears to be the only thing you gave wide berth,” Drustan said pointedly. “Are you, or aren’t you, a sorcerer, ancestor?”
Jessi bristled. Cian was a good man. She was about to open her mouth and say so, but Cian said coolly, “I have done sorcery. It appears your brother has dispensed with the occasional Keltar oath, as well.”
Right. So there, Jessi thought. Nobody was perfect. She wasn’t quite sure she’d followed whatever it was Dageus had done, but it’d sounded pretty bad.
“Dageus did so of love. You’ve told us neither how you came to bear such extensive protection runes tattooed across your body,
nor how you ended up in that mirror.”
“‘Protection runes’” Jessi echoed. “Is that what your tattoos are, Cian? I’ve been meaning to ask you if those runes are a language. What are they for?”
It was Chloe who answered her. “They hold the repercussions of meddling with black magycks at bay,” she clarified helpfully. “I’ve been reading about them lately.”
“Oh.” Jessi blinked, wondering what black magycks Cian had been messing with. She decided there was too much going on at the moment to press him on the subject. Later, when they were alone, she would ask him.
Right now, Cian was holding Drustan’s gaze, his lips curved in a mocking smile. She wasn’t sure she liked that smile. It was cold. It seemed doubly so after the wickedly heated ones she’d seen curving his sensual lips mere hours ago.
“Nor do I plan to discuss it,” Cian growled. “‘Tis of no consequence. What is—is. What’s been done, cannot be undone. All that matters now is stopping Lucan.”
Dageus began, “Not necessarily—”
“Och, aye, ‘necessarily,’ ” Cian cut him off. “I’ve not yet told you, Keltar, but Trevayne recently located several pages from the Unseelie Dark Book. He’s been hunting it since the ninth century. Are you familiar with the Unseelie relic?”
Dageus’s golden eyes narrowed and he stiffened. “Blethering hell!”
“Precisely,” Cian said flatly.
“He’s seeking the Unseelie Dark Book?” Drustan exclaimed. “Think you he might actually find it?”
“Aye, he will. ’Tis but a matter of time.”
“Wait a minute,” Jessi interjected. “What is ‘the Unseelie Dark Book’?” Although Cian had mentioned it once before, she’d been so preoccupied with her own worries that she’d not absorbed what he’d said.
“Do you know who the Unseelie are, lass?” Drustan asked.
Jessi gave him a dubious look. “Um . . . fairies?” Oh, that just sounded abjectly silly. Even for a girl who now believed in sorcerers and spells and Druids.
But no one else in the room seemed to think so.
Matter-of-factly, Gwen said, “We call them ‘Faery,’ Jessi, but they’re actually a race of beings from another world, an incredibly advanced civilization known as the Tuatha Dé Danaan. They came to Earth thousands of years before the birth of Christ and settled in Ireland.”
Jessi sucked in a breath. “Oh, God—I read about the Tuatha Dé Danaan in the Book of Invasions! They were one of the mythical races, along with the Fir Bolg and the Nemedians. Supposedly they came down from the sky in a cloud of mist and fog. You’re telling me they’re real? That they actually did invade Ireland?”
“Aye. They’re real, though they didn’t invade Ireland—initially they were welcomed there amongst her people,” Dageus said. “It wasn’t until much later that bitter dissension arose. They arrived long before the Book of Invasions purports. And here they remain, though they are now hidden from us. The Tuatha Dé is divided into two courts. The Seelie are the Court of the Light Fae—the ones whom we Keltar serve. The Unseelie are the Court of the Dark—to be given wide berth. Though separate, they are inseparably bound. Some say the Seelie created the Unseelie, others say that the Seelie themselves mutated over time. No one knows for certain. Indeed, ’tis rumored they may not even be of the same race. But all the legends agree that where goes one, so must the other. That they are like the Roman Janus heads of yore—two faces, sharing a single skull.”
“So they came to our world—oh, that’s just so weird!—and brought these Dark Hallows with them?” Jessi asked.
Dageus nodded. “The Unseelie brought the Dark Ones. The Seelie brought the Light Hallows. Both courts have their own relics of power. According to ancient lore, long ago in their past, the horrific Unseelie were somehow ‘contained’ by the Seelie. Though they are here with us, in a manner of speaking, sharing our world, as are the Seelie, the Unseelie cannot leave wherever it is they are being held. ’Tis written in ancient scrolls that shortly after the Tuatha Dé’s arrival on our world there was an uprising and some of the Unseelie nearly broke free. In the skirmish, their Hallows, including the Dark Book, were lost. Men and Fae alike have been searching for these relics of power for thousands of years. Allegedly, the Dark Glass was originally used to keep one of the Unseelie’s mortal mistresses imprisoned. Over time, it has transformed, as many Unseelie things do, into something else. A thing with multiple purposes, or so ’tis said. See that band of black that rims the perimeter?”
Jessi nodded.
“‘Tis said that one day, if enough tithes are paid, the Dark Glass will go full dark, and on that day it will become a different thing entirely, a sentient thing.”
Jessi shivered. She looked at Cian. “Did you know that?”
He shook his head. “Nay. But ’tis yet another reason to prevent the tithe.”
“No kidding. How creepy!”
“All the Unseelie Hallows are, as you say, ‘creepy,’ lass,” Cian said. “‘Tis their darkness, the chill of them.”
“Is it cold inside the mirror?” she asked, recalling how icy the blackness at the edge was.
He shrugged one powerful shoulder. “Aye, lass. At times I feel it more than others. ’Tis naught to fash yourself over.” Directing a concerned gaze toward the twins, he said, “Lucan managed to get his hands on three of the Dark Hallows. The thief stole the amulet and box, as well, along with my mirror. I doona ken if Lucan has been able to recover them yet. They may still be out there.”
“Och, Christ,” Drustan swore softly. “And in some unsuspecting fool’s hands!”
“Exactly,” Cian said.
“So what’s in this Dark Book?” Jessi asked. “What makes it so dangerous?”
“According to what the Draghar knew of it,” Dageus said, “it contains spells to open realms, spells to harness time, spells even to unmake worlds. Worse yet, in addition to every manner of Dark enchantment, allegedly therein are also the True Names of the most powerful of the Fae—the Seelie and Unseelie royalty.”
“I thought you said ’twas not easy to sort through all the memories the Draghar left in you,” Drustan said carefully, searching Dageus’s eyes.
Dageus said dryly, “‘Tis not. It’s like having thirteen thousand-chapter books in my head. In there somewhere is a memory of every last time one of them took a piss. I know of the Dark Book because they wanted me to hunt for it while I was hunting for other tomes in my efforts to escape them. ’Twas much in their minds.” His lips curved in a mocking smile. “‘Twas not I alone who sought my freedom; they wished greatly to escape me. Among other desires they had.”
“What about the True Names is so scary?” Jessi asked. How bizarre to think that Dageus had the memories of thirteen other people in his head. She wondered if it ever gave him a headache.
“He who knows a Tuatha Dé’s True Name,” Cian said from within the mirror, “can command that Fae, even unto its own destruction.”
“I thought the Faery were supposed to be immortal,” she protested.
“Mostly they are, lass,” Cian told her. “‘Tis rare for one to die, nigh impossible to slay one, but it can be done. The Fae possess unfathomable power. In the hands of the wrong man, the Dark Book could be used to harness that power. An unscrupulous man could unleash complete chaos, destroy not merely this world but countless others. Though the Dark Book is written in complex ciphers, and though ’tis rumored these ciphers actually change from opening to opening of the Book, Lucan broke several of the codes in the past when he obtained rubbings. It took him many long years, but he managed it. I’ve no doubt he can do so again.”
“Where do you think the Dark Book has been all this time?” Chloe asked Cian. “Hasn’t it been missing for thousands and thousands of years?”
“Aye. Lucan and I believed that a clan was either appointed or stumbled across it long ago and appointed themselves its guardian, much as the Keltar guard the lore,” Cian said, his gaze dark. “‘Twould seem that recent
ly, something happened to these guardians, because the person Lucan spoke with told him the Book had surfaced for a brief time and been glimpsed by several people, all of them now dead. This person—who was also killed a few weeks before the mirror was stolen—had been able to obtain a rubbing of the cover and a few of the pages therein before it vanished again.”
“So, people have actually seen the Book recently!” Chloe exclaimed.
“Aye.”
“Do we know for sure it really was the Dark Book? The real thing?” Gwen asked.
Cian nodded. “I glimpsed the rubbings of the pages. Lucan was free with what he did in his study. I think in part because he hoped to incite my interest and elicit my aid, for I was always the better sorc—er . . . Druid.”
“And who ended up stuck in a mirror?” Dageus murmured.
Cian bristled, eyes narrowed, nostrils flared.
Dageus shrugged. “I was merely saying.”
Cian and Dageus glowered at each other. Then Cian snorted dismissively and continued. “The Book itself is supposedly so potent that continued exposure to it alters a man, and not for the better. Even the mere rubbings of the pages pulsed with Dark power. Those were no normal sheets of parchment. There is no doubt in my mind ’twas the real thing. There is also no doubt in my mind ’tis inevitable that Lucan will get his hands on it, and sooner rather than later. Obtaining the Dark Book has always been Lucan’s ultimate goal, and he will stop at nothing to attain it. I’ve watched his power and knowledge of Dark Magyck grow over the centuries. He adheres to no rules. He has no sense of honor. I ken the way his mind works. I am the only who can stop him.”
“There are two other Keltar Druids here, kinsman,” Drustan said stiffly. “I’m fair certain we may be of some aid.”
“You’ve no bloody idea what you’re talking about. The mirror makes Lucan immortal, unkillable by your means. You would be of no use. Or are you ready to begin tattooing yourself, kinsman?” Cian said silkily.
Drustan gave him a scornful look.
“I thought not.” The look Cian shot back at him was just as scornful. “A man does what he must. Or he’s no man.”