He nodded and they departed the chamber, making their way through the underground until they reached the entrance near Edinburgh castle. Diana realized they were close to Cadan’s flat.
“Can we swing by your place so I can get cleaned up? I know my body didn’t go in, but I feel filthy from that place,” Diana asked him.
“Sure.”
Esha looked up from where she stood nearby and said, “We can meet at Cadan’s if he doesn’t mind. It’s closer.”
“Aye, it’s fine,” Cadan said.
It was a short drive to his flat. Esha rode with them since she had aetherwalked to the underground.
“I won’t be long,” Diana said as she carried her bag of clothes to the bathroom.
She showered quickly, more to wash away the memories of the demons’ hands on her than to actually get clean. As she was rifling through her bag for clean clothes, her hands closed on the book at the bottom of her bag.
The treatise with the picture of Arthur’s Seat that had led her here. She’d read it on the plane, but hadn’t found anything useful. But now that she knew who she was…
Diana dressed quickly and carried the book out of the bathroom and into the living room. Cadan sat on the couch, while Esha and Warren had taken the two chairs at either end.
She held up the book and said, “A month ago, I ordered this book off the Internet because I thought it might have something to do with the manuscript I’m working on back home. But there’s a drawing inside of Arthur’s Seat that led me here. Did you send it to me?”
Warren shook his head. “Dinna send you anything. We dinna know exactly who Boudica’s soul would be reborn to, so we couldn’t. Could be coincidence, or fate that you picked that one. Perhaps Aerten sent it to you.”
He reached out and she handed the treatise to him. It was a compendium of Celtic myths recorded during the Celtic Revival period in the eighteenth century, when academics and antiquarians had become interested in what they perceived to be Britain’s misty and romantic past. It had appealed to her a month ago when she’d found it for sale on a used books site. Her attraction to it made even more sense now.
Warren frowned down at the book. “I’ll be damned. Mary Anderson.”
“Who was she?” Diana asked.
“A mortal who came to the university in the mid eighteenth century when I first joined the Praesidium.” He looked at Cadan. “You would no’ remember. I think you were off somewhere else that century.”
“West Indies,” Cadan answered.
“Aye, well, and Esha would no’ be here for another three centuries. Anyway, she was a seer, and while she was here, she wrote three volumes of prophecy. They were presented in the form of myths or fairytales, but she was certain they would come true.”
“That’s the second volume—a collection of Celtic myths,” Diana said.
“Well, shite. That makes sense, then. She saw backward as well as forward.”
“Whoa,” Diana said, excitement thrumming through her. “If she really could see the past, then her myths are true. We know so little about Celtic beliefs, but she did, because she could actually see it.”
She held out her hand for the book. Warren passed it to her and she sat next to Cadan and began to skim through the pages, glancing at the chapter headings for something familiar.
Within minutes, a shiver skittered up her spine at the sight of chapter title she recognized. She hadn’t noticed it before, but now that she had Boudica’s memories, it stood out. Quickly, she skimmed the story. Visions from her childhood, the first one, flashed across her mind. Their Druid priestess had loved to tell this tale, and it had been her favorite as well.
But now, with the idea of embodying the role of the heroine, her blood ran cold. When Warren had said she was destined to die as part of her reincarnation, she hadn’t really believed him. But this story... Her stomach clutched as she looked up at Cadan.
“I think the answer is in the story of Andrasta—how she became a goddess.” Her voice trembled only slightly, but she could take no joy in her show of bravery as she looked up to meet the eyes that had been watching her for the last few minutes.
“Your patron goddess?” Cadan asked.
Diana nodded. Andrasta was the Celtic goddess of victory, the one that Boudica had called upon during her revolt—the one she had made a symbol of her campaign. It was all coming full circle, but she had the sick feeling that the circle was going to close all too soon.
“You don’t remember how she became a goddess?” she asked Cadan.
“Bits and pieces. No’ enough to say so.”