I snorted, because she had a crappy diet and she just did not care. And I was one to talk. Wrap it in bacon or smother it in mac and cheese and I was in love.
Kade, who had made himself comfortable in a large wingback armchair, was already on his second cup of coffee. He had some bagels on a plate too. I was glad to see some of the fatigue fading from his face, but with everything that was happening, him being attacked and partly-shifting, he was not even remotely getting enough sleep to restore his energy. I would have to make sure he slept first tonight.
“So, Arianna, what do you need to tell us?” Baladar looked completely unruffled, holding his mug in a refined manner.
I wasted no time on pleasantries, telling them everything about my unexpected kidnapping and what Kade and I thought the Dark Fae Lord wanted that second crystal for.
After I had finished, Baladar said, “What would you like us to do first?”
“First, some type of blocking spell. He sees everything we do, and if we’re going to beat him to the stone, that has to stop.” I paced the library as the magic born stared at me.
“It would be too hard to spell the entire royal estate and all of our energy signatures,” Baladar started slowly.
My wolf rose up and the growl ripped from my mouth before I could stop it. Dammit. There was no way for us to plan anything if he could just see straight into our world.
Kade stood. He had finished his food and coffee now, and was looking alert. “Well, we’ll just have to focus on us, and not the castle.”
Baladar rubbed his chin. “Intriguing … explain further.”
“Well, I’m no magic born, but what if you could spell some jewelry or something and we could wear th—”
Violet leapt up. “Yes! It would take very little magic that way. We don’t bother to hide the castle. We spell necklaces to shroud our energy signature from magical prying eyes. It will be simple. That way, if the Dark Fae Lord spies on the castle, he won’t see what we’re doing.”
Baladar nodded. “We can hide the important people, and leave enough of the others around so he doesn’t get too suspicious.”
Yes, this was a plan I could work with. “He’ll wonder where we have gone, and that should get him nice and nervous. Maybe he’ll make a mistake.” I pointed to Violet and Baladar. “Can you two please start on the necklaces? Nikoli, Rowan, and I will continue with the spell to find this dark crystal. We have to get to it before the dark fae.”
No one argued. For once, they all acted like I was actually their queen, and hurried off to follow my orders.
Kade cleared his throat lightly. “I think you’re forgetting someone.”
I turned around and placed two hands on Kade’s muscular chest. “You, My King, need to get a couple hours of sleep.” His alertness would fade soon enough. He couldn’t survive on coffee forever. “We have a crystal hunt to go on when you wake.”
After a long pause, where he scrutinized me closely, he finally nodded. “Two hours. Not a minute longer.”
I smiled. “Okay.”
After Kade retreated out of sight, I sat down next to Rowan and Nikoli. “Okay, first thing. Can we do a temporary spell to hide us and this conversation?”
Rowan let out a chuckle. “You don’t have to worry about it. This library is covered in fae magic. I’m not sure why, but long before we used this room, someone was hiding it from sight.”
I echoed her chuckle, even though I knew exactly why this room was spelled. The Red Queen and Daddy Dearest. Pushing my parents back into the box of things I was never dealing with, I focused on the task.
“Alright, since our conversation should be private here, explain this magic to me. Why can’t we find this other crystal? Can we just read the book? It’s supposed to contain all the information we need to find and control the energy, right?”
Nikoli pulled the dark magic book out of the spelled cloth. The moment it was free, I felt its low hum of energy and those slivers of heavy, shadowy magic. It was muted, so whatever Baladar had done to the book was still working, but there was no doubting the strength of this sliver of crystal, or the dark information it contained.
Nikoli placed it between us all, careful not to touch the stone or open the pages.
“None of the magic born have opened the book, because we have no idea what is inside. We also have no idea what will happen if we read the words. This stone is pure dark magic. The only problem is, according to Baladar, the only way to learn how to trace or connect to the dark mecca is to read the spell inside. Only…”
“We don’t want to turn evil…” I said, and he nodded.
“We don’t want to turn evil, so none of us are willing to open the pages or connect to the stone. Who knows what might happen if we did.”
Rowan was silent, staring in deep thought at the stone. “What if it were more … familiar to us? What if we turned the black stone into something we knew, so we could connect with it briefly and read this spell … trace it to its other half?”
Nikoli and I shared a look of confusion, and Rowan grinned like Violet often did. Like she knew something we didn’t. “Mecca powder,” she breathed. “If we coat this stone in mecca powder, it will mingle with the dark magic, temporarily bringing it closer to our purple mecca. That should limit the effect of the words inside, giving us enough time to see what information it’s hiding.”
I wasn’t a magic born, so it didn’t make sense to me, but it sounded like a decent idea. The mecca powder had certainly done some incredible things the times I’d seen it at work. “What are the odds it could backfire and make all of my magic born go dark?” I asked seriously.
Rowan’s shoulders drooped forward a little. “High. That’s why only one of us should do it. Just in case.”
Damn.
Nikoli nodded. “Baladar is too valuable to lose, Violet is too fragile after her time as prisoner with the Winter Court. Queen Arianna and King Kade are way too important to risk … so, I’ll do it.”
“I can do it,” Rowan offered. Her beautiful pixie features were smooth. She didn’t seem too worried.
“You’re our only fae knowledge base. And you are valuable to the Summer Court. We definitely don’t want to upset them by turning their magic born dark.” He shook his head. “No, it has to be me.”
He was confident and sure, unwilling to risk anyone else on this task. I was touched.
“Nikoli, you are a treasured friend and magic born. Thank you,” I told him, and he simply nodded.
I stood. “Alright, get ready for the spell. We’ll do it in two hours when Kade is awake to make sure the energy can be controlled. We will all have our magic necklaces by then, so the dark fae will have no idea where we are.”
It was a plan … a sort of scary one, but the best we could hope for. Part of me was worried about Nikoli. We couldn’t afford to lose any of the magic born … Violet especially. But this was war, and there was no way for me to keep my loved ones safe. We just had to hope for the best, and try to wipe those fae out before they got us.