Chapter Twenty-One
I pulled out my phone and began photographing every page of the kelpie section of Ed's book. Ed watched with interest, occasionally adjusting the pages so the light fell better across them. My hands were steady, but my mind was racing.
The changes were subtle, but it was the final version that we'd found.
Other books published after this one may have changed the wording, but the story was the same.
This was the culmination of all the little changes someone had made.
The first finished alteration of the kelpie story.
The foundation for all others that followed.
I was certain of it. Whoever had done this, this was their writing, their words scribbled in red ink, ending in that terrible sentence like the final line of a spell.
I photographed each page of the kelpie section, my stomach tightening with every alteration I found. Whoever had done this understood how stories worked. They hadn't written new stories. Instead, they'd twisted the stories that already existed. That made the changes far easier to believe.
A passage about kelpies drowning those who polluted sacred waters became a description of indiscriminate killing.
A story about a festival became offerings made to placate the beasts in the water.
Individually, each change seemed small. A word here, a phrase there.
Together, they rewrote an entire species.
I glanced at áedán. He stood by the window, his back to us, one hand pressed against the glass. His shoulders were rigid. He hadn't said a word since he'd confirmed that there was magic at work, and now his silence felt heavy.
Suddenly, áedán turned away from the window. His expression was carefully neutral, but I'd learned to read the tension in his jaw and the way his hands curled slightly at his sides. “Ed, when did you last eat?”
Ed blinked and looked up. “Just had some biscuits.” He waved at the plate on the tea tray.
“I mean a full meal.”
He shrugged. “Lunch.”
“It's past eight.” áedán moved toward the kitchen with purpose. “You need to eat.”
“Och, I can manage—”
“I'll make you something.” áedán was already in the kitchen, opening cupboards.
“I think he needs to keep busy,” I whispered.
Ed nodded.
Tommy trotted into the kitchen and sat near áedán, whining a little every time he placed something on the counter. I went back to photographing the pages with my phone.
“Are you going to break the spell?” Ed sat back in his chair.
I glanced at áedán. “Yes, sir. I won't stop until I've corrected the stories.”
“That's a good lad.”
áedán returned a few minutes later with a sandwich for Ed. “I fed Tommy some kibble. The wood box is getting low. I'll bring some in.”
He disappeared outside before either of us could respond. Through the window, I watched him gather logs from the covered pile beside the cottage, his movements methodical and controlled. He stacked several in his arms.
I hurried through the last pages, but stopped when I saw the sentence.
It was the last thing written on the last page of the kelpie section.
Even though I knew it was there, I still flinched when I saw it.
Squaring my shoulders, I took a picture of the whole page, then a close-up of the sentence.
áedán returned a moment later with an armload of wood, which he stacked neatly beside the fireplace.
Then he added two logs to the dying fire, adjusting them until the flames caught properly.
“Thank you, laddie,” Ed said. “I appreciate all you boys are doing.”
“You're welcome.”
I returned the manuscript to its box and packed my things. “Thank you, Ed. This has been so helpful.”
“You're welcome. I'd appreciate a call when you've fixed things.”
“I promise.” I petted Tommy one last time and shook Ed's hand. Then I handed him my card. It looked just like the one Julian had given me when we'd first met, except this one had my name on it. “If you think of anything else, you can reach me at this number.”
Ed peered at the card. “The Velasca? What's that?”
“It's an organization dedicated to preserving folklore, myths, and traditions.”
“Ah, I understand. Good luck to you.”
“Goodbye, Ed.” áedán shook his hand.
Ed looked up at him. “You're magic too, aren't you?”
áedán's eyes glowed as he leaned closer to Ed. “I'm one of those you wrote aboot.”
Ed gaped at áedán, then nodded. “Well, hasn't this just been a momentous day?” He stroked Tommy's head. “The best day. Aye, Tommy?”
Tommy yipped.
“Goodbye, Tommy.” áedán nodded to the dog, then we left the cottage.
áedán drove us back to his cottage, both hands on the wheel and his gaze fixed on the road. I didn't try to fill the silence. Some things needed space to breathe before they could be spoken. It surprised me when he'd told Ed who he was, but if anyone deserved to know, it was that old man.
The cottage appeared at last, stone and slate, with the loch beyond it stretching toward the mountains.
áedán backed into the shed, and we went inside, still silent.
We'd found what we needed, but this was far from over, and that tarnished our victory.
He went to the kitchen, filled the kettle, and put it over the cold hearth.
I sat at the table and watched him make a fire, waiting.
Finally, he sat down across from me. His hands rested on the scarred wood, fingers spread.
I asked the question that had been forming in my mind since we'd left Ed's cottage. “Who were you before all this?”
“What do you mean?”
I shrugged. “Tell me what you were like before you lost your clan”
“Like this.”
“Okay, what about your best friend? What was their name?”
áedán looked at me for a long moment. “I dinnae remember anymore.”
Ice ran down my spine. “What about your father? What was his name?”
He frowned.
I shot out of my seat. “You said we had time!”
“We do.” He looked away. “I just dinnae ken how much.”
“áedán, damn it! You convinced me to take our time with the research. You said you weren't fading this week or the next. We could've found Ed days ago if I had focused more.”
“And it woulda been a hellish time.”
I rubbed a hand over my face, trying to hold back my tears. We had only begun, and he was already slipping away.
“I used to think forgetting was the worst thing that could happen to me.” áedán's voice brought me out of my despair. He stared at his hands. “Losing my memories of everyone I loved, losing myself. It terrified me.” He stopped, and the silence stretched. “Lately, I'm not so sure.”
Something in his tone made my chest tighten. There was a weight to those words, a meaning I couldn't quite grasp. Before I could ask, he stood abruptly and moved to the window, putting distance between us.
“We found what you were looking for. So, what does it mean?” he asked.
I recognized the deflection but let it go. “Every alteration was deliberate. Surgical. Whoever did this understood exactly how to shift perception without being obvious about it.”
“They stole my history.” His voice was flat. “All this time, they've been rewriting who I was, who my family was, what we meant to the people who lived beside us. And they did it so carefully that no one noticed. Not even the Velasca.”
I thought about Ed's published book, about the countless texts that had cited it, about the children's stories, tourist pamphlets, and rubber toys.
About people learning that kelpies were monsters, never knowing that someone had deliberately made them believe it.
áedán was right; not even the Velasca had noticed.
áedán moved to the sofa and picked up one of the books I'd bought in Luss. The one with the lurid cover illustration. He stared at it for a long moment, his thumb tracing the edge of the glossy paper. “What if this is all that will remain of me?”
I crossed the room without thinking, sat beside him on the sofa, and took his hand. His fingers were colder than usual. “It won't be. Even if you fade, I will know who you were. I will remember you, and I will tell others about you.”
“You're different.” He didn't pull away, but he didn't look at me either. “You know what I am. You've seen the records, the real history. But everyone else? They see that.” He gestured at the illustration with his free hand. “A monster.”
“Then we'll remind them who you really are.” I squeezed his hand.
“I know this is exhausting, but it's only the beginning.
I needed to know what we were dealing with before I could advise Julian.
Don't forget who I am, áedán. It's my job not only to document who you are and preserve it, but also to tell the world your true story.
That's what the Velasca does, and they're good at it.
Trust me and stop hiding what's happening to you!”
My words came out fierce, almost angry. Because I was angry.
It wasn't just because áedán had hidden his condition from me, or because someone was systematically destroying the last remnants of an entire species.
It was also because someone had hurt him.
Some evil bastard had rewritten áedán's life. My áedán!
This had stopped being a job the moment I met him.
Maybe even before that, when I had seen Zoe and learned the truth about myths.
But sitting there, holding áedán's hand while he stared at a grotesque caricature of himself, I understood with perfect clarity why Caelum had built the Velasca.
It was out of love, yes, to honor Velas.
But it was also to fight for life. All life.
It was to ease the anger inside him, just as I needed to ease my anger.
Humans had brought myths to life with their belief, and then they got distracted.
They forgot. But the Velasca never forgets.
And I was a Velascan. Still, those weren't the only reasons I had to save áedán.
Not because I was a Velascan, or he was the last kelpie.
I had to save him because he was áedán. Gorgeous, mischievous, intelligent, courageous, compassionate áedán. The world would be a darker place without him in it.
He squeezed my hand. The pressure was gentle but deliberate, an acknowledgment of what I'd said and what I hadn't. “How? How do we undo this damage?”
“With help.” I turned his hand over in mine, tracing the lines in his palm. “We know when this began, we know how it was done, and we know the real story of kelpies. Now, we circulate the truth while discounting the lies.”
“The truth.” He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “The truth is that I killed people, Ethan. Not many, but I did. I drowned men who poisoned the water, who beat their wives on my shore, and who abused children. I was judge and executioner both. Maybe the new stories arenae entirely wrong.”
“And that's why it was easy to change your story.” I kept my voice steady. “Lies twisted with truth so expertly that even you are doubting yourself. You were born to be a protector. You killed to protect. áedán, you're the most honorable man I know.”
He looked at me then, really looked at me. His eyes were dark in the firelight, ancient and tired, but also beautiful. “You're going to get hurt fighting this. Whoever is behind it won't stop just because we've found their alterations.”
“I know.”
“You could walk away. Go back to the Velasca, tell them what we've found, let them handle it.”
“I will certainly accept their help, but this is my assignment, you're my lover, and I'm not giving up on you.”
The cottage was quiet around us. Outside, the loch lapped gently at the shore, the same sound it had made for thousands of years. The same sound áedán's mother had heard, his father, his siblings, and all the other kelpie families who'd lived here before the stories changed.
“Then we'll remind them,” áedán said finally. He squeezed my hand again, harder this time. “Together.”