Chapter 17
“What have you got there?” Faelan asked.
“One of Layla’s puzzle boxes.”
“That’s the one that you hid under the floorboard when you were a girl.”
Bree nodded. “Something’s inside. I was thinking about Layla, and I remembered it.”
“Did you get it opened?”
“No. I can’t figure it out. I tried several times over the years.”
“Want me to have a look at it?”
“Sure.” Bree handed him the box. It was small, made of wood. “There isn’t a lid.”
Faelan rattled it. “I can hear something.”
“I want to know what it is.” She frowned. “Smash it.”
“I could do that, but there must be a way to open it,” he said.
“Don’t you think I’ve tried? It won’t open.”
“You just haven’t found out how.”
“You think you can find it when I couldn’t? I’ve spent my life exploring mysteries and looking for treasure.”
Click.
“You didn’t.” Bree leaned closer. One side of the box had separated. “How did you do that?”
“I pressed the sides.”
“I tried that,” Bree said.
“I pressed three sides at once. Your wee hands weren’t big enough. Here, it’s yours to open.”
Bree took the box, but just stared at it.
“You’re not going to open it?”
“Yes, but I’ve waited so long…”
“Well, open it or I will. I want to know what’s inside.”
She pulled the side that was loose, and a drawer slid out. “It’s a key.” She carefully removed a small skeleton key and held it up. “To what?”
“I think I know.”
“You know? How could you know?”
“Follow me.” Faelan led Bree out of the room and to the attic stairs. He stopped. The stairs were so narrow. And she wasn’t the most graceful of women. There was the bairn to consider. “I think it’s best that you stay here. I don’t want you tumbling down—”
Bree started up the stairs. “They’re just stairs, Faelan.”
He took a large step so that he was right behind her and could catch her if she fell. “The view’s nice here.”
She glanced back and saw him looking at her arse. “There’s more of it to see now.”
“It’s no bigger than it was. Now this,” he said, sliding his arms around her when they’d reached the attic. He placed his palms over her stomach. “I can’t wait until I can see your belly growing. Have I told you how much I love you and this little one?”
“Not for a few hours.” Bree leaned in and kissed his neck, making his bones feel like dust. “But you can tell us anytime you want. We love hearing it.”
“Do you think he can hear us?”
“Or her? No. I’m barely pregnant. It probably looks like a chicken embryo right now.”
“Just spoil my mood,” he said, kissing the tip of her nose. Bree smiled. “But I’m sure if it’s a boy he’ll be every bit as magnificent as his father. ‘The Mighty Faelan Junior.’”
“No, you don’t.”
Bree laughed and reached up to turn on the light. “Okay, show me what this key goes to.” Faelan led her to a trunk. “These are McGowan’s things. Sorry, your father’s things,” she said.
“Aye.” He and Ian had left the box holding his father’s things inside the trunk. There were two straight razors. One must have been Quinn’s. There were other things, as well. Someone must have kept them there over the years. Old clothing and such. He removed the items and felt for the slit in the bottom of the trunk. “See that? Try the key.”
“That’s a keyhole?”
“It is. I had a trunk just like this. There’s a secret compartment in the bottom. We used to hide weapons inside. Or anything else we didn’t want found.”
“You knew this trunk had a secret compartment and didn’t tell me?” She looked betrayed.
“I wasn’t sure you didn’t know about it.”
She gave him a skeptical look. “You were afraid I would rip the bottom of the trunk out to get it open.”
“The thought did cross my mind.”
“You know me better than that. I would have opened it carefully.”
He grinned at her admission. She would have opened it if she’d known. She couldn’t resist a puzzle. The only reason she hadn’t gotten the puzzle box open was that she would have had to smash it to do so.
“I didn’t know what you were like then.” Which wasn’t long ago. He’d known her for only a short while, though it felt like forever. So much so that he had even started dreaming of her when she was young. Two nights ago, he’d dreamed she was in the graveyard crying, upset over some boy. Druan had been outside the graveyard watching Bree. Barmy dreams.
Bree stuck the key inside the hole and turned it. “This is so exciting. Now what?”
“Lift the edge there.”
“Here?” She lifted the corner, and the bottom of the trunk came up. “Oh my. Letters.” She reached inside and pulled out three yellowed letters tied with a blue ribbon. “The top one has your name on it.”
“Tavis said they’d written letters for me, for when I awoke.” Faelan reached for them. These had waited for over a century.
“Do you want to open them with Tavis?” Bree’s expression was so tender, but he knew she was dying to see what was inside.
“He already knows what’s written there. I’d like you to read them with me.”
Her face lit in a smile that made his heart leap. God, he loved this woman. Dangerous, bold, crazy woman. He would die without her.
He carefully opened the first envelope and removed the letter. Unfolding it, he looked at the neat writing on the page. “It’s written in Ian’s hand,” Faelan said. “He was always one for letters.”
Faelan,
If you are reading this, then someone has awoken you from your slumber. I hope whoever the clan sent to open your time vault has explained what happened. But Tavis and I wanted to leave letters so you would know, and to say our final farewells. The Seeker found your time vault buried in a field. We did not know if Druan was coming back soon, or perhaps watching the place. We found a husband and wife nearby who were kind. They allowed us to stay with them as we searched out a place to hide the time vault. They had an empty crypt and let us buy it. Father was heartbroken and slept the first night in the crypt. He didn’t live to see another night. Voltar killed him and Quinn, according to Quinn, who was barely alive when we found them. Voltar wanted the Book of Battles. We are considering what do to about the problem. We fear telling the elders since we suspect there is a traitor in the clan.
Tavis and I found a letter from Nigel Ellwood in Quinn’s pocket. Nigel suspected that someone was selling warriors’ names to a demon, since several warriors had died under suspicious circumstances. Nigel was worried that the Keeper was involved, since he was the only one who would have had access to the Book of Battles. Nigel told the Council, and they appointed a secret group to look into matters. Nigel convinced them to let him find a place in America for the clan, a second clan seat so that they weren’t all in one place. He had taken the book with him and hidden it in America as well. Most of the Watchers who were investigating Nigel’s claims had also died mysteriously. Since Nigel did not know whom to trust, he kept the book in America while he started work on the second castle. He figured the book was safest if it was believed missing, so he pretended to disappear himself. Sometime later, he spotted four ancient demons nearby. He was worried about the Book of Battles and wrote to the Chief Elder asking him to send warriors to transport the book back to Scotland. He stressed in the letter the importance that the Keeper not be told.
We do not know the extent of the betrayal. Quinn had the letter and hadn’t told the Council, so he was at least an accomplice to his father’s treachery.
We put Father in an unmarked grave. It is the third grave you will find after walking five paces from the corner of your crypt. We could not risk someone coming to visit his grave and finding the time vault. We will tell Mother the truth. And Tavis and I told Frederick and Isabel about you. They promised to watch over your time vault, and to ensure that someone else in their family takes the duty when they die, until someone from the clan comes to release you. They have the key. They will take care of it as well. We had already buried Quinn in the hole where your time vault was, because at that time, we had not yet told Frederick and Isabel that your time vault was inside the crypt.
Only Mother will know the truth about you. I love you, brother, and I write this with sorrow, knowing that I will never see you again. Not in this lifetime. I will comfort Mother and Alana and will see you on the other side.
With love,
Ian
The next letter was from Tavis.
Faelan,
This is a hard letter to write. I won’t say much. Ian has said most of it in his letter, which he let me read. I am not letting him read mine, and you will see why. I have made a decision. I am coming to help you. I cannot bear the thought of you waking alone. Someone must be there to help you and to stop Druan if you are not able. Your talisman would most likely be assigned to me. Also, I promised Quinn I would protect the book, and the best way to do that is to lock it inside the time vault with me. Voltar wants the Book of Battles, and it would appear that there is a traitor in our clan who has been selling warriors’ names to a demon or demons. Nigel Ellwood suspected it was the Keeper before Quinn. Quinn’s father. We don’t know how deeply this threat extends, whether the Council is involved or just this Keeper, but the book must be protected. This way, no one can get to it.
Ian will be furious with me, and I know it will take much convincing to get him to agree. It will be a hard thing for him to do, but I will make him see the necessity. It must be me. He has the mark for Bessie. I have no one but my family and my duty. I admit I am afraid. I do not know what to expect, what the time vault will be like. If I will even survive it. But if I do, we will be united again, and together we will stop Druan.
Sincerely,
Tavis
“Oh, Faelan.” Bree leaned her head on his shoulder. “How wonderful and sad.”
Faelan blinked hard. He missed Ian, missed them all. But now he had gotten one brother back.
“There’s another letter,” Bree said. “It’s addressed to you and Tavis. It was mailed to Isabel.”
“Then I’ll wait to read it with him.” He folded the letters and put them back in the envelopes and retied the ribbon.
“Why does he say he’ll take the Book of Battles with him?” Bree asked. “We have the book.”
“I don’t know. Perhaps they decided it best to hide it in the chapel.”
“Ian mentioned a traitor in his letter, and Angus mentioned a traitor before he died.”
After being attacked by Druan’s demons in Scotland, Angus had managed to use the secret tunnel to get inside the castle. He’d shocked the clan when he’d burst into the dining room covered in blood. Before he’d collapsed, he had uttered the word traitor. The clan wasn’t sure what he meant. He’d died within hours without explaining. But everyone agreed that it appeared he was looking at Sorcha when he spoke. Though it might have been Bree, who had been sitting next to Sorcha. Angus had seen Bree at the bed-and-breakfast, and would have thought she was working with Druan.
“I hope Angus was talking about Nigel’s suspicions,” Faelan said.
“How would Angus know?”
“Angus had been doing research on Nigel. He might have found Ian’s journals. He loved leaving clues.” If there was a new traitor, that meant the clan was being attacked from the inside as well as the outside. “Let’s find Tavis. Ian might have known more about this traitor.”
“If I had found these earlier, I could have opened your time vault sooner,” Bree said. “See, it pays to snoop.”
They found Tavis downstairs in the kitchen where everyone was eating. Tavis wasn’t eating. He was watching Anna.
“He likes her,” Faelan said quietly.
“It goes both ways.”
“You think?” Faelan frowned. “Seems she ignores him most of the time.”
“She’s scared.”
He looked at her. “She told you about that?”
“Told me about what?” Bree asked.
“Uh...” Damnation. “Nothing.”
“Oh no,” Bree said, grabbing Faelan’s arm. “You know something I don’t?”
“I... it’s well... something happened when Tavis and Anna were captured in Tristol’s fortress.”
“What?”
“I really don’t want to say... oh hell, it’s killing me.” He looked around to be sure no one was nearby. “Tavis and Anna had to... you know.”
“What?”
“Have sex.”
Bree’s jaw dropped. “They had sex?”
“Shhh. Tavis said the guard there made them do it. Told them he’d rape Anna if she and Tavis didn’t do it. Then he’d kill them both.”
“Oh my God.”
“Tavis didn’t want to, but Anna told him she didn’t want to die, and she didn’t want the guard doing it.”
“Poor Anna.”
“Poor buggers, both of them. Tavis is eaten up with guilt as if he’d raped her. I told him he did no such thing. The guard made them do it, and Anna told him to. What’s wrong?”
She was twisting her ring, and she looked worried. “I can’t believe this.”
“I know it’s a terrible thing.”
“No. It’s... she’s pregnant.”
Faelan’s jaw dropped. “Pregnant. Bloody hell. Did she tell you?”
“No. It’s too early for her to know.”
“You mean you saw it?”
Bree nodded. “Unless I’m crazy. Which I could be.”
Usually, she was right about her feelings. “Tavis is going to have a bairn?” A smile crept over his face.
“Not necessarily.” Bree’s green eyes darkened with worry. “Remember the hybrid Tavis said she was taken to?”