We stop in a local pizza parlor and without much thought we place an order for a large with everything. The Matador dropped us off saying he’ll fill the tank at the station next door and then come back and stand guard. He promised to alert us at the first sign of trouble. 

The restaurant is empty of people, but the door keeps opening and closing, letting in the wind and damp. They must have a bustling take out business. I just wish the door was further from the tables. The waitress comes back in a minute with our drinks and a steaming basket of garlic knots and marinara to munch on while we wait. Kate and I fall on it like we’re starving. Emma hasn’t stopped shivering since we started back to the SUV. She just sits there huddled in her coat, cradling the hot tea she ordered between her palms.

Finally Emma puts the mug down. “Louis? Ah, can you shed some light onto what happened out there?”

Louis lays a hand across Emma’s, effectively stopping her from continuing to twist the ring. When he withdraws his hand she looks at her thumb and pointer finger still touching the ring. “I don’t know why I keep spinning it. Do you think theis making me do it?”

Louis shrugs and purses his lips. “Old things, especially fae items as old as I suspect that one is, can take on a life of their own. Taran told us it would hide your power and prevent her from stealing it. How do you suppose that works?”

Emma frowns. “I don’t know. From the moment I put it on, I’ve felt...more. Stronger. Bigger somehow.”

 

I nod at her. “Well, I’ve noticed your hair is brighter and your eyes are, too, at least since you put on the ring. But to be fair, it started when he sang.”

Kate smiles. “Yeah, I’ve wondered about that, too. I never saw you before the kidnapping, but I gather this is how you used to look?”

Emma pulls out her phone and opens the camera app. She gazes at herself a full minute before shoving the phone back in her pocket. Hope lifts Emma’s perfect eyebrows and makes her crystalline blue eyes sparkle with their old joie de vivre. “Does this mean I’m cured? What they drained from me has been returned?”

Louis crosses his arms and cocks his head at her. “As I said. Fae relics are tricky. Imbued with a strong magic that is not well understood by anyone who does not wield it.” I rub the leather Coudeau rests inside. Louis distracts my musing when he continues, “Your father might be able to shed some light.” He shrugs. “But if I were to guess right now, perhaps the ring’s act of hiding your power, actually keeping it all inside you, allows you to feel the scope of your magic as you never have before, which may feel as if it were magnified.”

Emma looks confused. “Are you saying they didn’t really take anything from me? It was just...what? Hiding from me?”

Louis shakes his head. “Non, non, I am not saying they did not harm you. What they took from you is gone, I fear. As I said, I do not understand the rules or mechanics of your fae power. But perhaps you possessed more magic than even you realized? So that even though they siphoned some away, there remained...a hidden untapped well inside. At any rate, I think it best you talk this over with your father. Perhaps sooner rather than later?”

Emma nods, but she appears distracted. She must come to some internal conclusion because her face clears and with a shrug she reaches for the bread bowl.

Since that topic seems settled for the moment, I broach the topic I’ve been wanting to discuss since we left the historical site. “Louis, please tell me you heard what Emma was saying?”

Emma stops chewing and stares at me. She covers her mouth and asks, “What do you mean? When?”

Kate and I stare at her. Kate asks, “Do you remember walking out of the Visitor’s Center?”

Emma looks at us but doesn’t seem to see us. “I remember feeling compelled to go outside. To go to the site of the fort. It was pouring. And then we were dashing to the car. I don’t remember what happened in the middle.” She shakes her head, looking nervous She meets my eyes and in a small voice she asks, “What did I do?”

I know she’s asking me to tell her the truth. I’m just worried she’ll freak out. Still, she deserves to know. She needs to know. “Emma, you walked out into the storm and crouched down beside the earthwork wall. Then you shoved your hand straight down in the mud. Your hair was flying every which way like it was inside its own tornado. And your eyes.” I falter. Louis clears his throat and I take a deep breath. “Your eyes, Emma. They were...glowing. Opaque. It was...otherworldly.”

The blood drains from Emma’s face. She looks at Kate, then Louis for confirmation. They both nod. We all saw it. She shoves back from the table and looks at her pants. When she looks up her face is still pale but the life is back in her eyes. “Well, damn. I really like these jeans, too. It’s going to be a bear getting all this the mud out.”

I laugh. I can’t help it. She’s not there yet, but I know she’s going to be okay, now. She knows it, too, which is even more important.

The pizza arrives then and we put our conversation on hold while we all dive into our first slice. The hostess seats four men at the table beside ours. One of them looks familiar but I don’t know how. I don’t know anyone here. I frown and Cadeau vibrates angrily, but I don’t know if she’s warning me or picking up the trail of my thoughts. The restaurant is full of empty tables and she seats them there? Louis nods at me, then excuses himself and disappears out the front door. By the time I pull a second piece onto my plate, color has come back into Emma’s cheeks and Kate looks calmer, too. Louis comes back in, bringing the smell of rain, but he’s at least dry. It must have stopped raining.

He meets my eyes. Everything okay out there? I broadcast to him. 

Louis answers me with a frown, but when he turns his attention to Emma his face is clear. However, he speaks in a voice pitched not to carry. “My dear, have you had any success remembering your trance?”

Emma pauses mid-chew, but then continues. When she swallows, she wipes her mouth and sets the napkin down on the table. His low voice must communicate to her, because she speaks quietly, too. “Trance. Yeah, that sounds right from what you described to me, Libby. I haven’t had one of those before. But I’ve seen Daddy—” Her voice breaks and she stops herself. Clears her throat and tries again. “I’ve witnessed something like what you described so I at least know what it is.”

 

She shakes her head. “But no, he never remembered what occurred, and neither do I.”

Louis nods. “I suspected it would be this way.” He looks at Kate and me. “And neither of you heard the words she repeated over and over?”

I just shake my head, afraid he’ll get distracted and not tell us. Kate must feel the same way because she puts down her own napkin and leans in to the table toward Louis.

His voice a fraction above whispering he says, “Caverna. Rubrum flos. Obsidiana.”

“What?” Emma frowns at him.

“Caverna. Rubrum flos. Obsidiana.”

“C. R. O.” Kate says with wonder. 

“Oui, C. Caverna. R. Rubrum flos. O. Obsidiana.”

Emma pulls her phone out again. She starts typing fast. “Okay, Caverna is pretty self-explanatory so I’m not looking that up. But rubrum flos is red flower. Red flower?” She looks around at us. “Roses?” 

Kate shakes her head. “Wouldn’t it be wild flowers native to the mountains? Like mountain laurel or rhododendron?”

Louis points at her. “Excellent thinking, Kate. Yes. Something the native people would have told them about. Incidentally, mountain laurel is a common name for rhododendron.”

“Okay,” I add. “So is there a mountain known for its rhododendron?”

Suddenly the waitress is there, smiling at all of us and it hits me I wasn’t exactly whispering. “As a matter of fact, Roan Mountain is so famous for them, they have festivals around the bloom time every year. My husband took me when we were just dating. The whole mountain top is covered in them. It’s really something to see.” The waitress’ voice carries and I become conscious of eyes on us. I resist looking at their table. An image of a long blade sinking into a man’s chest flashes across my mind. 

“Roan Mountain?” Louis asks, giving her a grandfatherly smile. It’s so contrived it gives me chills but she guilelessly goes on.

“It’s on the border with Tennessee. You’ve got a long drive ahead of you if you’re planning to go now. And the weather isn’t great. But they’re evergreen so you’ll still be able to see them. They’re massive!”

Suddenly he stiffens, Cadeau shakes once, and I go on alert, straining to hear what Louis must have. “I thank you,” Louis mumbles, his eyes taking on a red gleam. “Hand me the check and remember nothing of this conversation or the people at this table.” She blinks a few times and pulls the check out of her apron pocket. He takes it without looking at it and hands her several bills. “Keep the change as a tip and have no recollection where it came from.”

When she walks away he crushes the bill in his hand and shoves it into a pocket. He looks at each of us with his jaw clenched and in an urgent but calm voice he whispers. “Leave. Now. If you need to use the restroom you must hold it until we can safely stop. Walk calmly for the door and wait for The Matador to open it. I will be along directly.” He stands. “Quickly now!”

My heart pounds from the urgency in his voice, worried about what happened to worry him. Unnerved by what he did to the waitress. Almost to the door, I turn to find him crouched by the table of men talking quietly. They’re eyes all look glazed. Like the waitress’s were. I spin away and stumble out the door, Cadeau vibrating harder. 

By the time Louis joins us and the SUV is sent hurtling down the road, I’m thoroughly spooked. And my hip is effectively numb from the dagger’s constant vibrations. Give it a rest, please. The vibrations cease so quickly I almost ask her to start again, just so I know she still works. Kate interrupts my worry.

“Louis?” she asks. “What just happened?”

Louis looks up at from texting something on his phone, then turns around in his seat. All of our phones go off. A glance at mine proves he just sent the code. “I questioned them to be certain. They are human serving vampire. They were sent to the restaurant to spy on us. They told the hostess to seat them beside us so they could listen in. I did not discover their benefactor’s name, their minds were too well protected.”

Emma frowns. “How did they even know we were there?”

Suddenly I know why one of those guys looked familiar. “The docent! At the museum.”

Louis nods sagely. “Oui, mademoiselle. I believe he was placed there to keep an eye out for anyone getting close. The men were armed. Their vehicle was heavily equipped. They meant to take one of you.” 

I spin around in my seat and look through the rear glass. It’s fully dark now and the only headlights I see turn off the road as I’m watching. I turn back around.

Louis’ phone buzzes. He conducts a brief conversation in a voice pitched too low for me to hear.

“Relax,” At his voice I tear my eyes from Louis to meet The Matador’s gaze in the rear view mirror. “We took care of their vehicle. Only a tow truck is moving it until they have a lot of very expensive work done.”

“Won’t they have backup?” Kate asks.

Louis hangs up the phone and turns in his seat to face us. “Oui, they will have backup. I was unable to remove their memories of us or our conversation, but I believe what I planted along with their memories will throw enough confusion that their benefactor will not decipher truth from fiction.”

I shiver to hear him talk so nonchalantly about meddling in people’s minds. Messing with their memories. 

Kate and I exchange a look, but Emma says, “We should celebrate. All that means that we are on the right track.”

Kate huffs. “Oh, please. I knew we were on the right track when you had that trance.”

I laugh. “Ain’t that the truth? Until then I was thinking we were on a wild goose chase. Now, thanks to you,” I lean toward her and bump her shoulder. “Thanks to your trance we know where to find them!”

Emma’s eyebrows knit. “What about that third clue? Obsidiana? Obsidian? Isn’t that volcanic rock? I thought we were looking for black tourmaline?”

The Matador looks over at Louis. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but would they have known about black tourmaline in 16th Century London?”

Louis thinks for a minute. “I believe they would have known it as shorl at that time. Perhaps they mistook it for something they already knew. But I think the reason is much more basic than that - neither tourmaline nor shorl start with the required O if they were to hide the clue in plain sight.”

I nod, looking at pictures on my phone. “Thus Obsidian. It could just as easily have been Onyx I guess. But obsidian looks a little bit more like shurl than onyx.”

Now Kate elbows me. “How come you know so much about all those stones?”

Oh, no. Louis warned me not to tell anyone what I know about it and now I’ve blown it. I blank my mind, afraid it’s already too late and The Matador suspects I know something I’m not supposed to know. Cadeau provides me with another gruesome image detailing how she will protect me.

But before I can truly work myself up into a lather, Emma says, “She just thinks they’re cool. I confess, I do too, since she got me a beautiful heart-shaped amethyst. It’s so gorgeous. I keep it in a special spot on my bedside table so I can look at it all the time. Some nights I fall asleep staring at it.”

I’m touched but guilt sours it. If Emma knew the truth, that I bought her that amethyst as an excuse to shop for black tourmaline in the first place, I’m not sure she’d feel the same warm fuzzies. 

Saving me from saying something I’d soon regret, Kate asks, “Are we safe yet? Because I drank a whole glass of water at the restaurant and I just don’t know how much longer I can hold it.”

As soon as she says it, I feel my own need rise. These still soggy clothes aren’t helping matters. “Me, too,” I say. When Emma says it, too, we all laugh. 

The Matador looks into the rear view mirror at us, “We’ll be at our place in a few minutes. There you’ll have plenty of space to freshen up. Besides, this vehicle is too recognizable. We can’t guarantee that no one else was working with those four and took down the plate and description.”

Louis nods. “Excellent point, Fabricio.” He turns to us. “You will be safe there which we cannot guarantee at a rest stop or anywhere else.”

Kate settles against the seat back. “Okay. But if we aren’t there, soon, you’ve been warned.”