She held out her hand.
I gave it to her, pommel first.The moment her fingers closed around it, she drew in a low, stunned breath.When she looked up at me again, her expression had gone almost reverent.
“Do you know what this is?”she asked.
“A sword?”
Her mouth flattened.“Not just any sword.Excalibur.”
A startled laugh escaped me before I could stop it.“Funny, Tani.”
But she wasn’t smiling.
“Oh, God,” I breathed.“It is.”
Owen stared at the weapon in her hands.“Then what have I got?”
“The Sword of Light,” Tani said, glancing toward him.“And she”—her gaze returned to me—“has Excalibur.”
“Okay, great,” I said faintly.“So between us, we’re apparently running a two-sword special.”
Neither of them laughed.
“Where did Alice get Excalibur?”Owen asked.
“The mystery deepens, McAllister,” I muttered with a shrug, because Alice was clearly into a lot of weirdly magical, legendary things and I no longer had the energy to be surprised.
Tani looked between the two blades, then at the crates stacked against the wall.
“You have the Sword of Light,” she said to Owen.“And Excalibur was hidden here, too.”Her voice lowered.“Alice wasn’t just safeguarding the three Fae treasures.She was hiding more than anyone knew.”
She stepped toward the crates, eyes narrowed.
“How much do you want to bet the other two are in those?”I asked Owen.
He nodded slowly.“It’s a good possibility.”
“Well,” I said, exhaling shakily, “this has all been deeply educational.But we still have the problem of the tree.”
“Yes,” Tani said.“And this time, Piper… you don’t do it alone.”
I swallowed hard, staring at the doorway where Garrat had stood, the air still wrong where his attention had touched me.
“Okay,” I whispered.“Then we close it.”
Owen’s voice came out like a promise.“Together.”
Chapter Fourteen
Wewerebackatmy house after hiding the trunk in the antique store’s cellar, putting away the mythical weapons, wiping the black ash off the concrete floor, and locking up the shop.Dawn was still hours away, but exhaustion pressed down on my bones like lead.
Owen sat on the sofa, shoulders hunched, both hands wrapped around a mug of steaming coffee.His fingers weren’t steady.Neither were mine.The heat didn’t seem to help much—not with the aftershock still riding his nerves, his body unwinding from the night in small, involuntary tremors.
I hovered near the fireplace, arms wrapped around myself, pacing a groove into the rug.
I was still processing the fight in the shop—the shadow-things, the way the grimoire hadresponded, the man in the doorway who felt like hunger with a voice.I kept circling the same details, like if I replayed them enough times I’d find the moment where everything had gone wrong.
I didn’t tell Owen what it had felt like when his attention touched me.
