“I’m saying we don’t know the limits of what it can do, which means we have to assume the worst. As we’ve seen today.” Sophie’s gaze swept the room. “From now on, Graham doesn’t leave this castle. And none of us leave him alone. Not for a minute.”
“I’m sitting right here,” Graham said. His expression was so adorably grumpy, that I reached out to take his hand. “You could address me directly.”
“I could. But you have a history of not listening, so I’m hoping peer pressure will work better.”
“That’s fair,” Lachlan said. “Peer pressure is very effective with Graham. It’s how we got him to do karaoke at Lia’s birthday party.”
“We agreed never to speak of that again.” Graham closed his eyes, and my lips quirked. As much as I loved him, the man was a horrific singer.
“Did we? I don’t recall agreeing tothat.”
“Lachlan—”
“What song was it?” Kaia asked, her eyes lighting up with interest. “Please tell me there’s video.”
“There’s definitely video,” Ramsay said. “I have it saved.”
“I will end you,” Graham said pleasantly, baring his teeth at Ramsay.
“Try it, mate.” Ramsay crossed his tree-trunk arms over his chest, and I sighed.
“God, but the masculinity being thrown around here.” Matthew fanned his face. “I mean, I know we are, like, in end game times here, but I do fully support all these macho displays of strength. Carry on, carry on.”
“Lads. Focus,” Sophie commanded, but I caught the twitch at the corner of her mouth. “We need to talk about what comes next.”
“I think our time has run out.” Hilda stood, and everyone stilled at her words. She’d been such a constant in my life, and everyone else’s here. As castle caretaker, she’d made a home for us, never turned away someone in need, and always had a pot of tea and a listening ear at the ready. But the fear in her eyes now, mixed with a deep-rooted sadness, made my heart drop.
“Is it…don’t I get a chance? To finish my challenges? To complete the Order?” I asked.
“We don’t know.” Hilda looked to Archie, who reached out to squeeze her hand. “We truly don’t know. We’d always thought, as caretakers and protectors of the Order, that our job was to complete the Order, protect the Clach na Fìrinn, and put the Kelpies to rest. We didn’t know about the Beithir or the curse plaguing Agnes’s bloodline. Or about The Three Queens.”
“That’s more troubling than everything, if I’m to be honest.” Archie shook his head, making a small, disgruntled noise in his throat.
“Och, is it? The existence of other artifacts is more troubling than me almost dying? That’s just grand,” Graham said, disgruntled.
“Excuse me, mate. You’re not the only one who’s taken a hit from the loch.” Luch turned and gave Graham a look.
“Aye, lad. We’ve all had a run-in or two, haven’t we then?” Shona gave Graham a brisk nod. “Toughens you up a bit, doesn’t it?”
I pressed my lips together to hide my smile. Scottish pragmatism at its finest.Sure, you almost died, but you didn’t, did ye? Brush off your scraped knees and crack on with it.
And, frankly, it was all we could really do.
“I think we can all agree that we’ve taken some hits here, and that, as a team, we need to figure out the best way forward,” Sophie said.
“Does it even matter if I’ve passed another challenge?” I asked, holding up my pen. Lachlan had brought me my purse from when he’d gone to close up the pub, and on a suspicion, I’d dug out the pen to see another tiny gold key emblem etched in its side.
“Did ye, then?” Archie gave me a brisk nod of approval, and a wash of pride enveloped me.
“I passed the first one, I believe, after I told Graham the truth about the curse,” I said. “We even saw the pen glow.”
“Bad ass,” Kaia murmured.
“And the second? Was it the loch?” Willow asked.
“Truth in oath, perhaps? You refused to let go of Graham.You promised to protect him—to fight for him—and you held that oath when you went into the water after him,”Quilliam supplied, flying over to sit on my knee. I repeated what he said for the room.
Orla leaned forward, her expression thoughtful as she toyed with a fish badge on her coveralls. “So your challenges are about truth in different forms, perhaps?”
