Nicole sank onto the couch.
Everything was tied together.
Everything.
She must have said it out loud because the Muse said, ‘Is it not peculiar that so many of the ancient immortals have returned? Irish gods? A mythic warrior of royal blood? An artefact imbued with the power to destroy the Wake, which represents, of all things, theright to rule?
‘A Morrígan-blessed girl with the Empyrean inside her who is able to find these artistic treasures? A Siren of incredible power. And of course … the last Druid.’
‘How did you know about the Druid?’ Nicole asked sharply.
The Muse smiled. ‘I may be a creature of unusual origins, but I can still sense things. I still hear things.’ She looked out to the Liver Building, a regal stone bird poised atop its clocktower, the river sparkling silver behind it.
‘This torc,’ Nicole said. ‘How do we find it?’
‘The next item is Kyan’s torc,’ Nicole said.
They had all returned to his dining room. She loved the feeling of progressing, of having a base and the next mystery solved.
But she didn’t love the look on Kyan’s face.
He looked like he’d seen a ghost. It wiped clear the private, intimate one that had been in his eyes since she’d stepped foot back in the townhouse.
Callum leaned back, breathing deeply. ‘Well, that complicates things.’
‘I haven’t seen my torc in … a long time,’ Kyan said carefully. He shook his head. ‘It can’t have blood in it.’
‘Why?’ her father asked.
‘I would have noticed something like that.’
‘Are you sure?’ Nicole asked softly.
His eyes, haunted, concerned, met hers. ‘I … suppose not.’
She wanted to go to him, take his hand.
Bells straightened from where she sat sleepily at the head of the table and Nicole tried to ignore the memory of her with blood down her face last night. Kyan stood stiffly to her left and Callum to her right.
Nicole pulled out her mother’s bestiary. ‘I suppose one way to know is to go and check it out for ourselves.’
‘Did our darling Muse give you a location?’ asked Callum.
‘She said the last time she’d been able to check in on it, it was in the National Museum of Ireland’s archaeological building. There’s just one problem—’
‘Just one?’ Dylan asked dryly.
Nicole almost smirked as she flicked to the right page. ‘It’s being guarded by a Tène.’
Callum whistled.
Dylan tensed. ‘A what now?’
She spun their mother’s bestiary to reveal an exquisite gold-leafed drawing of what looked to be a dragon, made of pure metal.
Tènes were metallic fire creatures, ribbon-like and shapeshifting, that usually attached themselves to art or weapons made of metal.
‘They’re born from the energy formed when metal is heated at temperatures high enough to melt it,’ Nicole read. ‘Hence why they were often depicted on La Tène artworks such as shields and armour, and sometimes torcs.’
