Quiet rang through the room.
‘You’re probably best staying put, love,’ their father said.
‘I’ll stay with you,’ Callum said absently.
‘But I want to do something,’ she said, wiping away her tears, the Tène on her wrist a glinting luxury in the dim light. ‘I can’t just sit here. Verin was murdered!’
‘Then you can try to locate the Hunt for us in a vision,’ their father said. ‘If we know where it is, or know what’s happening with it, we’ll know how close the Wake might be to whatever they’re planning.’
She seemed unappeased by this answer, but any argument she might have made was interrupted by Dylan who’d gone to the bar table and was piling glasses on the small coffee table before the fire.
He began pouring enough drinks for them all, even Bells.
‘Dylan …’ Nicole began.
‘Verin,’ he explained as he filled their glasses. ‘He – he liked the look of this stuff, even though he never drank it. We’re going to toast to him, and then we’re going to burn them to the ground.’
He put down the decanter, all their glasses sloshing with amber liquid. His jaw was tight, emotion burning like fire in his eyes.
Nicole reached for the first glass.
The others each followed. Then, as one, they toasted to Verin. They drank. They said goodbye.
And they promised vengeance.
CHAPTER SIXTY
Nicole
THE AUCTION WAS HOSTED IN WHAT LOOKED,AT FIRSTglance, to be an abandoned old-world building perched on the corner of a busy Edinburgh thoroughfare.
Its large, arched doors and windows were fogged, but it was adorned with layer upon layer of sculptural details: caryatids, pilasters, and grinning Satyrs that held up the lintel above the door. Some in red stone, most in the silver-gold of the rest of the city.
Beneath the varnish and thick wards there were likely glimmering lights and the sounds of sophisticated revelry from the rooftop five storeys up. A dark party of supernatural antiquities in the heart of Edinburgh.
Nicole’s pulse leaped as they walked up to the entrance, marked by a great gold plaque above the double doors.
Edinburgh sprawled out behind them. The moon was low and bright with a hazy, paranormal aura. But the city was growing darker and cooler by the moment, the air stirring her shimmering, blood-red dress, the fabric reminding her of the swathes in so many of Caravaggio’s paintings.
Kyan wore a black suit that fitted all the brawn and bulk of him, while keeping the top buttons of his shirt open, showing that strong, tanned throat. Energy simmered between them as he shadowed her. It had felt different since Ireland. Since that vulnerable, physical connection and its secret experience. She keptfeelingit, recalling details that skittered her pulse each time their eyes met. That heat, thatmemory, had him moving closer. Yet after the news she was most grateful for his steady, reassuring presence.
Her father held out their invitation at the door: the card they’d found with the Tène. It flashed like gold lightning.
The doorman, who was clearly a type of Hearthea, based on the way he blended with the wards rippling on the front of the building, gave Kyan a suspicious look. Then, to her surprise, her, too.
‘Empyreals.’
She’d been concerned they wouldn’t be welcome after Callum had told them auctioneers often suspected Empyreals of using Influence so the Wake could raid their collections.
Nicole stiffened. She wasn’t used to it: being figured out so easily. She was obviously not just a Seer to others any more.
‘They’re with me,’ her father said.
An unusual ripple of power had Kyan’s head turning in her father’s direction.
The bouncer took in her father, and whatever he saw, it allowed them into the building. Nicole restrained her exhale, unspoken questions souring her tongue.
Inside was a study in darkness, drawing the eye to the items and allowing the walls to blend away.
