Something rippled in Callum’s form, allowing a glimmer of insight into the truth that lay beneath his carefully crafted image.
‘I knew you’d figure it out.’
‘I just can’t figure out the most important question,’ Dylan said, realising that this answer was the one he feared. Because it would change everything. ‘Are you on their side, or ours?’
Callum’s eyes held a glint of affection and satisfaction, and that unconscious knot in Dylan’s gut loosened.
‘You know that as well, don’t you?’
He did.
Part of him had wondered, seeing the snarl on Callum’s face when he’d pinned Dylan’s father to the wall with such bone-deep hatred. Who,what,would do that?
‘What’s your real name?’ Dylan asked.
Callum’s teeth flashed in a relieved laugh, as if he had been waiting for someone to ask that his whole life. Or, perhaps theyhad,but this was the first moment he might consider telling someone the truth.
Callum sketched a bow. ‘Ogma. God of the Túatha Dé.
‘Now.’ He grinned. ‘Let’s go get your sisters, shall we?’
CHAPTER EIGHTY
Nicole
‘NICOLE, NICOLE.’THE WOMAN TSKED.‘YOU DIDN’T COMPLETEyour mission.’
Nicole glared as she tried to fight a violent wave of unease.
She’d been brought to a room reminiscent of the Roman Baths. An extravagant, temple-like pool in honey-coloured stone sat in the centre of the dark space, its columns Corinthian, but the usual fluted details carved with creatures and gladiators instead. Lit with spotlights, the pool’s unearthly emerald water steamed gently in shimmering coils.
Nicole scanned the room for exit points, spying one across to the left on a back wall. The rest of the space was modern and dark, the lack of light and awareness of space making the pool seem like a room-sized relic boxed in a museum; giving the feeling of being suspended in space and time.
About twenty feet away on either side of the columned structure were black glass walls, sleek against the ancient stone. Perfectly demonstrating how the modern hid the arcane.
If they weren’t underground in a new location, they were back at the Wake’s complex.
Her knees splintered with pain when she was thrust to the flagstones by Alexander and he bound her hands in front of her.
Distantly, Nicole remembered Callum and Kyan mentioning the Wake’s pools in Estwood, and how difficult it was to lie once you’d been in them.
She turned her attention to the woman who had given her the mission. She perched indolently on a broken pillar, the creatures carved into it screaming and fighting beneath her.
‘You set me up to fail,’ Nicole snarled.
She needed to find Kyan and a way out of here. Then, if the Druid was telling the truth and her mother was somehow alive—
‘I want to see the Empyreal that brought me in,’ Nicole said.
The woman’s eyes glittered. ‘Kyan? Oh, he’s a bit busy being rewarded for bringing in Freya’s daughter.’
Nicole schooled her expression. ‘Oh?’
The woman smiled slightly, eyes glittering with knowledge. ‘Was there aparticularreason you wanted to see him?’
Nicole’s stomach knotted, but her voice was cool. ‘I’d like to feel like I’m not in danger here.’
She leaned forward, like that was exactly what she wanted to hear. ‘Trust him, do you?’
