Page 179 of The Mortal Trials

I know I owe him an explanation, but I didn’t realize how hard it would be to explain. “Thank you for sitting with me.”

His dark lashes flutter. “It was nothing.”

“Not to me.”

Niall, still on his island, whistles nonchalantly as he plucks the leaves on a small shrub at the water’s edge. He lifts a leg to dip his bare foot in.

“Niall, don’t!” I shout.

He curses and jumps back, losing his footing and crashing onto his hip. “Kelpies!” he shrills. “There are kelpies in the water!”

I search the sea.

He mutters another curse, “Did Morrigan send them to guard us?”

I shake my head when August’s brow rises. Hermes warned that the sky and waters were guarded, which means his pantheon put the beasts in the ocean between our homes. Besides…

“She wouldn’t have sent them,” I call out. “Morrigan hates kelpies. She’d send a raven, but never a water horse. Even she can’t make a kelpie into a loyal mutt. They’ll drown whatever they can catch with their teeth. If that even was a kelpie…”

“What do you mean?” August asks, warily watching the waves. “He seems pretty sure.”

I shake my head. “I don’t trust anything here. Not even what I see. You might not want to, either.”

“What you can see…” he mutters, then looks back at my house with a smile, as if he thought of something important. “I’ll be right back.”

He jogs inside my appointed oikos and I hear a loud thump, splintering wood, and the sound of hammering.

“Callalie?” he calls a minute later. “Is this better?”

Sticking my head inside the oikos, I take in his handiwork. After breaking the side table to borrow its nails, he ripped the linen blanket off the bed and used one of the table’s stout legs to hammer the blanket to the plastered wall, covering the fresco. Only the edges of the artwork can be seen. While the image is emblazoned in my memory, hiding it helps.

It’s like the mirrors I shattered at Abuela’s.

I know every inch of my sister’s face – in life and in death. We weren’t twins, but I look like her, and the older I get, the more obvious it becomes. Abuela said that to me once. Only once, thanks to the temper my father gave me.

“Thank you,” I rasp, moving farther into the room.

“I ruined your table, but I can bring you mine,” he offers.

“I don’t need one.”

When I think he might insist, he simply says he’s going to go back to his oikos to get cleaned up for the day. My heart drops at the thought of being alone, but it’s for the best. Soon, all the contestants will be pitted against one another.

Before he reaches the threshold, a strong gust pushes into the room, courtesy of none other than Ceann Ársa.

The sight of the great préachán blocking the entire door takes my breath away.

August backs into the room with his hands out, positioning himself to guard me from a bird who could pull his spinal cord out of his back and slurp it down like a worm.

“I was so worried about you!” I run to the avian and throw my arms around his neck. “Are you okay? Did Morrigan heal your wing?” He stretches the appendage outside the door, demonstrating that it’s intact and functional. “I’m so glad.” The Ancient One’s massive beak parts and a small, sealed piece of parchment falls to the floor. I affectionately pat his neck. “Ah, already running her errands, I see.”

He caws, then ducks his head back out of the doorway and launches into the blue, soaring out over the churning sea and circling overhead once. His great shadow spills over my island, almost covering it entirely before the crow disappears like he departed through a portal in the sky. Maybe he did.

In his wake, the missive sprawls in the unused fireplace, waiting for me to pick it up.

August lingers just inside the door. His eyes flick to the letter. “I appreciate everything, August. I really do,” I tell him.

He smiles. “I’ve worn out my welcome.”