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“Sure. Get some rest.”
“Night, K.”
I flopped around in bed for a bit after my call with Erica but couldn’t fall back asleep. I heard voices in the sitting room, so I decided to check it out. Leo and Takk were standing over the coffee table looking at the map from last night.
Leo noticed me and walked over to kiss me on the forehead. “Good morning, my dear. What are you doing up so early?” Apparently Leo was in a much better mood this morning. I looked over at Takk, who was scowling at our exchange. What the hel
l was that for?
“Couldn’t sleep. What are you guys doing? Have you been up all night?”
“Yes, we have. It looks like we won’t have to rely on a sorcerer with the new information we have.” He gave me a once over and smirked. “Why don’t you freshen up and we’ll talk about it? I’ll order some breakfast.”
I smoothed my hand over the crazy mass of bed head that he was eyeing. “Yeah, okay. I’ll be back out in a bit. Get some coffee, please. Lots of it.”
I came back into the sitting room after getting ready for the day. I poured myself a cup of coffee and sat down, looking expectantly at both men. “So…what’d you find out?”
Takk grabbed a piece of bacon and began chewing. “I met with one of our sources last night. She used to be a witch at the abbey. She no longer lives there, but she left on good terms and is still in touch with them.”
“Why would one of the witches from the abbey help us?” I asked.
Takk looked to Leo. “Money can get you a lot of things.”
“You really think she’d betray her coven?” I was raised by a witch, so I knew that the women who made up a coven thought of each other as family. They were incredibly loyal to one another.
Takk shoved more food into his mouth before replying. “She’s technically no longer part of the coven. Besides, she just gave me some information and agreed to pass my number on to the High Priestess to arrange a meeting.”
“What’s this High Priestess do?”
“She leads the coven,” he replied. “There are over three hundred witches at the abbey. They need someone in charge to keep the order.”
“Three hundred?” I repeated. “I’ve never heard of one that large.”
“That’s because there aren’t any others of that magnitude. This particular group has been charged with a very specific task. They need a large concentration of power to successfully perform their duties.”
“And what duties are those?”
“They’re guardians of Fae lore and are responsible for protecting the portal,” Leo answered this time. “They pool their magic to keep themselves and the portal hidden.”
“Why would they need to hide the portal?” The only thing I knew about gates to Faerie was that you had to be of Fae blood to cross through them unless an elder granted someone special access. Also, they were virtually invisible unless you knew what you were looking for. Going through the trouble of hiding something that was essentially useless to any non-Fae didn’t make sense to me.
“The portal is located within an ancient temple that was once used for Fae burials,” Leo explained. “It’s older than the pyramids of Giza, estimated at about five thousand years. It’s an incredibly sacred place for them and was used actively until it was discovered by farmers about two hundred years ago. Since then, the witches have used their powers to keep a veil over the land where it sits so it can remain undetected. It simply appears as a large mound to everyone except those the guardians allow.”
“What happened to the men who discovered it?” I asked.
“I’m not sure,” Leo replied. “They’ve all died off by now, so it’s irrelevant.”
“Okay…I get wanting to protect this burial place, but that seems excessive, don’t you think?”
“Not after what I learned last night,” Takk said.
“Which is what?”
“Their magic is completely ineffective at dawn on Winter Solstice,” he offered. “As the sun rises, it becomes perfectly aligned with an opening towards the roof of the temple and illuminates the entire inner chamber. Once the sun reaches the rear tomb, it becomes visible and the portal remains open to anyone for a period of seventeen minutes.”
“So anyone, Fae or otherwise, can just step into Faerie if they know where to look?” I asked.
“Correct,” Takk confirmed.
