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“Spoke to a light elf oracle who lives in the Coedwig Hynafol encampment. She did her ‘communing with the old gods’ thing and gave us the bad news.”
“Was this Castell?”
“You know her?” Lugh said, unable to keep the surprise from his voice.
“I had dealings with her a long time ago. She’s... different.”
Different was definitely putting it mildly. But the edge in his voice suggested his dealings with her hadn’t gone all too well, and curiosity stirred.
Sadly, Lugh had obviously either missed the inflection or simply didn’t care, because he said, “She’s a light elf. Different comes with the territory.”
Rogan grunted. “And the Ring? Any progress on locating it?”
“Not really.”
“What about your sister? From what I’ve heard, her foresight has finally awoken, so it might be worth asking if she’s seen anything.”
“I have.”
“And?”
Lugh hesitated. “There was something about a hoard of treasure, but there were no details as to where it was located or even if the ring was part of it.”
“Unhelpful.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Are you going to grace the museum with your presence any time soon? We do have a new employee, remember, and you’re really the only one who can update him on everything Nialle had been researching.”
Said new employee was a rather lovely-looking pixie by the name of Eljin Lavigne. Lugh was already matchmaking—no doubt as revenge for all the years I spent shipping him and Darby—but given the dearth of pixie men anywhere near my age in Deva, I wasn’t putting up too much of a fight. We’d had coffee a couple of times already and had plans for a dinner on Friday night—tomorrow, I realized with a start—but given my hormonal fixation on all things Cynwrig, there was a part of me thinking it was probably best to take it slow with Eljin.
Of course, there was another part saying, “What the actual fuck, woman?”
Which, given the abovementioned dearth of decently aged pixie males in Deva, and the number of pixie women on the hunt for a husband, was a damnably good point.
“I’ll be in tomorrow,” Lugh was saying, “I’ve got some more researching to do anyway.”
“So, you’re on the way home now?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll expect a full update tomorrow then.”
“Looking forward to it.”
Lugh’s voice was dry, and Rogan snorted. “Right.”
Once he’d hung up, I said, “Why did you lie about the text?”
“Because someone set Nialle and me up by planting the singing bowl in the crypts, and that someone has to be working in the museum. No one else has access to that area.”
“Rogan can’t be involved—his life is the museum. It’s all he thinks about, all he works for.”
“Yes, but it’s possible he’s either an unwilling or an unknowing participant in treachery, especially given what has already happened to Mathi.”
“Mathi’s bit on the side was drugging him—does Rogan even have a partner?”
He’d certainly never brought a plus one to any of the museum events over the years and I couldn’t remember him ever mentioning anyone. Granted, not everyone was as open and honest about their relationships as Lugh and me, but surely given how long he and Lugh had worked together, something would have been said, however casually.
