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He made a growly sort of groan sound but otherwise didn’t reply.
We stopped for lunch at a chippy van, and I used the break to craft a small storm cloud in which to hide the sword. It would self-perpetuate for a week, which should give us the time to discover its birthplace. Once I wrapped it around the sword, I sent it toward the Irish Sea, where it would circle until I called it back in. Even if they hired another weather witch, it would take him ages to inspect every cloud in the UK. This was the United Kingdom, after all. Clouds and rain were the dominant weather features here, even in the summer months.
By the time we reached Deva, it was going on two. Lugh wound his way through the traffic until we neared the end of St Werburgh Street—the closest we could get to the tavern, thanks to the fact our section of Eastgate Street had become a pedestrian walkway—and then stopped.
“You intending to use the Codex before you see Cynwrig tonight?”
“Probably—why?”
“Do you want me there? Just in case something goes wrong?”
I hesitated, then shook my head. “I should be right. The worst that could happen is the damn thing won’t work.” I paused, but couldn’t help adding, “Don’t forget to ring Darby.”
He gave me a deadpan look. “Shut the damn door and be gone, evil one.”
I slammed the door shut, then walked around to the trunk to grab my overnight bag and the banner case. It now held a couple of Lugh’s hiking poles in an effort to give it some weight and fullness. If we did still have watchers, it was better for them to believe I still had the sword. It might lead to another attack, but I was better equipped to deal with them on home turf. The building might be old, but the structure was strong and the wood song was rich and vibrant; it would tell me if anyone attempted to steal inside.
Of course, it couldn’t stop magic, but that was where the protection spells that ringed the place and the knives came in.
Ye Old Pixie Boots—the name Mom had given the tavern when she’d taken over—lay in the middle section of the rows that lined the pedestrian part of East Street. Like most of the buildings in this section, it was heritage-listed, and consisted of an undercroft at street level, one floor at “row” level, and our living quarters above that. Aside from a few layout changes upstairs and the necessary modernizations, it was basically the same building that had stood on this spot since it had undergone minor remodeling in the late 1400s.
I pushed open the old wooden door and clattered down the steps to the main room. Like most buildings of this age, it was an intimate space, with five tables in this front area and four smaller ones and the bar on the far side of the stairs. Bright pixie boots of various sizes hung from the exposed floor joists and beams, some of them real, some of them not, but all of them a nod to tourist expectations. The background music of the oak frame sang through me, a noise as bright and warm as the happy chatter coming from the other end of the room. A group of eight had pushed a couple of tables together and were happily munching on free pretzels and peanuts while they drank their beers. A late business lunch, if their suits were anything to go by.
The barman looked up as I neared the stairs. Rik, like his older sister Ingrid—who’d been the tavern’s manager for as long as I could remember—was a Gadahn pixie, though his curly hair was a deeper shade of green and his eyes golden rather than deep brown. He exuded the same sort of “I take no nonsense” air as her, though, and there were few patrons who risked getting rowdy when either of them was around.
“Any problems, Rik?”
“Been a bit slow, but it is winter.” He shrugged. “It’ll pick up tonight though—it’s Jack’s birthday, and Phil’s arranged a surprised gathering.”
Jack and Phil were a couple of old pixies who’d been coming here for as long as anyone could remember and, like many of the elders who lived permanently here in Deva rather than at one of the widely scattered enclaves, basically treated the Boot as a second home—and the fierce joy that radiated off the old oak beams in this place was part of the reason. It was as close as they could come to communing with nature in the old city without having to take public transport out to a public park or even an enclave.
Both Gran and Mom had petitioned Deva’s fae council to do more for our elderly, but the low number of full-time residents meant the council didn’t see the need to improve facilities beyond what already existed for humans. It was a cop-out, and everyone knew it, but there wasn’t anything we could do other than support Jack, Phil, and all the others when and where we could.
“Ingrid’s told him food is on the house and drinks half price for the first two hours, I take it?” I said.
Rik nodded. “Phil argued, of course. Said he didn’t want to be treated any differently to any other paying customers.”
I smiled. Pixies of all ages generally saw no harm in bending the rules or taking advantage of a situation if opportunity presented itself, but Phil was a man who played it straight down the line. According to Jack, this propensity for honesty had only happened once age had set in and he’d realized just how close to judgment day he now was.
“I take it he grudgingly accepted the offer after arguing with Ingrid for several minutes?”
Rik smiled. “As ever.”
I laughed and headed up. Ingrid wasn’t there—which no doubt meant she was coming in for the evening shift and the party—but both Jonnie and Zoe were, as well as the kitchen crew.
After I’d checked that there were no problems needing to be dealt with, I unlocked the door that led to my living quarters and then stepped through. After shoving the newly installed, heavy-duty door latch home, I bounded up the stairs, the wood creaking slightly under my weight. Its song was gentler, a little faded thanks to constant use.
It wasn’t particularly large up here, even with the roof height lifted. There was a combined kitchen-living area and two bedrooms—one had been Mom’s and was now mine, and the other one Lugh and I had shared as kids, and I now used as a spare. The bathroom was the second biggest room in the flat, but it had to be, given that, at one point, four oversized pixies had been using it. Gran had moved out when she’d handed the tavern’s reins over to Mom, but she’d slept in the loft before then. It was only accessible via a loft ladder, which was the reason behind her decision to leave. Or so she’d claimed. Given Lugh and I would have readily swapped our shared room for the larger loft space, I personally thought she’d simply wanted to give Mom the space and freedom to run the tavern any way she wanted.
I slung the banner bag onto the sofa and hurried over to the fireplace. After four days away and no fire burning, the air up here was positively frosty. I suspected the only reason there wasn’t anactuallayer of frost over everything was thanks to the fact that these old buildings didn’t have a lot in the way of insulation, and the heat from the downstairs fires drifted upwards.
I hastily lit a fire—saying a gentle prayer of thanks to the wood even though its song and life had long ago left—then walked over to the kitchen to put the kettle on. Once I’d prepared the teapot, I pulled open the pot drawer—a leftover from the days when we’d actually had an oven up here—moved a couple of pots and pulled out the Codex. While there were hidden “safe holes” built into the structure’s lovely old beams, I suspected too many people were aware of them now thanks to the fact Vincentia—who knew about them all—had been working with the enemy.
But I wouldn’t leave it here. Not now that I knew we were still being followed. A thorough enough searchwouldfind it.
When I’d first found the Codex, it had been nothing more than a worn and very plain-looking leather notebook. The blood bonding ceremony had changed that, turning the old leather a glassy black. Light rolled across its surface as I moved it, reminding me of the lightning that cut through the Eye when it was active. It didn’t have the same dangerous feel, though given I hadn’t used the thing yet, that might be nothing more than an illusion.
I grabbed a block of Cadbury’s Toffee Wholenut out of the fridge, then walked back to the coffee table, placing both down before pulling the Eye out from under my breast. It was as black as midnight and about the size of an oval-shaped marble. Which, given it had once been the eye of an old goddess, made sense. It reacted immediately to my touch, its surface lit by streaks of purple lightning, and a throbbing sense of power coming from its dark heart. Whenever I’d handled the Eye like this in the past, it had immediately swept me into a vision. That didn’t happen this time, though I could feel them pressing at the back of my mind, waiting to be unleashed. Merging with the triune had at least one benefit, it seemed.
