“Aye.”
Dageus shook his head slowly. This was leverage. “Nay. Not until you tell me what’s going on, and explain yourself to my brother. What are you doing in the mirror? I ken full well what it is. ’Tis the Dark Glass, an Unseelie Hallow, and the Keltar have no business with Unseelie relics. How are you using it? Are you practicing black magycks? My brother will not permit such doings in his keep. Drustan suffers no—”
His kinsman pounded his fists on the inside of the mirror, actually rattling it in the ornate frame. “Go get my woman! You left her unprotected, you son of a bitch!”
“Nay. Answers first,” Dageus said flatly.
“Not a word until she’s here,” Cian said just as flatly.
They glared at each other, at an impasse.
A sudden thought occurred to Dageus. Why wasn’t his temperamental, formidably gifted ancestor bursting forth from the glass and going after his woman himself? What could stop a Druid as mighty as Cian MacKeltar. “You’re stuck in there, aren’t you?” he exclaimed.
“What the bloody hell do you think? You think I’d be sitting in here twiddling my thumbs if I could do something? Go. Get. My. Woman.”
“But you were out earlier. How? Why—”
“You said you had a woman of your own,” his ancestor cut him off roughly. “How would you feel if she’d been left by herself in the middle of a city she’d never been in before, and there were trained assassins hunting her? My woman is in danger, damn you! You must go after her, man! Then I’ll tell you aught you wish to ken!”
A fist closed around Dageus’s heart at the thought of Chloe in such a situation. He’d seen her in danger before and it had damn near killed him. A man’s woman took priority over everything else. Questions could wait. The care and well-being of loved ones could never be deferred.
Never.
“Och, blethering hell, I didn’t know. I’ll go get your woman,” he said instantly. Tucking the mirror beneath his arm again, he hastened with it toward the castle.
“We’re going the wrong way!” the mirror shouted for the third time, as Dageus walked up the front steps and entered the castle.
“Nay, we’re not. I told you, I’m not taking you with me,” Dageus said flatly. “I will find your woman far more quickly if I doona have to be worrying about breaking you. I know what she looks like. I’ll find her, I vow it.”
’Twas truth that he didn’t wish to have to be concerned about damaging the mirror, but even more truth that he didn’t want to be in such close proximity to the Dark Hallow any longer. He suspected its strange pull had been working subtly on him the entire time he’d been driving home, peaking when he’d opened up the back of the SUV. He had no desire to spend what could be hours driving around, with the Hallow no more than a few feet away from him, in an enclosed space.
Tossing his head back, he bellowed, “Drustan!” with enough volume to rattle the eaves.
“Christ, Dageus, I’m right above you,” his brother replied, wincing. “There’s no need to go shouting the walls down.”
Dageus glanced up. His twin was standing at the balustrade that overlooked the great hall entrance, gazing down. “How was I to know that? Why are you standing there, Drustan?”
“Why are you talking to a mirror, Dageus?” Drustan said very, very quietly.
“I said ‘wait for me!’ “ Gwen cried at that moment, from somewhere down the corridor behind his brother.
Dageus shook his head. He had no time for explanations. The woman’s name, Cian had told him as they’d crossed the lawn, interspersed with his increasingly pissed-off demands to accompany him back down to Inverness, was Jessica St. James. She was an innocent in this—whatever “this” was—and she was in mortal danger.
He had to go. Now.
Propping the mirror against the wall near the door, he waved a hand at it and clipped, “Drustan: Cian MacKeltar. Cian: Drustan MacKeltar.”
“Dageus,” Drustan’s voice was soft as velvet, never a good sign, “why are you introducing me to a mirror?”
“Look in the mirror, Drustan,” Dageus said impatiently, angling it a bit so he could see into it from above.
His brother’s jaw dropped.
Dageus smiled faintly. ’Twas nice to know he wasn’t the only one utterly discombobulated by the sight of a man inside a mirror. “I doona believe he can get out, Drustan, so he shouldn’t present a danger. However, you may wish to store him away from women and children until we know more.”
Drustan was still gaping, speechless.