Earth's Requiem(70)

Aislinn stared at the crossed blades, probing with her magic to see if there’d be an easy way to send them back to their recessed homes in the wooden frame of the house. An hour later, she wasn’t any closer to a solution. She reached out a tentative hand, wiggled the bottom blade, and jumped a foot when it slid back into the wall. “Not magic at all,” she gasped. “At least, not in this direction.” It was all about angle. When each blade hit a certain position, it retracted. Once she got the hang of it, it only took a few minutes to finish the job.

Feeling pleased with herself, she pulled the door shut and headed for the back of the house, intent on pilfering clothes—if she could find some that might fit Fionn. Rune’s claws clicking on the entryway brought her up short. She turned to the wolf. “Uh, would you mind if I looked through Marta’s husband’s clothes and maybe took some?”

Rune cocked his head to one side and eyed her. “They are not doing anyone any good sitting in drawers.”

Half an hour later, with work pants, sweaters, and jackets heaped over an arm and a pair of boots laid atop everything, she went hunting for Fionn. He’d pushed a carved wooden chair under a bay window with stained glass panels. He looked up from a journal. “What’s all this?”

“Let’s see if any of them fit.” God or not, a long-suffering expression crossed his face. It was a combination of amusement and resignation that she remembered from her father, who’d looked the same way every time her mother brought home something that required trying on. To his credit, he set the journal aside, came to his feet, and stripped off his clothes.

“Just a ruse to see me naked.”

“Hardly.” She tried to ignore heat flaring in her loins as she passed garments to him. The pants were a bit short and wide in the waist, but a belt held them up. Everything else seemed all right. “Do you think this might fit?” She held up a boot.

“So now I’m Cinderella?” He snatched the boot and jockeyed a foot into it. “Yes, it’s fine.”

“It’s a boot, not a slipper. And it’s not glass.” She plunked the other one in front of him. “I’d kill to find a new pair of boots for myself. I’ll get you a couple new pairs of socks, too.”

He scooped the faded Go Bears sweatshirt off the floor. “I’m keeping this, but I’m willing to swap out the rest.”

Aislinn glanced out the window. Somehow, they’d lost most of the day. “How close are you to finishing those journals? Did you find anything?”



He grinned at her, eyes glittering with challenge. “Feel like hunting for the gateway? No wonder Marta knew so much about the Old Ones. She spent years spying on them. It’s a miracle they didn’t catch her before they did.”

“Tell me.” Aislinn plopped down on the edge of the mahogany desk.

“We can talk while we find Marta’s entry point. I have a feeling it’s hidden by magic, just like everything else important here.”

Rune walked up to Fionn and nosed him. “Are you saying Marta had a direct way into Taltos from this house?”

Fionn furled his brows at the wolf. “I’m guessing you didn’t know that.”

Rune growled. “No. I do not like it that she kept things from me. Important things. All those nights she was not here, I thought she was with someone sick who needed her.” Fionn squatted so he was eye level with the wolf. “Well, she may have been some of the time, but she spent many nights in Taltos.”

Rune shifted his amber gaze from Fionn to Aislinn. “The two of you will not lie to me—ever.” The words were nearly lost in a snarl. It was obvious he was upset, tail swishing back and forth, hackles at half-mast.

Aislinn felt the wolf’s outrage in her gut. The Hunter bond depended on honesty. “Bond mate,” Aislinn said, infusing formality into her tone, “you may not like what we have to say, but Fionn and I will always tell you the truth.”





Chapter Seventeen


“This has to be it,” Fionn insisted, running his hands over the rough stone walls of the basement. “It feels different.”

Aislinn circled the basement one more time, her mage light following after her. The small windows set high on the walls, just under the ceiling, were pretty inadequate in terms of light. The basement was one large, half-finished room, with a dirt floor and rock walls halfway up. The upper part of the walls was rock in some places and wooden planking in others. A washer and dryer sat off to one side, along with a freezer, its door hanging open. A washtub stood next to the ladder leading down from the trap door they’d found cleverly concealed under a removable hardwood panel in a corner of the kitchen.