Blackbird Crowned (The Witch King's Crown #3) - Keri Arthur Page 0,2

old Ainslyn, ours was a three-story, fairly narrow brick terrace. Our book and healing store took up most of the ground floor, and the first floor held the kitchen and living area as well as Mo’s bedroom.

I paused near her door and once again studied the shadows. Nothing stirred, and yet Nex’s pulsing grew stronger.

I gripped the door handle; energy immediately caressed my fingers, probing my touch but providing no threat. That Mo had implemented a locking spell suggested she might have been expecting trouble. That she hadn’t passed the suspicion on to me wasn’t really surprising, given her already stated intention of drawing their attacks away from me.

The door clicked open, and I stepped inside.

“What’s happened?” she immediately asked.

“Got a text from Max. He said we needed to leave ASAP.”

She jumped out of bed and started pulling on clothes. She was very much a De Montfort in appearance—tall and lean, with brown skin and plaited gray hair that hung down to her butt. Her eyes were a merry blue, with irises that were ringed with gold and shone with power. I was almost the total opposite. Max might have inherited the De Montfort looks, but I’d taken after my mother’s side of the family—white skin, blonde hair, and dark eyes. And lean was something I’d never be.

“I’m betting he didn’t actually say ‘we.’” Her warm, mellow voice held an edge of annoyance. “That boy has absolutely no consideration for the old woman who raised him.”

A smile twitched my lips, despite the fact it was nothing but a bitter truth. “Hey, he hasn’t exactly called his dogs off me, either.”

“Which makes me wonder why he’s giving you a warning now.” She threw on a rather colorful patchwork coat and then scooped up her purse and slung it over her shoulder. “It might well be a trap.”

“Might be.” In truth, it was a possibility that hadn’t occurred to me. I still trusted him, still believed him, despite everything. “But he said it was a faction he didn’t control, and I’m thinking he’d rather his forces get me than the opposition.”

She shot me a surprised glance. “He told you that?”

“He told me it was an opposing faction, yes.” I hesitated. “But only after I said we knew he was working alongside them.”

“Something he’d no doubt have guessed anyway.” She grimaced. “I damn well knew it was a mistake to come back here but—”

“I wasn’t up to the longer flight back to Southport.”

And for a very good reason—only forty-eight hours had passed since our battle at the dark altar, and I’d barely survived. That I had was due almost entirely to Mo’s healing abilities. But weariness still rode me, and there was a drifting “fogginess” in my brain that I rather suspected was due to my temporary incursion into the gray space—the unseen, uninhabited, energy-filled dimension between our world and Darkside.

The only way to lock or unlock the main gate into Darkside was via the gray space, using Elysian. That was why my brother had been desperate to claim the sword in the stone, and why Mo had set up what I now knew to be a multidimensional wall of magic to warn us if any attempt was made to open that gate. What we’d do if that happened sooner rather than later, I couldn’t say, especially as we’d yet to find the real sword.

“Yes, but we could have easily stayed overnight in a hotel.” Mo slipped on her boots. “Did you open Max’s window in case we need to escape?”

“I did.”

“Then let’s go lay a little trap and see what our attackers have to say for themselves.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t it be safer to just leave?”

“Undoubtedly, but I’m getting a little tired of these bastards constantly attacking us. Time to find out why.”

“We already know why—they want you dead and me captured.”

“Well, yes, but it’s also an undeniable truth that the best way to kill any hydra is to sever its heads one by one.”

I blinked. “Hydras are real?”

“They were.” A smile tugged at her lips. “Too many got their heads severed, though, and the race died out.”

I stepped back, allowing her to get past. “Could Winter have been one of those heads?”

“It’s possible he was playing both sides, but I doubt it. It’s more likely he was the inducement and errand boy.” She strode across to the old sash window that looked out onto the street below.

“From what I saw at the dark altar, he was a whole lot more