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“A witch friend runs a magick shop. She’s the one who gave me the scrying necklace as a gift. She’d just gotten them in at the time.” I nodded to it with my chin. “It’s an elvish command to ‘serve yer true master’, whatever that means.”

Henry nodded. “Some of the Tuatha de Danann’s descendants never agreed to enter the mound. Those fairy folk tried to take over the other clans by enslaving as many of Danu’s people as they could. The fairy folk charged highly valued stones with that command and gave them out as gifts. The problem was that some of the people who received the stones were immune to their magick, which included all of Danu’s people. These stones are very dangerous to humans because they can make the person forget who they are.”

Henry rolled the stone through his fingers, now glaring at it.

“The fairies still use them on people who cross the veil into their realm and later want to return home. Since they can’t let that happen, wiping their minds and giving them a memory seems the more compassionate choice to them.”

“Would the stones work on witches?”

“I’m not an expert on these sorts of enhancements but I would imagine they work on any creature not related to the tribes of Goddess Danu. Something in our blood prevents the symbols from working on us.”

Did Sarah know what the stone was when she gave it to me? Or was she enslaved by then? I had sensed no malice in her and no wish to do me harm. In fact, Conn and I had chased bad guys away from her shop.

“I believe the proper question to ask is why someone would want to control an entire coven. My understanding is that allowing each member to reach their full potential is the path to the most magick.”

Across the room, Dylan called out, “Gotcha.”

I turned to look at him. “Did ya find her?”

“Sarah Templeton? No. But I found her coven.”

My phone dinged with an incoming message. It was Conn saying that they’d found the nest and the egg. He said it hadn’t hatched yet but looked ready to. The coordinates were in the next message.

I stood. “Thanks, Henry. I appreciate your help.”

“Of course,” he answered, nodding briefly.

I looked over my shoulder at Dylan. “Want to come with me?”

“To visit the coven?”

“No. We’re going hiking to find a giant snake egg.”

Dylan’s sigh was loud. “Do you always recruit the nearest warm body for your missions? If your boyfriend was here, he would go with you.”

“Yes, he would, but Rasmus is not here. Are ya going with me or not?”

“I asked to see this through to the end so I’m going,” Dylan said with a frown. “I’m going.”

Chapter Twenty

The trek to the coordinates Conn sent took over an hour. The far darrig chose to make the trip in his human form since it was outdoors. His long human legs allowed him to keep up with me despite him not being used to expending so much effort to get from point A to point B.

The cave was darker and danker than I anticipated. Conn ignored my phone calls but I got a text back telling me he was too busy to talk. I nearly summoned him to make sure he knew I didn’t like being ignored.

Mulan had just snapped out of her funk, though, so I didn’t go there. Instead, I grumbled only on the inside, while I made small talk with Dylan. I’d gotten too good at pretending things were normal.

Then a fire lit in my chest. The heat flared right where the stone lived.

I put a hand over the spot and felt a vibration stronger than my phone made against my hip. Feeling heat from the stone wasn’t unusual to me, but this vibration was different. If this was the stone’s attempt to communicate something important, the vibration definitely felt like a warning.

And I hadn’t drawn a sword or called Conn’s mantle before I walked in here like I should have. I’d been too busy worrying about the elvish enslavement symbol to take my normal precautions.

I reached out a hand and stopped Dylan from going forward. “Something’s wrong. Go back to the entrance and wait for us to come out. If we don’t come out in an hour, go get Ezra and tell him what’s going on. I have a weird feeling that I may be walking into a trap.”

Dylan stared at me. “But won’t you need my help?”

I patted his arm. “I don’t want ya to get killed by Hisser. His fight is me. Now, go.”