Page 49

Her voice lowers as if she’s uttering an important secret. “Does that mean I’m going to turn into a horse?”

My answering boom of a laugh is worth every bit of her scowling.

“So a pech is like…a gnome?”

I chuckle into my glass at Key’s confused expression as Rory and Blair try to explain the origins of the name of the pub.

“Aye,” Rory tells her. “Wee folk. Tiny things, but incredibly strong, see?”

She leans to prop her chin on her fist. “But why The Clever Pech?”

“That’s a good story,” Blair says, cleaning another glass. “It’s an auld folktale we heard as weans. About this clever wee pech that challenged the strongest man in the village—a giant, they say—to a test of strength in exchange for their firstborn.”

“I’m guessing he won,” Key notes.

“He did,” Blair goes on. “The giant man underestimated him, aye? Got knocked on his arse, which I imagine left him right embarrassed. Threatened to come after the pech with the force of the entire village for tricking him.”

Rory slams his hands on the bar excitably. “So the pech gave him a test!”

“Hush.” Blair playfully slaps Rory’s shoulder with her dish towel. “You don’t tell it right.”

Key looks thoroughly enraptured now. “What kind of test?”

“The pech told the giant he could keep his babe if he could guess his name,” Blair says.

Key’s nose scrunches, and I try not to linger on how sweet an expression it is. “Wait. This sounds a lot like Rumpelstiltskin.”

“Damn thieving Grimm brothers,” Rory mutters.

“So,” Key presses. “Did he guess his name?”

“Nope.” Blair shakes her head. “Ran off with the babe and raised it as his own. They say the girl grew as tall as her giant father and could be seen stomping through the lands with the pech on her shoulder.”

“It was a girl?”

“That’s what they say.”

Another nose scrunch. “That’s not a very good ending.”

“Not everything has a happy ending, mate,” Blair tells her.

I snort into my drink. “Most don’t, in my experience.”

Keyanna glances my way with sympathy in her eyes, and I realize that I’m not quite yet used to the idea of her being anything more than my supposed downfall, if my da is to be believed. It’s been easy to dislike her when all she was to me was a potential enemy—but the Key who looks at me with compassion shining out from her emerald depths is someone I definitely don’t know how to deal with.

“Well,” Rory says with a smirk. “Now that you’ve got some real brains on the operation.”

He looks proud of himself as he gestures to Key, and I arch an eyebrow in his direction. “You realize that you just called yourself an eejit more or less, right?”

“I…” Rory frowns, then waves his hand in front of his face as if to clear the thought. “Oh, you know what I mean. Surely having a woman on the inside can only help you, aye?”

“And how do you guys know about this anyway?” she asks pointedly.

“This one”—Blair hitches a thumb in my direction—“changed right in front of us.”

Key’s head swivels toward me. “Really?”

“I was just a lad,” I explain. “We knew I would eventually start to change, but there’s no set day. I was usually more careful about where I was around sunset, but the three of us got caught in a storm one evening.”