Page 119 of Blood Stone

The suit was dark, and so was his silk shirt, which was open at the neck.

He unbuttoned the jacket as he sat down. “You say you spent a year leaving rumours around the world. Breadcrumbs that would bring members of the League and the Pro Libertatis to this movie shoot, for you to pry out into the open. Correct?”

Nial nodded.

“And those rumours were that the director of the movie, Kathrine Lindenstream, may have uncovered the mythical Blood Stone when she did her six week research dig in southern Turkey last year.”

Garrett held himself very still. But he couldn’t stop from looking at Nial.

“You didn’t know this, Garrett?” Khurshid demanded.

Damn. “No,” Garrett admitted. “My part of the plan was to spend the year establishing a relationship with Kate, so we would all have a way to get onto the set when filming started. If we were all there in one concentrated place, away from any cities, Nial theorized that would be where everyone would come to find us. And they did. We kept my role completely separate from Nial’s side of things so there could be no trace of wrong-doing or conspiracy, no jarring notes to alert Kate. It was to be as authentic as possible.” He shrugged. “It worked.”

“Indeed,” Cyneric said, the withering note back in his voice. “The best lies are the ones that hew close to the truth.”

Garrett kept his teeth together.

Sebastian swore, pushing his hand through his short dirty-blonde hair. “The stone isn’t a myth?”

“No,” Cyneric said flatly. “Just as Nathaniel has always suspected.”

Nial’s face was expressionless, but as everyone looked at him, he grimaced. “One hears things, from time to time. We’ve all heard of the Blood Stone. We’ve all heard it’s supposed to hold the key to who we are, why we’re here, where we came from. Some of the stories say it’s the key to “curing” us – making us human again. There are all sorts of stories about the powers it holds. Those stories came from somewhere. Just like Robin Hood and King Arthur came from the real thing.”

Khurshid laughed. It was a low, merry sound. “Humans would be so disappointed if they met the men they idolize so much in their movies and television. Arthur was a tyrant and Robin was a scavenging thief…and he had the pox, besides.” She sighed. “But they were real enough.” She reached for a martini glass sitting on a table beside her chair and picked it up. It was nearly empty. With a practised motion, she polished off the rest of the martini.

Garrett stared, astonished.

She licked her bottom lip, relishing the last of the sparkling liquid and put the glass back down.

“Blood means there’s an open vein somewhere,” Winter murmured.

“Smoke means fire, yes,” Nial agreed. “All the stories, as tall as they were, meant that somewhere back in time, there must have been a real Blood Stone. I thought the odds that it was still around were slim.”

“So did we,” Cyneric agreed. “Until you stirred things up.”

“Wait,” Garrett said, holding up his hand. “No one has gone looking for the Blood Stone in all this time? No one has discovered it? In the thousands of years since the Blood Stone was…what? Created? Cast? Whatever. And then lost—”

“Deliberately,” Khurshid said.

They all looked at her.

She folded her hands delicately in her lap. “The Blood Stone, when it was made, was thought to be far too powerful to be left lying around for anyone to find and use. Or worse, destroy. So the old ones, in their wisdom, made three copies of the Blood Stone. Each copy was identical to the real one in all ways, except that the inscriptions were not quite exact. The wording of the invocations was incorrect, here and there. And of course, the power that was bound up in the real stone was missing in the copies.”

“The four stones were spread across the known world, and hidden,” Cyneric continued. “Of course, the known world then was a tiny portion of the world as we know it now. Spreading them across the world means all four stones were somewhere in what we know as southern Turkey.”

“The cradle of civilization,” Nial murmured.

“Then the fakeshavebeen found,” Garrett insisted.

“Two, we believe,” Cyneric said.

“Youbelieve?” Garrett repeated.

“The fake stones have their own invocations,” Khurshid explained. “Destroy them or try to use their power…and pay the price.”

“What price?” Winter asked.

“No one has survived to tell a single soul, living or undead,” Cyneric replied.