Page 61 of A Single Thread Of Hope

“Griff had a dream about Wren.” They all watched him tensely, mainly because Teron didn’t refer to me very often.

“Is it the matebond delusions?” Demke asked seriously.

Teron hesitated. “I don’t think so.” He sucked in a breath. “He talked to her in the dream. She said she was trying to get back to us. She was in a bedroom that looked like a castle, somewhere called Tech Duinn. He didn’t know what that meant.”

Néit blanched. “She said that? Tech Duinn?”

Teron nodded, and I wanted to crow. It wasn’t a delusion; it was a real place. Everyone looked at Néit, who was subconsciously bouncing a baby in his arms. I was ashamed that I didn’t know which one it was.

Milo looked at him. “Does that mean something to you?”

Néit looked perturbed. “It’s the Underworld for the Celtic people. Kind of a halfway place before they move onto the next place.” He looked at Demke. “The Gryphon couldn’t have known that. How would his mind have conjured that?”

Demke looked hard at Teron, and I thought he might have been looking for me. “What else did she say?”

I did my best to push my voice to come out of Teron’s lips. “That she was looking for a way back to us. That she was goingto undertake the Weighing.” Something about that term tickled the back of my brain, but it was knowledge caught beneath the avalanche of information and memories I’d gathered over the last thousand years.

Demke’s brows drew together. “She said ‘the Weighing?’”

Teron nodded. A smile curled the edges of Demke’s lips, morphing into a full-blown grin. I’d never seen him smile like that.

“What is it?” Tryp asked impatiently.

“It’s a chance. A fucking chance. Damn Apollo. We’re going to owe him one.”

I’d give him Gryphon rides around the world forever, if he brought my mate back to me.

There’s a chance.

Chapter 33

WREN

Istill didn’t know if my dream of Griff had been just a dream or something more. I mean, he’d been speaking from his beak, so I was leaning more toward dream, but it was so vivid and real, I could swear I’d felt the stiff but soft bristle of his feathers. Was it just my way of processing death, or had he really been here with me?

Cy had no answers as we walked away from Tech Duinn. “I couldn’t tell you. The bond between Gryphons and their mates has always been a closely guarded secret. Let it give you comfort either way.” He leaned over and kissed me for what must have been the fiftieth time this morning, and I couldn’t get enough.

I’d woken this morning with everything seeming a little less bleak. I had Cy. I’d possibly talked to Griff, and everyone at home was okay. There was a way for me to get back, even if the chance was small.

Nothing was hopeless anymore.

I noticed Fea looking pensive in front of us. “Are you okay, Fea?”

“You’re married to Néit?”

I tripped over my feet, but managed to stay upright, more due to Cy’s assistance than my own coordination. “Yes, kind of. I call him Nate.”

Fea chewed her lip. “When Donn told me, I almost didn’t believe him. Which is silly—it’s been a thousand years. Of course he and Badb have moved on. It’s why they never visit.”

Ah, my heart.“I don’t think either of them have entirely moved on. And I know they haven’t forgotten you.”

“Moved on enough to marry someone else, though,” Fea snarked.

I shrugged. “Perhaps. But it took Nate thousands of years to move on, and that should be enough. Love sometimes means moving on and learning to give your heart again.” This was so fucking awkward, I wondered if I could die twice—once from a knife, and once from embarrassment. I cleared my throat. “They loved you; that much was obvious. They’d want you to find happiness too, a new love, even. Maybe with a God of Death that looks like he isbuilt,if you know what I mean.” I winked at her, and she flushed pink.

Casting a quick look over her shoulder, like Donn was about to appear and eavesdrop on our conversation, she turned back to me, one hand on her hip. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Cy had been quiet the whole conversation up until this point—the damn traitor—but now he laughed. “I’m a man, and I can tell you when another man’s smitten. Donn is one hundred percent crushing on you.”

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