Page 128 of Crown of Darkness
“Youknowthis creature?” Finn demands.
“Careful, pudding brain.” Grimm’s head swivels toward him. “I am not a creature. I am a grimalkin. I am He Who Walks the Shadows. I am—”
“Yes,” I say abruptly, and then hastily explain Grimm’s appearance before we learn about the Merciless Night and the Claws That Slash Like Knives.
Eris sinks into her chair.
Baylor mutters under his breath as he picks up his notes, a growl escaping him when he sees the paw prints that smudged his ink.
Finn crosses his arms over his chest. “Pudding brain?”
“Pea soup?” Grimm purrs.
Finn’s eyes narrow. “It’s one thing to be insulted by Eris. Quite another to have a walking carpetbag try and abuse my intelligence.”
“Try? I’d have to find evidence of it in order to insult it.”
“Well,Ithink he’s adorable,” Thalia coos.
Grimm examines her, and then he jaunts across the table toward her and nudges her hand for a pat. “This one is my favorite.”
“He’s not staying,” Thiago warns.
Thalia gives him her best impression of wide eyes.
“That hasn’t yet been decided,” Grimm tells him, eyeing my husband with disdain. “I quite like this castle. I may decide to rule it if the cooks keep leaving warm milk out.”
Thiago closes his eyes, and I swear there’s going to be a royal order demanding all milk supplies to the demi-fey who litter the castle cease immediately.
“That’s not your milk,” I growl under my breath to the grimalkin.
He looks affronted, as if to say,who else does it belong to?
“Can we focus?” Thiago snarls. “On matters belonging to the security of the realm?”
Thalia picks at the bacon on her plate, breaking it into bite-sized pieces and offering it to Grimm. “I intercepted an interesting letter to Vi from Princess Imerys. About the crown.”
Thiago shoots her a look. “Why do I feel like I’m not going to enjoy this?”
“Because you’re not. It involves sending Vi into Unseelie again. Without you.”
His shoulders square. “No.”
Thalia points the fork at him. “You can’t go. We don’t know where your father is or if he’s still looking for you—”
“He’s still looking for me,” Thiago growls. “He will always be looking for me. The answer’s still no.”
I glance between them. As his cousin, she knows more of his history than I do. But this is the first time his father’s been mentioned in anything more than a “I don’t want to talk about it” kind of way.
“Why Unseelie?” Eris asks.
“Because that’s where the saithe oracle is,” Thalia replies. “Imerys writes to say that she finally remembered where she’d heard the name of the crown. It was in a written treatise on prophecies that the saithe oracle has made.”
My stomach bottoms out.
I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.
Or maybe I do.
