Page 40 of Vicious Little Vows
I lifted my brows, lowering the cherry I was about to eat. “I would think Mistral would know if it wasn’t.”
Crispin shrugged. “Perhaps. Or perhaps he believes the gray simply drained the magic in the area.”
“Isn’t that possible?”
“It is.” He shrugged again. “I suppose I’m just thinking out loud.” His eyes lifted toward the sky, looking at the stars. “If I returned to my realm, I would recognize it by the constellations. I wonder what made Mistral recognize this place.”
“We’ll ask him when he returns,” I decided. I shivered, my skin prickling with just my thin dress to protect me from the cold.
Crispin moved closer, pressing his arm against mine. “I wish I had worn a suit jacket, then I could be gallant and offer it to you.”
I turned to find him looking right at me, his face only a few inches away. Suddenly our last kiss was heavy in my mind.
“Eva,” his voice sounded choked.
My pulse kicked up. I wanted to ask him if it was really just the magic that made him kiss me. I knew I wanted to blame it too, but I had recently started to accept that I couldn’t blame magic alone for my romantic choices.
“Someone’s coming,” he said softly, still gazing into my eyes.
I heard the footsteps a moment later, and we both turned. I knew Crispin probably saw him better than I could since elves had excellent night vision, but I didn’t need to see him. I already knew it was Sebastian.
Once he was close enough to be visible, I put on my best bored expression, as if we hadn’t just been having a tense moment. “Find anything?”
“Nothing.” Sebastian knelt forward long enough to swipe the cherries with the fork in the jar from Crispin’s hand. “I would state again that this is a waste of time, but my efforts are clearly futile.” He stabbed a cherry, then stuck it into his mouth.
“You think we’d be better off meeting up with your sister?”
“I think we’d be better off stealing a vortex from the fairies to use against our enemy.”
My jaw dropped. That actually wasn’t a terrible idea. “Too bad the Bogs ate the other one.”
I felt Crispin tense beside me. At first I thought he heard someone else approaching, but his gaze was distant. Slowly, he shook his head. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before.”
“Think of what?” My pulse was racing again. It seemed to be doing that a lot lately.
He looked up at Sebastian, which annoyed me, but the devil did usually understand Crispin’sideasbetter than I did. “The Bogs ate a vortex—an object capable of absorbing great power.”
Sebastian looked past us, and even with stone and shingles in the way, I knew he was looking in the direction of the gray.
I gasped. “You think the vortex is absorbing the Bogs’ magic from somewhere below the earth?That’swhat’s creating the gray?”
“The issue did arrive shortly after the vortex incident.”
He was right, but, “What about this place? Why is the gray here?”
Crispin shook his head, his eyes pinched. “I should have put it all together sooner. The portal wasn’t open before, and now it is. It must have something to do with the vortex, which means it’s absorbing magic from this place as well.”
Lucas walked toward us out of the darkness, looking cranky. He stopped by Sebastian, crossing his arms as he waited for the conversation to continue.
Shaking my head at the fact that we were actually allied with Lucas, I continued, “What will happen if it keeps going? If it continues to steal the Bogs’ magic?” Ringo had climbed back into my lap and was shivering. I lightly wrapped my hands around him. When Crispin didn’t answer right away, I looked up at Sebastian. “Why the hells are you smiling?”
His smile broadened. He looked like the cat that ate the canary. “If these theories are true, the vortex has absorbed an astounding amount of power. It sounds like a rather useful tool.” His eyes practically sparkled.
“You want to use it to blow up my grandfather, don’t you?”
He tilted his head. “Don’tyou?”
Crispin furrowed his brow. “Retrieving it does seem the answer, as long as we can avoid your grandfather long enough to do it.”
