Page 91 of Owned By the Fae
‘He did say that he’d do what he could to help us and Lia escape.’ I frown. ‘I think he’s beginning to emerge fromthe haze of the fae lord.’
I hear Grey snort. ‘Do you think he’ll try to come with us?’
I push my head through the wall to look out into the main hallway. There's only one guard, and he's half asleep with a cup in his hand that someone's brought him from the party.
I pull myself back through and reappear in the room.
‘No,’ I answer finally. ‘Not now that Fiana’s here. Her hold over him is as strong as it ever was.’
Grey is already at the desk, rifling through some papers. He opens a drawer and exclaims softly.
I rush across the room and look down.
‘The boxes,’ I say.
‘Aye.’
Careful not to touch the iron, we pick them out one by one. There are nineteen. All of them are empty.
‘He's been at this a while,’ Grey murmurs.
‘What would have been in them?’ I ask myself quietly, looking around the room for a collection of nineteen objects that might have fit.
Grey does the same, peering at the bookshelves and pulling out books at random to flick through them.
He grabs at the third one from the middle on the top, and it doesn't move. With a frown, he pulls at it, and it slides forward on the shelf. We hear a click, and our excited eyes meet. Could it be that the keep still has some secrets I don't know about?
In the corner, there’s now a small opening. I walk through the wall next to it, leaving Grey to scuttle through the narrow door. The room itself is not much bigger than a closet, but a secret room doesn't need to be large, depending on what’s inside it, I suppose.
There's a table against one wall, and on top of it, under a glass pane, is a large parchment made of leather.
‘Don't touch it,’ I say to Grey. ‘There’s probably a conjure on it.’
I smell the air, and there’s a definite tang of magick. Something very strong.
We peer down at what looks to be a very old map. A large body of water surrounds a mass of land with trees and mountains.
‘What world is this?’ I ask. ‘It could be any of the Dark Realms.’ I survey it again slowly, my annoyance mounting. ‘There’s no indication of circle number, or anything.’
‘It's been sewn together,’ Grey says, pointing. ‘Nineteen pieces, and look, there are some fragments missing. I think we’ve found what was in those boxes.’
‘What creature is it made of?’ I ask, surveying the odd symbols at the top that are faded with age.
Grey leans down and sniffs just above the glass. ‘Human.’
My lip curls in disgust. ‘This map is made from human skin?’
He nods, his eyes moving over it. I join him, trying to pick out anything that would tell us which Dark Realm this map depicts and what it leads to … while trying to ignore the smattering of leftover hair sticking out of the long dead follicles around the edges of it.
‘There at the top, away from the rest of the land,’ he says. ‘The mound. Do you see? It has a small star next to it.’
‘I see it. What does it mean?’
‘The end of a journey.’
‘And the mound?’
‘I don't know, but look beneath it. There are more faint symbols.’
