Silver at Midnight: A Paranormal Romance Urban Fantasy (The Keepers of Knowledge Series Book 5) Bridgette O'Hare (ebook offline .txt) 📖

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“The blade . . . he took the Tartaros Blade with him.”

“Ya read somethin’ in that journal, didn’t ya?”

“Aye. Hand me your pendant an’ I’ll show ya. Maybe you’ll stop wastin’ our time with your suspicions. Not that they aren’t warranted, lass. They are. We jus’ don’t have time for ‘em.”

I didn’t have much to lose, so I handed the pendant over. Cian immediately began flipping through the journal once more. Quicker this time. Then he stopped on a page. “Here!” he tapped hard on the page and handed the pendant back to me. I moved it slowly over the text and nearly dropped it when I got to the part about the Tartaros Blade combining with the Kanna Stone and the utter damage it could cause.

I looked up at Cian. “He wants them ALL dead. All of them, Cian.”

He nodded. “I know, lass. We can’t let that happen. Read on. There’s more.”

I returned my attention to the book and kept reading. When I turned to the next page, I read familiar words.

The Hébel Stone and the Kanna Stone were one in the same. The Stone of Two brothers.

My eyes moved to Cian who was watching me intently. “Do you think Kage understands this?”

Cian shook his head in small, short movements. “No. He is purely searching for the Kanna Stone. He has no interest in the part of it that wants to heal instead of destroy.”

“And I’m s’pose t’ believe that ya are?” I confronted him.

“It’s a really long story, Aish. And I want t’ tell ya more than anything. But we jus’ don’t have time right now. I have the two ingredients we need to perform the invocation. We need to find this stone before he does!”

“Ya jus’ happen to have these things? Seems a lit’l convenient.” I argued.

“I came prepared. Look, I want ya to trust me, Aish. I promise, Lachlan is safe and sound waiting for us at the entrance to the ruins. He and Darek are keepin’ an eye on James, but close by if we need them.”

“James?”

“I think ya met him. Dashingly handsome fella,” Cian said with a smirk.

“Oh . . . the traitor. Aye, I did. James. Hmph. Not the name I expected.”

“Cute,” Cian retorted and looked at his watch. “We have twenty minutes to find this. Tops. You helping? Or am I doing this translation all over?”

“Fine. But only because as much as I don’t trust you right now, I trust Kage less.”

I slipped the translation from the pocket where I’d hidden it and flattened it out on the table. Cian gathered the three ingredients Kage had placed on the altar with one large hand, told me to bring the invocation, and grabbed my hand with his other. He practically pulled me down the steps and toward the hidden entrance straight across from the courtyard. We were heading to the garden.

Thirty

“Why are we going to the garden?” I asked. Even though that’s exactly where I wanted to go, I also wanted to know Cian’s reason.

“Because I left one key ingredient off of Kage’s list—just in case. I was told we can find that item in the fountain.”

“What ingredient is that? And who told you this?”

“Moonwater. The Lunar goddess. She also said to give you a message, but insisted I wait until the peak of the Silver Moon.”

“I don’t know when that is,” I admitted as we ducked through the overhanging vines that hid the garden steps from the courtyard. Cian took my hand and pulled me toward the four pillars topped with moon orb replicas. Once it was in sight, we stopped, unable—or unwilling—to look away. The roundness of the fountain was nearly filled with a silver reflection of the moon in all its glory. Not a crescent moon. Not a halfmoon. A nearly full Silver Moon shone in the water; it was only a crescent shy of filling the space. It was beautifully breathtaking.

Cian stepped over to the edge of the fountain and grabbed the bowl that I’d drunk from before. He scooped some of the water from the basin, sending ripples through the moon’s reflection. I grew mesmerized by the way the small waves danced back and forth within the confines of the walls. I looked over to see Cian mixing the ingredients he’d brought with the water in the bowl.

“Aren’t ya missing the two that you and Kage are s’posed t’ be findin’?” I asked.

Cian grinned. “What do ya think took me so long t’ get here, lass? I had t’ make sure I had these in advance.” He reached into his pocket and revealed two pieces of silver and two wolf’s fangs. Why he needed two, I didn’t know. But I would have guessed it had something to do with Cian being overprepared.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you’d once been a boy scout.”

“I’ve met a few.” He winked.

He dropped the final two ingredients into the bowl and asked for the translated invocation. Without hesitating, I handed it over. He held the page before him and began reading.

Te invoco a profundus

Dona mihi ingressum ad id quod mansiones in obumbratio

Ostende mihi quod quaerere

Ostende mihi lapis de duobus fratribus

Just as he finished, a puff of smoke billowed from the bowl. Cian stood from his place at the wall of the fountain. “Let’s go,” he said.

“Wait. That was it? Little anticlimactic. And where are we going?”

“Following the arrow.” He pointed to the small silver arrow now floating in the bowl. All of the other ingredients had dissipated. He scooped his hand beneath the arrow until it was floating in his palm, then he placed the bowl back onto the edge and began walking. I followed him back through the courtyard, and we took a hard turn on the eastern side of the ruins, ducking into a barely-there footpath. We maneuvered through the brush until we