“Then we’ll be responsible.”

“Yep.”

I came up beside her and took her hand in mine. “You’ll have to do it,” I said, hating to put that on her, hating to make her responsible. But she’s the only one who could be sure Fugwat was telling the truth.

“I know,” she said, and I felt her squeeze my fingers with her own. “But it sucks. Sometimes I wish I could go back to hunting and gathering. Life was simpler back then.”

“Betcha it wasn’t,” I said, resisting the urge to tweak her wee button nose. “Life is usually difficult. It’s just about keepin’ on, keepin’ on. For which we will need the Eastern Seaboard.”

She snorted. “True, Ms. True. Very true. Now stand aside. This could get ugly.”

“Nope,” I said, keeping my grip on her fingers. “I’m with you for this. We’re doing it together.”

The smile she gave me at hearing my words warmed the cockles of my heart, and also made my palms sweat a little. It suddenly occurred to me that, secret keeping or no, I was well on my way to developing a girl crush. Of which the makers of Selkies Gone Wild would, undoubtedly, be happy to hear.

After she took a few deep breaths, I felt the Original’s power ripple out, but not in the way I was used to. This wasn’t physical power; this was something totally different. That said, I couldn’t really describe it, as it was so intangible. Instead, it was like a disturbance, but one that rippled my mind and my emotions rather than my hair or clothes. In other words, my physical senses weren’t registering anything, but it was like a fan was blowing over my brain or my heart.

“Wow,” I breathed, opening up my senses and letting my magic touch Blondie’s. On the one hand, it was interesting. But, on the other, more devious hand, I could almost feel how she was doing it.

And if I can feel how she does it, I can stop Graeme in the future, I thought.

Letting my magical senses pick up everything they could, I tuned back into the scene in front of me.

If Blondie’s power was wafting in on a gentle breeze over my brain, it was obviously blowing against Fugwat’s like a typhoon. His face was pinched shut, his every muscle straining as if trying to physically keep out the Original’s mind. But it was no use.

Suddenly, his eyes snapped open to reveal what appeared to be a vacancy, just as his face and body slumped slackly.

“Tell us what we want to know, Fugwat Spriggan, and your mind is yours again.” Blondie sounded weary, both emotionally and physically. If doing the mind mojo burned up that much of an Original’s power, no wonder Graeme employed it only as a last resort.

“I told you,” the spriggan whimpered. “I know nothing. The other two marks are still hidden.”

“How did you find the first two?” she asked.

“They were recorded. Alfar histories said where to find them. It was just a matter of getting past the gnome.”

Blondie looked at me, warning me with a small shake of her head not to let our big gnome-is-now-a-baby secret out of the bag. As if.

“You’ve already opened this glyph?” Phaedra asked, although, by its static appearance, I was pretty sure we knew the answer.

“Yes,” was Fugwat’s only response.

“And where else is Phaedra looking?” I asked, instead. Fugwat didn’t answer, however, until Blondie repeated my question.

“She’s got no idea,” he said. “She’s looking everywhere. But she thinks one has to be in the sea somewhere.”

“Why do you want to awaken the creature?” Blondie asked.

Fugwat whimpered, but he didn’t speak. I felt the Original exert more mental force.

“Tell me. Why do you want to awaken the creature?” she repeated, brutally forcing her own mind into Fugwat’s.

This time the spriggan was no match. He slumped forward even more, his eyes staring glassily. “The dragons are awake,” he murmured. “The white king and the red queen are mustering their forces. Phaedra says we bring the fall of Man.”

At his words, Blondie went stock still, her own eyes growing large and distant.

The dragons? I thought. What the hell? And who are the white king and the red queen? Maybe Jarl and Morrigan? He is awfully pale, and she’s got the blood of Orin on her hands.

But before I could speculate more, I felt Blondie withdraw her power from Fugwat. She still looked discomfited, but she was obviously doing her best to appear like all was normal.

“Well, that wasn’t useless,” she said. “We know that Phaedra’s as stuck as we are, at least. So that gives us an advantage.”

“Who’re the white king and red queen?” I blurted out, too curious to wait.

She frowned. “That’s not something we can discuss here. And I have to do some checking into things… What’s happening can’t be happening. I need to do some research. Can you be patient with me, Jane?”

I considered the question. I hated being left in the dark, but I did trust Blondie.

“Sure, I can be patient. As long as you promise to tell me when you find out something,” I said.

“I will. I promise. But right now, we have to take care of the here and now, in Rockabill,” Blondie said. I frowned.

“Are you sure we need to pursue this champion thing?” I asked. “Why can’t we just bury all of this?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, if Phaedra’s the issue… we can always just take out her and her gang.”

“I’m assuming you mean ‘take out’ as in ‘dead,’ not as in ‘Chinese food’?” she asked. I nodded, surprised at my own bloodthirstiness.

“I’ve considered it,” she admitted. But now we know someone is behind these attacks… so they’ll just send more people. At least we know Phaedra, and know some of her weaknesses.”

Blondie had a good point. Even if Phaedra and her gang weren’t around, it didn’t make Rockabill any safer from other beings sent by the enemy.

“What if we find and destroy the glyphs? So they can’t be awakened, and no one gets to be champion?” I asked.

“I don’t think they want to be destroyed, as our friends learned the hard way. We could end up like Anyan and Nell. Or worse.”

“What if we don’t open them, but find them and guard them?”

“For the rest of our lives? No matter what they send along to take us out?”

I sighed. Blondie was right. We had to find the creature and let her get the power it offered, and then she could do something about it. Which raised an interesting question.

“What will you do when you’re champion?” I asked.

“What?”

“What will you do with all that power?”

She frowned. “I dunno. I hadn’t thought about it. What would you do, Jane?” Her eyes had a faraway look when she asked that question, as if she were thinking hard.

“I dunno,” I said. “Keep it safe, I guess.” Then I frowned. “But something has to be done about the creature, doesn’t it? If it makes a champion, it’s still big and buried, right? Can it still be awakened?”

“Yes, it could still be awakened. Would you kill it?”

I frowned. “Why would I kill it? It’s this ancient thing. That would be like steamrolling Pompeii.”

Blondie’s eyes refocused, and she smiled at me. “We will have to deal with that issue, but let’s deal with everything else first. I like to do things by the seat of my pants: Too many plans make for too many things to go wrong.”

“And we still have to locate the missing glyphs,” I started, before I was interrupted.

“The signs protect destruction,” Fugwat called from the floor in front of us. Blondie and I frowned at each other before we both looked toward him.

“The signs protect destruction,” he repeated. “The signs protect…”

He continued on like that, his eyes closed and his mouth hanging, barely moving as he spoke.

“I don’t think Fugwat’s in the driver’s seat,” I said.

“Nope.”

“The sign protects destruction,” the spriggan added, helpfully. Blondie took a step toward him, but I stopped her. I wanted to try something different from the “smack now, ask questions later” everyone seemed to favor these days.

Instead, I moved forward to crouch in front of the spriggan.

“We know the signs protect destruction,” I said, in my calmest, most soothing voice.

“The signs protect destruction,” Fugwat replied.

“Yes,” I said. “We got that, but—”

“The signs protect destructions.”

“Okay, but—”

“The signs protect destruction.” Clearly, Fugwat’s possessor was not one to be sidetracked. The spriggan was rocking faster now, repeating “the signs protect destruction” at an even more rapid rate. I tried to interrupt him a few more times, but it was useless. Frustrated, I grabbed Fugwat by the shoulders.