Blackbird Crowned (The Witch King's Crown #3) - Keri Arthur Page 0,83

skill set was the ability to track things via the trail of color and currents they left behind in the air, rather than the ability to control—or even weaponize—the weather that most of her siblings had.

“Did you find a suitably nasty way to deal with the bastards who snatched me?” Mia asked.

“I drowned the ringleader in a river of earth and stone, and Luc killed the rest.”

She blinked. “Really? I mean, that certainly is a most excellent revenge, but I didn’t think you could do that sort of stuff.”

“It would appear Mo’s bloodline is stronger in me than we all thought.” I walked over and wrapped her in a fierce hug. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

“So am I.” She returned the hug, a smile in her voice. “But as I’ve already said, I want in on all the action. It can’t be any more deadly than being snatched on the way home from my parents’ party.”

I wouldn’t bet on that. But I kept the words inside. Even if neither she nor Ginny knew everything, they were well aware of the inherent dangers of dealing with Darksiders. They’d both lost family members over the years to the bastards.

Besides, it wasn’t like I could keep them out of the action. Not now.

I pulled back. “So, what are you both doing?”

“We’re transcribing the papers we found at that old church,” Ginny said. “You know, one of the many tasks you gave us to keep us out of harm’s way.”

“That wasn’t the intention.” Though it was. “We needed to uncover what the demons had been trying to hide when they blew the place up, and it made sense for you two to help Barney out.”

She harrumphed, clearly not believing me. “Well, it’s a fucking slow and smelly process, let me tell you. I’m not sure what they used to preserve the translation scroll, but it reeks.”

“It is centuries old, and skin to boot.” My voice was dry. “Besides, weren’t you and Barney supposed to be in Manchester, dealing with the mess there?”

“We were, but the High Council sent people in to take over.” Ginny shrugged. “I know Mo made the dark altar safe, but they wanted to put additional protections around it so it couldn’t be used again.”

It was doubtful any of them would be able to raise the sort of protections Mo could, but I guessed it was better to be safe than sorry when it came to the rivers of power most knew as ley lines. I motioned to the papers they’d been transcribing. “Have you found anything interesting?”

“What appears to be several lists of names.” She picked them up and offered them to me. “Barney recognized some of the people on the first list—they’re mostly low-ranking government officials.”

“Our theory is,” Mia said, “that it’s a list of people working with Darkside in some capacity.”

“Be handy if it was, because it’ll make it easier to weed them out.” I scanned the first page, looking for familiar names but not finding any. “Why would a list like this be in the hands of mere foot soldiers, though? Darkside generally isn’t that careless with information.”

“Except not everyone killed in that church was a foot soldier,” Ginny said. “The setup in the chancel area and the size of the desk where we found all these bits of paper suggests someone much higher in the ranks had been working there.”

“So why didn’t we find his body?”

“We can’t be sure he wasn’t there,” she said, “especially given it’s damnably hard to tell a menik from a controller when the explosion made an utter mess of them all.”

A mess the preternatural team was still sorting out. I flipped over the page. There were only a dozen names written on this, but one immediately jumped out at me.

Daniel Durant.

The name of the Blackbird who’d attempted to kill the queen.

This wasn’t a list of people working with Darkside. It was a list of people who were infected.

My heart leapt into a whole other gear. “Well, I think we finally got a bit of fucking luck.”

“How?” Mia asked.

I shook the second bit of paper at them. “We need to get this to the High Council ASAP.”

“But why?” Ginny asked. “What is it?”

“I think it’s a list of those who have been infected by wraiths.”

“Wait—what?” Mia said.

I shot her a glance. “You weren’t told?”

“About what?”

“That the reason you were first taken to a safe house rather than here was we needed to check you for infection,” Mo said as she came into