"And I couldn’t imagine a zoo having much need for an ax," he retorted.
I leaned back in the chair at his tone, and he grimaced. "Sorry. Vengeance is so close I can taste it, and it’s making me a little edgy."
Understandable, I guess, but that didn’t excuse it. "It’s not certain that finding or touching the keys will bring the Raziq to us. None of us has any idea just what magic went into the making of these keys or their disguising, and neither my father nor the Raziq was actually expecting to lose them."
"Your father may have disguised and stolen the keys, but the rest of Raziq would not have allowed him to be the sole provider of blood when it came to the actual making of them. That would be handing one man too much power, and even the Raziq would be wary of that."
"You seem to know an awful lot about the motivations of the Raziq," Azriel commented.
Lucian’s gaze flicked to him, and it showed the contempt that Azriel was managing to hide. "I am a very old Aedh, and I have firsthand experience at just what the Raziq are capable of."
I frowned. "Just how firsthand are we talking? I thought it was the priests who stripped you of your wings and power, not the Raziq."
"It was," he said, so evenly and flatly that I didn’t doubt it was the truth. And yet something within me stirred uneasily. "But the Raziq were a growing power within the priests when I was full Aedh, and it was thanks to their influence that I was punished the way I was."
Hence his need to get back at them. I rose and walked across to the coffeemaker to make myself another cup. "So, the clue. If not a sports club or the zoo, then where?"
"A museum, perhaps?" Azriel said. "There would be lots of axes in such a place."
I took a sip of the steaming liquid, then wrinkled my nose. Not enough sugar. I tore open a couple of packets and added them. "Yeah, but a museum would hardly be described as wild, and there are only a couple outside of the metro area. Sovereign Hill is more northwest, and Rippon Lea more southwest."
"I do not think the instructions should be taken as gospel," Azriel said. "Your father may have sent them in that direction, but there is no telling where his Razan ended up."
"True, but I think we’d be better searching for the obvious first. You never know, we might get lucky."
"It is never wise to rely solely on luck," Azriel commented. "You tend to get disappointed."
Wasn’t that the truth?