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“The Goddess of the Barren,” I read from the bottom of Briggs’ report, then glance up at Cam, who stops pacing in front of the dusty books on the other side of the room and turns to me, his gray brows bobbing up and down on his thin face.
“Really?” He turns to Briggs, who stayed to answer any questions we might have, though he sent the rest of his team to bed. It’s nearly one in the morning, but I can’t imagine sleeping right now.
I need answers. I need to at least make some progress toward solving this mystery before I go insane.
And I need to stay far away from Willow because, as shitty as I feel about what happened, a part of me still wants to seek her out, to demand she allow me to be the one to comfort her instead of my second-in-command. But that isn’t how “comforting” works.
Even a motherless son who grew up without much comfort in his life knows that.
“Yeah,” Briggs says, running a tired hand over his close-cropped brown hair. “We almost missed that, though. Kelley was brazen about the rings and the cup, but she took the time to rearrange all the fertility objects in the bottom drawer. If Denver hadn’t checked the inventory a second time, we wouldn’t have realized it was gone.”
Making a mental note to reward Denver with an extra day off this week, I ask them both, “So, what’s the deal with the goddess? Is she a statue with magical powers or something?”
Cameron’s nose wrinkles with disapproval. “Our ancestors believed these objects were sacred for a reason, Maxim.”
“I understand,” I say. “But none of these objects have been magically charged for generations. We’ve had fairies in to check. Several times.” I pace closer to Briggs. “Why doesn’t Kelley know that? Bane knew. Why hasn’t he told her? Assuming he’s not dead, of course.”
Briggs exhales with a shake of his head. “I don’t know. And I don’t know why she’d try to hide one theft and not the other. But to answer your question, the Goddess of the Barren is a…” He trails off with a soft laugh and turns to Cam. “Help me out, man. I’m so beat, all I can think of is ‘cock ring,’ but I know that’s not right.”
My brows shoot up my forehead and my lips quirk for the first time in hours. “Yes, please do help us out, Cam. Because that wasn’t what I was expecting to hear. At all.”
“It’s a cervical charm,” Cameron says, clearly judging both Briggs and me for our adolescent amusement. “Inserted into a woman on her wedding night, it’s alleged to ensure conception, even if the woman in question is otherwise considered to be barren. But it only works on the wedding night, after bride and groom have both drunk from the spirit sharing cup.”
My amusement vanishing, I say, “So Bane and Kelley are planning to get married and knocked up on the same night.”
“Looks like it,” Briggs says.
I suddenly wish my father was here. He would know if this has something to do with the prophecy or if Kelley and Bane are just both getting up there in years and have decided they should get started on building their family.
The thought sends a sharp pain through my chest.
Growing up, I took for granted that someday Bane and I would be fathers together, that our children would run wild through the tower the way we did as kids, but they’d have those cousins we always wished we had to play with. Our father’s sister died of cancer before she could have kids and his much older brother was killed in the escape from The Parallel. He stayed behind to provide a distraction to those who might come looking for our people and paid the ultimate price.
But now…
Now, I have no idea what’s going on with Bane—don’t know if he’s even still alive—but I know that version of the future is forever beyond our reach.
Something was set in motion tonight, something that can’t be taken back. If Bane was behind the bomb that exploded in the theater, he’s no longer my brother, he’s an enemy of the people and will be treated as such.
“And you’re sure nothing else is missing?” Cam asks, his brow furrowing as he scans the shelves of artifacts behind me.
Briggs squints tired eyes at the floor-to-ceiling display. “Not that we found, no. And we checked the collection records twice.”
Cam’s lips purse together. “And what are the chances she was able to alter the collection records in the time the camera feed went dark?”
Once she was inside the artifacts room, Kelley had enough insider knowledge of the tower to disable the security feed for the entire fifty-first floor. Aside from thirty seconds of footage of her crawling out of the air duct and walking across the room to hack into the control panel on the wall, we have no record of her activities here.
Briggs grunts, nodding as he considers the question. “If she had an alternate record already printed and ready to swap out, then yeah. Absolutely.” He nods toward the folder in my hand. “But you can see, all the logs look the same. They’re in the same font, on the same aging paper. Even with insider knowledge, there’s no way she would have been able to replicate everything that exactly. At least I don’t think she could.” He props his hands low on his hips. “Why? Is something missing we people who never hang out in the artifacts room gathering dust wouldn’t notice?”
Cam’s lips curve, proving he likes Briggs more than he’ll ever like me. If I’d made the same joke, he’s be glaring a hole in my forehead right now.
“There was a sword, I think,” Cam says, pointing to the top right side of the shelves, where several swords and spears are mounted, and nothing seems out of place. “A miniature one. I remember because it was so much smaller than the others. Legend has it that it belonged to a child king in the fifth century, an orphan who became a powerful ruler and ended up uniting three of the most influential shifter clans in the Scottish highlands.”
I nod, my eyes narrowing. “I think I remember that story. Is he the one who refused to have his picture painted?”
Cameron nods. “Yes. Some said it was because he was disfigured.” He glances over to Briggs and back to me, before adding, “But some said it was because he wasn’t a he at all. That it was actually a queen who united the clans, but they kept it a secret for fear it would make the other clans think they were weak and easy to conquer.”
I cross my arms, exchanging a look with Briggs.
