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any of this to happen. Not then, and not now.”
    “Answer the question, Father.”
    Both Niko and Tucker moved just a little closer. They’d both fallen back into guard mode as soon as Drystan had entered.
    “Before. I swear it.” Drystan caught my gaze, his expression open and guileless. “I had hoped to have your cousin, my son, as companion. A son at Court again,” he explained. “When he came to me. I only wanted…”
    “A son to replace the one you sacrificed?” I stood, needing to
move
. “Tell me, Drystan, do you regret it?” I stepped closer and closer, forcing myself into his personal space, my eyes sparking.
    “Keira, no,” Adam said. “It’s not—”
    “What? It’s not relevant? Maybe just not polite? Oh, no, definitely not.” I stepped even closer, letting my anger show, letting some of my shielding down. The vibrating tension of my energy surrounded me.
    Drystan cringed visibly, but recovered in a moment. He straightened, haughty once more. “I did what was necessary, Daughter. You could not begin to understand.”
    “No, you’re right about that one. I have no idea—”
    Adam’s hand clamped down on my arm. “Keira, this is neither the time nor the place.” He turned to his father as I stepped back, heeding Adam again—but only for now. I had every intention of pursuing this later.“Father, why did you come here? You said you wished to help.”
    A quick nod from Drystan. “I do.”
    “Can you help us read the Challenge?” Tucker asked. “You surely must have experience.”
    “I can try,” he said. “But my only knowledge of these Challenges comes from lore. There have been no Challenges in my time.”
    “Wait, you either?” I pulled away from Adam and joined Drystan. “How can that be? Didn’t the Tuatha Dé Danann fight the Fir Bolg? There had to be a Challenge issued then.”
    “My dear child,” he began.
    “Seriously, Drystan, stop calling me that. My name is Keira. Your endearments aren’t helping.”
    “Very well. Keira, then. The Morrigan and her battles are but ancient history to me. I was born less than two millennia ago during the time of the
Rhufeinig
.”
    “The Romans?” Tucker’s brow furrowed. “Then you and my clan chief are of an age.”
    “We are.”
    I glared at Tucker. How was that important? “Fine, whatever. Read this. I unrolled the parchment and handed it to Drystan. “See what you can tell us that we don’t already know.”
    He nodded and complied. I returned to my chair, Adam sat next to me, a parody of our side-by-side throne-type chairs in the Hall. Even Tucker and Niko had unconsciously (or consciously) completed the picture, each of them standing at our sides, ready to fight bear—or Sidhe kings, as the case may be. As I waited for Drystan to finish reading, I mentally explored my pissiness. Adam’s father hadn’t done anything really, otherthan stay out of the fray when we’d confronted Gideon earlier. In Faery, when we’d discovered Gideon’s bloodline and his heir status, Drystan had done little but observe. So like the Sidhe, sit back and watch the others fight, then scoop up the spoils. Only… Adam was full-blooded Sidhe, plus vampire.
He
wasn’t the type to sit back. Had he learned this from his vampire teachers? Or was I missing some key component of Drystan’s nature?
    “This parchment is heavily warded,” Drystan said after ten long minutes. “I can but read a few words, primarily those along the sides. They seem to be spells of concealment.”
    “How so?” I asked, suddenly more interested. “I’d not picked up on that.”
    “Some of the runes,” he said. “When taken separately, they are nothing more than words—oak, vine, Gideon’s lineage.” Drystan chuckled. “Though him referring to himself as the son of his mother amuses me.”
    “Yes, well, go on,” I prompted. “Unless that’s relevant.”
    “Only in that he has ceased to align himself with me,” Drystan replied. “It seems he expects