“Right. We should go.” Despite her words, Cathy hesitated. Her gaze lingered on each of her friends in turn, as though for the last time. “It’s good to see you all. Even if just for a little while.”
Daisy sniffed, her blue eyes filling with tears. When she spoke, though, her voice was as bright and cheerful as ever. “I’ll water your plants while you’re gone. Not that I expect it’ll be necessary. You’ll be back with us before you know it.”
“And Kevin too,” Jack said. She brandished her crowbar. “Just keep your wits about you, and your iron close at hand. Any fae so much as looks at you funny, whack it.”
“Believe me, she does not need encouragement on that account,” Aodhan muttered.
Tamsin gripped Cuan’s hand, as though that was the only thing keeping her from stepping forward to hug her friend. “Get Motley to contact us when you have any news. Be careful, Cathy. We’ll keep trying to think of ways we can help.”
“I wish there was some way I could come to your aid.” Cuan still looked as unhappy about the situation as Aodhan felt. “It grieves me deeply to think of you facing the seelie alone, Mistress Cathy.”
“She’s not alone,” Aodhan said, rather more sharply than he’d intended. “She has me.”
Noodle barked, sounding just as annoyed.
Despite everything, Tamsin’s lips twitched. “He said, Me too. At least you’ve got loyal allies, Cathy.”
For an instant, Aodhan thought she was just making a joke. Then his gaze dropped to her arm, and Cuan’s alongside it. Matching, faintly luminous markings curled around both their wrists. They looked like intricate knot work tattoos, but Aodhan knew they were much more.
Oh, right. Their mate bond.
The last time they’d spoken through Motley’s door, Tamsin and Cuan had only just been mated. They’d kept touching their own arms, glancing shyly at the other in frankly sickening fashion. It had been a brief conversation (no doubt because they couldn’t keep their hands off each other for more than five minutes at a time), but Tamsin had mentioned that she’d mysteriously acquired the ability to speak to animals. At least, she’d found it mysterious, but of course it was only to be expected that a human bonded to a fae would experience some psychic transference of—
Aodhan froze.
Tamsin and Cuan’s bond. That’s what had been nagging at his memory. Not a page in a book, or a half-forgotten spell. It had been Tamsin and Cuan’s mate bond.
“Aodhan?”
He started, snapped out of his whirling thoughts. Tamsin and her friends had disappeared, along with the door. Motley must have shut it while he’d been distracted. Noodle was sniffing where it had been, apparently baffled.
“Aodhan?” Cathy said again. She touched his arm. “What is it?”
He swallowed, mouth dry. “I know how to disguise your aura.”