I took a drink and then said, “You know, maybe I’m just being overly suspicious, but this all feels a little too convenient to me.”

“If it was a setup, he wouldn’t be suggesting we meet in a busy cafe. That’s hardly an inconspicuous environment.”

“Which could be the whole point.”

“It’ll be fine, Beth.” He hesitated. “But take your knives, just in case.”

“I was intending to.” I scooped up the glove, then carefully picked up the stone. “I’ll tuck this away again. We haven’t the time to tackle it now.”

“Which Castell would no doubt say was a mistake.”

“No doubt, but a few hours shouldn’t make all that much difference.”

And I crossed mental fingers that I hadn’t just tempted the gods and fate.

As I dropped the stone back into its mug and hung it up, Lugh said, “Seriously? Could you actually hide it in a less secure place?”

“Someone knew about my bedroom vault, Lugh. There’s no guarantee they don’t know about the others.”

The “vaults” were cavities that existed in the wooden bones of the old building. A long-ago, probably human, owner had repaired the old oak frame by using metal straps bolted onto the beams rather than hiring a pixie to heal the wood. Though we pixies considered it an extremely crude and inconsiderate action—something akin to ramming nails through flesh to hold broken bones together—it had at least held the rotting pieces together long enough for my great-grandmother to buy the place and start proper repairs. In the process of restoring the oak beams to their original condition, she’d created “natural” cavities behind the remade straps, thereby providing perfect hidey-holes for small items. There were four in all—one in each of the bedrooms, one here in the living room, and one upstairs in the loft.

Lugh grunted. “Mathi knew about the vaults, didn’t he? Did you ever ask him who’d he’d mentioned them to?”

“No, but it’d be pointless, given Gilda was using Borrachero to milk him for information about the fae council and gods know what else.”

Borrachero was a truth drug that put the recipient in a chatty sort of twilight zone and left them with no memory of the event. We had no idea how long she’d been using it on Mathi, and we couldn’t ask because she’d been murdered a few days ago.

Dead ends were quite literally the overarching theme of our investigations at the moment.

With the Eye safe and the glove back in the drawer, we quickly finished our tea and headed out again, returning to Lugh’s to grab his car before heading toward the M53 and Liverpool.

Roadworks slowed us down, so by the time we reached Liverpool and found parking close to Duke Street, it was right on ten.

Lugh sent Jules a message saying we’d just arrived and would be there in five, then said, “This way.” We hurried down the stairs and out onto the street. The icy wind hit hard enough to blow me back a step or two before I caught my balance, and it was filled with the scent of the sea and rain. I quickly did up the coat’s buttons, not just to keep the chill out but to also hide my knives from casual sight. While certain magical artifacts were legal to carry, human cops tended to get twitchy at the sight of knives. Especially when they were as deadly looking as mine.