Island of Glass (The Guardians Trilogy #3)(17)

Wants to bang her.

“What?”

“Huh?” She glanced up from her notes, met Doyle’s eyes. “Didn’t realize I said it out loud. I said—wrote down—he wants to bang her. Bo’s hot for Arianrhod.”

“And that’s relevant how?”

“It’s called an observation, Lord Oblivious. I also observe we’re talking about a forested island, one with tall hills—and a castle, palace, fortress built on one of the tallest. That’s strategy. You want high ground. We know there was a civil war, and the rebels lost, ended up being banished, stuck in the Bay of Sighs. Where we found the Water Star. Something else we pull out of this journal may be a step toward the Ice Star.”

After considering it, Doyle summed it up. “I don’t think Bo getting a woody over Arianrhod tells us anything more than he’s got a dick and she’s hot.”

“Maybe not, but odds are the other two also rate hotness, and he’s all about the one. Plus, he writes Arianrhod invited him. Maybe they’ve got something going. We come from them, that’s the story. You gotta bang to beget. It might not make any difference which of us come from which of them, but it’s relevant if Bran’s ancestor and the goddess—the one with a Celtic name—did the tango, and Bran’s a direct descendant.”

After a moment, Doyle gave her an eyebrow jerk she took as acknowledgment of her point. And went back to reading.

He had a good voice, she thought. Not what you’d call harp song, but a good, strong voice. He read well, and not everybody read well out loud.

She wondered how many books he’d read. Thousands maybe—imagine that. Here was a man who’d gone from tallow candles to laser technology, from horse and cart to space travel.

She could spend a decade picking his brain on what he’d seen, how he’d lived, what he’d felt.

For the moment she continued to take notes, following Bohannon’s observations and descriptions as he continued on horseback from the beach, through groves of orange and lemon trees—the blossoms perfuming the sweet night air.

“We can surmise spring—orange blossoms.”

“That’s considering the island runs on the same rules of seasons as this world,” Doyle pointed out. “And on this side of the equator.”

“Point.” And a damn good one, she had to admit. “But we stick with the physical location, at Bo’s time and place, and we get spring. Surmising. A well-kept island, too. He talks of the groves, the wide, dry road—lit with torches. A full moon, which also helps estimating a time. The silver palace—you have to wonder if that’s literal or just prose.”

She filled in details as he read. Expansive gardens, women in flowing gowns, music piping through open doors and windows, out onto wide terraces. The new queen’s standard—a white dove soaring over a blue sea—flew atop every tower.

Doyle got as far as the entrance hall—brilliant tapestries, gilded trees flowering in silver urns—when he put the book down.

“If I have to read interior design, I’m going to need more than a beer.”

“And when I can describe the island, the palace—in detail—to Sasha, she can draw it. And drawing it might trigger a vision. The vision might get us closer.”

He finished off his beer, set it down. “That’s a good idea.”

“I have lots of them.”

“You have lots of ideas. Some of them are good.”

“If you want another beer, bring me down some water. I went up last time. And I need ten.”

“Ten what?”

“Ten minutes.” She pushed away from the table, went to the sofa by the fire, stretched out. And was asleep in a finger snap.

Doyle appreciated the skill, one a soldier developed. Sleep on command, sleep anywhere.

He left her to it, wandered upstairs and decided water was likely the better choice for now. Opening a bottle, he drank while walking to one of the windows.

A fist closed around his heart, twisted viciously. From here he could see the well, one he’d fetched water from countless times in his youth. Bran had kept it, made it part of a garden area. A garden Doyle knew his mother would have found charming.

Flowers, shrubs, small trees, winding paths ran over what had once been a plot for crops, and the stables were long gone. Likely gone to rubble before Bran had bought the land.

He made himself look out, look over to the gravestones, and felt a new jolt when he saw Annika kneeling beside his mother’s grave, arranging . . . flowers and little stones, he noted.

She had the sweetest heart, he thought, the kindest he’d ever known. And he’d known kindness in his time, as well as brutality. She shifted, took more flowers from her basket, arranged these on his father’s grave, along with her pebbles.

She would do this, show these people she’d never known this respect.

And he’d yet to walk out to them.

Nothing there but dust, he told himself, but in his own heart he knew better. Riley had the right of it. Symbols did matter, and respect should be paid.

But for now, he turned away, went back down the stairs.

He took a good long look at Riley. She slept flat on her back, her head on one of the fancy pillows, her arms crossed over her belly at the wrist. A sheathed knife on her belt.

He imagined if she’d had her hat, she’d have tipped it over her face.