“Did you ask CJ about it more than her telling you it was taken care of?” She said she’d only just remembered. But she had trusted her judgment on it. “I would have too, to be honest with you. She’s never let us down before. All right. I will call her here. I would like you to remain so you can work out with her what happened. But I must ask, what made that thought pop into your head?”
“I don’t know. At the time he came to me, he was very angry. He was telling me all kinds of stories about how his mate had been murdered. That the person who had done it had been harassing his people for a long time. Since I know nothing about the trolls, and he told me that none of my faeries did it, I told him he’d have to take care that it was looked into himself.” Aurora again agreed with what she’d done. “I never thought to go back and get information from either him or CJ. Do you think that’s important?”
“We’ll see.” CJ appeared in the room with them, and she knew immediately that there was something different about her. Not magic—she would have a great deal of it now that she was mated—but there was something different about her that she couldn’t put her finger on. “Come here, child. I have some questions that need to be put before you. I’m hoping with your help, we can narrow this down a little more.”
“I hope I’ve not offended you, Melisandre. I meant no harm to you or yours but was only following the clues we had.” She told the younger woman that she would have done the same if she had all the information leading to her as well. “Thank you for that.”
After reminding CJ about the troll and what had happened, CJ stood and stretched out her wings. Melisandre was suddenly jealous of her. Whatever had happened to CJ in the last few days, it had made her far superior even to her. It was then that she saw her sigil. It moved all over her body. It wasn’t until she turned back to them that she could pull her eyes away from the movement.
“It’s like a filing cabinet for my past deeds. I only need to think of what I might have done, and my body finds it for me.” She smiled at her, but again, it was the difference that startled her. CJ now had fangs. Long thin ones that Melisandre was sure she didn’t get from her mate. “I’m evolving, I was told. Into what? No one seems to know. But I feel stronger daily. The troll. I went to see him and his mate’s body. She was no more dead than I am. However, I said nothing to him at the time, and he seemed to think I wasn’t believing him.”
“He said she’d been killed by the pollution of his waterway.” CJ said that was what she’d been told as well. “Then I don’t understand. I believe you told me it had been taken care of. What happened?”
“He confessed to me—not that he wanted to—but he said he’d killed his own mate, and this was her sister. He liked her better anyway. Since I know for a fact that he broke about fifty laws, even for his kind, I put him in prison.” Aurora asked if that had been the end of it. “I thought so at the time. The sister was also imprisoned, but since I could find no clues that told me she had anything to do with her sister’s death, she was released a few days later. Could she be the one making all these threats to my family?”
“I’ll figure this out.” The troll was suddenly in the room they were in. The guards around her were holding onto chains made of the purest diamonds. The only way to hold a troll’s magic was this way. Her mouth had been covered with a mask made of ground diamonds as well, so she couldn’t cast a spell if she knew one. “Beatrice Troll, what do you have to say for yourself concerning the threats put on the life of Circe Jane Montgomery Steele?”
Melisandre nearly asked who Steele was when she realized it was the name Donald had adopted when he needed a last name. She didn’t think she’d ever heard it before. The troll snarled at the three of them before she was allowed to speak.
“I know not a thing which you are talking about.” Beatrice looked at her. “She should be in prison for all she’s done to our family. Then this one,” nodding at CJ, “this magical beast should be given to us so we might extract payment for how we’ve been treated.”
“Payment for what? Don’t lie to me.” CJ’s wings didn’t just spread out behind her, but she moved in a way that lifted her off the floor, a foot or two about the head of the troll, which was quite a feat. The troll was twelve feet at least. “Tell me the truth, and I’ll make your death quick.”
“My death? You have no right to kill me. Not a smidgen of information that will lead back to me. You’re the one that should be dead. Not my mate.” CJ
