“Fine. You have my permission, Cecil.”
Cecil stood upright, tossed back his icy-white mane, and cleared his throat. My heart started to pound. He opened his mouth, and let out a long screech of incomprehensible nonsense, interspersed with a couple of barks, several hoots, and finished off with an ekekekekekkeke noise.
I waited until he was done. “Thanks, Cecil. That was great.”
“It was, wasn’t it?” Cecil said smugly. “That’s the whole thing, in the original ancient fae language.”
“Can you translate it to English for me?”
“Oh, sure.” Cecil curled his lip. “Easy. Do you want me to make it rhyme, too? I suppose you want me to write it down in perfect iambic pentameter and shove it into a glowing golden orb for good measure.”
I raised a brow. “Is it that hard?”
“It’s the equivalent of you trying to decipher an ancient Sumerian tablet, you dunce.”
“That is the problem, Chosen,” Donovan said gruffly, his head still in his hands. “The translations all differ wildly. That is why I have not put any trust in it.”
“But you know the general idea.” I put my hands in the prayer position. “Please, Donovan. Just give me the gist of it.”
“No.”
I arched an eyebrow and waited. Eventually, he let out a rough sigh. “The prophecy predicts a time in which one with unsurpassable power will rise and conquer all the realms in all the Worlds and rule as supreme, forever.”
That’s not a good start to the prophecy. My heart gave a thud. “Connor.”
But he shook his head. “Not… necessarily.”
“What do you mean, not necessarily?”
He grimaced. “It could be you.”
I gasped. “Me?”
“Yes, you,” Cecil chipped in perkily. “The problem is, the prophecy names all the players, but it doesn’t clarify exactly who the bad guy is. All the players are mentioned—you, the One of Every Blood, the twin stars of Tyrnn, Queen of the Crystal Castle, the Devourer—who, we know for sure is Connor, considering his current penchant for eating spark stones—and someone that scholars call the Giver.”
Donovan stood up. “The common understanding of the prophecy is that you, the Chosen, will race to close the spark stones as Connor races to devour them. You will bond with one of the twin stars of Tyrnn and attempt to bring all the Worlds under your control.” He looked away. “The prophecy speaks of a descent into madness, of confusion, death and destruction, and the annihilation of millions of magical creatures. My scholars have always believed that it means you will stop the Devourer from conquering all the Worlds. This much I have already shared with you. But”—he turned back to meet my eye—“some scholars have theorized that it could go either way. Either you are the mad tyrant, or Connor is. That is why the centaurs wish to hold this debate.”
I put my head in my hands. The mention of madness made my chest ache. I felt Donovan move closer to me. “That’s why you’re worried about Connor,” I moaned. “You think he’s going to seduce me, bond with me, and corrupt me into madness.”
“You are not mad,” he said firmly. “You never were.” He hesitated. “But you are right. I have been concerned that Connor will seduce you. You will be bonded to one of the Children of Tyrnn—the scholars agree on it.”
He was already bonded to Cress, though. If it were Donovan I was bonded to, then it would mean that Cress would be dead.
I shot her a glance; for some reason, she was rolling her eyes. “I don’t understand any of this.”
“This is why I did not want to give any weight to the prophecy,” he muttered. “It does not tell us anything worthwhile.”
It did. It mentioned a descent into madness. I didn’t say that out loud, though. “And I already knew that the centaurs were suspicious of me. Now I know why—apparently, I’m supposed to go crazy and become the tyrant of all the worlds.”
“Oh, that’s just one theory, Chosen,” Cecil said, blowing out a plume of smoke. “Another one is that you become the Devourer yourself.”
“What?”
“It’s in one of the translations,” he said mildly. “At the very end. In a nutshell, it says that the Chosen is seduced and befuddled, the Devourer becomes the Devoured. One of the Elonn fae actually wrote a whole scroll about how it means you’re going to suck Connor’s di—”
“Cecil.” Donovan’s voice was like a gunshot.
“Not helpful, Cecil.” My cheeks burned. I spotted Cress, chuckling to herself in the corner.
Bart cleared his throat. “I hate to interrupt, but you really need to get going. According to Mummy, the centaur’s summit will start at nine tonight. That’s in two hours.”
“Ooh!” Cecil leapt to his feet and shimmied out of the room. “I need to get you dressed!”
I took Bart’s hand and squeezed it. “Will you come with us?”
“And risk running into my parents?” He smiled at me fondly. “No chance in hell. Besides, I have to work tomorrow. So do you. It’s your first day as Client Experience and Support Department Manager.”
I’d almost forgotten. How could I forget? I had normal, everyday people, relying on me to show up and support them for eight hours every day. “Of course. Because I need the experience of managing a whole call center in order to be a tyrant of all the Worlds,” I added, almost a little hysterically.
“You’ll be fine. You’re the most capable person I know, Susan.” He gave me a hug and left.
Two minutes later, Bart rang my cell. “I’m not sure if this is important, Sue, but your old friend Juliette is on the balcony of the building right next door, holding a pair of binoculars. She looks like she’s staking out your place.”
“Oh, that’s just what I need right now,” I groaned.
“Why is she there? Juliette lives in Pacific Heights. I’ve been to her house.” Bart lowered his voice. “She’s got a sex dungeon in the basement—it creeped me out so badly I left halfway through her dinner party.”
“Juliette hates me,” I said simply. “She’s looking for a way to bring me down. Juliette was the one who told Audrina’s mom Jessica all about me bringing Donovan as a date to the Professor’s dinner party, except she spun it, so it sounds like I’m dating a mob boss. Now Jessica thinks I’ve trafficked Audrina to the mafia. Jessica and Juliette are trying to peep in here to see what’s going on. They would have known that the detectives were in here serving the warrant and searching the place, so they obviously want to watch.” I massaged my temples. “Violet, can they see in here?”
