"Salina might come after you," I told the dwarf. "Especially given how isolated you are here. Maybe it would be better if you stayed with Owen for a few days. Just in case."
"Bah!" Cooper waved his hand. "I don't need protection from her. Besides, I doubt she'd come all the way up here. Salina never did much care for this place - or me."
"All the more reason for her to come after you now," I said. "Salina seems to be going around settling old scores, among other things. You were the one responsible for running her out of Ashland. That's not the kind of thing a person forgets. Especially not someone like her. Trust me. I know a thing or two about grudges. She'll come after you sooner or later."
Cooper shrugged. "And I'll deal with her the same way I did before."
The dwarf looked back and forth between me and Owen. "But the two of you are together now?"
Owen nodded. "We are."
"Then I'd say missy here is in far more trouble than I am," Cooper said. "Salina never did like sharing you, Owen - not with anyone."
Owen didn't respond, but sadness mixed with the guilt on his face. I wondered if he realized what the dwarf was really saying - that Salina would probably come after me too. I wondered what Owen would do in that situation - which one of us he'd choose. I hoped it would be me, but I couldn't quite ignore the cold, creeping dread that it would be Salina instead.
We sat there for another half hour. Owen and Kincaid tried to convince Cooper to come back to Ashland and stay at the Graysons' mansion, if only for the next few days, but the dwarf wouldn't budge, saying he had too many projects to finish.
"I've been up here in this old holler going on two hundred years. I'm not about to let Salina or anyone else drive me out of it."
Cooper winked at me, and I found myself grinning in return. I liked the dwarf, with his loud voice and thick goggles. He reminded me of what Fletcher would have been like if the old man had still been alive - absolutely irrepressible.
Eventually, since he wouldn't come with us, we got to our feet and said our good-byes. Cooper walked us around to the front of the house. I started to get into the car with the others, but he grabbed hold of my arm.
"You be careful with Salina," Cooper warned. "I've heard about you, Gin, and what you can do with your magic. How you killed Mab Monroe. But Salina's tricky. She always has been, and so is her water magic. Fighting her isn't like fighting another elemental. Water power is hard to get a hold on, and it's even harder still to figure out some way to beat it."
I nodded, taking his words to heart. I'd seen what Salina could do with her magic - how she enjoyed using it to hurt people.
"I'll be careful," I said. "I'll take care of Kincaid and protect him from Salina. Eva too. She won't hurt them again. Not as long as I'm still breathing."
Cooper shook his head. "Eva and Kincaid aren't the only ones who need protecting from Salina. I think you know that."
I looked over at Owen, who was already in the car and staring at us through the passenger window. "Yeah, I know exactly what you mean."
I got into the Escalade. Through the open windows, Owen and Kincaid tried one final time to get their mentor to come along.
But Cooper shook his head again. "I'll be just fine up here. I have been for a long time now, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. But you take care." His gaze flicked to me. "All of you."
I nodded at him, and he nodded back. Cooper knew how these things ended. He knew that one of us would kill the other, and I was determined to be the last one standing - no matter how tricky Salina's water magic might be.
I cranked the engine and backed up the SUV. We all waved at Cooper a final time. I'd just started going down the ridge when the dwarf turned and went around the house, probably going back to his forge.
Kincaid and I were quiet in deference to Owen. We both knew he needed some time to process everything. To sort through and come to terms with all the lies. Still, once again, I wondered how he would react if I told him what Eva had asked me to do, how she'd asked me to kill Salina. If he would let me do it - or if he'd try to stop me.
A murder of crows exploded out of the trees to our right, forcing me to slow down or risk hitting them. Finn would not be happy if I came back with feathers in his grille. He still hadn't forgiven me for trashing his Aston Martin.
The crows flapped across the rutted driveway before taking flight and soaring up into the spring sky, their sharp caw-caw-caws ringing through the air. I took my foot off the brake and put it back on the gas.
"What is with the birds today?" Kincaid muttered. "That's the second time something's startled them."
His words made me remember how earlier the crows had taken flight from trees deeper in the woods, even though the four of us had been sitting on the patio. That led to another thought, then another one, until they all seemed like a series of grenades exploding in my mind.
The giants, the moving truck, and the van I'd seen near the bottom of Cooper's driveway. Some guy commissioning several fountains he'd never picked up. Someone else knowing enough about Cooper to steal those same fountains from his sculpture garden. The crows flying away, even though there was seemingly nothing around to frighten them.
And then I felt it, the final piece of the puzzle - a cool caress of magic, like water sliding against my skin. Faint as a whisper, but I knew what it and everything else meant - and what I had to do.
I slammed on the brakes, making the SUV fishtail and skid on the gravel. Rocks sprayed everywhere as the vehicle finally lurched to a top.
"Gin?" Owen asked, his hand braced against the dashboard. "What's wrong?"
I didn't answer him. I was too busy getting out of the SUV and running back toward the house.
Chapter 22
"Gin!" I heard Owen shout behind me. "Gin!"
Instead of answering him, I quickened my pace, sprinting up the driveway as fast as I could. Behind me, Kincaid shouted at Owen to get in the driver's seat and back the SUV up the ridge.
I didn't bother yelling and trying to warn Cooper. I was still too far away for that. If the dwarf was working in his forge, he wouldn't hear me anyway, and if Salina went at him head-on like I thought she would, then Cooper needed to focus on her - not me screaming at him. Besides, I didn't want her to realize I'd doubled back until she felt my knife slicing into her heart.
I made it up to the house and raced around the side, heading to the forge. Over the thump-thump-thump of my roaring heart, I strained to listen, but I didn't hear Cooper's hammer striking anything. That meant something had interrupted him - and I was willing to bet I knew exactly what that something was.