Page 29 of Wayward Daughter

“A lot of the covens with those kinds of witches are super secretive. I’m pretty sure a lot of them are just urban legends. It’s stupid, but some people think because they aren’t focusing on just one craft, they can’t master any of them. They misquote the whole jack of all trades thing, but the full quote is A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one. Those covens aren’t found unless they want to be,” Ariel said.

“And since they are jacks of all trades, they rarely need other witches or the Flame’s help. They can deal with problems on their own. If all this is real and not some urban legend that spawned a cult, the coven has probably handled it if the Yellow King got out again, but there’s not much any of us can do about an idea,” Ariel said.

“They are after Logan though,” Saul said. “We need to stop that.”

“Logan is one hundred percent human. Her mother refused to talk about her father, just that he was a one night stand and an asshole. She pulled away from me too when she decided she didn’t want in the life, so I couldn’t get much out of her about Logan’s father. Pan even confirmed it,” Rainer said. “Sorry, kid. Had to test you.”

I mean, yeah. That was a given. He found me surrounded by dead bodies with a Hellhound that wouldn’t leave my side and a mystery father. I would have been upset if he hadn’t at least looked into it.

“Well, now that the excitement has died down a bit, I was able to get more of the journal translated and the big sexy giant has been exploding to tell us something all morning,” Solomon said.

“Oh, yeah! Here,” Saul said, launching a flash drive at my head.

“What’s this?”

“Misspent youth. I figured Father William and Bishop Henry might be working together, so I may have broken into his room and downloaded everything on his computer. He’s an idiot and had all his passwords written down on a Post It note taped to the screen. I took a photo of that too.”

“Saul, I could kiss you, but I think if I snog another priest today, your god will smite me.”

“You kissed a priest?” Sasha asked.

“Because of the curse. You know, for science.”

“Logan!”

“Moving on.”

“How long will Caleb be out?” Saul asked, winking at me.

I appreciated the save because I really didn’t want to discuss or think about kissing Caleb. He only kissed me like that because of the hex.

“Could be several hours, could be a few days.”

“You can stay here. Can you come up with a story for your priest friends?” Rainer said.

“We don’t have to lie. We usually stay in the rectories for safety, but I can just say since William is here, we’re following a lead on Caleb’s curse. Technically, we are,” Solomon said.

Look at him, all lying and justifying it and shit. I was so proud. But yeah, I was going to have to stay here too. Pan wasn’t going to leave Caleb’s side while he was down and I had a lot more enemies than just the Yellow King and his followers.

“I found out a little more about the diary and it’s not good news. Agnes wrote she first met the Yellow King in a painting. I think that’s what it says. The Church didn’t think the diary was all that important and the tools to preserve it weren’t around. They scanned it into the archives, but never translated it. Some of it is faded and hard to read in addition to the damage it took from the fire.”

“That’s not good. Chambers wrote about a play called The King in Yellow that drove anyone mad who read it.”

“Caleb found out something too, but we need to wait for him to wake up,” Solomon said.

“We’ve got a painting and a play. Isn’t Macbeth also considered cursed? Could they trap him in works of art?” Saul asked.

“Shit, this isn’t going to be like a haunted doll thing, is it? Because I’m already banned from the entire state of Kansas.”

“What happened in Kansas?”

“What didn’t happen in Kansas?” Rainer snorted.

I flipped him off because we didn’t joke about Kansas.

“To answer your question, trapping someone in an object is difficult magic. They have to be dead and it’s usually only done if you’re worried about the soul possessing someone and coming back. Common spirits usually don’t know how to do this. The most they are able to do is objects like dolls. We don’t know what happens to demons after they die, but if the Yellow King was originally half demon half blood fae, he’d know how to possess a body and might know some kind of blood magic that no one can kick them out.”

Which would be a total shitshow. Haunted dolls were my Waterloo because the ghosts already knew they were dead and were having fun. Getting them across the veil was a lot harder.