"I don't suppose you have any idea where they are, or where this monkey god statue is?" he asked his brothers that evening.

"Not a clue on either count," Avery said as he slipped on a leather jacket. "No one tells me anything. The whole thing sounds a bit dicey to me, to be honest. We can't help you search for this statue because you're the eldest? What's up with that?"

"Some archaic medieval law still around a few hundred years ago, no doubt," Paen grumbled. "There were all sorts of agreements then that operated under obsolete laws."

"Well, I hate to be callous, but since we can't help you search for the statue, I guess I'll go out."

"You'll do nothing of the kind," Paen said, stalking past his brother. "You and Dan will go to the Lachmanol Abbey in the Outer Hebrides, and beg the abbot for access to his very rare collection of sixteenth-century manuscripts. There you will scour the collection for references to this damned statue."

"Me? Why me?" Paen's second-youngest brother looked up from the evening paper. "Why can't you go? And I thought this demon said none of us could look for the statue."

"You're not going to be looking for the statue itself. I want to know more about it—where it came from, what its history is, that sort of thing. You're the only one besides me who knows Latin. Avery can use his charm to get access to the manuscripts, and you can translate them."

"Sounds like a bloody bore, but I'll do it for Mum." Avery admired himself in the mirror again, then frowned at Paen. "You're not going to brood the whole time we're gone, are you? Because if you are, we won't bring back any souvenir girls for you."

"We're going to an abbey, you idiot," Daniel said, smacking his brother on the arm as he stretched and grabbed his coat.

"Bet you I could find some."

Paen only just kept himself from rolling his eyes. "I'm not brooding. I never brood."