Page 4

“Now we have you all alone, Hadeus, I think you can answer a few questions for us,” Destan grunts. I glance at him—we didn’t have time to discuss it, but I’d been thinking the same. We need to find Ruskin, and Hadeus seems to know something. Maybe Evanthe planned their disappearance in advance. Even if it wasn’t planned, Hadeus probably has more information than we do. At the very least, he had a better view.

Hadeus just sneers. “I don’t think so. There are limits to what even an abomination like you can do.” He nods at me. “And soon my friends will have shaken off your nuisance magic and will be back biting at your heels.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” I say triumphantly. “Because now we have a horse.”

Having a steed will give us the head start we need, enough for the Hunt to lose our trail and have to work to find it again.

We bind Hadeus with chains I hastily make from repurposed metal and reattach the horse’s shoes, then I gag him for good measure. I thank fate that the Calasian horses are more than large enough to carry Destan, me, and a prone Hadeus slung over the back like a sack of potatoes.

The noise of us rushing to prep the horse masks the approaching footsteps at first, but then a rock skitters across the track, and Destan and I freeze. Blood pumping fast, I nod at him, indicating he should stay with Hadeus and the horse—his injury means he’s not up to much fighting right now anyway—as I dart behind a boulder on the edge of the trail.

A member of the Wild Hunt comes cresting over the top of the path. He’s on foot, his amber eyes glinting with evil glee at Destan as he points his nocked arrow straight at him. I try to stay calm when he shouts towards my hiding place.

“Come out now, Gold Weaver, or the next arrow splits open your friend’s throat.”

I stand slowly, my hands raised, and the Wild Hunt member smiles, redirecting his aim at me.

“Don’t worry, Lord Hadeus,” he begins as Hadeus writhes and jerks on the horse, trying to say something. “The others are rallying the horses now. They’ll be?—"

The fae takes a sudden, sucking breath inwards, his eyes going wide and shocked before he drops like a ton of bricks. The arrow releases from his suddenly slack bow, and I have to dodge when it goes whizzing by. Hadeus’s sword, which I’d been carefully directing behind the fae’s turned back with my magic, juts from his body. Sunlight gleams off the jeweled handle and the slick blood. I release a shuddering breath of my own. I could have used the hilt to knock him unconscious…but who knows how long he would’ve been out? I tell myself I couldn’t risk it. Not with my life and Destan’s on the line.

“I did think it was a bit of a useless hiding place,” Destan says when I return to the horse.

“Better he was looking for me and not the weapon,” I say grimly.

“We have to hurry. He said they’re already gathering the horses again and we’ll need as much of a head start as we can get.”

We jettison anything from the horse’s packs that aren’t essential—pretty much everything except the food and water in the saddlebags—so the extra weight won’t slow us down. I can’t eat the fae food, but I’ve always been able to drink the water in Faerie without issue. That’ll have to do for now. The prospect of starving hardly feels like my biggest problem right now.

We leave the muddy trail behind, which is now possible since we have the Calasian. The beasts are surprisingly nimble-footed, given their size. We pick our way down through the rocks and uneven earth that take us away from the mountain. On this path, we’ll be harder to track, but I keep looking nervously over my shoulder, making sure the Hunt hasn’t returned as Hadeus promised.

Once we’re on level ground again, Destan nudges the horse into a gallop, and I close my eyes and try not to fall as we put our new steed to good use, putting as much distance between us and the Hunt as possible before the sun starts to set.

“We’ll keep going east,” Destan says when we finally stop at twilight in a meadow with some overhead shelter from the trees. “If we go around the base of the mountain range, I’m pretty sure there’s a route to the Unseelie border.”

“Pretty sure?”

“I remember it off some maps from my classes as a boy,” he admits. “But it’s the best option we’ve—owww.” He sucks in air through his teeth as he accidentally jostles the arrow.

“Let’s take care of that,” I say. We leave Hadeus where he is, tied up and gagged, while we settle on a fallen tree trunk, and I carefully set about removing the arrow—to much cursing from Destan. I then find some familiar-looking plants to concoct a makeshift poultice and bind Destan’s arm, before securing it in a pretty decent sling for something made out of petticoat lining.

“There we go. How does that feel?”

“The color totally washes me out, but I suppose it will do.”

I give Destan a weak smile, but my heart isn’t in it. Now when we’ve got a moment of quiet, I can allow myself the thoughts I’ve kept at bay until now—the unspoken fears about a certain fae prince. The final image of his face—fierce and beautiful as he fought Evanthe—is tattooed across my mind, perfectly preserved, like I’ll need to hold on to it, to remember, just in case.

But no, he has to be alive. I’d know if he wasn’t, wouldn’t I? We’re naminai, fated soulmates. I’d feel it through our bond if he was truly gone.

The bond.

I’ve gotten almost used to it, humming away in the background of my magic, and I’m annoyed with myself that it hadn’t occurred to me to reach for it before now. As Destan rises to check on Hadeus, I close my eyes, searching out the thread of connection that ties me to Ruskin.

I gasp as the pain hits me, a bruising battering ram of it, stamping on my nerve endings and clawing at the inside of my mind.

“Eleanor, what’s wrong?” Des asks, his voice sounding far away as I dig my nails into the wood of the tree trunk. The splinters sliding beneath my fingernails are a welcome distraction from the larger pain, helping drag me back to the present.

Ruskin’s fighting something, and maybe winning, I think. Still, the battle is a brutal one.