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Chapter Fifteen

I n the colorless version of Dun Talamh Ava stood unmoving, but not from the paralysis of the glassy shroud encasing her in the waking world. She was no longer in Tasgall’s arms; she couldn’t see her husband anywhere. Here she wore a bleached version of her gown and boots, which made sense in a strange way. She could see others also turned to icy statues everywhere around her; the sculleries, Doon, even the guards who had been barricading the entries into the stronghold—but the man she loved more than life had vanished.

Hell is whiter than snow.

She watched the colorless scene around her, slowly turning her head this way and that until she spotted a dark silhouette sitting on top of the inner curtain wall. It wasn’t Tasgall, but a fair-haired girl waving her hand. She stood up as if she meant to jump off the other side of the wall, and then seemed to disintegrate, blowing away as if she’d been made of nothing but colored ash.

A big hand curled around hers. “I’m here, my lady raven.”

Ava glanced up at her husband, who appeared out of nowhere. He was wearing white versions of his tunic, tartan and trews. Hugging and kissing him were her next priorities, but she couldn’t seem to move very fast.

“I think everyone is here, except Alec and Olivia.” She tucked her arm through his. “We should keep moving as long as we can.”

Tasgall led her back into the stronghold, passing the vassals slowly working in the kitchens and down the passage into the great hall. There Farlan was herding the maids and guards into some sort of circle dance, although they appeared to be moving as if under water.

“My lord.” The seneschal walked slowly over to them. “My lady. I fear we’re trapped in another place.”

“It’s like a white-washed RenFaire,” Ava said, nodding.

“’Tis a dream,” the laird told him. “We’re safe for a time, I reckon. ”

Even their voices were slowing down, she thought, and then saw a cloaked clansman walking rapidly past an arch. “Rory, wait.”

The moment she said his name he turned his head, lifted a hand as if to stop her from looking at him, and a halo of greenish-brown light appeared around him. Suddenly she could move freely again—as could Tasgall and Farlan, judging by their swift, startled reactions. They all looked at the armorer, who changed direction to come into the hall and join them.

“Forgive me, my lord, Seneschal, my lady.” He sketched a quick bow. “I only just arrived, and I cannae stay long with you.”

“Did you do this?” Ava asked, gesturing around them. “Or was it Torra MacBren?”

“Neither, my lady. ’Twas enchanted creatures hatched here in the spell trap. They’ve frozen our bodies and sent our spirits here. ’Tis a trap within a trap, meant to keep us from the first.” He glanced down at his white garments. “I’m looking for the matriarch beetle, the first that came into the trap, so I countered the freezing spell cast over me for a time.”

“For a time?” Tasgall echoed.

“I cannae match the power of the enchantment used to create the golach. Forgive me, but I must hurry now.” Rory bowed again and rushed off, moving so quickly he was gone before the laird could utter another word.

Ava touched her husband’s arm. “Let him go. He’s looking for a way to help us.”

“We should do the same while we can still move easily,” the laird said, and then regarded Farlan. “Seneschal, check any place you reckon this matriarch may be on the first and second level. My lady and I shall begin with the solar garden and make our way down.”

Tasgall didn’t say anything more until they had climbed up to the very top of the stronghold, where he stepped in front of her and inspected the view from the landing.

“If the mama beetle is white, too, we likely won’t find her soon,” she told him.

He turned around and embraced her. “I ken, but we must try. If Alec and Olivia fail–”

“They won’t. I think Rory is buying them time by whatever it is he’s really doing.” Ava stepped back. “Why don’t we start in the solar?”

Her husband escorted her into the glass-walled atrium, one of the features of Dun Talamh that had spontaneously appeared quite recently. The walls and garden now appeared white, just like everything else at the castle. Ava had inspected the hot house before now, but with all the plants turned the same color it appeared very different. This time she could clearly see the architectural features, which included four fountains, several benches and a large round circle of wood hemmed by flowering shrubs that normally would have hidden it from view.

“What’s that there?” she asked her husband and pointed to the circle.

“I cannae tell you,” he admitted. “I never noticed the thing before now.”

She went over, crouched down, and lifted one edge of the wood, allowing a puff of steam to escape. When she pushed it up higher and stood she uncovered what appeared to be a sunken hot tub made of the same wood, just large enough for two people, with one long bench seat beneath the water. The hot water that filled it came from a smaller version of Ben’s pipes, only this one had been made of wood as well.

“’Tis a bath.” Tasgall looked perplexed. “Healer never improved the solar.”

“It’s like a hot tub from my time.” Ava closed her eyes and searched through her memories until she recalled the last time she had heard that phrase.

Even if our War Master found a bunch of naked supermodel ladies in a hot tub, Ben had joked right after Olivia had arrived, he’d just turn and walk in the other direction.

Out loud she said, “I’d like to find a cup of coffee here in the solar, right now.”

“Why do you wish for such?” her husband chided. “Naught from your time can come into the trap unless ’tis brought in by an outsider.”

Acting entirely on instinct, Ava looked around the solar. “Well? I saw you waving at me before on the wall. You wanted me to see this, to show me what you can do while I’m not distracted. Now prove I’m right.”

A pottery mug of a dark, steaming liquid suddenly appeared on the ground next to the hot tub. When she would have picked it up Tasgall stopped her and leaned over to retrieve the mug. He lifted it to his nose and sniffed it.

“Please tell me that’s coffee,” she couldn’t help begging.

He took a sip and grimaced. “No, my love. ’Tis something like burnt dandelion.”

Ava held out her hand, and when he gave her the drink, sampled it. “Laws, that’s good, but you’re right, it’s herbal. Likely as close to coffee as you could get from what you had in Scotland in the twelfth century. ”

“You drink such in your time?” He made a comical face.

“I don’t make fun of your love of haggis, sir,” she reminded him. “Don’t insult my cup of sorta-kinda joe.” She sipped the drink again as she walked around the solar. “This proves that someone or something is listening to what we say, and making the things we want appear. This solar must have been created because someone talked about hothouses. Now the hot tub and the coffee substitute.”

“’Twas our chatelaine who spoke of hothouses,” Tasgall told her, and then looked as if he wished he hadn’t mentioned it.

“I’ve heard rumors that before I came here you and Inga were lovers.” As guilt appeared on his face Ava nodded. “I had a lover before you, too, and if he hadn’t been killed in the line of duty I would have married him. We’re even.”

“Aye, only my former lover yet lives here at the stronghold.” Tasgall rubbed the back of his neck. “Do you reckon the things we desire appear as do the things we use from our stores?”

“I don’t think so.” She glanced around the solar again, looking for something present that hadn’t been before now. “This is more personal than the castle resetting every morning. This is like someone is trying to make us happy—or happier.” Like Torra MacBren, who had been in Olivia’s dream, but how, and why? If she believed like everyone else that Tasgall had murdered her parents back in the twelfth century, why would she be trying to do anything nice for his clan?

Her husband frowned. “Could Rory possess such power?”

That was another possibility, even stronger because the armorer had already demonstrated he could use magic.

“I don’t know, but Rory isn’t here. Once we get out of this white world, we’ll have to take a hard look at all the improvements the castle has made to itself.” She finished the mug of roasted dandelion tea and set it down where it had appeared. Instead of refilling itself or vanishing, the mug turned white. “Look at that.”

As the white color of the mug began to crackle Tasgall took hold of her arm and drew her away. “Be careful, love.”

Ava didn’t grow alarmed until the white plants, floors and walls of the solar started to do the same thing.

T he sound coming from the other end of the passage made Alec think of bees buzzing along as they flew from flower to flower in the gardens. Beside him Olivia uttered a small cry as Rory stepped out of the shadows with huge metal shields strapped to both arms.

“Run,” was all he whispered to them.

A huge cloud of ice golachs came flying at the armorer, who turned and blocked the passage with his shields and his huge body. He didn’t move or make a sound as they crawled all over him, leaving trails of the glassy material they had used to freeze their other victims, which spread to encase him.

“Hurry,” Alec said, tugging on her arm.

The clicking of the insects’ legs followed right behind them, but Alec didn’t look back as he shouldered his bow, shoved his arrows back into his quiver, swept Olivia off her feet and ran up the stairs with her. She clung to him, hiding her face against his neck until he reached the top landing. He pulled open the door just a gap to look inside the tower.

The entire room looked as if it had been dipped in glass. A huge hole had been made in one wall around what appeared to be an ice beetle the size of a cow.

Alec put down Olivia and readied his bow. “She’s in there. Stay here until I dispatch her. ”

“Not on your life,” she said, opening the door wider and stepping inside.

Swallowing a curse, Alec followed, targeting the matriarch.

The giant white insect moved its eyes to look at them, and stone crumbled around it as it began to swell with dozens of small bulges on its back. Alec saw Olivia go so pale her eyes looked like burned holes in her face.

“Take the salt,” he told her, taking the pouch from his belt, and opening it to pour some salt into Olivia’s hand before eyeing the golach and drawing his bow. “Fling it on her, and then move aside.”

She nodded, and she edged toward the huge beetle, but a shower of ice came down from the ceiling of the tower roof, covering her in the beetles.

“No,” Olivia gasped, her legs frozen to the floor now. With one last jerk of her arm she tossed the salt on herself.

The room plunged into complete darkness, as if night had fallen, and Alec went deaf. A sudden blast of wind came into the tower, whirling around both of them as it tore the golachs from Olivia’s body. Burned-out torches on the walls flickered to life as the white insects fell to the ground, melting into big droplets of clear liquid as if made of water. Red flecks shimmered on the stone floor, sucking up the remains until they vanished. The glassy tracks they had left on Olivia also dissolved, dripping down her body until she was standing in a clear puddle, which the floor also quickly absorbed.

The wind grew stronger, shredding the glassy substance on the walls and rocking the matriarch golach. Yet on the back of the huge insect the bulges continued to swell, and sprouted legs and antennae.

“My lady,” Alec shouted so she might hear him over the wind. When Olivia looked at him with wide-eyed amazement, he tossed her the pouch. “The matriarch.”

She yanked her feet out of her boots, which still remained frozen to the floor, and ran over to pour the salt on the giant golach’s swelling body. The creature went still, and then must have made a terrible sound, for Alec sensed the vibrations of it in his bones. The golach’s body began to give off reddish sparks as Alec released his bowstring, sinking an arrow into the matriarch’s side. A heartbeat later he hit the insect twice more, making its icy carapace crack. The golach tried to raise its wings, but the manner in which it had wedged itself into the tower wall kept it from escaping.

The wind died as suddenly as it had come in, and then buffeted Alec’s shoulder once, twice, and then a third time before it stopped entirely .

The arrows in the matriarch’s side turned white as the bulges on its back stopped moving and began to collapse. Somehow the cow-size beetle managed to unwedge itself and started to climb down from the ledge, making stones collapse all around it.

“You shallnae escape,” he muttered, nocking two more arrows and drawing his bow.

Olivia darted in front of him and touched his arrowheads, and when she took her hand away he saw salt crystals gleaming on the steel. She then stepped back and nodded.

He targeted the golach’s head and released the arrows. They struck, pinning the insect’s writhing body to the wall beneath the arrow slit. For a long terrible moment Alec thought it would have no effect, and then it exploded into a cloud of icy shards. He dropped his bow and threw his arms around Olivia as the glassy substance on the walls did the same thing.

Covering her head with his arms, Alec shielded her as much as he could while the tower shook and shed the golach’s casing. The glass turned liquid and sank into the stone floor and walls around them. A few moments later it had completely disappeared.

Alec lifted his head once the noise stopped, his chest heaving as he took in the sight of the tower room. No trace of the matriarch, the golachs she had spawned, or their work remained. Outside the sky had turned a pale greenish purple, as if they had spent an entire night battling the creatures.

He recalled how the torches had lit themselves as the room had gone dark. Mayhap something helped.

“Are we okay?” Olivia asked, her voice distant and muffled.

He was pressing her face into his chest so hard she likely couldn’t breathe, Alec realized, and released her. “Aye. ’Twould seem so.”

Olivia went to the door to look outside in the passage, and then came and took his hand. “Everyone’s waking up out there.”

He walked with her through the passages, where the clansmen and vassals sat or lay on the floors with dazed expressions. He helped the men to their feet and told them to attend to the mortals, and then took Olivia down to the great hall with him.

The laird and his wife were helping Ben with the patients he had been tending, all of whom had been freed from their glassy shrouds. The moment Tasgall saw him he strode over and embraced him as if they had been parted for centuries.

“You saved the clan, Brother.” He held him a moment longer before he drew back and bowed deeply to Olivia. “My thanks for your aid, my lady. If no’ for your daring, we should all be trapped forever within that white world beyond.”

“White world?” she asked.

Ava came over and hugged her. “We can explain later.”

As Farlan joined them and gave Alec a hearty slap on the back, he made himself smile and listen to their congratulations. At the same time his gaze kept straying to Olivia. Being the center of attention suited her, although she was still shy enough to blush as Elspeth and some of the other maids came to embrace and thank her. She looked so alive in the stream of greenish-yellow dawn light from a nearby window that it almost hurt to gaze upon her.

She could have her pick of males now among the clan as well as their vassals, Alec thought, and that was for the best.

“I must go and assure all have been freed from the enchantment,” he told Farlan, and left the hall.

Alec went first to assure the men in the garrison quarters had been freed, and then issued orders for them to perform a sweep of the stronghold, the bailey and the walls. He accompanied the chief of the watch to the tower, where his men had already resumed their posts. From the battlements he could see no sign of the beetles’ work or the MacBren, although the tents still stood next to the stables .

“How could the night come and then pass by so quickly?” one of the guards asked another.

The second man made a contemptuous sound. “’Tis this facking place, playing tricks upon us again.”

“To your posts, lads,” the chief of the watch said, his expression troubled.

“Send a man to report all to the laird,” Alec told him, and then went down and out of the tower to inspect the gardens, the lists, and finally the stables.

Alec knew climbing up to the hayloft was a mistake, but he couldn’t resist. The air there seemed perfumed with white lilies and forest mosses, a lingering perfume he and Olivia had created with their bodies. Never in his long life had a female ever given so much of herself to him. With her generosity and passionate responses, she had loved him in truth even more than the little wren of his dreams. He would always be grateful to her for that. She would also come to find him again, and soon, so he needed to think on what he would say to her.

“I hope you’re not planning to sleep up here again tonight,” a low voice said behind him. “Now that the MacBren left, the stable guys will be coming back to work. They’ll notice. What made time speed up like that, anyway?”

Instead of facing Olivia, Alec went over to the window to gaze out at the stronghold. “I cannae tell you. As for tonight, I shall occupy my quarters in the garrison.”

A brief silence followed his last word, and the scent of white lilies grew stronger. Now he could sense the warmth of her on his back, as if she were close enough to touch.

“You’re not inviting me to share them, I guess.” She waited for him to reply, and when he didn’t she said in a voice that tore at him, “Did I do something wrong?”

“No.” He couldn’t let her blame herself for his decision. “’Tis me. I’m no’ suitable for you, my lady. You shall find a lover better suited to you among our vassals.”

“What if I only want you?” Olivia countered.

Alec fought to keep from turning and jerking her into his arms. “You cannae have me, Mistress Gibson.”

B odach managed to stay in the spell trap and search long enough to see his matriarch’s fine worked destroyed, and the clan freed, before time unexpectedly accelerated and he was flung out of the trap at dawn. After landing painfully, he ripped off his protective shrouds and resumed his guise as Renard Beaumont, stalking down to view the spell trap through his window scroll.

“They were all supposed to be frozen.” He then looked at the interior of the stables in time to watch Alec reject Olivia. “At least you’re not getting any relief, either, Pretty Boy.”

Once the war master and his ex-lover left the stables, Bodach sent a tendril of power through to wake his bats, and bestow on them a particular boon. He’d have them attack the clan immediately so he could go back in and resume his hunt for his treasure. Yet before he could command them to do exactly that the rafter to which they clung came crashing down, nearly crushing them both. They flew down and out through the main doors, and when he switched the scroll’s view to the exterior he saw them flying toward the forest illusion around Dun Talamh.

“What are you doing, you idiot winged rats?” he griped, watching them vanish into the illusion.

Because his power was depleted, and he had to brood on what exactly was happening to his spell trap, Bodach spent the rest of the morning in his seaside lair. He then returned to the castle to wait for Clagden to come creeping back. When he did Bodach came out of one of the passages carrying a large duffel under his arm. He knew the changeling would detect the aura of dark power coming from the bag and smell the mortal blood that stained it—all enchanted, of course, but Clagden would never guess that it was all an illusion.

“I need to bury this, so take me to the prison where you fed on the mortals.” He walked past him out to his squad car, and smirked when Clagden followed him.

“Who did you kill?” the changeling asked after getting on the road.

He didn’t have to fake his boredom. “A real estate agent who kept pestering me to sell the castle to a developer. Apparently they wish to make McKeran’s into a medieval restaurant, complete with a joust reenactment in the dining room. I’ve been getting rid of the pieces one by one, but with you and Riley stirring up trouble I had to store the head.”

“Sorry for the inconvenience, Master.” Clagden chuckled. “Mortals come up with the craziest notions on how to make money.”

The drive from the castle to the shuttered prison took only thirty minutes. The changeling stopped and got out to unlock the rusted gates before driving past the buildings to a weed-choked field beside them. Here the smell of rot rose from the ground as if a thousand mortals had only just been buried, which amused Bodach, who could detect the rudimentary spell that created the obnoxious odor .

“The stench is a nice touch,” he said.

“It keeps out the reform activists, as well as mortals who post true crime and paranormal videos,” Clagden told him. “Old prisons attract them like raw bacon does rats.”

When the cop parked and came around to open his door for him Bodach smiled at him as if he didn’t have a single suspicion.

“Do you genuinely consider me your master?” he asked as he walked with him through the weeds.

“I gave you my word that I would serve you,” Clagden reminded him.

Of course Bodach knew that the careful words he’d used constituted the truth; the changeling had made that promise. Just as any other being with Fae blood, he could not lie.

“Do you recall how many mortals you buried here?” he asked.

“Over the decades, thousands. Before I became a police officer I killed and took the place of a prison hospital orderly.” Clagden stopped, bent over and yanked away weeds until he uncovered a granite grave marker. “Now this one here was a very evil mortal. He tortured and murdered twenty lovers before they finally caught up with him. He had such vivid memories of each one that I fed off him for a long time. Quite tasty. ”

Bodach regarded the stone slab, which bore a five-digit number and a date in the forties. “No names?”

“No one ever comes to visit these monsters,” the cop assured him. “A pity, for they proved almost as delightfully inventive in their treatment of their victims as dark Fae. I often wished I could release them to continue their crimes instead of killing them.”

Bodach knelt down and placed his hand on the marker, which was as cold as ice. “Did you ever consider the same about me?”

Clagden cleared his throat. “I beg your pardon, Master?”

“Well, it’s obvious that you intend to murder me, and change your guise so you can assume my identity. That was the real reason you agreed to bring me out here to your little personal cemetery.” He stood and turned to see the cop holding a gun pointed at him. “You must have been delighted when I asked you to help me bury the real estate agent. No one would ever find my remains, either.”

The gun in the changeling’s hand shook for a moment before he tightened his grip. “I need your life. I’m tired of playing cop. I also showed your castle to my female, and she wishes to live there with me instead of going to Ireland.”

“Oh, my dear wretch. I suppose I must bargain for my life. Here.” He held out a red crystal. “This is the seat and the foundation of my power. If you wish to become me, you must first make yourself its master—and since I cannot lie to you, you may depend on my every word as the truth.”

Clagden grabbed the crystal. “Now I don’t need you anymore, do I?”

“Not at all, you ignorant ass.” Bodach glanced down at the weapon in his other hand, and smirked as his fingers turned black and shrank to withered sticks. “In another moment you won’t need anyone ever again.”

That made the changeling scream, but by then the hungry crystal had taken hold of his body, and swiftly sucked the life out of it. When the cop fell to the ground he crumbled into a mound of black ash and bleached bone, which began to blow away with the wind. Bodach retrieved the gun, and dug through the ash until he found his crystal, which had tripled in size.

“Wasn’t that a lovely meal? And everything I said was the truth, which made it even better.” He admired the lovely scarlet glow of Clagden’s life force before he popped it into his mouth. “Hmm, quite delicious. Let’s go pay a visit to dear Jean now, shall we?”