Page 8 of The Crimson Throne (Spy and Guardian #1)

The bean-nighe shrugs. “I’ll finish this one soon, very soon.” She whips the wet cloth of the tunic she’d been scrubbing out, and I’m reminded—when she’s done with that shirt, I’ll have committed my first murder.

“Then I start that one.” She hooks a thumb at the linen shirt, belonging to a man who will be murdered by a Red Cap within the boundaries I’m supposed to be protecting.

She eyes the shirt. “Probably take me, oh, a few weeks to clean it proper.”

Weeks.

In weeks, the wall I have dedicated my life to will fall.

And people will die.

Not just the man who owns this shirt. A Red Cap would never be satisfied with just one death.

The bean-nighe will not—possibly cannot—tell me more than that.

“Can I…” I start, but I don’t finish the question. I could try to snatch the linen shirt away. If I take it, then the bean-nighe cannot finish washing it.

But I know better than to cross a fae.

I need to go to the wall myself. The only possible way I can prevent this future from happening is if I change it.

Perhaps if I inspect the wall up close, I’ll see something I’ve missed before.

Their weapons were merely the beginning. I should have known—this isn’t just Darnley attacking Mary; it’s a concentrated, choreographed assault. The plethora of Red Cap tools of destruction that have crossed the border so far were just the first step.

I try to think through my whirling panic.

The weakest part of the wall has always been the southern edge, where our land touches England.

And notably, it’s a violent area, with Border Reivers and a legacy of bloodshed.

That would be the place where the Red Caps would go.

And that means I need to go there first.

I turn around, another question dying on my lips.

The bean-nighe and her basket of washing are gone.

And I have work to do.

I turn on my heel and sprint into the village until I reach an inn with a Leth keeper, a young man I’ve had some business with before.

“A horse,” I say. “Now. Fastest you have.”

He knows me and knows I never make such demands without reason, and in minutes, he’s given me a huge white gelding, saddled and ready. I’ll arrange for Mary to pay him later. I throw myself atop the horse and race south.

***

My thoughts plague me, clawing at my back no matter how fast I ride.

This is it—the worst fear I’ve ever had, the terror I dared not even think. Red Cap weapons crossing the border is one thing, a loophole flaw in the ancient protective barrier.

But the bean-nighe’s warning means a Red Cap is coming now, may already be across the border. How many of them? How did they get through?

A dark thought zings through my mind.

Perhaps I should go to my father.

My ma was human, but she loved the wildlands, the craggy cliffs, the rocky moors. And my father was fascinated by the stories of humans he heard in the Seelie Court. So he crossed through a portal and met her, and they had a brief love affair as wild as the land.

I assume. Because while my father met my mother, I never did. I only know of my ma through my grandmother, who taught me what she could.

How to treat the fae I can see but full humans cannot.

How to siphon magic to ensure the wall protecting Scotland is safe.

How to open a portal between the worlds.

What my grandmother couldn’t teach me from the old legends, I learned from the folk stories even the elders thought were myth, the books scribbled out based on the poems of the ancient makars, the hints of truth woven into the waulking songs.

I learned from the other Leths, of course, but sometimes I see or feel things even they cannot.

Sometimes I have to teach myself.

I’ve met my father three times. He blessed me as a baby, declaring me his child, but I don’t remember that.

When I was very young, I met a kind stranger who asked me questions and gave me a candy so sweet, I could taste it on my tongue for a week, but I don’t recall what he looked like or what we spoke of.

I didn’t even know it was my father until I described the stranger to my grandfather.

The third time I saw him was two weeks before Queen Mary was set to return to Scotland after spending her childhood in France, five years ago.

I was just thirteen at the time, and barely that.

I lived at Mugdock Castle, the heart of Clan Graham, outside Glasgow, but that was only at my grandmother’s insistence.

As a bastard and without my mother to protect me, I suspect I may have been cast aside were it not for her.

But my granny always looked out for me and forced my uncle to accept me after my grandfather died.

I’d been walking in the forest nearby. Few went as deep in as I did, and for good reason. Power calls to power, and the woods outside Mugdock Castle had been increasingly occupied by fae creatures since I was born.

“Slàinte mhath,” he said formally.

I knew he was my father. For one, he was too handsome, too tall, too elegant to be human.

We call members of the Seelie Court “fair folk” not because they are beautiful—most are not—but because we want to flatter them into not harming us.

But my father was a handsome man, so beautiful that it would have hurt if I didn’t hate him.

It wasn’t just his appearance that told me he was my father.

His accent was strange, not French or English or Flemish or Spanish, all accents I’d heard at my uncle’s castle at one time or another.

His voice was like song, and while his words meant that he wished me good health, he said them all wrong.

We were in the forest, not cheering over mugs of ale.

“I am your father,” he continued in that same rigid tone that belied the musical accent.

“What do ye want?” I demanded, and I liked the way he flinched at my voice. The Scots language can be beautiful, but a proper Scot knows how to wield it like a blade too.

The arsehole told me all about my duty as the highest-born Leth in Scotland, even though he’d never done his duty as my father. And he never once asked about my mother. Or about me.

So I let him tell me all he felt I should know, and then I very politely told him, “Ith mo chac,” and walked away, ignoring the sputtering rage behind me as he declared he would not, in fact, eat excrement despite my command.

The bean-nighe is full fae, I tell myself. She sees the threat.

Which means my father must too. I don’t need to inform him of the danger. I’ve sent him all the weapons I’ve intercepted so far, except for the needle I saved Mary from today. That’s tucked into my bodice, safe until I can dispose of it.

The bean-nighe’s warning might have even come from my father. It’s like him: send someone else to communicate so he doesn’t have to see me directly. He’s certainly not going to come here himself.

That would require him to stop doing whatever the feck he does in the Seelie Court and give a damn about me for once.

No, it’s easier for him to just let this responsibility slide to me. And let the blame fall to me too.

I kick the horse faster.