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CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The morning sun glowed in the glass dome of the atrium and filled the little sanctuary with silver light. Ossian’s curls became a halo of copper, the golden aura emanating from his skin more luminous. It was like being in the presence of a master metallurgist’s finest work.

Though Brandi had succeeded in contaminating the toirchim tonic with yarrow tincture, I still felt inclined to believe anything and everything the Stag Man told me, especially when paired with the stolen bond. I hadn’t had the ingredients to mix up another counter-potion, and I hadn’t had the time to sneak to the dungeon for more ingredients due to my impromptu conversation with Roland. I found myself standing beside him with less loathing in my heart than my rational mind demanded.

Ossian held the filigree key out to me. The green diamond twinkled madly like there was a pixie trapped inside and desperate to get loose. “Touch the key, love.”

The delicate metal warmed under my fingertips. The diamond second from the green one flared red. It was followed by a weaker flash of blue, and dimmer still, a wink of white light.

The Stag Man’s chuckle was soft and warm. “Don’t let it discourage you. They wouldn’t illuminate at all if you had no potential for the element. And as you grow in command of them, you’ll find the next more willing. As you are also a hearth witch, it makes sense that fire is your next strongest affinity.”

“But there is no fire here.” I swept my hand at the stone pillars with their jessamine carvings and the pedestal with the cloch na wight. “Shouldn’t we be in the great hall or the kitchen for this?”

“Those fae fires will not grant you the knowledge and command you need. Nor are there any volcanoes or wildfires for you to draw upon.”

Please, please don’t suggest we start a fire that destroys Redbud’s forests . Except maybe Dunstan Forest with its rumored mallaithe and sluagh.

“As it happens, there is something much better.” A slow grin spread across his beautiful mouth. “The very thing that prevented us from using that ancient forest or the river to summon the portal. An Unseelie half-heart trapped in a tree. Its core is fire.”

I shook my head, backing away. “I’m not tapping into a demon heart.”

“Not without training.” He snatched my elbow before I was out of reach and dragged me back to his side. “I won’t let you fail, Meadow. Trust me.”

It was about the only thing I truly could trust him with—keeping me alive to open the portal. And then kill me.

“You have experience charging crystals,” he began, “but I wonder, can you determine if there are any nasty things inside them? Boobytraps, spirits—”

“Of course I can.” I shook him off. “Grandmother might’ve curbed my magical growth, but she didn’t raise me to be an idiot.”

“Very good,” he said, ignoring my indignation. “So you know if a crystal is safe to use, but have you been taught how to trip the boobytraps or draw a spirit out without hurting yourself or breaking the crystal?”

My face fell.

“Ah,” the fae king said, his voice a low purr. This time I didn’t shake him off when he took my elbow and guided me to the cloch na wight. “And that is why we are here.”

He lifted my hand and melded it over the smooth crystal. Inside, the wight swirled from gray to white. “This cloch is very similar to the binding that keeps the half-heart contained, very much like a crystal matrix. You must penetrate it without breaking it in order to gain access to the creature—or essence—inside. This wight is a prisoner just like the essence within the half-heart, and it will fight. It will try to use the channel you’ve made into its prison to break it.

“Break the crystal, and the full force will be unleashed at once. An inconvenience with the wight, death with the half-heart. So, we will start with the wight. You must keep the crystal intact and subdue the essence inside before you can draw upon its power.”

He released my hand, sliding his fingers over the leather cuff and down my arm to cup my elbow. The fae king braced against me from behind, one hand on my waist and the other behind my elbow to keep my arm straight. So I couldn’t jerk away from the cloch. He rested his chin on my shoulder, but there was nothing affectionate about the contact. Ossian was going to hold me in place until I mastered the technique, no matter how long it took.

“How do I know when the succeeded?”

“How do you know when you’ve subdued a beast? It will cower before you.”

Not for the first time, I was tempted to pity the fae king. Everything was a power struggle with him—there could be no affection without a price, no loyalty without blackmail and threats to secure it, no peace without a sword pointed at friend and foe alike.

I didn’t want a beast to cower before me. I wanted it tame enough to walk straight up to me because it wanted an affectionate scratch behind the ears. Like Sawyer.

“Begin, Meadow.”

A soft green light glowed from my palm. Normally all a witch needed to do was to slip her magical perception—that inner eye—into a crystal and carefully peel back the layers to discover what lay within, if anything. It was the same passive action as looking through a pair of binoculars to spy on the birds enjoying their seeds on a birdfeeder across the yard. Your presence didn’t bother them, nor did your magnified scrutiny. But I knew to expect trouble, or at least resistance, from the wight, hence the magical defense.

The cloch’s structure wasn’t orderly like that of a crystal. Crystals were basically composed of square building blocks, just on a microscopic level, and thus easy to penetrate and navigate. This cloch’s matrix had the same twists and turns of a beehive that hadn’t been given frames to guide the structure of its combs.

In short, a labyrinth.

I was no better than Theseus with a ball of string, except I had to fortify my passage with magic. Despite the incoherent path, I never had to double back.

The wight was guiding me straight to it.

I’d heard its voice the moment I’d slipped my perception into the cloch. At each intersection, I had only to listen to where its voice came through the strongest and turn in that direction.

It was . . . muttering. Maybe humming. But the kind of tune you used to distract yourself from the hardships of your current situation. Much like the von Trapp children used “My Favorite Things” to block out the thunderstorm in The Sound of Music .

The wight reminded me of Shari.

Except Shari didn’t know Gaelic. Or Faerish.

Now on the other side of the cloch’s barrier, I watched as the wight swirled in various shades of gray, muttering and humming. Much like how it was perceived in the physical realm, the wight resembled a vaporous cloud. It bounced off the smooth walls of its prison like a firefly does when caught in a Mason jar.

“ Dia dhuit? ” I ventured, hoping my measly grasp on Gaelic proved useful. Hello?

The cloud spun. Between one heartbeat and the next, its pale gray vapor condensed into the darkness of a thunderstorm. It was no longer a faceless cloud that lunged for me, but the fanged maw of a wolfhound made of shadow.

A flashback of my battle with the hellhound at the manor all those months ago hit me out of nowhere. The storm, those glowing red eyes, the horror in the library, those claws ripping down my arm—

I screamed, escaping the way I had come in the blink of an eye and closing the way after me. The wolfhound wight slammed against the barrier and dissipated into roiling vapor once more. While it hadn’t been able to pursue me, I still heard its voice inside my head.

“Betrayer!” it had bellowed.