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CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“What happened?” Ossian demanded. His grip tightened painfully on my hip and elbow, and he gave me little shake when I didn’t answer immediately.

Excuse me for catching my breath! Apparently I needed more than one, realizing in surprise that over an hour had passed.

“Meadow!”

“It’s pissed, that’s what,” I snapped back. I tried to shake him off—I needed air —but he only tightened against me.

Despite the lock he had on my elbow joint, I’d managed to jerk my hand away from the cloch. He forced it back against the crystal. Inside, the wight swirled angrily, recognizing my touch. “Again,” he ordered. “If you cannot do this, what chance do you have against an Unseelie heart? This is a lamb compared to that lion. Again , Meadow.”

This time, the wolfhound wight was waiting for me.

It railed against its prison, pitting its will against mine for access to the tunnel I’d created.

“Betrayer,” it screamed.

I fortified the cloch, keeping its structure intact against the wight’s assault. My access tunnel through the matrix was the same as a fissure, and one it was determined to exploit. “I’ve betrayed no one.”

“Lies!”

At this rate, there would be no winning it over with affectionate ear scratches. This was a beast I would have to pin down and keep down until I broke its spirit.

“A green witch, a daughter of Nature itself,” it sneered, “and my kin’s carcass on her finger!”

Arcadis’s ring! Grandmother had said it had taken five diamonds to hold the wight’s power. Power—that’s how I’d understood it. Not a pure spirit’s body hacked into five pieces and stored as if in canopic jars. Oh my Green Mother . . ..

“I didn’t slay this creature.” Even my excuse sounded hollow in my ears.

“Yet you harness its spirit all the same!”

“No, I—”

“No? Then release my kin and let her return beyond the mist.”

“I can’t do that.” Marten would be lost forever. Arcadis wanted both his ring and the Samildánach in exchange for my brother.

The wolfhound howled and lunged for me again. A green shield turned its fangs away. The wight was fierce, but it was weak from captivity. It was more bark than bite, but it wouldn’t quit. It was an old dog who’d known nothing but abuse and loneliness, and any trust would be earned through blood.

“This ring is not for me to release, but ,” I said loudly so it could hear me over its wailing, “I can free you.”

“More lies!”

“You think so?” Again, my shield stood strong against the wight’s attack. It didn’t even crack or spark in response to the blow.

Now wasn’t the time to get cocky in my new strength, but a demonstration was in order. And, the disgustedly rational part of me argued, it was good practice for the demon half-heart.

With a thought, the shield expanded into a glittering net. The wolfhound dissipated into vapor, seeking an escape through the mesh, but the net had already solidified into a sphere. The wight threw itself against the green walls, but they didn’t crack. With another thought, the sphere began to shrink.

“Yes, Meadow.” Ossian’s voice sounded so far away. “Bend it to your will.”

The wight shrieked in rage.

I tightened the cage until the wight couldn’t do anything but condense into a tight cloud of swirling black smoke.

It was livid. “You’re in league with the Horned One!”

“It’s this,” I interrupted with forced calmness, “or this.”

The cage vanished. And the tunnel through the cloch barrier opened, wide and welcoming.

The wight transformed into that shadowy wolfhound once more and began to pace, its cloud-white eyes never wavering from the entrance to the tunnel. “You desecrated one wight but offer freedom to another?”

I huffed a sigh. “I told you, I—”

The wight struck.

Not for its freedom.

For me.

Warmth enveloped me—the touch of a pure spirit—but no peace came with it. Just a ravaging of my mind and spirit.

“Meadow!” shouted Ossian’s faraway voice.

The wight tore through my memories faster than my magic oak tree could react. Defending itself against fae and witches was one thing, but against a pure spirit old enough to remember when magic first came to the mortal realm? The oak tree’s leaves erupted with golden-green light like a sun exploding, and the wight was expelled .

The oak tree immediately threw out another green shield and barricaded the tunnel. Battle magic sprang from my cuffs and manifested as thorny vines that wreathed up my arms.

Meanwhile, the stunned, cloud-like wight somersaulted through the air. It was white as virgin wool and crackling with golden-green threads of lightning. It tumbled to the far side of the cloch and ruptured into a dozen tendrils of vapor against the barrier. The crackling threads of my magic dissipated into sparks, leaving the wight free to condense into whatever shape it wished.

Instead of a snarling wolfhound made of black smoke, it condensed into a docile Irish setter of white vapor. It looked sleek and healthy, not skinny and savage as its previous canine incarnation had been.

“That was very rude,” I said flatly.

“You are Violet Ní Dara’s daughter. Enemy of the Horned One. Keeper of Cats.”

“Shut your mouth!” Thistle thorns, if Ossian heard that about Sawyer—

The setter laughed, trotting up to me without a care in the world and stopping right on the edge of my shield. “He cannot hear me. His ears have long since been deaf to the natural world.”

Well I had ears, and there was something distinctly female in this wight’s voice now that it wasn’t raging. But gender meant nothing when it came to the art of deception and half-truths. My ivy-green eyes narrowed on the wight. This pure spirit had tricked me before. Its captivity had taught it something it never should’ve learned.

“I saw the truth in your memories. That ring—” The setter bristled, snarling once before mastering itself. “Was not your doing. And I know now why you can’t set my kin free to travel beyond the mist.”

The thorny vines of battle magic winked out, but the shield and the blockade on the tunnel remained. “I’m sorry,” I replied cautiously.

“My freedom?” it prompted.

“How can I be sure if I let you out you won’t do what you just did? You . . . you possessed me.” A ripple of revulsion like the scurrying of spider feet skittered down my spine. “I can’t be possessed. I have too much to do. Too much at stake.”

“A demonstration of my good will, then?”

“What can you do confined in here?”

The setter laughed, not at all offended. “My body, as you call it, is imprisoned, but my perception is not. I see all that happens here. I am a traveler of the In-Between, after all.”

To see everything but be powerless to do anything about it, much less free yourself? That had to be maddening. “You would take your revenge upon Ossian if I freed you.”

The setter morphed into the snarling wolfhound. “What allegiance do you owe him, Daughter of Violet?”

“None. But I can’t have you do that when I still need him to get to Elfame.”

“So your offer of freedom was as empty as—”

“No,” I snarled back. “It’s merely a ‘not yet.’ Besides, what would you like better? To take your revenge now when he’s at the height of his power and risk being imprisoned again, or wait until you can really hit him when it hurts?”

The wight returned to its setter form. “I did not know the meaning of the word devious until I came to be here. Nor revenge.”

“Does a snapping turtle blindly snap at a school of fish hoping to catch one, or does it patiently wait with its mouth open and its tongue wriggling like a worm to ensure it snares a meal? Or a Venus flytrap that delays closing its jaws until more than one sensory hair is triggered by a fly? Yet you would not call these devious.”

The setter sat. “I will wait until the time you free me, then. ”

“And you will not interfere with me or mine, including my Grandmother?”

If the wight knew I wasn’t responsible for the ring I wore, then it had seen in my memories who truly was.

“That is a tall order.”

“That is the price of your freedom,” I retorted. “My Grandmother has much to answer for, least of all to you.”

The setter swished its feathered tail and sat down with a huff. “It is agreed. I will leave you and the Defiler alone.”

“I’ve never had dealings with a wight before—how good is your word? You already know mine, having raided my memories.” I would be sour about that for a long time to come, no doubt.

“We do not make bargains like the Fair Folk, nor empty promises like the mortals. I will show you my good will. I will bring you to the man inside the bear.”

The man inside the— “Arthur?”

“Come back when you are alone. Come at night. And I will bring you to his dreams. They are his only comfort these days.” The setter’s attention shifted. “The Horned One grows suspicious. Farewell, Daughter of Violet. Keep your word, and I’ll keep mine.”