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CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

The snow that had started earlier this evening had lessened and the sky had broken through the clouds to release a little moonlight. But the storm was far from over—so much more was coming.

My feet knew the way to the portal. They raced over street and woodland and field, slowing only when I recognized a familiar white streak racing through a shorn soybean field. Two familiar white streaks, the wight weaving between the horse’s legs and lending speed and endurance.

Flora released one paw from where she held Daphne’s mane in a death grip and flung it into the air. “Meadow!”

The Arabian mare slowed from her gallop to an easy canter, her breath blasting in frosty jets from her nostrils. I slowed the Rabbit Step Spell to match, and Gwyn transformed from formless vapor into the shape of the Irish setter. She spun a circle around me, sending the snowflakes into a spiral. “You kept your word, Violet’s Daughter. Much gratitude.”

“That looks like a key around your neck. Well done, cider witch!” the honey badger praised.

“It’s just you,” Emmett whispered .

Cody whipped around, looking back the way we had all come, his bottom lip trembling. “Where’s the boy?”

“Why do you have that sword?” Shari asked nervously.

Unable to hold my grief back any longer, I stumbled fully out of the Rabbit Step Spell and released a chest-wracking sob. Daphne dug her heels into the field, sliding herself to a stop. I buried my face into the silken braid of her mane, just for a moment. Just to let myself feel before I had to shove every emotion down and focus on the task at hand.

Lewellyn’s words, which I had been suppressing since the castle, rang like a death knell: ‘ Damn it, Arthur, you’ve been a bear too long. You’ve only got one shift left in you, don’t you?’

“Where’s my boy?” Cody hollered. Emmett tried to restrain his friend, but the beaver fought to dismount. “Let me go! Where’s Arthur?”

My voice was a broken mess of heartbreak. “The bear stayed behind so we could get away.”

“Bear?” He knew what that meant. Cody renewed his struggling, but the honey badger put him in a headlock.

“Don’t you dare,” Flora snapped.

“Everybody make room,” Daphne ordered. “Meadow, dear, get on. I’ll get you there.”

“He gave her the sword so Ossian couldn’t use it against anyone else,” Sawyer told them when we were all seated and moving again, the wight once again helping Daphne manage.

And it was all I could manage to stay on the horse. I couldn’t shake that final image of the bear—my Arthur—flinging himself at the Stag Man and the fae king heaving that mountain of a grizzly off him with the same effort he’d use on a forty-pound burlap sack of potatoes.

“Arthur is so much stronger than either of us knew,” Sawyer assured me through the bond. The cat leaned against me from where he sat wedged between my thighs .

I didn’t reply. In fact, I wasn’t sure I could form a single coherent thought. There were only fragments buzzing away up there—portal, Wandering Mirror, Arcadis, Marten, Arthur. Arthur, Arthur, Arthur.

Had Lewellyn gotten out? What of the prisoners? Grandmother? And the Coalition rescue party, what of them? Did they know one of their own battled for his life at this very moment? And my family hiding in Grandpappy’s secret whiskey cellar—

“You’ll drive us both insane thinking like that,” came Sawyer’s voice again. His tone only held a hint of chastisement. “You can’t be responsible for the actions of everyone.”

“But I am responsible.”

My cat familiar would not be deterred and tried again. “Make it manageable. First things first and second things second.”

The portal of starlight appeared as Daphne crested the hill. There were no Brothers standing guard—stretched too thin, they had more important things to guard than a locked portal. From where the key was stuffed between my breasts, warmth bloomed and the purr-like vibrations hummed stronger. Like was recognizing like.

A gust from the incoming storm cut through the veil of snowflakes and brought the faint perfume of composting apples and sweet hay. Daphne’s hooves hit the country road a moment after, a steady trot bringing us closer to the clover field.

“I will alert your family to expect your friends,” the wight told me. “Then I am gone, Violet’s Daughter.”

“You were—are—incredible, Gwyn. I can’t thank you enough.”

“Gwyn?”

I flushed. “Sorry, it’s what I call you in my head. To make you more personable than just ‘the wight.’”

The wight seemed to hum. “Gwyn,” it mused, testing the name out. The Irish setter loped off towards the apple orchard, still murmuring. “Gwyn. ”

Daphne dipped her head, navigating the drainage ditch between road and field, and after a few well-placed steps, her hooves were crunching down on the frost-covered clover. As we approached, the glow of the portal dimmed so every detail from the filigree archway to the keyhole on the door could be admired. It seemed as delicate as glass, belying the strength of the magic within. Like my oak tree, the door was solid, glittering opal.

Even though I’d seen it before, I joined my friends in collectively holding our breaths in shared awe.

“You anchored this ?” Flora gasped. “It’s incredible.”

“I can’t even weave something that intricate,” Shari said.

“It’s a bit bright for my old eyes,” Cody groused, rubbing angrily at the tears spilling over their corners.

Emmett kindly handed him a handkerchief from his satchel.

“This is far enough,” I told Daphne, sweeping my fingers under my eyes to dry them one last time. “Sawyer and I can manage from here.”

“But you don’t need to, dear. Rest. Let me carry you a while yet.”

“You should all get to the farmhouse,” I urged. “It’s not safe.”

“Good thing there’s better safety in numbers,” Flora said. “Tallyho, Daph!”

Sawyer nuzzled me as something inside me unclenched at the generosity of my friends. I didn’t deserve them, but I was going to try to be worthy of them.

A minute later, Daphne stopped an arm’s length from the portal and swung her hindquarters around so she was parallel to the opal door. Shortened the distance so I wouldn’t have to take any unnecessary steps. If I really wanted to, I could simply lean over and insert the key into the lock from where I was seated on her back. The chain was certainly long enough for that .

This close, we could all hear the soft melody of the portal, the call to the immortal lands.

“Three days,” I murmured. “Three days until the winter solstice and Marten is locked away forever in the Unseelie Court.”

“Focus on finding the Samildánach, cider witch,” Flora said briskly. “We’ll take care of everything else.”

“And hide that sword,” Shari added.

I turned around to face them: Shari, Emmett, Cody, Flora, and Daphne. Despite the Caer powder, the illusions, and the lies, our friendships had always persevered. There was nothing left to say except, “Thank you, my friends.”

“Go on now, miss,” Emmett encouraged. He winked at Sawyer. “Y’all come back in one piece, hear?”

Smiling, I rocked forward to dismount when a battle cry splintered the night air.

On the moonlit hill behind us stood the Stag Man. He was covered in blood, and his jewel-bright eyes blazed like twin green stars. He threw his head back with another howl, antlers tearing across the sky, and became a blur as he bolted down the hill.

“He’s too fast,” Daphne whispered, quaking. “I’ll never make it to the farmhouse.”

And not a Coalition enforcer or a Hawthorne witch in sight.

There was only one option, but I wasn’t going to make the decision without them. “Come with me,” I cried.

“Like we have a choice?” Cody exclaimed.

“Do it!” Flora shouted.

I leaned over and shoved the filigree key home into the lock.

A ripple radiated from the lock as if the opal door were made of liquid instead of crystal. The lock and door disappeared entirely, the key dropping back against my stomach. From the other side of the archway, seemingly separated only by the thinnest gossamer veil or the film of a soap bubble, there was a breathy exhale from the immortal lands—that fresh air of a lush wildflower field on a crisp springtime night.

“Daphne!” Shari shrieked.

The mare surged forward.

My skin prickled and the hair rose on my arms as we passed through the archway. I took only a moment to breathe, the vibrant scents convincing me I truly was no longer in Redbud, before I flung myself from the horse.

Daphne’s rear hooves hadn’t even touched the ground, her tail still suspended between Elfame and Redbud, when I shoved my hand down into my boot. I threw the hickory nuts through the veil as I screamed the incantation and thrust out with the key.

Oh my Green Mother, let them work this time!

On the other side of the veil, Ossian was terrifyingly close. His jewel-bright eyes glowing green, the glow of the portal reflecting in his shiny antlers, his mouth open mid-roar, his body pitched mid-lunge as his fingers clawed after Daphne’s disappearing tail.

The hickory nuts took root at his feet, glowing green threads spearing into the ground like roots and racing up his legs like supercharged bean sprouts.

In the same second, the filigree key struck the veil, and the gossamer film crystallized. A silver filigree lock formed around the key, a bolt shuttled into place, and the opal door appeared once more.

The Stag Man’s face disappeared mere inches from mine.

A boom on the other side of the portal startled a yelp out of me and a backwards scuttle of steps. I tripped over the hem of Ossian’s cloak I still wore and fell flat on my back. Supine for only a second, I lurched into a sitting position with magic boiling from my hands in anticipation of an enraged high fae pouncing down on me.

But the way was shut.

I waited a shuddering breath or two, eyes and magic glued to the portal, just to be sure.

No Ossian.

Then something tickling my nose jerked my attention upwards.

Fine white strands—severed hair—drifted down onto my face like torn pieces of spiderwebs.

Daphne. Her tail had still been in the portal when I’d locked it behind us.

With a heave, I rolled onto my hands and knees and then upright, stooping once to reclaim Faebane where I’d dropped it. Where the iron point had embedded in the earth, there was a scorch mark. I’d heal that patch later, after I checked on Daphne.

The white horse was nowhere to be found.

Instead, a tall woman in a buckskin skirt and a fringed shawl I hadn’t seen in a long time was examining the shorn end of her long white braid. It was a good foot or two shorter than I remembered it, and the majority of Shari’s macramé held. Beside her was an elderly gentleman in denim overalls, squinting and wiping his wire-rimmed spectacles, and a twiggy old man in a plaid shirt, khakis, and suspenders stretched out his popping back.

Beside them was a forty-something brunette with wingtip glasses, frantically looking in her pockets for a piece of yarn and a crochet hook so she could craft away her anxiety. And seated in the lush grass amidst the tiny star-shaped flowers was a garden gnome bawling her eyes out.

“I miss my fangs and claws,” Flora sobbed. “Where did all my muscles go? ”

“At least you have your magic back, dear,” Daphne consoled her.

Flora sneezed once, twice, the third time knocking her flat on her back. She wailed again. “And I’ve got allergies again!”

“Shhh,” Sawyer hissed, pouncing the pint-sized gnome and pressing his paw over her mouth. He cast a wary look over his shoulder, ruddy nose sniffing. “We’re not alone.”

“No, you are not,” agreed a regal voice.