Page 50 of The Howling (Monsters of the Yeavering #2)

W e approach a large standing stone set within a circle of smaller stones next to the rough track.

“And Linton disappeared the same time as the Faerie arrived?” I query Lilburn, who has been describing, with some glee, the chaos which ensued when the Faerie took Reavely.

“Typical Bluecap, doesn’t want to get his wings wet,” she grumbles.

“What if he was in on all of this? What if he didn’t come to warn us like he said?”

“Bluecaps are many things.” Lilburn brightens a little. “Assassins, insanity engines, dangerous, but the one thing they are above everything else is loyal.”

“Yes, but where do his loyalties lie?” I mutter as Lilburn approaches one of the smaller stones and chants an incantation.

The small jewel, now around my neck and tucked in my clothing, has a presence I can’t quite shake, as if it’s waiting for something.

It can wait a long time as far as I’m concerned. I’m a human without magic, and I cannot pluck whatever it holds to wield it for myself.

I’d prefer to have Lorelei instead.

There’s a swishing sound which rises behind the largest of the standing stones and the world around it ripples.

“Looks like the Faerie didn’t mess with the portal.” Lilburn grins at me. “Are you ready?”

“No, but I doubt that makes any difference.”

Lilburn links her arm in mine. “Then it’s time to go.”

She marches me forward, directly at the stone. I keep pace with her, and as I think I’m about to walk straight into it, bracing myself for the impact, I’m turned upside down, inside out, and then spat out.

It causes me to lose the meagre amount of food I ate earlier in preparation.

“What the hell was that?” I growl, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.

“You really don’t do well with portals, do you?” Lilburn offers me her paw and helps me to my feet.

My stomach rolls.

“Please tell me we don’t need to go through any more,” I groan.

“You’ll do anything for your mate, but you won’t do any more portals, is that it?” Lilburn chuckles and hands me a water pouch.

I swill my mouth out and spit again to get rid of the taste while glaring at her.

“You could have warned me.”

“I could. But I didn’t,” my mischief sprite companion says.

“When this is over, we are no longer friends,” I grumble.

“Too late. Once you’ve made a friend of the Hedley Kow, you will never be rid of me,” Lilburn says, taking the water pouch back from me. “And if we want to make it to the Vindolanda before dark, we need to get moving.”

I get to my feet, the last of the wooziness leaving me, and see there is a rough track heading between two featureless grassy mounds.

Lilburn strikes out ahead, and I have to up my pace to catch her.

“Is your plan really to hand yourself over to Lord Soulis?” she asks.

“I know you saved me from him once,” I reply with a smile, “and despite the loss of consciousness, I do appreciate it. It’s given us an advantage.”

“What? In being slaughtered?” Lilburn snorts. “Don’t forget I worked for the Faerie. I know what they’re capable of.”

“And I don’t?”

Lilburn’s face darkens. “What you saw in the dungeons was nothing compared to what they do elsewhere, like in the Night Lands.”

“I thought they were fighting in the Night Lands. Reavely said it was demons, Reivers he called them.”

“The Reivers were the creatures helping out Lord Soulis. What he was fighting was another faction of the Faerie in their original forms.”

“He and Linton were fighting Faerie for the Faerie? How do you know?”

“No one asks the Hedley Kow anything, but I know many things,” she says enigmatically. “To be in the right place at the right time is one of them.”

That, I cannot deny.

“Given the Faerie are a bunch of twats, why is one faction fighting the other?”

“The Night Lands are debatable lands,” Lilburn says. “They hold the older magic, the older Faerie who didn’t want to go beyond the veil like Queen Mab and the others. They didn’t think it was right to take humans or to reveal the Yeavering to the human world.”

“So”—I attempt to wrap my head around what she’s telling me—“they’re sort of good Faerie? And Reavely, Linton, and others were sent to kill them?”

“No Faerie is a good Faerie,” Lilburn says, her voice low. “Some are less worse than others and none can be trusted.”

“The Night Lands are the battleground, and one the current cohort of Faerie don’t want to dirty their hands with?”

“I knew I liked you,” Lilburn says with her customary grin. “You’re smart as a whip.”

“As a thirty-four-year-old woman, I will take that praise.” I roll my eyes.

“Nothing but a youngster.” Lilburn laughs. “I’m three hundred of your human years old, and I’m just getting started.”

“You’re three hundred years old? Wow,” I say, and she puffs up a little. “I wouldn’t have said you were a day over four hundred,” I add with a sidelong look at her.

Lilburn growls under her breath at me. “Your Barghest is welcome to you, when we get to Vindolanda, just you wait.”

I laugh because if I don’t, one hundred percent, I am going to cry.