Page 101 of The Moorwitch

But today, I’ll set things right, or as right as they may be set. I hope he will come to understand that and hate me a little less.

Drawing a few deep, bracing breaths, I start toward the tapestry—and freeze when someone pounds on my door.

“Rose!” Conrad calls, all out of breath. “Is my sister in there?”

In one motion, I pull down the tapestry and shove it beneath the bed. As an afterthought, I stow the valise too. Then I throw open the door.

Conrad is wild-eyed and unkempt, an unshaven shadow on his jaw. He has one hand on the door, the other gripping Sylvie’s fur cloak. Raw panic burns in his gaze.

“What happened?” I ask.

“We argued this morning, and then she ran into the moor. I set Captain on her trail, but all we found was this.” He raises the cloak. “Her trailended, Rose, in the middle of nowhere. I tried a finding spell, but the trail justended. What does that mean?”

“Where did the trail stop?”

His face hardens. “Southeast. At the ward’s edge. It’s as if she vanished.”

The blood drains from my face as a stifling wave of foreboding rises in me, a storm cloud of dread.

Southeast is the direction in which Lachlan’s castle lies.

Fates, no. Please no.

“Go,” I say. “You search east, and I’ll go south.”

“She left. She took her bag with her.” His eyes are hollow. “My father left, and he didn’t come back. My mother—”

“We will find her,” I say firmly. “Go, and I’ll set out once I’ve put together my threadkit.”

The pain in his eyes tears at me. It takes all my strength to shut the door, to shut him out. I hear him walk away, his breathing tight and panicked.

I drag the tapestry out from beneath the bed and hang it up again, then take hold of the guide thread. With a deep inhale, I push into it, parting the fibers with my free hand and shutting my eyes against the swirling, writhing chaos beyond it. The whispering roar of the threads fills my ears, and I do my best to shut it out and follow the guide thread to the other side.

Stepping into the castle, I exhale and shiver, still feeling the effects of the passage. It always takes a few moments to clear my head, even when I’ve kept my eyes shut the whole time. Once the dizziness passes and the roar of the threads fades from my ears, I look around.

And find the castle entirely deserted.

Lachlan is gone, as are all his fae. And they’ve taken everything with them: the carpets and tents, chairs and tables. Not even the grass is flattened where they lay. Only the Telarian tapestry remains, exactly as it had before, hung on the old stone wall.

It’s as if they never were.

I stand in the center of the collapsed great hall and listen to the wind whistling through the cracks in the stone walls. My scalp crawls, and my stomach tumbles with alarm.

Where did he go? Did he abandon his mission? Did he abandonme?

No; Lachlan wouldn’t give up this easily. Perhaps someone came upon the castle and found the fae, and they had to retreat to another camp. If so, he would have left some way for me to find him.

I look around more carefully then, this time searching for some hidden message. It isn’t long before I find it: a silver thread wrapped around the half-fallen archway into the upper rooms. I take hold of it and follow, just as I’d followed the guideline through the tapestry portals.

The day is fair but won’t be for long. Clouds brood in the east and cast a malevolent eye on these sunny hills, plotting rain. With no houses or fences in sight, and even the ruins lost to view behind me, I feel I’ve reached the end of the world. Lachlan’s silken thread slides over my palm, a whisper against my skin.

I must walk two miles before I see his tent, a small simple pavilion of white linen draped over wooden poles, with ribbons fluttering from the corners and a silver banner streaming sinuously from the highest point, like a dragon’s tail snapping in the breeze. Below it sits a table and two chairs.

Him in one.

In the other, Sylvie.

I break into a run, dropping the silver thread and shouting until my lungs feel raw. I call her name, my stomach clenching and fear shooting through my veins. My feet fly over the heather with a nimbleness I did not know I possessed.