Page 112 of The Moorwitch

There!

I don’t wait a moment to double-check the knot; I channel fast and recklessly, pulling from the ivy just unfurling new leaves outside my window. They wither and go dry, a shoddy bit of work on my part, but I don’t care much about the rules right now.

The hair crumbles to ash almost as soon as it flares with magic. That is how thin and poor a material it is. But it works.

The nail holding the sconce to the wall pops loose and drops with a softtinkon the floorboards, helped along, no doubt, by my wild thrashing earlier.

With a sob of relief, I pry the wooden manacle off my other hand and then pitch forward onto my knees. It takes me a moment to rise again. I hadn’t realized how much strength I’d expended in my struggle, unless my weakness is in part due to the draining of my heart. It pulses red hot as I lurch upright, every beat driving the pain deeper, as if it were working its way to my soul.

“Right,” I say through my teeth, as I wrap the ribbons from the drapes around my bloody wrists as makeshift bandages. The sea silk I bind around the left, over the ribbon. “Now for the difficult part.”

The circle is deserted when I reach it. Roman dances beneath me, withers shifting as he sidesteps nervously just outside the stones. I slide to the ground and pat his haunch, giving him permission to run home. He bolts with his tail raised like a white silk banner, though he pauses at the tree line to give me a guilty look.

“Get out of here,” I say, waving a hand. And either his fear or the empathy knot I tied in his mane does the trick. He vanishes into the trees, a ghost into the night.

The unnatural stillness of the circle is a smothering pall on the air. The stones themselves loom defiantly, mottled gray under the full moon that hangs above. The grass is as thick as fur, silver and long, the stalks already bending beneath pearls of dew. My skirts are soon damp.

The wet grass proves to be my advantage: I see the imprinted traces of Conrad’s boots in it. He passed through not long ago and unwittingly left a path for me.

I make my way through the spider-thread wards, careful step by careful step, placing my shoes in Conrad’s prints. I brace, ready to be hurled off my feet as I was the first time I snooped around the circle. But I make it through unharmed and let out a relieved breath.

Striding to the center of the circle, I keep my chin high, as if to prove to the stones that I am not afraid. They are like a silent ring of judges, gazing into my soul, my past, my purposes, draining the truth of me from my bones. They are so very impassive, like the Sphinx from the old stories, or the Delphi oracle.

“If you’ve any wisdom to share,” I say, glaring at the largest of them, “don’t be stingy about it.”

I shiver as I feel the sudden sense of pressure in the air, as if the stones wereleaningtoward me.

On second thought, maybe I ought not provoke them.

Instead, I sink onto the ground, my dirty, damp gray skirt pooling around me. I look up at the stones, the budding branches of the oaksand yews, the soft glow of the moon. The cool air of the forest seeps into my skin and wraps around my heart like a balm. I savor it, drink it in, let it soothe the pain in my wrists and chest.

I think of Conrad North.

I think of him standing in this spot, weeks ago, thread unspooling between his fingers. But I cannot remember the pattern, only the shape of him against the dark, dancing among the stones ...

Dancing.

I recall with a start when he put his hand on my waist and spun me on the floor of Elfhame, to the furious drumming of the immortal band. That night, beneath the glowing fruit of the Dwirra Tree, he’d been more than a laird—a prince, his hair glittering with faerie dust, his eyes holding secrets like candle flames behind dark windows. How sure of the steps he’d been then, how sure of his place in the dance, even though he’d been not at all sure of me. I think of him that night, remembered through the smoky haze of the fae forgetting spells, so that the edges of the memories are all faded, soft paper handled over many years. I feel the heat of his hand on my waist, the strength of his grip, the command in his eyes. He did not have to intercede for me that night. He could easily have let Morgaine expunge my memory and keep me as her pet or servant or footstool.

But he hadn’t.

Instead, he’d riskedhislife to speak for mine. He’d bought my freedom with his troth, and it was my faithlessness and foolish fears which had deceived him, made him think me worthier than I am.

I will not let him die for me.

I will not let these stones outwit me.

With the memory of that dance sharpening in my thoughts, I rise and take up a spool of white thread.

I know that to open the way to the faerie green,Lachlan had told me,you must pay homage to its queen.

Now I understand, and I unwind the thread as I begin to dance.

I cannot think beyond the moment, beyond a single step. I don’t know the full measure of the faerie’s dance, how it begins or how it ends, I only know what it felt like to dance those steps with Conrad holding me fast. I only know how I felt when he bent his head to mine and whispered in my ear, so that I could feel the heat of his breath on my bare neck.

Keep your eyes on me.

I imagine him here with me now, the fire in his tiger eyes, the warmth of his skin, the smell of the juniper in his lapel and his bergamot soap, as he guides me from stone to stone, his hand on mine as thread feeds through my fingers.