Page 124 of The Moorwitch
Hearing a sudden crash behind me, I whirl and see vines springing from the earth. They grow up and over the half-destroyed manor, thick as ropes, then thick as trunks. They push into the broken windows and wind over the eaves like the tentacles of a kraken consuming a ship. Mrs. MacDougal cries out, and Sylvie gasps.
“You still don’t understand,” sighs Lachlan, still channeling, as his vines wrap and weave over Ravensgate. “It was never the branch I needed, it was thebreakingof the branch.”
I remember the way the queen’s palace had begun to splinter apart, red sap leaking from the walls.
“The Dwirra,” I realize.
“It is dying,” confirms Lachlan. “Such was the weakness of the Dwirra—that no mortal should harm it, lest it wither like a blighted stalk. Morgaine’s fragile haven is collapsing, and she and all her fae will soon be driven out intothisworld. The Dwirra will fall, and with it, the World Below will be destroyed entirely.”
“How can you rule it if you destroy it?” I cry.
“Oh, Rose.” He smiles. “I never wanted to ruleit.”
Understanding dawns; of course I should have seen it sooner. The way he spoke of Elfhame, with disgust and disdain, disparaging his people for withdrawing beneath the world and hiding like rabbits. It is not Elfhame he wishes to conquer at all.
It isourworld.
The World Above, London and Edinburgh and Liverpool and these moors.
The lands the fae once reigned over as near gods, their original kingdom. That is what Lachlan covets most—the glorious lost days ofhis people’s zenith, when mortals existed to bow and serve and sacrifice themselves for their beautiful and terrible overlords.
I gaze at him, feeling horror and anger, but most of all, surprisingly—pity. I feel, for the first time, as if our positions were reversed. Even as I stand dying before him, the weight of his cursed debt crushing my heart, I look at him and see that for all his might and beauty, he is small and desperate and destined to fail. It is a strange thing, to look on a god and see only a fool.
But he is a fool who will kill thousands of people before he realizes how impossible his dream is. And I will be the first casualty.
“You have to know that will never happen,” I cry. “There are not nearly enough of you, even if you were all at the height of your power. We have rifles and bullets now, Lachlan. We have iron enough to nail down the sky. You said it yourself—magic is fading from the world.”
He glowers; I’ve angered him.
“There is still time to change that,” he snarls. “The tide can yet be turned.”
Looking down at the broken bits of the Dwirra branch, I realize it doesn’t matter whether I can talk him out of his mad venture. The damage is already done. By destroying the Dwirra, he is forcing the other fae to join him. With nowhere to retreat to, they’ll have to either fight with him in hope of taking back their old lands, or else die like the mortals they despise, sickened and poisoned by our iron world. In destroying the one safe haven they had left, Lachlan has thrust all his kind into a battle for their survival. That is what he meant by restoring his strength—his strength of numbers, all the fae united under his banner, and Morgaine left with no one to rule at all. Would she join him, I wonder, seeing no other alternative but a slow and painful demise? Likely he would kill her outright no matter what, and Sylvie too.
I sink to my knees and cry out, my vision blackening, my consciousness slipping. The pain is sharp and pointed, and this time Iknow there will be no more fending it off. My heart is shattering piece by piece, and the shards drive into my lungs.
Lachlan’s eyes move on to his niece, as if I am already forgotten, as if he considers me already dead.
“Come here, Sylvie North,” he says.
“No!” She blazes with defiance, holding fast to my hand still. “Fix Rose now! Whatever you did to her—”
“You’ve awakened to your immortal self, beloved niece. Don’t you know what you are? Pledge fealty to me, spin a vowknot of loyalty, and you will reign as a queen.”
“I don’t need to bow to some nattering old fool to be queen,” she snaps. “I’ll be and do whatever I please, and right now, I’m thinking I’d like to smash your ugly nose in.”
He blinks, looking taken aback, and that is all the time Sylvie needs, apparently.
She’s been Weaving all the while, I realize, pulling thread from a tear in her skirt, hands behind her back. It is the knot I taught her to animate a broom, which makes sweeping a dusty floor a moment’s work.
But Sylvie doesn’t use it on a broom.
Instead she turns and channels fast, before any of us have finished digesting the fact she wove it at all.
From the rooftop of the manor, a dozen stone gargoyles launch themselves from the eaves with stony rumbles. They dive, shrieking, at Lachlan. Captain barks and lunges at the faerie too, but Sylvie shouts his name, and he turns back to us.
While the faerie scrambles to fend them off, drawing his silver sword and knocking one from the air with a metallic clang, Sylvie pulls me up and the MacDougals run forward.
The old couple help drag me into the house, and Sylvie slams the doors shut behind us and the dog. The air here is still smoky, and everything is charred and covered in soot, but now great swollen vines twist through the house as well, like fat snakes.