Page 36 of The Moorwitch
“You’ve done well, positioning yourself in this manor. Its proximity to the gateway will be a boon. Just remember, you aremylittle witch, Rose Pryor.” With a half smile, he takes the sprig of evergreen from his lapel and tucks it behind my ear. “I found you first.”
“I am my own, sir,” I reply hotly. “And not a pet to be led on a leash.”
He chuckles bitterly. “Imagine howIfelt, twelve years ago, being summoned through the ether by a child of eight, with naught a say in the matter.” He quirks an eyebrow at me, then smiles. “There you go again, blushing.”
I lower my face, resisting the urge to cover my cheeks with my hands. “Mr. Murdoch—”
“Please.” He grimaces. “Call me Lachlan.”
“Lachlan, then. What if you had never asked of me thisfavor? What if I had turned twenty-one without ever having seen your face a second time?”
His eyes drift away, the smile fading. His features are as cool and still as carved alabaster. “Then you would have still lost your magic. So perhaps, instead of accusing me as if I were some sort of common kidnapper, you might try thanking me for choosing you to accompany me on this mission.”
“Whydidyou choose me, a penniless teacher with unreliable magic?”
He gazes not at me, but at the horizon beyond me, turning ancient and unfathomable in that unnerving manner of his. “You possess qualities more valuable than magic.”
“And what, do tell, are these? What talents, what virtues, what wiles do I possess that make me sovaluableto you?” I’m not sure why I need to know. Perhaps the discovery of Fiona unsettled me more than I realized.
He stares at me now, looking a bit lost, his lips parted but no words between them.
“What am I to you, Lachlan of the fae?”
His hand rises again, this time to stroke one finger along the back of my wrist. Though his touch sends a cold shiver up my arm, I do not flinch. I can make no sense of the glint in his eyes, whether it is disdain or affection. I return his gaze, wondering what he wants. Who he is, really, behind his absurd clothes and mirror-gray eyes. What does he truly think of me? Am I just a tool to him, or something more? And if more ... then what?
He gives me no answers. His hand falls away, and he rises to his feet with a sigh. I nearly reach out to stop him, then retract my hand, bewildered by my own reaction. How does he draw me in like this, stirring up ...somethingdeep inside me, then leaving me feeling twisted and confused?
“I am relying on you, Miss Pryor. We all are. When I sent Fiona in, things were not as dire. But now we are growing desperate, and you’re the only hope we have. That is why I chose you. Because you were clever and fearless, a girl who wove like a moorwitch of old. I knew the moment I met you, twelve years ago, that you would be my finest investment ...”
His words wash through me like a rush of wine down my throat, bringing warmth to my cheeks and a whirl of lightness to my head, but all the same, they leave behind a tinge of unease. For all that I’ve spentthe last week in his company, I still have no idea how to read him, and how to winnow the truth from the flattery in his words.
“But now I must wonder ...” He glances at me. “Are you still that girl?”
I reflect on that uneasily, unsure of the answer. “Why are you desperate?”
He extends his hand. “Come, and I will show you.”
He leads me deeper into the ruins, where some of the old chambers are still intact, stone ceilings half fallen but the remnants sturdy enough. In one of these, on a bed of silk and evergreen branches, lies a faerie woman.
Her skin is ashen, flaking off her bones. There is not a drop of color in her; she is all grays and shadow, her cheeks sunken, her eyes hollows. I need only a glance to tell me she is dying. A few other fae sit around her, singing a strange, low song in monotone, Weaving charms between their hands and embroidering spells onto her green silk dress, but I sense their magic will not stop what is coming.
“This is what becomes of us the longer we linger in the World Above, among your iron and mortality,” says Lachlan. “We call it our iron tithe.”
He kneels by the faerie and takes her hand, kissing her fingers.
“My Lorellan,” he sighs. “I was too late to save you, and that is a burden I will bear all my days.”
The faerie seems too far gone to even acknowledge his presence. I think guiltily of the iron hidden beneath my skirt and back away a little, waiting for him to finish paying his respects.
We leave quietly, Lachlan subdued. He looks weary, his eyes shadowed. A cold wind wraps around us as we walk through the ruins, swirling his hair.
“Do you understand now?” he asks me.
“I think I do.”
He pauses beneath a half-crumbled archway and studies me, the slope of the ground between us making him seem to loom. When thewind drags a length of hair from my braid, he tucks it behind my ear. I catch my breath, unable to look away from his glistening eyes. A single, silver tear beads in the corner of his left eye, then rolls slowly down his cheek.
Feeling half lost in a dream, I wipe it away with my thumb. He takes my wrist, trapping the knuckle of my forefinger against the corner of his lips.