Page 50 of The Moorwitch

But then he looks away, his jaw clenching, and says nothing.

I stare at the dregs slowly circling the bottom of my cup. “I suppose I should go pack.”

“I invited you to stay and I’ll not go back on my word.” He considers me with a studying eye. “I’ll be away for a few days. More business on the estate, and ’tis too far to ride back and forth. Just swear you will not teach her so much as a wart hex.”

“Well,” I say. “Thatisa useful hex.”

“Please. Rose.”

It’s the first time he’s used my first name like that. The sound of it in his rough, low Scotsman’s brogue unexpectedly startles me, like a cool wind over simmering coals.

“I swear it,” I say softly. “By the soul of my dear aunt, who was like a mother to me, I swear it ... Conrad.”

He nods, satisfied, thinking all is settled between us. Thinking he has got his way.

Fault number five:Dishonesty.

I am a very good liar.

Chapter Fifteen

The next morning, I leave a note in the kitchen saying that I’ve gone to Blackswire to see if I might find word of my still-absent “employer” and his tragic, lingering, unspecified illness. Along with it is a list of assignments for Sylvie to occupy herself with, mainly arithmetic worksheets I wrote out before dawn. I finished them just as the sun rose tepidly over the moors, its light muted by a layer of pale clouds. From my window, I watched the laird of Ravensgate ride off on his big horse, his dog trailing after, toward the north. The opposite direction of the village, thankfully.

I was not able to sleep after bidding Mr. North—Conrad—a good night. Despite our truce, I found myself pacing my room for hours after, thinking of our argument, and of how young and lost he’d looked, sitting on the hearth with his head in his hands. Thinking of Sylvie kneeling in her room, threads webbed between us, her eyes glowing with delight as she brought snowflakes spiraling down from the ceiling.

I will help her as much as I can.

But I cannot forget the real reason I am here, nor the deadline creeping ever nearer. Another foray into the woods, in search of the gateway to Elfhame, is just the thing to clear the knotted tangle of the North family from my thoughts.

I have the stolen map in my pocket, but rather than thrashing about in the woods again, I decide to try a different approach. After all, someone else found the faerie doorway long ago—perhaps she left a clue behind.

I find Fiona’s cottage easily enough, and shiver when I pass her grave. I realize I never found outhowshe died, and had assumed it had been old age. But what if it wasn’t? What if some other fate befell her? If so, her belongings turn up no clues, but I do find something of interest—a sketch hidden among the pile of letters, showing a modified wayfinding knot.

“Clever old girl,” I murmur, threading my string between my fingers to copy it.

It takes a true master of the craft to fashion new spells from old ones, rearranging threads in such a way as to alter their original purposes. This spell, when I’ve channeled into it, pulling energy from the abundant moss on the walls and roof, produces a hovering bead of light much like the north-finding spell that led me to the cottage in the first place. But this one burns red, not blue, and it zips around urgently, waiting for me to follow.

I am glad to leave the cottage behind, and I let the red light lead me into the trees and off the path entirely.

Over the crack and crunch of my footsteps, the woods seem to whisper, and I catch myself whirling more than once, eyes questing in search of some elusive follower. The shadows in the trees move furtively, giving the illusion of cloaks vanishing behind stones or eyes closing the moment I look their way. My arms are stippled with goose bumps that do not fade. I imagine the ghosts of the old moorwitches lurking in the gloom, their fingers Weaving dark magic.

After nearly an hour of tramping along over mounds of moss and carpets of pine needles, the wayfinding spell suddenly fades with a soft hiss, leaving me alone.

I stop dead, my heart missing a beat.

But there is nothing here. No door, no arch, no cave.

I must be close, or the spell wouldn’t have fizzled out. That, or the spell was a dud to begin with.

Well, there’s not much I can lose by forging ahead and hoping for the best.

The further I walk, the stranger the wood seems. It feels as though I have been walking for hours, and yet the sun never changes positions in the sky, and though I swear I walk in a straight line, I begin to see the same trees and rocks over and over again, until I’m certain it’s not a trick of my eyes. The light here is weak and broken with shadows of jagged branches, and in the ravines swirl malevolent mists.

I press on, and twice pass a rock that juts from a high bank, shaped curiously like a turtle’s head. The second time, I stop and grasp my threadkit.

I’m not lost at all.

I’m being misdirected on purpose. Someone has woven a confounding charm of some sort to nudge me away whenever I get close to my quarry—Fiona’s wayfinding spellhadworked, but the charm or some other ward must have stopped it before it reached its destination.