Page 74 of The Moorwitch

With a snicker, he turns and continues walking.

The bloody-minded arse.

At last we burst into a round room with an open floor; in the wood walls are set a series of alcoves, each one holding a large circular frame of silver, as if they once held mirrors. But they are all empty and covered with cobwebs now, except for one, in which is set a smooth pane ofmurky glass. It reflects not our own faces, but a watery image of the stone circle in the wood.

This is the anchor, I realize. The place the portaloughtto have led me when I followed Conrad through.

“Go on,” Conrad says roughly.

I put a hand on the glass and find it soft as jelly. With a little gasp, I pull it out again, but Conrad has no patience for my dawdling. He steps through, yanking me along. We burst out into the dark forest, the ring of stones all around.

“Conrad North!” I shout, panting. “I demand an explan—”

“Quiet, lass,” he replies, and he raises a small spellknot twisted between his fingers. I realize it’s a sleeping spell at the same moment blackness swims up and swallows me whole.

Chapter Twenty-Three

I wake in a narrow cot in a one-room stone cottage. Across a rough wooden floor sits a small hearth. A low blaze burns cheerfully in it, with a pot of fresh-brewed tea set nearby. The place smells of woodsmoke and bergamot shaving soap—Conrad’s scent. It startles me how easily I recognize it.

Pushing out of the bed, I find my limbs languid; the sleeping spell he put on me had cast me into a deep and dreamless slumber, and my mind struggles to emerge from it. I’m still in the elaborate gown Morgaine had thrust at me. In this rustic place, I feel completely ridiculous in it. My wrist bears the slight indentations of the ribbon that had bound Conrad and me together. But for these details, I would think the events of yestereve a strange dream.

My hand flies to my lips and finds them no longer swollen, but the memory of Conrad’s kiss is no less dim in my mind.

Fates, Ikissedhim.

And ... I did more than that.

The night’s events come swimming back like a bad dream, including the part where the faerie’s mind-altering spells had sent me spiraling into a lustful frenzy.

Did I really rub myself all over Conrad North like a cat against a tree?

Oh,Fates.

Blearily I stumble to the door.

The tiny cottage sits in a forest glen awash in nodding snowdrops. The delicate white blossoms rustle all around me, growing in thick patches up the banks and around the trunks of the oaks. Their fresh, cool scent gently sweetens the air. Waves of them roll off through the trees where they vanish into banks of fog. The light is weak, the day barely begun, and the stone circle is nowhere in sight.

Conrad sits on a mossy stone nearby; he seemed to be drowsing, but his head rises when I sit up, his eyes grimly fixing upon me. In his hands is clasped a tin cup of tea. He no longer wears his faerie suit, but a tweed waistcoat, plaid kilt, heavy boots, and a scarf and coat of the same brown wool—the clothes he wore when I shadowed him to Elfhame.

“Good morning, Miss Pryor,” he says, and he sips his tea, as if this were any ordinary morning. But his eyes never once stray from me, dark with mistrust.

I stare back at him speechlessly, trying to reel in my spinning thoughts. Tryingnotto remember the way my lip had been caught between his teeth just hours ago ...

Snatches of faerie music still tumble through my head, measures and melodies only half remembered, already fading. But when I think of the faerie queen, she is searing and vivid in my memory, unforgettable.

As is the memory of Conrad’s hand gripping mine, his eyes locking with mine, his fevered whispers in my ear.

“You hexed me,” I say, my voice a dry rasp.

He has the decency to at least seem chagrined. “How are you feeling?”

“What is this place?”

“’Tis an old hunter’s shed, not far from the circle. I stay here, sometimes, when my work demands I stay close to the fae.”

“What is going on? Whathappenedlast night? Who are you and what is your business with the fae? Why did youhexme?”

“You were riddled with memory-erasing magic,” he explains calmly. “The effects didn’t fade just because you stepped out of Elfhame. Theonly way to be sure your mind repaired itself was to put you into a deep sleep, and it had to be done quickly, or your mind would have unraveled like an old frayed hat.”