Page 81 of The Moorwitch
He pulls on my hair, forcing my head to tilt back, and presses a finger to my lips. I freeze, my heart racing, revulsion thrashing like a caged eel in my belly. Lachlan looks at me with a predatory smile, but his eyes are soft, melting snow that trace the shape of my nose and jaw, as if he were inspecting a painting he’d just finished, searching for flaws.
“You were irresistible to him,” he murmurs. “To put you in the path of that lonesome young man was my grandest stroke of genius. The day I first saw him, years ago—a wretched, lonely boy on the cusp of manhood—I knew exactly what his weakness would be. And I was right.”
“No,” I whisper against his finger. “Your plan failed. He means to send me away.”
“Does he? Good. Then he cares for you even more than I’d hoped. But you’ll go back, and you’ll twist him up in your threads until he’ddiefor you. Then, together, you and he will bring me the Dwirra branch, and the balance of power will shift. I will be strong enough, then, to face Morgaine and end her tyranny. Then I can finally save my people.”
He releases me at last.
I back away from him until I can go no further, the tumbling river behind me, its freezing spray stinging my skin. I cannot reply; words stick in my throat, my mouth too dry to speak. He used me asbait. All this time I’d thought I was special, that my cleverness or my Weaves were what made me valuable to him. But all along it was empty, petty things. It was never me he needed; it was my youth, my face, my sex. Heplayed on my pride, identifying my desire to be seen and rewarding it just enough to entice me along, feasting on the crumbs of his attention like a pathetic lost puppy.
“Now go back to that house,” he says, his tone hardening, “and whatever you do, don’t sabotage your position there. Bide your time, spin your threads around that man’s heart, and don’t report back unless it’s urgent. The Telarian tapestries only have two uses left, and I don’t have another set.”
“You’re forgetting one thing,” I manage to choke out. “I could walk away this moment. I don’t have to be part of any of this.”
He scoffs. “Go on, then. Say it. Say that you wish to break your contract with me. Tell me you would sacrifice your magic here and now.”
Nausea churns in my stomach. The scar on my neck pains me as it has not since I was a little girl.
“Say it,” hisses Lachlan. “After all, magic isn’t for the faint of heart. Perhaps you don’t deserve it. Perhaps you’ve always been tooweak. Too afraid. A mouse scurrying from her aunt and her pipe, hiding herself away in holes and cracks. Perhaps that’s what you really crave—to go back to that dismal, pathetic existence before I came along and set you free.”
The words are there in my throat, yet I cannot speak them. My tongue ties itself, balking. Chills of guilt and shame prickle over my body.
“See?” Lachlan murmurs. “You’ll hurt whomever you must in order to protect yourself. For you and I both know: Without magic, you are nothing.”
My hands will not cease their trembling, no matter how hard I clench them.
“Go back, Rose Pryor. Be genial, be charming. Becoy. Slide into his bed, if that’s what it takes. Twist him round your pretty finger like one of your threads, and when the moment is right, all you have to do isask.”
I don’t want to go back.
I don’t want to be Lachlan’s bait, his spy, his puppet. I don’t want to be a string twisted between his fingers, a conduit for his dark will.
But if I refuse, that’s it—the end of my quest. The breaking of my contract with him. My magic will be forfeit, and without it to anchor me, the world will wash me away.
I will become nothing, and he will win anyway.
But if I am canny, I can pretend to be his tool a little while longer. I must only put aside my pride and my dignity. But Fates help me, I will not make Conrad his puppet too. I tell myself it is because that’s the right thing to do—not because I simply cannot bear the thought of confessing my duplicity to the laird. If I help Lachlan, and he breaks Morgaine’s hold on Elfhame, then Conrad and Sylvie will be free too. We can all escape this madness and let the fae fight their own battles.
I agreed to bring Lachlan a branch from the Dwirra tree, and that is what I will do. He may not believe me capable of accomplishing the task on my own, but I’ve already proved him wrong once.
I’ll bring him his thrice-damned branch, and by the Fates, I’ll do it myself.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I step through the tapestry with my heart thumping and Lachlan’s words ringing in my ears.Without magic, you are nothing ...
Fates damn him! And Fates damnmefor a fool to be taken in by him. And for coming back to this house, slinking in like a traitor behind city walls, waiting for the enemy to come knocking so she can open the gates.
Well. I won’t be his puppet. I will succeed, but I will do itmyway.
The afternoon has ripened, Conrad no doubt having ridden off hours ago on his usual patrol of the estate. He likely believes that I am on my way to Blackswire now to wait for the London coach. I can hear Sylvie running up and down the halls of Ravensgate, yelling about the Nile and Marc Antony, engaged in one of her grand dramas.
I don’t have a minute to waste, not a heartbeat to squander.
The spell to open the stone circlemustbe in this house somewhere. A spell that complicated would need to be written down; it would be too risky to leave the only copy in Conrad’s head. Maybe he cannot tell it to me, but perhaps his vows to Morgaine never stipulated he couldn’t write it down for his own use.
I take half an hour to change my dress and wash my face, then pull the snarls out of my hair, courtesy of Lachlan’s rough grip. I sit at my dressing table and brush it over and over as if I might comb out thememory of his touch. When I am done, my eyes burn with tears. I let my head fall forward into my hands, my fingertips slowly tracing over my tender scalp. But that makes me think of Conrad’s soft if untrusting explorations, and with a strangled cry, I wrench my hands away.