Page 82 of The Moorwitch

I must keep moving.

Composing a wholly false expression of cheer, I step out of my room and go looking for lunch; after my conversation with Lachlan, I have no appetite, but I need to keep my strength up now more than ever. It will take all my cunning and magic to return to Elfhame without Conrad’s help.

Mrs. MacDougal finds me in the kitchen minutes later, an apple between my teeth and a scone in my pocket. I give her a little wave and try to slip out, but she catches my arm in the doorway.

“You were gone all night,” she says in a low tone.

I freeze, blinking at her over my apple. Then I slowly take it out, my teeth marks two white crescents in its crimson skin.

“Yes,” I reply. “I went to Elfhame and danced with the faeries.”

She hisses and pulls me into the kitchen. “Watch your mouth, girl! Sylvie’s about!”

“I understand now. You want to protect them. Well, so do I.”

We match gazes for a moment, her surprise evident. “He is a good lad, our Connie.”

“And I swear to you, if I can help him, I will.”

“He told me you’d be leaving us today. Mr. MacDougal has prepared the cart to take you to town, but when we knocked on your door, you did not answer.”

“I was asleep. And I ... cannot go just yet.”

Her mouth is a sour line, the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes deepening with her frown. “What is your aim, Miss Pryor? Do you think to win Mr. North’s hand by hanging about?”

“I—no! That is not my intention, not in the least.” My skin flushes; I feel the phantom warmth of his palm in mine as the faerie queen bound our wrists together. I curl my fingers into a fist. “But ... whatif there were a way to end all this? To set him and Sylvie and all of you free? I am a Weaver. I know a great many spells—”

“You’re a meddler,” she spits, “just like Vera.”

“Who—”

“Conrad’s mother. She tried to flee Ravensgate with him when he was a boy. She was killed by the fae a league from here, and only by riding hard and fast did Liam find the babe in a ditch and save his life. Some curses cannot be broken.”

“Conrad doesn’t deserve this.”

“Nay, none of them did. But his only hope is to go the way of his father. Liam accepted his lot and was happier for it. He was forever in Elfhame, gallivanting with immortals. Even took a faerie lover for a time, until ...” She presses her lips together.

“Until he was also killed,” I say. “And how long before something similar befalls Conrad?”

“If you’ve been to Elfhame, and if you’ve spoken to Connie about all of it, then you know this house has seen few stories with happy endings. The best we can do is to help him last as long as he can.”

“That’s not good enough.”

She gives me a strange look, as if she pities me as much as she loathes me.

“Well, you won’t be breaking any curses today, lass.” She gestures at the hall window, where a soft rain has begun to fall, misting the moors. I spot the cart, which Mr. MacDougal is now pulling back to the stable, out of the damp.

For once, I am glad to see the rain. I’d half worried Mrs. MacDougal wouldforceme into the cart and back to London. But now I have a little time, and I intend to use it.

“Hm.” I study the shuttered windows, the canvases over the paintings and furniture, as a plan begins to flicker in my mind. The air is stale, the frames of the paintings rimed with dust. In some places the grime is a finger’s-width thick. It’s as if we’ve been shut up in a tomb, in one of the great pyramids, wives of a pharaoh doomed to wander indarkness until we die at his side. “Very well, then. While I am stranded here, may I at least be of some use to you?”

Her brow furrows with suspicion.

“Don’t look so askance, Mrs. MacDougal. There are some foes which can be beaten with the commonest of weapons. Where do you keep your brooms and cloths? And where is our Cleopatra? Let me keep us both out of your way for a few hours. Honestly, what harm can I do with a broom? I’ll even leave you my threadkit, if you like.”

And who knows? Perhaps in dusting off some old credenza, I’ll find a folded bit of paper with the portal spell of Elfhame scribbled upon it. The chance is certainly worth a day of scrubbing and sweeping.

The housekeeper presses her lips together, as if this task were even more impossible than outwitting the queen of the fae, but she shows me to the cleaning cupboard and lets me raid it as I please. She tracks down Sylvie for me in the meantime.