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A joy previously unknown to him flooded his mind. Why had he ever feared this? The Beast did not seek to replace him. It did not in any way diminish him. It completed him. They were one.

“You . . . you owe me nothing,” Hugo babbled, his head turning from side to side, in search of some way out of the room. “Consider the information my gift to you. To seal our bond of friendship.”

Fear rolled off the little man in great heaving waves, tinged a bright orange with panic.

“Here now, MacDowylt. I demand you step aside.” Hugo moved hesitantly toward him, toward the only door in the room. “Our business is finished.”

“Not yet finished.”

Torquil marveled at the size of his own hand reaching out to close around the minstrel’s neck. Marveled at his own strength as he lifted the struggling man from his feet. Marveled at the pleasure of the thick, warm liquid filling his mouth, slaking a hunger such as he’d never before experienced.

When he hungered no more, he tossed the pieces of the body to the floor and filled his lungs with the essence of fear lingering in the room.

As quickly as the beast had joined with him, it now departed, slinking back into the deep recesses of his soul.

He leaned back against the door, feeling the loss as if it were a physical blow.

A search within left him weak with relief when he at last discovered the beast, tightly encased behind the Magic as it had been before the first time he’d called upon its power.

Not gone, only resting, at peace for the first time since he’d discovered it in the scrolls.

So many new sensations bubbled inside him, so many raging emotions.

It was as if in joining with the beast he had opened up a whole new piece of himself.

A piece filled with a reservoir of Magic he had only dared to imagine in the past. He could feel it coursing through his veins.

With this power, he had no doubt he could conquer the spells on the ancient scroll that waited for him in his tower.

As he reached for the door, a wave of nausea and dizziness washed over him, reminding him of his body’s need for food. How long had it been since he’d last eaten? One day? Two?

The scroll warned of such a hazard. Even as he nurtured what grew within him, so too must he care for the Mortal shell that housed it all.

He stepped from his solar and closed the door behind him, his mind whirling with half-formed thoughts and emotions, the mass of them disconnected from one another.

The hunger was draining his strength. A trip down to the kitchens would allow him to center his thoughts and rid himself of the vague worry riding his shoulders like an annoying winged creature refusing to take flight, marring his otherwise perfect morning.

An annoyance, really, a small nagging disquiet, as if he’d failed to recognize something important.

M ATHEW SLIPPED FROM the shadows as soon as the MacDowylt laird disappeared through the doors leading to the great hall. Odd that the laird had come out of his solar without Hugo. Surely his brother wouldn’t have left earlier without him.

Even as the thought crossed his mind, the cold finger of reason flicked it away. If the MacDowylt had given Hugo the silver he wanted, his brother would have left him behind without a thought—just as he had abandoned Eleyne to the Tinklers’ mercies.

He should have stayed with the Tinklers. Should have kept his pipes and his cousin close.

“Too late for should,” he whispered, repeating his aunt’s favorite saying.

With one more check of the hallway, he stepped forward, his hand hesitating at the door to the laird’s solar.

If he found the room empty, it would mean he had been abandoned, as he feared. He would be well and truly alone.

He had to know. With one more glance in either direction, he gave a push and slipped into the opening.

Carnage such as he’d not seen in the entirety of his sixteen years greeted him, locking up every muscle in his body. Even the scream crawling up his throat refused to come out.

The metallic scent of fresh blood snaked into his nostrils, identical to the smell of men cleaning their kill after a hunt. Across the room a headless body lay crumpled, no doubt the source of the blood splattered everywhere.

He knew whose body it was even before his eyes tracked down to the floor at his feet. Even before he spotted the head staring up at him with its sightless eyes, its mouth hanging grotesquely open as if the jaw had been broken in mid-scream.

Mathew forced himself to take the next breath. And then one more, as fear threatened to overwhelm him.

He stepped back out of the solar. Closing the door behind him, he moved silently to the keep’s entrance, lifting the hood of his cloak as he slipped outside. He could only pray that no one would take note of one lone boy making his way across the early-morning courtyard.

He would hide within the storage buildings as he had when he’d arrived.

The sun had already begun its ascent into the sky, but once its rays no longer lit the land, he’d make his way outside the gates and travel south.

Perhaps to Inverness, where he could sell the treasures he’d gathered in the keep.

And then?

He fought back the panic, exiled it to a little box at the bottom of his heart. He couldn’t give up now, or all would be lost. He must have a plan to survive.

Once he’d sold the treasures he would track down the Tinklers to find Eleyne. Together they would return to MacFalny Keep and beg her father to take them back.

All he had to do now was to keep his head attached to his body long enough to escape this evil place. A feat his older brother had not managed.