Chapter Fifteen
The sun shone brightly on the hills of heather and stonecrop and red campion as they crossed to the castle ruins.
A single round, bright-pink robin flew ahead, leading a flock of three paper birds that had found Sorcha the moment she left Nettlestone.
One of them was in tatters, wings singed and ink running.
They had been crafted with tapestry-printed paper she had pulled from a decorating periodical.
They were not leading her anywhere in particular, only finding her.
Aidan studied them, his hands in his pockets, his stride so much longer than hers that he had to slow down to keep pace. “How many of your paper birds are even now circling Lyonesse?”
Sorcha shrugged. “I never know. I have at least a dozen, and I’ve spelled some for the Library and the Iron Witches and families with pets.”
“And that is how you find the Cauldron.”
“Yes. They seek out animals and creatures in trouble.”
Aidan grew warier as they got closer, some instinct warning him.
She could tell in the way he shifted to keep her in sight, in reach.
And then they crested the last hill and there it was, the old stone tower, the burned-out shell of the outbuildings.
“They never stay long in one place,” Sorcha explained.
“And never once has the Red Cloak found them.”
Aidan nodded. “Even when abandoned, we have not had much luck. Well done, songbird.”
A spark of warmth joined the fluttering. When had she become someone who fluttered? Even internally. But there it was. Fluttering. Warmth. A squirming kind of pleasure at his praise.
All that remained of the stables were charred posts and one corner of the roof, as well as iridescent scales and a hank of fur that looked as though it had once belonged to the hippogriff. Chains, burned ropes.
Aidan’s irises were gold now, glinting dangerously. Sorcha felt the same way. She always did, whether the Cauldron was full of screaming violence or this unsettling, dismal silence. She skirted a smear of dried blood. “This has to stop.”
“It will,” Aidan promised softly.
“Do you know any of the Lycan that have been taken?”
“Yes.”
“I freed three wolves that night. Orla and two others, but I didn’t see them in the woods.”
“They may have gone straight home through the portal. Not many Packs call Lyonesse home.”
“And who is your wolf family? Your Pack?” Sorcha had never heard of the Carnahan family being wolves before.
Were they particularly secret? Or had Aidan been bitten?
It was rare, but it did happen. Earls and museum curators might follow the rules, but wolves did not.
It made her think of what he had said to her when she was pinned to the wall and panting for his touch.
What had happened to him? What choice had been taken from him?
“I don’t have a Pack.”
She frowned. “But you are an Alpha? That’s what Agnes told me.”
“Aye.”
It was clear that he was not going to elaborate.
Yet.
She would get him talking. Or she would find Agnes again.
The paper birds did not care much for her plotting. They fluttered around her until she followed them into the tower.
“Wait for me,” Aidan grumbled. “Did we not just discuss how dangerous all of this is?”
“They’re gone now,” Sorcha said, waving away his worry. “There are two crows on the turrets just there.”
“And that means?”
“One for sorrow, two for mirth,” she explained.
“No one is lurking about. Now, if there was only a single crow, I might worry. But they’ll let me know if anyone approaches.
They do like to gossip.” She raised her eyebrow.
“Just as I am sure you would be able to sense if there was someone hiding inside.”
“That’s beside the point.”
“That is entirely the point.”
“There’s too much lingering anger and despair,” Aidan said. “It all smells like danger.”
The tower was in shambles, as expected. There was more dried blood on the ground, bottles that once held ale, torn tickets, a tooth that did not belong to a wolf and which Sorcha declined to examine further.
One of the paper birds twirled like a seed pod from a tree, landed on a discarded cup, and did not move again.
The others circled frantically before also dropping.
They had been leading her somewhere after all, not just finding her.
Sorcha approached swiftly but cautiously.
She knew Aidan thought her reckless, but she had plenty of experience dealing with wounded creatures of all kinds.
It might be a rabbit or a badger or a fox.
She reached for the currant bun in the pack Aidan had insisted on carrying for her.
The paper birds had dropped near a pile of fishing net, which the Collector no doubt used to capture Selkie women and mermaids. Sorcha whistled softly.
The pile rustled.
She crept closer, murmuring comfortingly, “We’re here to help.”
A blue eye blinked at her between the netting. Her witch knot tingled when frantic images were flung at her: falling from the sky, landing too hard, a net of stinging nettles and iron nails.
“It’s a lightning bird,” she told Aidan. “Something is wrong with his foot. I think it must be caught.”
Lightning birds were shy, elusive creatures with enormous wingspans of white feathers, as well as viciously curved silver beaks. Also, the power to create lightning.
“You’re far from home,” Sorcha said. “Let’s get you back to the cliffs.
” The white birds roosted outside of Holdfast and on some of the craggy bits of island farther out to sea.
It was monumentally dangerous to trap one.
He might have gotten lost in the storm and been pulled into the maelstrom of magic created by the Cauldron.
The Collector and his men would not have bothered to try to keep him—he was no use in the fighting pits.
He would only fry the spectators, and then there would be no one to lose large sums of money on wagers.
“I need to move the netting out of the way,” Sorcha said, drawing the focus of that one wild eye. “And then we can see what needs to be done. Don’t bite me,” she added sternly. She crouched and reached for the edge of the net closest to her and pulled it aside, uncovering the bird.
When he spotted Aidan looming behind her, a spark of lightning seared the air. Smoke stung her nostrils. Electricity arced like veins of light, hovering over the stones. Aidan snarled. “Sorcha, get back.”
“He’s trapped and he’s afraid,” Sorcha said, responding with images of the wide blue sky, the sun on the treetops. “And he’s just seen a wolf.”
“I am not wearing the wolf at present.”
“You are always wearing the wolf and he, you,” she said. “Now, if I can just cut the netting there, I can free him. I’ve done this sort of thing a hundred times.”
“I am not reassured by that.”
“Funny, no one ever is.” Aside from the creatures she managed to help, of course. Although Aesop, being one of those creatures, would still agree with Aidan.
“Let me do it,” Aidan suggested quietly.
Sorcha speared him with a quelling look. “That is a lightning bird.”
“Aye, exactly why you should let me. He could fry us where we stand like eggs for breakfast.”
“Can you talk to birds, Aidan Carnahan?” she demanded.
“No.”
“Can you understand them?”
He sighed. “No.”
“Well, I can, so kindly step aside and stop being so ridiculous.” No doubt there was a nicer way of saying that, but she did not have the patience. And she was Granny’s granddaughter, after all. One did not interfere with the baking of bread or conversations with birds. Magic was magic.
Aidan inclined his head and did not argue, which made her want to kiss him again.
He did not move away, of course, but she had not expected him to. If magic was magic, then a wolf was a wolf. And Aidan was Aidan. “Do you smell roses?” he muttered, nostrils flaring.
“The whole island still stinks of roses, surely. After that curse.”
“True enough.” But he did not sound convinced.
Sorcha crept closer, the small scissors from her reticule in hand.
Lightning flashed overhead but did not strike.
She crooned softly as she pulled the netting away from the bird’s leg.
He flapped his wings again. Another lightning flash, this one closer.
Her eyes were full of lightning as well—it was all the bird could communicate.
“Almost done, almost done. Don’t cook me, if you please. ”
One snip, two. Then she slipped his foot free and he launched into the air, frantic and free.
“Sorcha!” Aidan bellowed.
It wasn’t the lighting bird that was the danger after all.