Chapter Twenty-Seven
Holdfast belonged to the Iron Witches.
From the thatched black cottages to the cobblestones, from the rowan groves to the storm brewing overhead.
And to the Iron Witches themselves, usually doing their work while wrapped in their plaids, white hair tangled by the breezes.
The sea was merciless on the coast, threatening to fill the bone caves below, which stored so much magic that the very air felt strange.
Otherworldly. Wild. It tasted of salt and iron and fennel.
Stone gargoyles had taken flight, awakened by the curse. They circled over the houses, gobbling up stray magic, but it wasn’t enough. They did not look down on Briar and Ethan with any fondness.
Briar also expected the Iron Witches to be waiting for her, and to be rather cross about it.
Instead, there were white roses. So many roses, already overtaking the village.
No one was safe, not the fishing folk or the salt farmers who made up the rest of the population. Not even the Iron Witches.
The roses climbed down from the hills and up from the beaches. They flowed down the steep roads like the pale froth of a waterfall. Thorns gleamed like silver knives.
Goliath came to a stop with a snort that could only be translated as, Absolutely bloody not. And Briar could not blame him. Ethan cursed softly.
There were thirteen Iron Witches in total, but Briar only counted twelve here. They lay where they had dropped into sleep, vines curling around them. A cradle and a coffin.
The villagers lay in similar repose, caught by the curse.
A woman had collapsed over the butter churn outside her front door.
A man lay sprawled, an axe in his hand. An old woman slumped out of her bedroom window.
They must have stumbled out of their homes when the curse tightened its hold, waking them only to drop them back into sleep.
Behind them, kelpies churned the water, teeth snapping.
The roses had not reached them yet. How long until they dragged themselves out of the water in search of defenseless villagers?
It was roses and kelpies as far as the eye could see.
But the Iron Witches had fallen still in service to Lyonesse.
They lined the road, white hair catching the moonlight almost as much as Briar did.
They wore their sea-gray dresses and their silver torcs and the spiral tattoos of their station.
Though they hailed from countries all over the world, those torcs and tattoos marked them as witches with powers beyond the ordinary.
And the curse had taken them all.
“Now what do we do?” Briar said, guilt and fear raw in her belly. She had thought getting here would be the hard part. Then she could hand over the amulet and the Iron Witches could do whatever it was that Iron Witches did.
Petals filled the air. They whirled, sticking to window panes and gargoyles on the rooftops, clogging the grooves between the cobblestones.
Goliath, being a wise horse, immediately took off into the fields.
Briar clenched her fists, the smell of roses thick and heavy in her nose. “What do I do?”
One of the Iron Witches twitched.
Briar jumped. “Did you see that?” she asked Ethan.
He nodded, looking even grimmer, if possible.
As Briar approached the Iron Witch, the sound of his sword sliding from its scabbard cut through the song of the waves and the creak of door hinges caught in the wind.
Briar crouched and smeared her blood on the nearest rose to the Iron Witch.
She already knew it was beyond her to stop all of the roses in Holdfast. There wasn’t enough blood in her body.
“Can you hear me? I have the amulet to fix the shields. What do I do?”
The roses shivered, thorns spiking sharper in displeasure. They did not like for their work to be interrupted. Sweat gathered at Briar’s nape as she forced her magic against theirs.
The Iron Witch moved, just a little. A shift, a turn of her wrist. The others did the same around her until, to a person, the Iron Witches pointed to the white stone tower on a small isle at the end of the stony promontory.
Briar shivered. “I take that to mean they want me to bring the amulet to the tower.”
Ethan did not look pleased. “Aye. Looks that way.” He frowned at the sea, the lick of the moonlight on Briar’s bloody hands. “I’ll do it.”
Briar half smiled. “I don’t think it works that way.”
“We’ll make it work that way.”
“It’s my spell,” she pointed out. “My problem.”
“Our problem, woman.”
The Iron Witches scattered around them were bad enough.
Worse yet, one of them was still awake. Her eyes were open, furious, flaring green. Roses pinned her to the ground. She struggled, thorns scraping her skin. She tried to speak but her mouth filled with rose petals. Briar hurried to pull them loose.
When the Iron Witch also finally pointed, like her sisters, it was in another direction.
Behind Briar and Ethan.
It was the only warning they had.
The arrow cut through the petal-choked air, hitting its target with brutal efficiency.
Ethan.
He stumbled back, blood oozing down his arm. The stink of burning fennel joined the smell of flowers and salt. Not just an arrow. A spelled arrow. Loosed by a Keeper.
Oliver.
Ethan had already dragged Briar behind him, even as he gritted his teeth against the pain.
He yanked the arrow out, more blood soaking into his torn sleeve.
He grunted in pain, shoving salt and iron dust from his pocket into the wound.
Briar did not know what magic was coursing through him, only that they were lucky he was not already dead.
Keepers were not particularly careful with Iron Crows.
Nor particularly smart. Killing Ethan would have been smarter. Safer.
Terror made Briar’s throat dry. Oliver would realize that soon enough. Or Ambrose would—he was currently at Oliver’s side, holding Sorcha bound with rope on his horse. He held an iron dagger to her side.
“Don’t move, Briar Foxglove, or the baker and the Iron Crow die,” Oliver called.
That was why he had not killed Ethan outright. He made for better leverage. She was not heartened to realize that Oliver was not an idiot.
“Where the hell is Coventry?” Ethan said. “He ordered you to stand down.”
“I haven’t seen Lord Coventry. We were following a lead that Petal Foxglove was spotted. And then we saw the roses. You owe me, Crow.” There was a burn on the side of his neck, and his sleeve was charred.
“I owe you a slow and painful death.”
“I’m not the one with the poisoned arrow wound.”
“I’m only here to break the spell,” Briar said, as soothingly as she knew how. She called on the calming qualities of chamomile and lemon balm and vervain. She already knew it would not be enough.
“I won’t fall for your lies,” Oliver seethed. “I might not be able to find your sister, but I’ve got you now. And I’ll break the curse by breaking you. You won’t escape me again.”
“Kick him in the stones, Briar!” Sorcha shouted loudly enough that the horse beneath her and Ambrose shifted nervously.
“I have the only antidote for that poison currently infecting your Iron Crow,” Oliver said haughtily. He had donned some kind of armor over his charred shirt, as though he were a knight in a fairy story. He gleamed in Briar’s reflected moonlight.
She vastly preferred the dragon.
Dark green lines were already stabbing out from Ethan’s wound, riddled with baneful magic.
There would be iron powder, for a Keeper’s poison.
Salt. He had already used those. What else?
She could not create her own cure in time; she did not have enough herbs on hand, no ashes of solstice bonfires or honey. No comfrey.
She had moonlight and roses.
Hopelessness clawed at her.
No.
She lifted her chin. “I am only here to break the spell, Oliver,” she said again, willing him to believe her. “Just let them go.”
He snorted. “A likely story. I’ll break the curse myself as soon as you’re in an iron collar.”
Briar swallowed. Petals thickened the air.
“Come here,” Oliver demanded, “or he gets another arrow.”
“Don’t you fucking dare,” Ethan bit out.
“The Iron Crow or the baker, Miss Foxglove. Or you.”
There was little time for deliberation, but no deliberation was required. She would never sacrifice Sorcha and Ethan. And Ethan was leaning against a post, turning an alarming shade of gray. The Iron Witch tangled in thorns near his boots bared her teeth.
Briar stepped forward.
“Don’t!” Sorcha said, but it ended in a choked yelp when the blade pierced through her dress. Even through the rose petals and the shadows, Briar could see the spot of blood.
She hurried closer to Oliver. “Don’t hurt them!”
He slid off his horse. “I do this for the good of Lyonesse.”
He believed it, and nothing she could say would dissuade him. Nothing else would save Sorcha and Ethan.
So Briar stood still as Oliver lifted the iron collar.
It was a flattened crescent, marked with lines and dots, like the ancient stone circles. It looked more like a necklace than something that would rip into her soul and shred it to pieces.
Ethan stumbled, trying to reach her, seething with fury and poison. “I’ll fucking kill you, Keeper,” he promised, his dragon breathing daggers of fiery light around him like a crown.
The clasp locked around her neck.
The pain was immediate.
It spread through her like veins of fire and acid, burning through everything that made her Briar.
It stole her breath, her every thought. Her magic.
It crawled through her like some monstrous beast, all teeth and claws, shredding away every necessary thing.
Snapdragon fought, hissing and flapping his wings so that feathers of light joined the white rose petals.
When the pain receded, Briar could not feel her swan at all. He was no longer thrashing inside her, but was still. Too still. Tears pricked her eyes. She felt empty, hollow.
Oliver smirked, but he had no time to revel in his satisfaction.
It was hard to revel in anything when two hundred pounds of Black Shuck shot out of the shadows.
Oliver went down hard, screaming when vicious teeth vised around his arm. Blood dripped from the ragged wound.
“Good puppy!” Sorcha shouted.
Ethan didn’t say anything at all, as he was still slumped against a post, but he was smiling.
Briar really did have rather violent friends.
She hurried to the Black Shuck, as Sorcha took his example and bit the hand of the Keeper holding her until he dropped his dagger.
“Don’t kill him,” Briar said, getting as close to the Black Shuck as she dared.
Oliver was struggling, gasping. “We might still need him if he was lying about the antidote.” She had no idea if he understood her, but there was something frantic enough in her voice that the Black Shuck sat back on its haunches and growled. “Thank you.”
Oliver was sweating and shuddering with pain. A thorn poked into his wound to add insult to injury. The roses, as predicted, cared little for her iron collar. They had already been set loose—she was no longer needed.
“The antidote, if you please,” Briar demanded, standing over him dispassionately. “Or I’ll let him eat you. Well, parts of you, anyway.”
“I’m with the Order!” he panted. “It’s your duty to help me.”
“Oh, sod off,” Sorcha muttered. “Give us the antidote and the key to the collar or I’ll stomp on your balls.” Direct, clear. To the point. And undeniably something Sorcha would follow through on. With a smile.
“Blue bottle,” Oliver whimpered. “In my left coat pocket.”
Briar dove for it, prying the cork loose. It smelled of herbs and fire and vinegar. “Does he drink it or does it go on his wound?” Oliver’s eyes were starting to roll back in his head. She squeezed his arm, above the wound. “Answer me!”
He groaned with pain. “On…his…cut.”
“Wrap his wound, would you?” Briar asked her friend. “In case we still need him.”
Sorcha looked disgusted but did as she was asked. Briar had to fight through the vines to reach Ethan. His dragon curled behind him, flickering like a candle gutting out. She already missed her swan. Not now, Briar.
She dumped the contents of the vial into Ethan’s raw wound, wincing when the blood bristled with hoarfrost in response, delicate and sharp in the moonlight.
His eyes popped open. “Son of a bitch.”
Briar laughed in relief. He smiled at her softly until his eyes fell on the iron around her neck.
His gaze hardened, turned deadly. “I’ll kill him. No talking me out of it now, sweetheart.”
“Later,” Briar said. She pushed a rose off her ankle. “I need to get the amulet to the tower.”
At least, she hoped that was what she needed to do. The fact that the Iron Witches were all pointing in its direction was the only thing she had to go on. She supposed it was better than nothing.
With any luck.
She stood, the weight of the iron around her neck heavy and suffocating.
She felt like she could not get a deep breath, but she knew it was about her magic, not the physical collar.
She could still taste charred fennel and salt.
And roses. She was certain everyone could taste the roses.
She was hollow. If she thought about it too long, she would start clawing at the collar and never stop.
“Be careful,” Sorcha said. “I’ll stay here and make sure this prat doesn’t make a run for it. Charles told them to use me. We all survive this, so I can punch him very hard in the throat.”
Ethan nodded at her. “I’ll help.”
It took some time to pick their way through the thickets, down the cobblestone path to the beach. Ethan lifted Briar up in his arms, and she squeaked. “Your wound!”
He only grunted and kicked through the roses, refusing to let Briar lose any more of her blood. She wasn’t even sure it would work now that her magic was as trapped as the island of Lyonesse.
The white tower stood on a tiny islet, only big enough to house it and a few feet of rocky ground all around it. The moonlight showed dark water, a pier that did not quite reach across, and the teeth of kelpies.
No rowboat. No other boat at all. No bridge.
Only roses following them, curling through the sand hungrily.
The iron collar grew cold around her throat.