Chapter 12
“The Far Darrig, attired in a red coat and cap, steals children from their cradles, and leaves sickly elves in their place.”
A strange weight creeps into me in the middle of the night.
Isabeau is locked away in a town house because of her inexplicable curse.
Mother and Rylan are secure. Most nobles are abed, and those who are out still are likely to be returning from a night at the theater or opera—not near the green spaces where faeries roam.
The moon is waxing gibbous again. The last such moon brought a dead man into the courtyard of Fleuriste Manor.
Maybe I am merely expecting a pattern that will not show, and Brimmond Wood is several hours’ ride away.
I know my father patrols it tonight as surely as I know that the urge to do the same here in Regina Centrum rises in me.
Rather than resist instinct, I leave the warm covers of my bed and open a wardrobe where seldom-worn clothes hang in waiting.
I pull on a pair of Father’s altered breeches and a heavy linen blouse, things I only wear at night, both in the city and the woods.
A woman alone at night is more of a target for human men, especially a noblewoman.
We are thought to be laden with gems and foolishness.
A simple change in attire decreases conflict.
I shove my feet into boots, soft soled and worn. I know the boots are the only part of my attire that would not elicit a scowl from Father.
“If he wants me to patrol, he cannot expect me to do so in a gown at night,” I mutter to myself.
“Talking to yourself again?” My sister lurks in the doorway of my room. Her smile appears like a white slice in the dim room. “Would you like help with the weapons?”
“Please?”
Rylan walks to stand beside me and lifts my custom back harness from its hook.
She holds it open as she stands behind me.
Once I put my arms out, she slides it up to my shoulders, and I buckle it under my bosom.
Small sheaths dangle like a fringe along my back, and in each is a small knife.
A pair of daggers slide home into the two sheaths on the front that angle under each breast like widely spaced leather fangs.
My sister holds my jacket in the same way, and I put my hands into those sleeves. It’s long enough to hide the short swords I fasten at each hip. I feel like I ought to rattle, but the leathercrafter designed this in conjunction with the bladesmith. I move silently.
“Hairpin.” Rylan holds out a pair of ornate iron curlicues that I use to fasten my braids atop my head. Then my hat, which I likewise spear to my hair with iron-tipped pins.
My sister stifles a yawn. “I feel like I ought to salute or something when you dress this way.”
“Doors locked, Ry.” I catch and hold her gaze. “Something is amiss this night.” I pause then. “Did you feel it, too?”
She pats the top of my head. “No, Gab. I know there was a dead man last gibbous moon. So I listened for you tonight.”
I feel sheepish, but I suppose I forget that the family of the Hunter and Hunter-in-Training also must notice our obsessions when we are seeking a specific quarry.
Outside the house the world is quiet. The usual sounds of horses and wheels over the riding trail or streets are a dim muffle, and no voices or laughter rise up the way they do in the midday sun or even the midday drizzle.
Still, something out here feels like it’s beckoning me.
The summons feels as muted as the sounds of laughter from a nearby street as I wend my way toward the river.
The creature I hunt is far away in the forest, and my studies say that this is not a water horse.
Although the Aughiska and the Bean Nighe seem unlikely because of the lack of evidence, instinct pulls me toward the crash and tumble of the river.
Perhaps I was wrong about those faeries.
Supposedly, the river runs underground for a stretch, then surges to the surface near Maudite’s estate, where it tumbles from the cliff into the sea.
The falls there at Maudite Castle are stunning, but here the water seems less angry.
It chops and churns, but I think that even such froth is not as daunting as a waterfall that drops to the rocky, cold sea at the bottom of a cliff.
My lantern casts a circle of light around me, but it only illuminates the ground nearest me.
Beyond my light is shadow that could be drawn in charcoal.
The half circle of moon ducks in and out of cloud banks, casting watery light and then stealing it away.
In a flash of moonlight, I see a woman at the river’s side, hair dipping into the water as if she washes it there.
When next the light spills out from behind a cloud, she has gone, and the only possible creature is an Aughiska, but I cannot see under the water to know if the white froth on the surface is a water horse’s mane or simply water.
As I walk along the river’s edge, I wish I knew how to communicate with them.
Of course, I cannot communicate with my own horse, Clatterbuck, or my father’s Imp or Isabeau’s Woede either.
The white caps of water over rock in the current are likely mere water, but they could be more.
The Aughiska often forms between one heartbeat and the next, lifting from the current and crashing into mist.
No water on the samples, my logic mutters.
But I was beckoned here, instinct argues.
I carry on in my patrol. Nighttime is the one time when citizens avoid the park.
The faeries that have entered our world claim it as their own then, as if the treaty is a myth.
Arguing with them is futile, and the glinting eyes of several creatures flash at me as I walk.
Though I cannot catch full sight of them, I know they watch me.
“Iron at the ready,” I say in a voice that I might use to talk to a walking companion.
I do not whisper. They know me, unlike my fellow citizens.
Faeries know me on sight. I sometimes expect more violence because of it, but it is as if we have a silent accord: If they follow rules, I will not hunt them.
“What are you doing all alone, little lamb?” The voice catches me unprepared. I see no one, although I shift with my lantern. The warm golden light only chases away the nearest shadows.
I try to extend my arm, to cast the light outward. The effort is fruitless.
“I patrol,” I say in a gruff voice, thinking at first that it is a man who means me ill.
“But you’re not the Hunter.” The voice is a husky purr.
“You’re not a person.” I step forward, trying to shine light on whatever creature this is.
“Ah, ah, ah.” I see one hand raised, shaking a finger at me. The sharp claw that tips it is thick and gnarled. “Where are your manners, lamb?”
I gape at the thing, free hand falling to my sword hilt. “But faeries can’t talk, not like people.”
It laughs. “I chose not to speak when I first struck you. Today I speak.”
In the moment my throat feels ragged, closing words and air inside. I manage to say, “You . . .”
“Hit you.” A whoosh of air precedes its movement as an arm lashes out. “Like this.”
I stumble backward onto the ground to avoid the knife-sharp claws. The lantern lands with a clatter, but the flame does not sputter out. The monster is outside the ring of light.
Images of the two murdered men flash to my mind as I scuttle backward like a crab. The moon is hidden again, and I can see nothing. I crouch on the ground like prey for a moment, but I refuse to die on the ground without so much as fighting back.
I draw my sword with one hand, a dagger with the other as I come to my feet. I cannot see to attack the beast, but I am armed and ready to defend myself. “You need to return to Faerie, or you will die here.”
At first, I think the sound I hear is a sob, but I realize quickly it’s a laugh. Other creatures join in, and I am frozen. I am not the Hunter, and I am surrounded by things that mock me, things that want to harm me.
From directly behind me, I hear, “No one here can kill me.”
The scent that washes over me is not musty like the faery cat or foul like death.
Strangely, the beast smells of crushed flowers.
I try to turn to defend myself, when I am shoved forward with such force that I go from standing to face down in the grass in an instant.
The warmth I feel reveals that the beast has tossed me onto my own lantern.
I extinguish the flame as my fall cracks the glass and I smother the fire with my stomach, burning myself in the process.
“I don’t kill little girls,” the creature taunts as it steps on my back and holds me on top of the hot lantern.
With a twist of my arm and wild swing, I jab my dagger into the meat of the creature’s leg and clutch the hilt so I do not lose it.
It punts me across the ground with the other foot, and I land with a painful thump. The moon breaks through the clouds again, but the faery is gone back into wherever it initially hid.
I crawl and shove my body to standing before limping home to pluck the glass from my body and teach my sister how to collect samples from a living victim.