23. The Ghost
23
THE GHOST
“ I s everything alright?” Sionnach asked as Saffron returned to the house, wearing only the thin covering that clung to his wet skin underneath. “Saffron?”
“I think I’m just going to go to bed,” Saffron told them with a practiced smile, hoping they couldn’t see how it trembled on his lips. He just wanted to be alone. He wanted to find somewhere to hide, somewhere he could sit and fester in his own confusion, his shame, his guilt.
Since he hadn’t slept in his own room the night before, Saffron didn’t know exactly where to find his things without peeking into every guest room along the way. Finally recognizing his luggage on the other side of the last door in the corridor, he let himself into the darkness with a quiet sigh, closing the door behind him with hardly a sound.
Saffron, there’s someone ? —!
Taran erupted in the back of his mind—but before hearing it, Saffron saw what was drawn on the floor.
A magic circle, exactly like the one he’d seen reported in the Tapestry Hall. Broken in Morrígan’s temple. His dream of the stripped henge. A nest of yew twigs and an apple in the center.
He barely had a chance to gasp before something rushed from the darkness, slamming him back against the door with a hand over his mouth. Saffron thrashed in return, throwing out his fist and striking flesh, though it did nothing to halt the attack.
Ryder hooked an arm around Saffron’s middle, lifting him off his feet with a hand still covering his mouth, twisting to throw him down on the nearby bed. Crushing him, knocking the air out of him.
“I heard everything, your highness,” Ryder said, practically cooing. “That prince of yours is bent on choosing the cruelest words he can muster, isn’t he? Shh, shhh, Saffron, it’s alright— be still.”
Saffron stiffened. He hadn’t noticed, in the struggle, the moment Ryder stole the engagement ring off his finger. Making him vulnerable to compelling intention. The emptiness of his finger was stark and horrifying, even beneath the blanket of controlling enchantment.
His body went limp, sinking back onto the bed as Ryder gently clucked his tongue before slowly removing his hand, then his arm from Saffron’s middle. He hovered over Saffron for a moment, tucking some of the wet hair from Saffron’s forehead, before pulling back and looking him all over. Saffron couldn’t move, head tilted toward the wall, but his heart pounded as he knew exactly what Ryder saw. The thin fabric of his covering, clinging to the wetness of his skin until practically translucent. He wanted to scream—and when Ryder’s hand gently trailed down the outside of Saffron’s exposed thigh, he almost broke through the enchantment and did.
“If you wished to follow me across Alfidel, Saffron, you could have just asked. I would have answered right away, and come to you in a moment.” He spoke in a breathy whisper, fingers traveling up Saffron’s leg, over the bottom hem of his covering; tracing the indent of his navel, then up the center of his stomach. “We could have enjoyed ourselves much more than your prince allows you, now.”
A hand tucked beneath Saffron’s jaw, turning his head from the wall toward the rest of the room. Ryder remained partially on top of him, leaning down to speak directly into his ear.
“Did you know it was me, from the start? I’m flattered. You must think of me often. Be still .”
Saffron whimpered. Ryder must have felt how hard he fought against the constraining command, enough to twitch his fingers.
“Have you figured out what it’s meant for, yet?” Ryder went on, petting the side of Saffron’s face before leaning close again. Hanging over him. Saffron squeezed his eyes closed, before forcing them open again. Refusing to be caught off guard a second time. “The magic of it is older than anything written in any high fey book. Would you believe it? Does that interest you, Saffron? Let me show you.”
Saffron remained motionless as Ryder jumped off him, planting both feet on the floor in the very center of the drawn epithet. Saffron fought to move, fought to break the enchantment as his heart pounded in terror, on the verge of ripping through his chest. Ryder extended his hands over the circle, and closed his eyes.
Saffron braced to be swallowed. To be devoured by a sudden knocking tear in the floor, through the veil—but the air never shifted. His soul only rang with fear in the silence, heart pounding loud enough to bang against his sternum.
A shriek from the window, like Fiachra, suddenly struck Saffron’s ears. Loud enough to make him flinch, gasping as his eyes watered as it grew louder—louder—deafening, bright, sharp like tearing metal. Splitting Saffron’s ears, nearly tearing his mind in half, vibrating his bones. Find me! Come for me! Help me—! Please, find me—! I need you, I need you!
Even Taran flinched, whimpering like a wounded animal and stirring madly in the back of Saffron’s mind. Pulling at the seams of both of them at once, until Saffron thought he might die. Until he was sure his eardrums bled, until he felt the heat of his blood boiling; find me! Find me! Come for me! Please! Please! I’m here! I’m here, my love!
As quickly as the sound pierced him—it faded. Not fully at first, still clamoring in the back of his ears, but—Saffron was no longer in his room. No longer paralyzed on the bed. He was—back in the hot pools with Cylvan.
No, not Cylvan—someone he didn’t know. But at the same time, a face he knew too well. Taran mac Delbaith, whose lap Saffron straddled, features slightly warped, slightly older, his hair long and clinging to the tan skin of his chest. Smiling up at Saffron like he was the most infuriating, delightful thing he’d ever seen, with hands cupping either side of his bare hips. And Saffron, whose own hands tucked around the back of Taran’s neck, pulled closer. Hands that were perfectly manicured, slender, donning rings of bright jewels that shone even more so after a bath in the mineral water.
They pulled Taran into his chest, where Taran’s hot mouth kissed him up the center between two pale breasts, to his throat, as hands trailed around Saffron’s thighs to his backside—and as Saffron tucked a hand up the side of his neck to pull his hair away and allow the roaming mouth more room on his skin, long tresses of golden blonde spilled into his vision, down the front of his body.
He jolted back—back to where he laid numb on the bed in the dark room. The shrieking in his ears petered off, but Ryder remained where he was. There was something else approaching, he didn’t know, he couldn’t hear it, he could merely sense it—and then a knock came at the door. A light, polite rap of knuckles, followed by Sionnach’s voice. Asking if Saffron was alright. If they could come in.
“Sionn…” Saffron attempted, but Ryder interrupted.
“Be still,” he hissed, rich with vitriol for more than just being interrupted. As if—whatever he was looking for, once again hadn’t answered him. Did he not hear the shrieking? Did he not see the vision Saffron did? There was no time to question as Ryder stepped from his magic circle, toward the door, pulling a knife from his belt as he did.
He opened it—and grabbed Sionnach by one of their horns. They barely yelped, yanked inside and thrown over Saffron on the bed—but not before Ryder’s blade slashed a line up their forearm, drawing enough blood to spill over the bedsheets as Sionnach threw their hands out to catch their fall.
Ryder attempted to close the door in the same motion—but Copper was suddenly there next, slamming into it and knocking Ryder backward.
It all happened too fast to see every moment—Saffron only knew Sionnach whimpered while clutching the gash in their arm, before whirling back again to where Copper stormed in. Where he slammed the door shut behind him, looking Ryder up and down, having only a few inches over the man but seeming suddenly massive.
“Oh, it’s you,” he said, and even Ryder took a step backward. Copper’s eyes flashed over every corner of the room—the window where the man had crawled inside, the magic circle on the floor, Saffron limp but wide-eyed on the bed, and lastly—to Sionnach who only just realized Saffron was beneath where they’d stumbled. Still clutching the weeping cut in their arm, spilling like red paint down their elbow and staining the sheets. Copper stared at them for a long moment, saying nothing else—before snapping back to Ryder, and lunging. Arms outstretched, ready to tear the man’s head off.
Ryder dodged out of the way, slamming a heel into Copper’s broad back and sending him flying into the bed, landing with arms caged on either side of Sionnach’s body as Sionnach yelped and threw their hands up in fear of being crushed. But Copper just met Sionnach’s eyes, before turning and pushing off into Ryder one more time, snarling like an animal. As if—the sight of Sionnach’s bright red blood sent him into a frenzy. Summoning animalistic, feral noises from the back of his throat, body tightening and muscles swelling until the threads of his tunic popped under the pressure—culminating suddenly when the fey lord suddenly buckled forward, tearing through his skin into the form of a growling fox. Shredding through his ashen state by the sight of Sionnach’s fear.
Sionnach cried out, throwing themself over Saffron as Ryder and Copper tore about the room. They took Saffron’s face, forcing him to look at them, begging him to respond, to move, to say something, anything—and Saffron managed to squeeze his eyes shut, clenching his jaw, barely twitching his fingers with the effort. Sionnach finally realized what had happened, making them clamor in another rush of panic while pulling Saffron close.
“Copper, his ring!” They cried. Copper heard it, his giant head turning to look for the briefest second, and Ryder attempted to slice him with the knife. But Copper’s foxlike instincts were undeniable, opening his jaw—and snapping his teeth down on the man’s hand, which Ryder raked back out again with a bark of pain.
The bedroom door flew open with Maeve on the other side, all heads turning in a flash—just enough time for Ryder to stumble backward, clutching his bleeding hand, before leaping through the window at his back. Copper took off after him, tearing through the pine shade and landing in the grass on the other side with a muted thud, before tearing through the soil in chase.
“Go get Cylvan—!” Sionnach started, but Saffron clawed weakly at their arm.
“No—” he croaked, before slumping back against the bed. “No—don’t…”
“But—!” Sionnach demanded, attempting to lift Saffron back up again, but Saffron had finally given in to the enchantment paralyzing him. Allowing it to do as it was meant to, no longer owning the strength required to fight back. He didn’t want to know how it felt to experience the crashing disappointment that would have devoured him, otherwise. Ryder had been right there. Taunting him within arm’s reach—and Saffron still failed to grab him. To stop him, to do anything. Maybe Cylvan was right—and all of Saffron’s attempts to be useful truly were for naught.
Copper returned to the house a few hours later—still in fox form, leaping through the window and summoning a shriek of surprise from Sionnach, whose arm Saffron was busy wrapping with bandages. Whimpering as his paws were swollen from the chase, the beast hopped onto the bed, opening his mouth to drop two wet circlets into Saffron’s open palm. Saffron stared at them in the low light—his engagement ring, and one of Ryder’s pixie rings.
“Good boy,” he whispered, unable to think of anything else.
Maeve had already brought them tea and something to eat, before leaving again to find Saoirse and inform her of the trouble. Saffron begged her not to tell anyone exactly what happened, and Maeve had agreed, but he wasn’t sure she’d keep the promise. Especially as, when prompted to why, Saffron hadn’t been able to give her a good reason. I feel humiliated wasn’t a very good excuse.
Even as he and Sionnach sipped at tea in silence, as Copper laid on the pillows next to him, a part of him kept expecting Cylvan to come knocking. To storm into his room and demand what happened—but he never did. Saffron thought he might, at the very least, come to tell him goodnight—but his prince never did that, either.
Petting Copper’s head, his fur was soft and thick as Saffron remembered from the first time, ears velvety and sensitive as they flicked every time his fingers brushed some of the longer, inner hairs. Standing upright, the points of those ears might have reached Saffron’s ribs, so lying on his side and stretched out, the fox nearly commanded half of the wide bed. Especially with such gangly, skinny legs that stretched and dangled in every direction.
Even Sionnach reached out to hesitantly scratch under the orange beast’s chin, making Copper purr and stretch out long, yawning and showing off rows of sharp teeth. At first Saffron wondered why he didn’t change back into himself sooner, but considering all the affection he was receiving in animal form, perhaps it wasn’t actually any surprise at all.
“Do you think he knew we were here?” Sionnach asked once Copper had settled again, his head tucked snugly into the bucket of Saffron’s crossed legs. “At least, at first…”
“I don’t know,” Saffron breathed, eyes flickering back to the floor where he’d already scrubbed all the charcoal of the magic circle away. His hands still itched from picking up the apple and stinging yew twigs to burn them in the private furnace in the corner of the room. A small price to pay in exchange for no veil event swallowing him. “I do think he planned Ailinne all along, like we figured out—but I don’t know if the king’s guesthouse was his target all along. I think he must have decided to come here only once he learned we’d come, too. He just wanted to fuck with me…” Saffron trailed off, pressing his lips together before glancing up at Sionnach again. “Thank you, Sionnach,” he said. His friend flushed, shaking their head, but Saffron insisted. “I don’t know what he would have done with me if you hadn’t come. Thank you.”
Copper whined, pressing his snout into Saffron’s palm. Saffron couldn’t resist a little smile, petting the fox on the nose.
“You, too,” he whispered. “Though I don’t really understand why you’re still trotting around like this.”
“He just likes the attention,” Sionnach mumbled. Copper’s thick tail smacked them on the thigh.
Saffron chuckled weakly, taking another sip from his cup. The warm tea meant to calm him burned all the way down. Even as he tried to distract himself, tried to find any semblance of calm, the memories of his vision kept knocking at the back of his mind. Bright and terrifying and as vivid as the moment they came.
The crying, pleading voice; his vision sitting perched on the lap of a fey lord who looked like Taran, but wasn’t. In the body of someone with such beautiful hands and long blonde hair. Was that what Ryder had been looking for? Did he really not see it himself? It had to be from one hot pool or another, there in Ailinne, but whatever he was actually trying to find—apparently was not in that place. Which meant Ryder would continue to his next location, to try again.
Saffron put his face in his hand, holding his breath as he forced himself to think. Of the vision, of Ryder’s strange magic circle, of what in god’s name the man could be looking for.
“I assume he’ll continue to Vjallrod, next,” Sionnach whispered, like they read Saffron’s mind.
“In the Winter Court?” Saffron asked, cracking open his eyes. He gazed down at the tea set on the tray between them. “Is that the next place on Proserpina’s coronation route?”
“Yes. Technically where it started.”
They sipped their tea in silence for a long moment, as Saffron considered it. Sionnach gave him all the time he needed, never nudging to ask what else Saffron was thinking, like even they could sense his growing apprehensions. The itch that there was something he wasn’t considering, something he should know before deciding what he wished to do next. Meanwhile, Copper licked at crumbs that fell from the teacakes they chewed on, before sniffing at Sionnach’s bandaged arm. Wrinkling his nose slightly without a sound, before returning his head to Saffron’s lap.
In the silence, Saffron’s mind swirled. Spinning and spinning, until—he realized something, and it was obvious. The missing note that had briefly escaped him, ringing in his ears the moment it swirled back. So obvious, he didn’t dare speak out loud until everything had clicked into place.
Those people in his vision weren’t random. He wasn’t sure he ever assumed they were, just that he didn’t personally recognize them—though he also never anticipated figuring out who they were so suddenly, either, despite never knowing what they had looked like in life. But it really was obvious.
More than once, Saffron had heard Taran described as resembling the wolf king . It had been one of the driving inspirations behind bestowing Clymeus’ silver bones upon him.
Beneath her black veil, Queen Proserpina was described with long, beautiful golden-blonde hair; with pale skin and a slender figure. And while any other details hadn’t been visible to him from that perspective in the vision—the fey lord who resembled Taran, and whose lap she straddled with gold-spun hair spilling over her chest, told him plenty enough.
But placing names didn’t bring him any relief. His mind just returned to spinning, that time saturated with a new rush of anxious nausea. He gazed at the pixie ring Copper had brought back from his pursuit of Ryder, stored in one of the empty teacups between them.
What in god’s name was Ryder Kyteler trying to do? What was he trying to find with visions of Queen Proserpina and King Clymeus while performing that spell—in addition to Saffron’s vision of the crow statue in The Morrígan’s temple the night Ryder did the same in Erelaine. Where Proserpina had once prayed, where she’d left that note begging the queen for protection over her loved ones. What in god’s name was Ryder looking for—and why was Saffron seeing visions with him?
Further—what in god’s name was Saffron supposed to think after witnessing such a vision up close? After witnessing Ryder perform that spell on the floor right next to him, after describing it as older than anything in any high fey book —the same spell the veil had once described as ‘ from the Dagda’s own book .’ Something old, ancient, and, without question—dangerous.
Knowing all of that—was he really expected to just go back to Avren? To give up on catching Ryder, as the man continued north for whatever it was he sought? Was Saffron really meant to just let Ryder continue how he pleased, because it was futile trying to get ahead of him? Was there really any chance he was hunting for something Saffron needn’t worry about—something he could risk turning his back on to return to Avren? Cylvan made it sound so simple—but how much of his contention stemmed from his own fears, rather than genuine belief that all their effort was a lost cause, and time was better spent elsewhere?
If Saffron went back to Avren, to sit and wait for oracles to find a way through the veil, putting all his faith in someone else to do that for him—he would go mad. He would tear all his skin away in the foreboding miasma that hung over Avren. Waiting for something to happen. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting— the first rowan witch in centuries, forced to wait while he had no way of helping; while the man who had once been his promised mentor roved over Alfidel in search of something Saffron didn’t know, but didn’t trust.
Copper’s spindly legs jolted as Sionnach teased some fluff between his back toes, knocking the tea tray askew and spilling the teacup containing Ryder’s pixie ring. Saffron sighed, taking it from the blankets and reaching over the side of the bed where his shoulder bag was in reach. He dug through an inner pocket to find a chain he’d kept with all of his access rings from Morrígan Academy, briefly running his fingers over the bands in a moment of sentimentality. He threaded the pixie ring on with them, while his thoughts raced.
Perhaps visiting Morrígan was more than just a spur-of-the-moment proposition he’d made to Cylvan. Perhaps his subconscious, in all its growing uncertainty and doubt and shame—knew, before the rest of him did, why his instincts turned that way. Perhaps visiting Professor Adelard, to beg on his knees for anything the man could tell him, either about the veil or about Ryder’s ancient circle, even about his visions, or anything, anything else —was in fact what Saffron was meant to do, next. Even if it wasn’t following Ryder straight to Vjallrod—it also wasn’t returning to Avren. By Proserpina’s own coronation route, and the number of days that passed between her time there and arriving in Ailinne, Saffron would have a few days of peace from Ryder’s chaos, anyway.
Even if Cylvan didn’t agree. Even if Cylvan would despise him for insisting—Saffron just gazed down at the pixie ring dangling from the chain with all the others, those circlets that used to clutter every one of his fingers as a beantighe. A trembling emotion tightened his hand over them.
Saffron would make himself useful. He had to. Even if Cylvan didn’t agree with his ideas—Saffron was not going to sit around and fucking wait for someone else to save them. Not when he knew, if anyone could stop Ryder, and rescue Asche, and rescue everyone else taken through the veil—it was the first rowan witch in centuries.