41. The Vessel
41
THE VESSEL
S affron didn’t know how long he stood there and stared. Until the rain overhead broke a little harder and soaked through his hair and down his spine all over again. Once again unable to breathe, but smelling every moth-eaten, mildew-rich stench of that prison where the daurae was hidden.
Comprehending too much at once, that it only dug him deeper into uncertainty. Too many shrill, striking warnings and understandings crashed into him all at once, slamming against his back, wailing directly to his face. Forcing him to shove through each and every bit like cleaving a shrieking wraith, allowing himself only one absolute truth to ring through.
Saffron was not going anywhere without Daurae Asche by his side.
Glancing back to the woman, his thoughts raced again as, in a flash, he reconsidered every strange thing she’d uttered since he arrived. Piecing together the exact lie he needed.
“You said the bairn keeps trying to pull out their hair, yes?” He asked with new authority, voice smooth and sure of itself, even if his insides continued to roil like water in a pot. The crone nodded with a wrinkled frown. “Let me approach them to make sure they haven’t done any other damage to themself. I want to be thorough in my report back to Master Deimne.” Uttering the name almost made Saffron’s teeth clamp down on his tongue to sever it.
“Oh, I really don’ recommend it, sir?—”
“I insist,” Saffron answered, that time with the practiced authority of a high fey. A rowan witch. Whichever would convince the crone first. “That person will know better than to do me any harm. I can assure you.”
The crone gave him a wild, hesitant look, before pressing her lips together and nodding, Digging around on the belt strapped against her wide, beneath her tattered shawl, she produced an ancient key easily older than King Ailir himself.
“I’ll be lockin’ the door behind ye while you’re in there, just a warning,” she said while posing the key into the latch. “Don’t need to risk them gutting you then runnin’ out.”
“No problem,” Saffron answered. He knew more than enough arid epithets to unlock a damn door. He didn’t care, he just wanted inside the goddamned cottage, and the old woman moved like syrup on a winter’s day.
Finally stepping inside, Saffron practically slammed the door shut behind him. The crone didn’t protest, as the sound of the locking door came quickly after.
The thick miasma of the closed-off prison was worse once on the other side of the door, and Saffron had to resist covering his mouth. His heart continued mercilessly pounding in his chest, ringing in his ears—only interrupted by the low, animalistic growl of the fey crouched in the back corner. A low, rumbling warning of something once demure and proper, reduced to their most innate instincts in order to survive, practically back to their wildest roots. A creature that once crawled with claws out of the earthen mounds where all fey were born.
Saffron raised a hand, yanking the view-piece shut to keep the old crone from watching. He turned back to Asche one more time, breathing in a deep lungful of the thick air, forcing himself to endure what Asche had been subjected to for days and days on end. Saffron didn’t want to think about how long the daurae had actually spent in the human world, before being brought back to the Finnian Ruins where time would have dragged on as long as it did for Saffron. ériu above—Saffron could barely stomach the thought of the daurae having been there the entire time, as they searched the Finnian Ruins a week and few days prior.
“Asche,” he finally said in a low, calm voice. He put his hands out slightly. “It’s me, Asche. It’s Saffron.”
Asche hissed, then scoffed, tangled blonde hair shifting over their face.
“I’m not falling for that trick again, you bastard. I suggest you heed the old woman’s warnings and get out of here before I take your godsdamned eyes for something to eat.”
Saffron forced himself to remain calm, as well as to remain where he stood. The last thing he wanted was to scare them, when they were already clearly frightened enough.
“It’s really me,” Saffron said. “Let me prove it, alright? Someone glamored to look like me wouldn’t have all the same memories I do.”
“Try me.”
Saffron swallowed the nervous lump in his throat. He mentally scrambled for anything, anything, that only he would know. “The morning they snuck me out of Avren, after what I did at your brother’s engagement party on Ostara—you snuck a beaded bookmark through the carriage window just as it was leaving.”
Asche visibly shifted.
“It was beaded with a white unicorn on it.”
“That doesn’t convince me of anything,” Asche insisted, but a flicker of their resolve had softened.
“It…” Saffron glanced back over his shoulder, nerves ringing hot as he considered his next words. He shared them in a whisper. “It was Sunbeam who held you at the Midsummer Games, wasn’t it? Dressed as a witchhunter. She was the one who carried you through, wasn’t she?”
“What?” Asche asked, but not out of confusion—rather, real surprise that someone might know that. Saffron only nodded.
“I saw her aura. Her red halo, meaning she was rich with magic from eating rowan berries right beforehand. That’s the only reason I didn’t intervene. You recognized her too, didn’t you? You met my eyes for a moment, like you were trying to reassure me.”
“I wanted you to choose Cylvan,” Asche’s voice cracked, and Saffron’s heart ripped with it. He nodded more, taking a few steps forward.
“Yes—and Cylvan is fine. Everyone, Cylvan, your fathers, everyone made it out of the veil event fine. And they’re all worried sick about you. Cylvan spends most of his free time praying to Lugh at that family altar, the one on the cliffside that overlooks the sea. They’ve got every oracle in Alfidel trying to find you. We’ve been tracking Ryder across the country for weeks, too?—”
“But how did you find me?” Asche asked desperately, sitting upright. The blanket draped over their shoulders shifted, revealing their narrow wrists bound roughly together with rope. Bile raced up the back of Saffron’s throat.
“I—I don’t know exactly how I got here, or why that woman thought I was here to see you, but—” Saffron had to catch his breath, lungs too tight to inhale fully. “—but it doesn’t matter, because we’re going to get out of here. I’m going to take you back home. There’s a veneer nearby, just into the woods, that leads into the Winter Court.”
“What?” Asche croaked again. Saffron was close enough to see their face by then, though it only made it harder to keep his composure. Asche, who looked exhausted, the bags under their eyes so dark it was impossible to know if they weren’t actually bruises. Whose bright gold eyes were rounder than ever against their pale skin and sunken cheeks. Staring at Saffron with wild abandon like all they wanted in the world was to believe it really was him standing there.
Saffron nearly stepped close enough to embrace them—but they suddenly thrust out their bound hands, eyes going dark and cold once more. Saffron reeled back in surprise, just as Asche searched for something on the dirty floor. They picked up a sharp rock, tossing it to Saffron’s feet.
“P-perform some arid magic, for me to see. The Saffron I knew was rowan blooded. He made his oath with the veil in the Spring Court.”
Saffron obeyed without question. He bent down onto one knee, but rather than taking Asche’s rock, he pulled the hematite wand from down his sleeve.
“Professor Adelard, from Morrígan, gave this to me,” he explained as Asche narrowed their eyes. “What do you want me to do?”
Saffron pressed the tip of the wand to the fraying floorboards. Asche thought about it for a moment.
“Summon a flower,” they said. “An iris.”
Saffron couldn’t resist a little smile. “Cylvan’s favorite.”
Those two words made Asche’s tense body relax slightly again, allowing Saffron to do the same.
With ease, focusing on his hand to not let it rush the movements, he drew a simple arid circle surrounded with ogham markings that read ‘ grow/flower/iris/violet’ . After returning the wand to his sleeve, Saffron placed his hand at the circle’s contact point, closing his eyes and shifting his energy to magically deliver for the spell. Such a simple thing, it wouldn’t take much.
But when the sensation of magic coursing through him didn’t come right away, he cracked open his eyes, thinking perhaps the task was so small he simply didn’t realize it’d happened—but his nerves twinged when the circle remained empty in front of him. Perhaps he wasn’t focusing enough, perhaps it was the stress of the moment blocking his ability to do something so simple—but no matter how hard he tried, his magic refused to obey him. Just like how the wolf once pinned in the back of his mind refused to stir no matter how he tried to rouse it.
“I don’t understan—“ His frustration escaped, cut short when Asche suddenly lunged from their spot and slammed Saffron to the floor. He braced for fingers to dig into his eyes—but the daurae didn’t attack him. They embraced him, bound hands looping over his head and grasping at him. Clinging with a tight desperation, before collapsing into gasping sobs and burying their face into Saffron’s chest.
“Thank the gods!” They wept. “I knew you would come, I knew! But I didn’t know when, I didn’t know if you knew—what they wanted to do with me! Gods, I was so afraid! I was so scared I would be here forever, Saffron…! I thought they would unravel all my memories and it would be too late…!” Asche wept until their words were no longer sensible, just clinging to Saffron until he was sure their clawing hands left bruises on his skin.
Saffron held them back just as securely, locking his arms around Asche’s slender frame and pulling them even closer when he felt the bumps of their spine through their dirty shirt. He held them as tightly as he held Cylvan, as tightly as Cylvan would have had he been the one to find them first.
“It’s alright, Asche,” Saffron whispered, voice cracking as the sound of the daurae’s sobs choked him. “It’s alright. You’re safe now. I’m so sorry it took so long. I swear we’ve been trying to find you from the first moment they took you. I’m going to take you back home, alright? I’m here. I’m here.”
“H-how are we supposed to get back home?” Asche stammered wetly into Saffron’s shirt. “Especially if—if you can’t do any magic.”
“What?” Saffron asked with a weak chuckle. “What makes you say I can’t… You mean the iris I couldn’t summon? Well, that’s nothing, it was probably just?—“
“No!” Asche exclaimed, pulling away with a new look of panic. “I thought—you once told me the veil wouldn’t let you do magic in the human world!”
Saffron stared at them. His ears rang with those words, loud and bright and deafening.
“What?” He asked. His voice sounded a thousand miles away. Asche just stared back at him, realizing as he did, exactly how little he knew of where they were.
“You’re… in the human world, Saffron,” Asche whispered, choking on a few of the syllables. “In—in a place called Ire-land. Daire , I think, the town is called…”
“The human—” Saffron choked, grabbing Asche’s arm with wide eyes. His mind raced again, barely managing to tear a thought free of the gale to speak it out loud. “We’re not—outside the Finnian Ruins?”
Asche shook their head, eyes searching him with brows cinched in a panic.
“Then—the others,” Saffron blurted. “Letty and the others, are they close?—!?”
“I don’t think so,” Asche shook their head, speaking softly, but it was still enough to knock the wind from Saffron’s chest. They sat back, unlooping their arms from behind Saffron’s head without every pulling their eyes away. “They blindfolded me the whole time they brought me here. I think it took a few hours from where they first had us. Maybe even a whole day. I think we crossed some borders along the way, too, because I think the language changed—but only in whispers. Like everyone suddenly spoke an unusual sort of Old Alvish, but never out loud. Maybe we even crossed the sea, I don’t know, I don’t know, Saffron?—”
“It’s alright,” Saffron insisted. He shoved the adrenaline down, forcing himself to return to the moment at hand. Forcing himself to swallow the disappointment like a shot of searing poison that burned all the way through. If Asche was right, what they thought to be unfamiliar, whispered Old Alvish was more likely human Gaeilge. If Asche was right—then the veneer really had carried Saffron into the human world, where Ryder once lived. Where Queen Proserpina once lived. Connected to Fjornar through that veneer. Saffron really hadn’t emerged anywhere close to Avren, or the Finnian Ruins, at that.
Closing his eyes, he swallowed every one of those truths like thorn-tangled knots. Having to understand and accept that—even if he couldn’t find and take his friends home with him that time—he could at least rescue the daurae. Even without his rowan magic to help him, he could get Asche back through the veneer. He didn’t need magic to beat his way out of a rotten old house, to overpower the old crone keeping watch on the other side of the door, to carry Asche on his back the whole way if he had to. He only had to get back through the veneer, back into the Winter Court. Taran would be able to hear him, then. Taran, who wasn’t ignoring him, who was simply—out of reach, as Saffron had unknowingly passed—through—the veil. Into the human world .
His existence, his very being, spun until he through he’d be sick.
“It’s alright, it’s alright,” he repeated, pressing a hand to his face and fighting to grapple his bearings. After catching his breath again, he sighed, tucking a piece of tangled hair from Asche’s face. He closed his eyes, inhaling in the murky, tepid air of the house.
“I’m going to take you back to Alfidel. Back to Cylvan, alright?” He promised again. “Once we get back through, we’ll take the train all the way back. I’ll buy you as many treats as you can eat. I’ll send Fiachra to let Cylvan and the kings know you’re coming. It’ll be alright; you’re going to be alright.”
Helping Asche to their feet, Saffron’s simmering anger boiled a little hotter at the reminder of how weak the daurae had clearly grown since being trapped there. At least, it really hadn’t been the same length of time as in Alfidel. Only a fraction. Still—Saffron didn’t want to think about what might have happened if he’d waited any longer.
The most reassuring thought came next, that once the daurae was safe—Saffron even knew how to return. He’d leave Asche safe in Avren, and turn right back around. He’d return to the Winter Court, to Fjornar, to pass through the veneer in the woods. He would find his way through Daire in Ireland ; he would find his way to London, whatever that took. He’d find his friends, he’d find Sunbeam. He’d bring them all home—and only then would he finally demand to know exactly how Sunbeam had allowed Asche to fall into such a dangerous predicament, when Saffron had trusted her with their life.
Until then, though—he would just cling to Asche’s hand, and walk them home.
Rifling through the clutter of the mother’s cottage— Queen Proserpina’s cottage —Saffron forced himself to remain calm. Even as the crone on the other side of the door constantly called out to ask if he was alright, or if the daemon inside had gotten free and gutted him. Each time, Saffron just called back that he was fine, he was nearly finished looking the bairn over.
Eventually the crone would stop believing him and drag the slider open to look for herself, and Saffron felt every minute that passed knowing that. But Asche wore only a thin shirt and pants, without even a pair of shoes on their feet, perhaps to discourage attempting to run. He had to find something warmer for them to wear, especially once they returned to the Winter Court.
Settling on a ratty cloak, Saffron yanked it off a hook on the wall, grimacing when a tower of other dusty belongings crumbled from the movement. He braced for the crone to call out again, frantically trying to manufacture a convincing lie—surprised when she didn’t. Surprised when there was only silence, enough that he crept to the door and nudged the slider away. The old woman was gone from the other side, both a relief and a frustration, as she’d locked the door behind him. No matter—he couldn’t use arid magic to open it, perhaps, but there were plenty of non-magic ways to break down a door. Especially one comprised of rotten wood as old as the queen herself.
Draping the old cloak over Asche’s head, they wrinkled their nose against the strong smell of mothballs, but didn’t complain.
“I assume you can’t use your fire to burn it down, ‘else you would’ve tried that already, huh?” Saffron asked, returning to the door to drag his hands over the wood, the knob, the lock, the hinges.
“Too much rowan—” Asche answered, “—and other anti-fey shit around here. Gods, I’m looking forward to being able to breathe again.”
“I can’t blame you,” Saffron said, searching the floor until he found a broken stake of metal, lining it up with the edge of the lock bolt and slammed it into the old wood with a dull sound. “You know—I met your mother, Naoill. It’s suddenly occurred to me why you were born with fire magic, and Cylvan with wind—” Thud. “Seeing as you both really are descended from dragons.”
Asche wrinkled their nose again. “You thought that was a lie?”
“No, just—Cylvan exaggerates everything, so I assumed the same for that claim. Consider me fooled.”
“I’m surprised mother didn’t eat you.”
“Almost did. Thought they were going to, after I fell off this cliff…”
“What?”
“Nothing—I’ll tell you everything on the way home.”
Asche laughed weakly, the sound of it twisting up Saffron’s heart. “I missed you, Saffron.”
Thud. Thud. Thud . Saffron slammed the end of the metal spike into the wood, slowly chipping away at the edge of the lock like taking bites from a frozen apple. But pulling back for the next hit, thinking it might be the one to finally break through—Saffron’s body petrified the moment he heard voices approaching. Two of them.
“What in gods’ name were you thinking, Fidelma, gods damnit!”
“Shit,” Saffron hissed, glancing back to Asche, then to the door. He pulled the slider open an inch—but there was no time to do anything else. Ryder was only a few yards away, and approaching fast. Looking wild, furious, red-faced and stalking like an animal toward the cottage.
Saffron put his hand out, grabbing Asche and pushing them to the side of the door. Asche clung to him from behind, holding their breath as the slider was shoved open, and Ryder looked inside to find it empty. Saffron could hear how heavily the man breathed, angry and desperate. He tightened his grasp on the metal bar.
The assault on the door must have jammed the lock, because Ryder tried twice to unlatch it with the key, before stepping back and ramming his shoulder into the wood. It split the rotten fibers with a deafening sound, and he stumbled into the cottage.
“Where are you, little mouse—!” he snarled into the darkness. Around his waist, a black witchhunter veil was cinched tight over the knife wound Saffron had left him with, though blood had already soaked through the fabric. The cuffs from his wrists were also gone, only swollen bruises left behind—possibly only getting his chance as Saffron hadn’t thought twice about dropping the opulent ring in the crone’s kitchen.
Ryder turned in his search of the cottage—freezing the instant his eyes met Saffron’s, metal bar raised between them.
“I believe that was your mother’s door, Master Deimne,” Saffron said, voice shaking. “I’d say she’d be angry with you—but I think it’ll be a long while still until you get to talk to her again.”
“You—!”
Saffron slammed the metal bar into the side of Ryder’s jaw, sending him to the floor in a heap of curses. Behind him, Asche bolted for the doorway, slamming into the crone on the other side and shoving her down with a small cry of alarm. Saffron wasted no more time, swinging the bar against Ryder’s arm as the man reached for his leg, stumbling backward before throwing the metal piece at him, then turning to take chase after the daurae.
“Asche, this way!” he cried, grappling for their hand once in reach and running as fast as his legs would carry him. Straight into the thick wall of trees a hundred feet from the queen’s cottage. On their heels, Ryder called out after him, voice exploding with fury. Saffron didn’t look back. He just clung to Asche’s hand and ran.