Chapter 40 Bronwen #2
But the blade had spoken, and the voice inside it had sounded far too pleased.
Someone bumped into my shoulder.
I snapped at them instantly, fangs flashing before I even realized what I was doing. “Watch where you’re going.”
The faerie blinked at me in startled confusion. I was fairly certain I had been the one who ran into them. They hurried away anyway.
Get it together!
I breathed in slowly and let the air settle deep in my lungs before letting it out again. Then I did it a second time, forcing the rhythm to stay steady, forcing my thoughts to focus on simple things instead of spiraling where they wanted to go.
I counted my steps as I walked toward the carriage waiting at the edge of the street.
Bronwen. You are here.
You are alive.
You are in control.
A cart rattled past too quickly behind me, and I spun before I could stop myself. My hand dropped instinctively toward my side where a blade would have rested if I had bothered bringing one.
A few startled pedestrians stared at me like I might be the problem. I turned away before anyone could decide to say the wrong thing.
By the time I reached the carriage, my fingers had started tapping together without permission—index to thumb, middle to thumb, ring to thumb, pinky to thumb—over and over in a precise little rhythm that belonged to a much earlier version of my life.
A version of me I had buried.
I forced my hand still.
Stop it.
The carriage door opened easily beneath my grip. I climbed inside and shut it harder than necessary, the sound of wood striking wood cracking through the street behind me.
“Castle,” I called toward the front.
The carriage lurched forward, wheels grinding into motion as the horses pulled us into the flow of traffic.
Fine. Good.
I leaned back against the cushioned seat and forced my shoulders to relax, smoothing invisible creases from my sleeves as I arranged my expression into the mask everyone expected. Amused. Dangerous. Untouchable.
The quiet inside the carriage pressed in around me.
My thoughts kept circling the same place no matter how many times I tried to redirect them.
The blade.
The voice.
He’s coming for you.
The words replayed in my head with irritating clarity, bringing the battlefield back with them—the corpse beneath my hands, the weight of the blade in my grip, the way the metal had pulsed faintly when the voice spoke as if it had a heartbeat of its own.
If the voice had been telling the truth—
If the blade had actually changed—
My jaw tightened.
That was impossible.
I had spent nearly four centuries making sure Carrow stayed exactly where he belonged: trapped, contained, erased as thoroughly as a creature like him could ever be erased. I had watched him die. I had sealed what remained of him inside the blade myself.
But the voice had sounded very certain.
And certainty is a dangerous thing.
My fingers had started tapping again before I realized it, the same quiet rhythm returning despite my efforts to stop it. I flattened my hand against my thigh and forced the movement to end.
No spiraling.
No panic.
Carrow was gone!
Dead.
Destroyed.
I had watched him die!
Hadn’t I?
Metal shrieked as the carriage wheels locked abruptly, the horses screaming in protest as the entire frame pitched sideways before slamming to a violent stop.
I was already on my feet.
“Driver?” I called.
There was no response.
I opened the carriage door slowly and stepped down. The driver was still seated on the bench.
He was also very, very dead.
His skin had gone gray, the life drained so thoroughly from his body it looked poured out. Two clean marks rested at the base of his neck.
I went completely still.
For several long seconds I didn’t move at all. Voices drifted faintly somewhere down the street. A door slammed. Hooves struck cobblestone far away. Closer, I could hear my own heartbeat.
Spiraling. Panicking.
I drew a measured breath into my lungs and let it out again.
Then a blur crossed the edge of my vision, too fast to follow. I turned sharply, every muscle already tightening for a fight.
Nothing.
The street behind the carriage looked exactly the same as it had a moment before—empty stone, dead trees, the distant hum of the city continuing as if nothing had changed.
Then it happened again.
Closer.
I waited.
A few seconds passed.
The quiet sounds of the street crept back in—the distant clatter of hooves against stone, a door shutting somewhere behind me, the low murmur of voices carrying from farther down the road. Even the wind returned, soft at first, stirring the leaves of a nearby tree like nothing had changed.
Like everything was normal.
It wasn’t.
Then—
Leaves crunched.
My body reacted before my mind did, every muscle tightening as something cold slid down my spine. I didn’t turn right away. I couldn’t. For one breath, then another, I stood there, staring straight ahead, trying to convince myself it was nothing.
Just someone passing.
Just another stranger.
But I already knew.
Slowly, I turned.
He stood there like he had never left.
His posture was loose, almost lazy, weight shifted slightly to one side like he had all the time in the world. Like he’d simply been waiting for me to notice him. There was no tension in him, no urgency—just that same infuriating ease, like everything around him existed on his terms.
His hair—icy, pale as frost—fell messily across his forehead, strands catching the light in a way that showed how soft it was. His brown eyes locked onto mine, and my stomach twisted violently at the familiarity of them.
And then he spoke.
Not with the name he’d used before.
But the one he never knew.
“Miss me, Winnie?”