FIFTY-TWO #3
Calum leant back in bed, his memory hazy. They’d rescued the captive salchs, and a fae commanding the sluagh had sliced open his leg before he’d killed her. And Aly . . .
He jolted upright. “Did you find Aly?”
Sorcha leant forwards, pressing him back into a reclined posture. “I’m sorry. I tried. I looked everywhere, but she and the fae were gone.”
Tears pricked at the backs of Calum’s eyes as he shook his head, his chest collapsing over his heart.
“No,” he moaned, over and over again, until his throat stung and his voice was hoarse.
Sorcha crawled into bed next to him, cradling his head in her arms as sobs racked his body.
He clung to her, his fingertips digging into her shoulders, as though by holding her he could stop her being taken to Faerie too.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, smoothing his hair back from his face. “I’m so, so sorry.”
She spoke as if Aly was dead. She may as well do so. No one escaped Faerie—no one but Calum, and only then with the help of one of Caoimhe’s relations. Aly would never get home without help.
He pushed himself out of Sorcha’s arms, rubbing the sleeve of his sark under his eyes. “I’m all right.”
Sorcha stared at him a long moment, her eyes tight, then stood. “I’ll go get you something to eat.”
“Could you get me a steak pie? There’s a stall down the road that does them.”
“You want a steak pie?” Sorcha’s head was tilted to the side. “Right now?”
Calum cast about for an excuse. “I can’t stomach the pottage we have. Aly made it.”
Sorcha’s jaw slackened and she pressed a hand to her mouth. “All right, I’ll get you a steak pie. Don’t get up while I’m gone.”
“I promise.” He forced the lie out and watched her leave in a rustle of fabric.
He waited for the sound of the front door closing and threw the covers off, but fear froze his limbs when he tried to stand.
He had to go, before Sorcha got home. The pie stall was less than a five-minute walk.
Flashes of his own time in Faerie filled his mind, terror constricting his throat at the memories—of Caoimhe’s volatile moods, of the violence she’d used as an educational method, of the disdain that oozed off the fae whenever they encountered a mortal, and the utter disregard for human life.
Aly could be facing all of that, and any number of other horrors, at that very moment.
The image of her alone and friendless in Faerie, her face ashen with pain, galvanised him, and he hauled himself out of bed, gritting his teeth at the agony lancing up his leg.
His kilt lay thrown over a chest, the gash in it crusted with blood.
He opened the wardrobe, pawing through it for some trousers.
He pulled out a pair made of grey-brown tweed and tugged them on, then finished dressing, tucking the bottle from the doctor into a pocket of his coat.
The knives in his bandolier had been re-sheathed by Sorcha; he picked it up and limped down the stairs, leaning heavily on the banister.
Halfway down the stairs he paused, his limbs shaking.
It was a foolish mission, relying on his ability to find her in the vastness of Faerie, and requiring him to do so before thousands of years had passed wherever she was.
No one would blame him if he didn’t go after her.
Even if he found her, even if only weeks had passed in her timeline, it could still be too late.
No one would blame him, but he would never be able to live with himself. He was the only person who knew Faerie well enough to stand a chance at finding her, the only person with even a hope of rescuing her, and as long as there was even the faintest hope, he had to try.
He pushed on down the stairs, his eyes falling on his broadsword as he reached the bottom.
There was no way he could walk through the streets of the city in broad daylight with a sword strapped to his side without being stopped by the police.
But he wasn’t foolish enough to go to Faerie with just a handful of throwing knives, either.
Calum shuffled towards it, his leg nearly giving out under him when he bent to pick up the sword.
For a moment his vision went white as searing pain tore through him, but he took a deep breath and forced the nausea down.
It was nothing compared to what Aly would endure in Faerie without his help.
He stuffed the sword into its scabbard and wrapped the whole lot in a cloak, then stepped outside before Sorcha could return.
He would find Aly. And he would bring her home.