Chapter 8
I stood in front of the old log cabin nestled in a copse of evergreen trees.
This wasn’t a cute log cabin radiating sunshine and happiness, twinkling under the dappling sunshine with fairies flittering around.
No, not this cabin. The shadows of the trees played with the craggy, cracked exterior of the weather worn logs.
Two small windows had been darkened by smoke stains, patches of moss and a dark green film, which was probably a mould of some sort.
A soot-marred stone chimney jutted from the moss-covered roof, releasing plumes of smoke.
Vines crept along the sides of the cabin as if trying to reclaim the building for the forest.
I turned to Ace and lifted an eyebrow.
He winced.
“This looks like the home of a wicked witch,” I said. “Like the ones I used to read about in books.”
Ace sighed, his shoulders dropping. He glanced up at the clouds forming overhead as if galeon intervention would swoop in and save him.
It wouldn’t.
“You need to be careful about what you say from now on,” he whispered. “There are many types of phaanon, Mouse. Not just the immortal kind, what the phaanons used to call High Phaan, but others as well.”
“Vampires, shifters and witches?” I said. I had heard the gruesome bedtime stories, but they had always been just that, stories. Tall tales meant to scare young children into behaving for their parents.
He nodded.
“Whose doorstep did you bring me to?” I asked.
“This is Hecate’s home,” he said. “I can only speak her name when I’m at her doorstep. I couldn’t tell you earlier.”
“Hecate?”
“Yes,” he hissed.
“As in the goddess of witches?” I asked. “Did she lay a spell on you to bring unsuspecting, innocent women to her doorstep?”
“The spell only prevents me from revealing her existence to anyone who doesn’t already know,” he said. “And I think calling yourself innocent is stretching things a bit, don’t you think?”
I narrowed my eyes. Really? He felt the need to comment on my innocence at a time like this?
“Also, she’s not actually a god,” Ace continued.
“She’s phaanon,” I finished for him. He wasn’t the only one who could connect the dots.
“And she’s right here,” an older woman’s voice called out. “Waiting for you two to find some manners.”
Ace jerked back and we spun to face the new speaker. An old woman stood outside the cabin. The hood of her long maroon cloak cast a shadow across her face while the tattered hem brushed the mossy ground.
“Hecate,” Ace said in a way of greeting. The woman pulled her hood back. Her wrinkle- lined face showed the passage of time, but her piercing blue gaze gave her an ageless, almost youthful appearance.
Ace turned toward me and held out his hand. “This is—”
“I know who this is.” Hecate narrowed her gaze as she peered at me. “What I’d like to know is why you’ve brought a daughter of Mab to my doorstep.”
Daughter of Mab? I’d heard that before…
I shook the memory away and focused on what was important for this moment. Surviving. This woman’s reputation proceeded her in all the cautionary children’s tales. Hecate, the goddess of witches, would grant wishes of scorned women, but her gifts always came with an unexpected cost.
Ace had delivered me to her, all right, but he forgot to wrap me in a bow.
“I’m not a scorned woman,” I blurted out.
Hecate scoffed. “I should hope not. There are more important things to life than wasting time and energy on a man who doesn’t want you.”
My brain stuttered. She wasn’t wrong…
But I wasn’t expecting life advice to come from a woman who looked like a storybook villain.
“Why are you here?” Hecate asked.
Ace cleared his throat and shifted his weight from foot to foot.
Stepping closer, I waved at Nala. “I’m here for my familiar. Ace said you might be able to help.”
Her gaze sparked and she leaned forward. She sniffed and jerked her chin up. “What’s wrong with her?”
“We’re not sure. She was struck with a poisoned arrow.”
“Do you have the arrow?”
I reached for my quiver to pull free the arrow I’d collected from the other side of the portal.
“Yes,” Ace said, surprising me. “I snapped the arrowhead off.”
Using a cloth, he dug into his pocket and pulled out an arrowhead, careful not to touch the poisoned metal.
The metal.
It wasn’t the poison he feared touching, it was the iron.
My mind frantically reeled through my memories, searching for times he’d handled weapons or any other form of iron.
I couldn’t recall a single memory of him touching iron. He always had someone else make his arrows growing up. And I didn’t know where he sourced his weapons now. Maybe he simply wore gloves.
But if he couldn’t touch iron, how come I could?
“Mouse?” Ace’s deep voice interrupted my spiralling thoughts. “Are you okay?”
I shook away my many questions and swallowed the lump in my throat. “Yes, of course.”
“You two should come in,” Hecate said. She hesitated and looked down at Nala. “Bring her, too.”
Hecate didn’t wait for us to answer. Instead, she turned and walked back to the front door. The wood slats of the small deck leading to the front door creaked and groaned under her shuffling feet. She paused at the entrance and turned to us.
My gaze drifted back to the old cabin. The building groaned in response, as if sensing my doubt and daring me to cross the threshold.
“Well?” Hecate’s dry voice prodded me into motion.
I staggered forward and followed her into the dark cabin.
A low burning fire with bright embers staved off the chill in the air and provided a soft glow to illuminate the sparse furniture in the one-room cabin.
Whatever strained light managed to shine through the grime covered windows offered a little illumination, but the cabin was otherwise shrouded in shadows.
A small bed, with rumpled thread-bare sheets sat in the corner of the room unmade.
Hecate hobbled over to a rocking chair by the fire and settled into the seat with a sigh. She waved at a loveseat across from her.
“Leave your weapons at the door,” Hecate said. “You have no need for them here.”
I bit back a scoff. I would be the judge of whether I needed my weapons or not. But I could also compromise. I placed my bow at the door and removed my quiver to rest beside it. I still had my dagger.
Ace had walked in behind me while Nala padded over to the kitchen area that had a cluttered counter, simple sink and no food. She whined and flopped down on the ground. I exchanged a look with Ace, and he shrugged. Without a word, I walked over to the couch and sat down.
Ace removed his bow and quiver and rested them on the side of the loveseat before sitting next to me.
Hecate watched me with laser focus and waited until we were both settled before she spoke. “Why don’t you start at the beginning. Tell me about these arrows and the hunters who wielded them.”
So, I did, and I had no reason to hold any information back.
I had nothing to hide and if Hecate had any hope of healing Nala, she needed all the information.
As I talked, Hecate shifted her attention to my familiar and clicked her tongue.
Nala’s ears perked up. With a few more clicks of encouragement, she peeled herself from the rickety, wood-slated floor and padded over to Hecate.
The old woman smiled and patted her lap.
“Oh, she doesn’t—” I started to explain Nala’s standoffish behaviour with strangers, but to my surprise, Nala dropped her head in the witch’s lap with a loud plop. Hecate’s thin lips twitched, and she ran her hands through Nala’s thick fur.
“You poor thing,” Hecate crooned. “A devoted familiar, a sweet soul.” Hecate’s shrewd gaze caught mine. “I will help you, hunter, but my assistance comes at a price.”
I swallowed. Everything I owned was either burned up in the fire or coated in ash. If anything valuable had managed to survive, it was likely confiscated by the king’s men or the rogue hunters. “I don’t have a lot.”
“I never ask for something you can’t pay.”
I nodded, but her words didn’t ease my concerns. Instead, worry and doubt clawed up my spine. “What do you want?”
“It’s a simple task, given your skill set.”
Crawling unease burrowed deep into the base of my skull, coiling like a nest of cold, living worms. My scalp prickled, every hair rising in warning as if the very air had turned against me.
Shadows in the corners of the cabin seemed to pulse with each breath I took, and though Hecate hadn’t spoken yet, the silence between us tightened like a noose. I felt the price before I heard it.
“I want you to kill the unicorn.”