Chapter Six
The road I follow through the wood that afternoon is dark and muddy, enclosed by a tunnel of intertwining branches. I pull my shawl tight and press on, carrying a valise in each hand, with my threadkit slung over my shoulder so that it knocks awkwardly against my thigh with every other step.
At least I am finally alone. No more faeries to hiss at me or pull my hair or look at me as if I might be tasty with a bit of gravy.
Lachlan gave me two valises—one with my new clothes inside, the other bearing the precious spell bought at terrible expense from the Telarii—some final instructions and advice, and a manufactured tale to explain my presence.
I’ve been walking for an hour now, approaching the village of Blackswire through its northern wooded border.
I review my predicament as I walk.
My birthday is in a little more than three weeks.
In that time, I need to find the doorway to Elfhame, discover the spell to unlock it, sneak in, steal a branch, sneak out, and return to Lachlan.
And to do all that, I must first find someplace to stay in the village of Blackswire.
Perhaps there is an elderly widow who could use a pair of helpful hands in exchange for a bed, or a farmer in need of some tracking spells for his wandering sheep.
I have some money from Lachlan to pay for room and board, but my pride smarts at taking further charity from him.
Even if I am here on his business, I am not without my own resources.
Doubt and dread are twin devils dogging my steps, mocking me from the shadows.
I know my task will not be as simple as find the doorway and steal the branch, and I suspect there is much Lachlan has not told me.
But the occasional twinge of pain in my heart drives me forward like a cattle prod—as does the tantalizing hope of success.
If I can restore my magic fully, I can return home sooner. I won’t need an entire year to rest. I could be back in my classroom by the month’s end.
Lachlan gave me directions to find the Elfhame doorway, but they had been vague and will no doubt require some exploration.
I consider forgoing my cover story and simply making inquiries in Blackswire—Pardon, but have any of you ever come across a gate to faerie?
—but Lachlan explicitly forbade me from mentioning my quest to anyone.
He’d warned that there might well be fae hidden about, ones hostile to him, and that if they knew I was looking for the doorway, I would soon find myself suffering some fatal “accident.”
“What did you do,” I’d asked, alarmed, “to incite so many enemies among your own kind?”
He’d grinned and replied, “Perhaps I killed and devoured too many snooping mortal maids.”
Shuddering, I shake away his words, press on, and think how different this place is than London.
Beyond the clean air and emptiness, there is a deeper, more essential difference that fills me with nervous excitement.
In London, nearly all the green things have been tamed and pruned, shrubbery trimmed into hedgerows, gardens walled, trees cut to make way for new buildings.
But here, energy flows unbounded, a roar compared to the whisper I grew up hearing.
The plants grow wild, a vast tangle of clattering limbs and evergreen needles.
And though the wood is dormant for winter, it takes only the slightest nudge of my sixth sense, and life awakens around me like ripples spreading over a still pool.
Old magic shivers beneath the ground. Wild energy, the life of the moors, washes over me like a dash of cold water, tugging at my senses.
Power babbles in the deep roots, in drops from the tangled branches overhead.
It curls in the dormant wood, and I feel as if a hundred unseen eyes are watching me from the shadowed depths of the skeletal winter trees.
For a moment, I shut my eyes and let my mind relax, opening the channels through my body so that I might feel this place better. Perhaps I can even sense the doorway to Elfhame itself, if it is close.
The magic rushes in, wild and green and whispering. It fills me up until my fingertips tingle and my hair follicles prickle. It pools on my tongue, a burst of crisp, cool flavor. Down to my very bones it seeps, like my entire body has been frosted over.
I channel too long. My heart squeezes in reproach, a sudden splinter of pain which shocks me back to my senses.
With a little gasp, I pull out a spool and unwind a length of thread, fingers Weaving a quick wind knot to release the magic into.
Around me, leaves and branches sway in the release of a controlled gust that pours from me, magic turned to air.
Energy returning to the earth. The wind rolls through the trees, clattering branches like a pack of elemental wolves, snarling and quick.
I hear a sudden whinny, as from a frightened horse, and a cry of pain around the bend. A very human cry.
Dropping my valise, I hurry ahead, lifting my skirt to free my steps.
Around the curve in the road, I come upon a scene of chaos: a horse on its hind legs, nostrils wide with panic, its saddle askew and reins swinging free. A large black dog is barking and leaping about as if possessed. And in the ditch lies a young man, unmoving.
“Easy!” I shout, running forward and Weaving before I half have a chance to think. I dart between horse and fallen rider, raising a cat’s cradle between my hands and channeling fast.
Fates be thanked; the calming knot works at once. The horse drops and snorts, its head lowering. I keep the Weave raised until the thread flakes into ash, and by then, the horse is standing still, breathing easily. The dog whines at me.
I turn to the young man in the ditch and find him limp on his stomach, eyes shut but, thank the Fates, breathing.
To my relief, he is entirely human. He must be in his mid-twenties, olive-skinned, with dark brows and full lips, facial bones rigid over shadowed cheeks.
His ancestors might be Italian or Spanish, or hail from even further east—the Ottoman Empire or Persia.
Raven-black hair hangs low over his forehead and curls slightly over his ears.
His cheeks are rough, not quite bearded but in need of a shave.
It is a handsome face, if a little stern and mud spattered; I study it curiously, breath held, moving a hank of hair to inspect a fresh cut on his temple. It doesn’t look too deep.
He’s dressed in riding clothes—wool tartan scarf, white shirt, and olive vest, with a heavy coat muddy from his fall. There is a short sgian-dubh sheathed in his right boot, its pale staghorn handle carved into the head of a raven.
His dog bounds forward and begins licking his ear, and it’s then I see the blood matted in his hair, where he must have struck his head when he pitched off the horse. He is no doubt concussed.
“Oh, fiddle and Fates!” I shoo the dog off him, then rub my temples. “Now what?”
I suspect it was my spell which startled his horse and knocked him from his seat. I cannot leave him lying in the mud with a concussion, especially since it looks as if it’ll start raining any moment.
“This is a fine mess, Rose,” I mutter, as I unspool more thread.
With grunts of effort, I manage to roll the stranger onto his back.
There is mud smeared over the side of his face, and his dark lashes flutter softly on his cheeks.
I wait to see if he will wake, but he doesn’t.
His mouth is parted just enough to show a glint of his teeth, and his breath is a warm cloud over his lips.
I pull the needle from my bonnet and begin to sew lightening spells into his coat and trousers. In the mud and damp and dim light, this is no easy task. His dog hovers at my shoulder, as if suspicious I might be up to no good.
“You’re lucky it wasn’t my old classmate Margaret Appleby who found you,” I mutter to the man. “She was a dreadful sewer. You’d be full of holes by now.”
I blush when I begin working on the fabric against his thigh, careful to slide the needle so it doesn’t stab his leg.
Thank the Fates he’s unconscious. I’ve never put a hand on a man’s thigh before, much less had to be so keenly aware of his skin and my fingers.
By the time the embroidery is complete, my face is as hot as a London street in summer.
I am much relieved when I can move on to his sleeves and lapels.
When I am done, he looks rather like a spider has been spinning over his clothes.
My heart aches from the effort of channeling into all the little Weaves.
Twice the magic fails, and I have to sit and breathe for several long minutes before I am ready to try again.
But when I do reach for it, it comes whispering out of the trees and moss and the dormant ferns nestled under the loam, waiting for spring. Fates, the magic is strong here.
When I finally attempt to lift the man, he is easy enough to carry, no heavier than my valises. Those I tie with hovering charms, then I loop their handles on a string tethered around my wrist, so that they float along behind me.
“I don’t suppose you’ll be any help?” I say to the horse.
No, the creature has fallen asleep; my calming charm worked too well. And frankly, I’m a bit terrified of it. I’ve seen more than one poor waif trampled beneath the carriage horses before. I eye the sideways saddle, then decide to let the horse find its own way home.
How far am I from Blackswire? I should be able to carry the stranger there myself. But I’d better hurry; the lightening spells will burn through soon.
I hoist the man over my left shoulder like a sack of onions and set off, my valises floating behind me, my threadkit thumping against my hip. The dog trots at my side, tongue lolling.
The wood is getting darker by the minute, and colder too. Mud turns to ice, and my panting breaths coil away in pale wisps. At least the effort of carrying the man is keeping most of me warm, but I’m starting to lose the feeling in my toes.
When the woods break twenty minutes later, I find not Blackswire waiting, but a manor house on a hill. My knees are beginning to shake, and the first of the lightening spells is turning to ash. I pause to hoist the man higher on my shoulder, breathing hard.
Heathered hills undulate beneath the mist, broken by the occasional jut of rock, like the bones of long-fallen giants, drenched in pale moss and snow.
A few pools, silver-skinned with ice, twinkle in low pockets of land.
The sky here is a vast granite expanse, heavy with dark clouds.
I inhale deeply; the air tastes of water and moss and crisp northern wind.
The manor atop the hill cuts a severe silhouette against the pale sky, not quite a house, not quite a castle, but something in between. Peaked roofs are lifted by wrought iron corbels, and snarling gargoyles stand watch at every corner, stone claws curled over the eaves.
The entire structure seems to scowl at me. It looks as if it were abandoned years ago, but then I spy smoke wafting from one chimney. There is no other structure in sight, nor any sign of the village.
“Right,” I murmur. “Ominous manor it is, then.”
A splash of water lands on my cheek, and I glance up just as the clouds release a steady rain. That decides it, and I start forward. The dog bounds ahead, stopping every now and again to give me a goading bark.
The young man is getting heavier as more of the lightening spells disintegrate. I press on, trying to keep a grip on him, back and shoulders aching.
“This is really,” I pant, pausing yet again to adjust for his increasing weight, “not where I imagined I would find myself a week ago. Hold on, sir, nearly there.”
When I finally reach the main doors, my legs buckle, and I land hard on my knees. The man goes sprawling, so covered with mud now I doubt his own mother would know him. The dog whines and noses his hand, then gives me a reproachful look.
“What?” I growl. “It’s not as though you were any help.”
I check the back of the stranger’s head—not bleeding, thank the Fates. But he is dangerously pale.
Breathing hard, I glance at the relief carved into the doors’ wooden faces: a great raven, wings spread, feathers remarkably detailed. I don’t have the strength to stand, so I reach out and knock at the mud-splattered lower corner.
At once, as if someone was waiting there all along, one of the doors opens.
Behind it stands a girl of ten or eleven, with large green eyes and a shocking amount of black curls, springing every which way.
A black cape billows behind her, knitting needles hang from a string around her neck, and an eye has been drawn with what looks like soot in the center of her forehead.
There is a healthy flush in her cheeks and an intelligent spark to her eye that tells of mischief.
The dog leaps up, plants his paws on her shoulders, and gives her cheek a great, sloppy lick.
The girl laughs, shoving him off, then blinks at me.
“Hello there,” I say, feeling lightheaded from the ache of carrying an unconscious Scot for miles through a cold woodland. “Might you have any idea who this fellow is?”
The girl squints at the young man slumped in a mud puddle, the last of my Weaves flaking to ash on his clothes, blood still wet in his hair. He groans, his lashes fluttering slightly as rain runs over his face.
“Oh, aye,” the girl says. “That’s my brother, Connie. He’s the laird of Ravensgate. I’m Sylvie. Would you like a cup of tea?”