Chapter Eight #2
It rushes in, a hungry tide. I let my head fall back and draw it into my core, let it search me out.
I hold it as long as I can before my heartbeats begin to strike like a knife driving in and out, in and out.
Then, with a sob of pain, I channel the magic into an illusion knot strung between my hands.
A flock of blackbirds burst from the threads, airy and indistinct, ravens of smoke and shadow. They screech silence and beat no wind from their diaphanous wings. Hundreds of them pour from me, a great black cloud, and in moments they dissipate into the wind.
Letting out a long breath, I sink to my knees and press my hands to my chest, ashes trickling through my palms.
That was foolish and purposeless, and now I’ve weakened myself. It will take longer to trek through the moors, longer to find the gate, longer to—
Shutting my eyes against the panic which threatens to swallow me whole, I try to still my heart.
Chin up, Rose, I tell myself. No more getting carried away. Remember why you are here. Remember what you stand to lose. Remember what you stand to gain.
Magic without pain. No one and nothing to fear, ever again. A purposeful place in the world, uncontestable and necessary. I think of my students, with their wide, desperate eyes, and I remember what it felt like to be one of them. Alone, afraid, so very small.
I set my eyes on the distant bluffs. The land to the south is forested, its trees old; I can tell even from this height the trunks there are vast and ancient, the crowns high and proud. Those trees have stood for centuries and no doubt hide centuries of secrets.
But I am here to discover only one.
A scramble down the back of the bluff takes me upon a little southbound path, perhaps no more than a deer trail, but it affords easier passage through the heather and the thicker undergrowth which crops up as I pass into the wood.
Among the trees, the wind grows thinner.
Where it rioted over the open moors like a herd of wild horses, here it slinks, fox-like, in and out of shadows.
I know better than to strike into unknown forest without some path out again, so I remove a spool of sturdy red wool from my threadkit and tie a length to a branch. I let it unwind as I walk, my finger stuck through the center, taking care not to let it pull taut and snap the line.
Go to the lowest point of land, Lachlan had told me. You will know the gate when you see it.
So I follow every downward slope, sliding and slipping over leaves and snow, soon breathing hard, my heart racing now not only with exertion, but with the thrill of closing in on my destination.
The gate is near; I can feel it, as the ancient trees bend and bow overhead, their great limbs, even in winter, heavily draped in pale moss.
I leap from rock to rock over a half-frozen burn and startle three stags in a wide clearing.
Heart skipping a beat, I stumble to a halt and watch them toss their antlers as they bound away, springing over melting snows.
In moments they’ve vanished into the wood.
For all the silence of their steps, they may as well have evaporated.
Halfway between Toren’s Rise and the Three Fates Bluff, as I’ve inwardly named the craggy cliffs to the south, I slow and catch my breath, walking measuredly through the silent trees and watching for any sign of the gate to Elfhame.
This part of the forest, I sense in my bones, is older than the rest. Perhaps this is the most remote and untouched strip of land in all of Britain.
The trees are giants, grandfathers and grandmothers wizened with moss.
As I walk among them, they groan and creak as if fully aware of their age, and my coming here has woken them from centuries of slumber.
Beneath the crisp scent of the snow, I breathe in the earthy bouquet of wet soil and rotting oak.
Are they here, the fae of the stories? Lachlan’s long-lost kin? Are they watching me circle their doorstep, a foolish girl searching out powers she has no business provoking? Or have they fully withdrawn into their own strange world?
After what seems like hours of wandering, I step between two trees, ducking low beneath a curtain of moss, and feel a tug on my finger.
I’ve run out of thread. The last length falls away from the spool; I catch it before it is lost.
My search has ended in a nondescript patch of forest. Though the trees are remarkable for their girth, little else about the place is noteworthy, and my shoulders slump with disappointment.
I hadn’t truly expected to find anything on my first foray, but still, the failure has made it clear this will be no simple task.
I am not strolling down to the market to buy blue ribbons; I am seeking entrance into an inhuman world ruled by an immortal race, armed with nothing more than a spool of thread, my wits, and dying magic.
Wrapping the thread around my finger, I begin to make my way back.
But I go not ten steps before I realize the thread has gone slack, and it must have broken somewhere along the way. When I find the frayed end, and no sign of the rest of the trail, I curse under my breath.
“Oh, just a little faerie’s favor, Rose,” I growl, as I wind up the thread I’d managed to gather and begin to Weave a cat’s cradle. “Just a little jaunt to the frozen arse of nowhere to search for an ancient faerie door which may or may not even exist. Fates damn me for a fool!”
Letting out a puff of frosty breath, I shake away my frustration and focus on my threads.
I know the manor lies somewhere to the east, but with the sky too clouded to reveal the sun, I have no idea what direction I’m facing.
In London, I could have found my way through the streets by smell alone, but out here in the Fatesforsaken wilderness of Fatesforsaken Scotland, I am helpless.
Well. Not entirely helpless.
It takes only a thread of magic, pulled from the trees around me like a teaspoon of water ladled from a river, to fuel my wayfinding knot, and from the glowing threads, a small bright bead of silver light rises and hovers in the air, soft as a glowworm.
I reach out, and it darts away, blinking faintly, then waits just out of arm’s length, indicating north.
Dusting the ashes of the burnt threads from my hands, I set off, keeping the bead of light at my left elbow, like a quiet companion.
Before long, I find I’m no longer thrashing through undergrowth, but following a narrow path that gradually widens.
Alongside it, little green shoots push up through the soil, promising blossoming snowdrops and unfurling ferns over the days to come.
The path is hard dirt, broken by the occasional root, but from the encroaching undergrowth I can tell it hasn’t been used in some time.
The path ends at a crumbling cottage set in a small green glen, everything damp and fuzzy with moss, and the slope of the roof skinned over with snow.
The stone walls are half collapsed on one side, and a door hangs ajar.
Clearly the place is abandoned, and I nearly pass it by and continue on the path, which bends away to the right.
But then I notice the debris scattered around the cottage.
It’s all old and half covered over in moss and leaves, but there’s no mistaking the curved embroidery hoop jutting from the loam.
Warily, I circle the cottage before going in and find on the other side a mound of moss with a plain wooden marker driven into the top, its face carved with the trefoil knot of the Fates, a standard grave marker, though there is no name upon it.
Who lived here, I wonder, in the middle of the wood?
Judging by the empty, half-burned spools I find in the nearby refuse pit, it was a Weaver.
Oddly, there are also a great many crude birdcages piled about, some broken, others holding the grisly remains of the birds which died in them.
I don’t linger over them; the little piles of bones and feathers make my skin crawl.
I go inside, startling the fox which had taken up residence there. It bounds away with a yelp, scaring my heart into my throat. Pausing a moment to find my breath, I look around.
There is little left that is usable; the narrow bedframe has collapsed, as has the table.
A chair still stands in the corner, looking sturdy enough, though I do not give it a try.
More Weavers’ clutter is strewn across the floor—spools and hoops, bobbins and pegboards.
My heart sinks, feeling a strange kinship with the anonymous Weaver who died here, and I begin looking through the cottage, hoping to find a name I can add to the grave.
Some small remembrance, a way to honor the soul of a fellow magic user.
At last, I find a small bureau that had been crushed by the collapsed wall.
I manage to pull open one drawer, and inside I find a thick pile of folded papers amid loose spools and half-finished embroideries.
One of these spells I recognize, with a sudden sickening lurch.
I take out the hoop and gaze grimly at the threads worked into it.
“A draining spell,” I murmur. Suddenly all the birdcages outside make sense.
I’ve heard of Weavers using such dark magic, pulling energy from living creatures rather than plants, in order to wield twice as much power.
But the law strictly forbids it, and transgressors are often punished by the severest of methods: the crushing of one’s hands beneath rocks, or even hanging, if one were wicked enough to draw from another human.
What kinship and sympathy I’d felt for the occupant of the cottage now evaporates; I better understand why someone might have left them buried without a name.
Fates only know what dark purposes they had turned their magic to.
A minute later, I find out, when I open one of the papers and discover the letter written on it in ink so old it’s nearly faded away.
I read it quickly, my heart beginning to knock and my hands going clammy, then toss it away and read another.
Then another and another . . . on every single one, the same exact message is written verbatim.
My Dearest Philip,
I have found the faerie Gate, on this, the eve of my deadline.
I must open it tonight, even if it means turning to a breed of magic that I swore I’d never use.
I will open it, and then, at last, I will finally be free of my debt, free to return to you.
We shall be married as we had planned, and I will never depart from your side again.
With all my love,
Fiona
The date, penned below the signature on every one of the hundreds of letters, is from forty years ago, though clearly some of the pages are far newer than that.
I drop the pages with a strangled cry and back away, until my head clacks against the doorpost. Looking outside, my eye falls on the nameless grave, only now I do know the name of the body below it, and more than that, I know who drove her there.
Lachlan.