Chapter Eleven #2
“It’s only that, when you speak of him, the blood rises to your face, just here . . .” He leans toward me, one cool finger grazing the air by my cheek as if in a restrained caress. “How pretty you are when you blush. Should I be jealous?”
I pull back, my stomach tumbling. “What on earth is there between us, sir, that you should be jealous of?”
“You’ve done well, positioning yourself in this manor. Its proximity to the gateway will be a boon. Just remember, you are my little witch, Rose Pryor.” With a half smile, he takes the sprig of evergreen from his lapel and tucks it behind my ear. “I found you first.”
“I am my own, sir,” I reply hotly. “And not a pet to be led on a leash.”
He chuckles bitterly. “Imagine how I felt, twelve years ago, being summoned through the ether by a child of eight, with naught a say in the matter.” He quirks an eyebrow at me, then smiles. “There you go again, blushing.”
I lower my face, resisting the urge to cover my cheeks with my hands. “Mr. Murdoch—”
“Please.” He grimaces. “Call me Lachlan.”
“Lachlan, then. What if you had never asked of me this favor? What if I had turned twenty-one without ever having seen your face a second time?”
His eyes drift away, the smile fading. His features are as cool and still as carved alabaster. “Then you would have still lost your magic. So perhaps, instead of accusing me as if I were some sort of common kidnapper, you might try thanking me for choosing you to accompany me on this mission.”
“Why did you choose me, a penniless teacher with unreliable magic?”
He gazes not at me, but at the horizon beyond me, turning ancient and unfathomable in that unnerving manner of his. “You possess qualities more valuable than magic.”
“And what, do tell, are these? What talents, what virtues, what wiles do I possess that make me so valuable to you?” I’m not sure why I need to know. Perhaps the discovery of Fiona unsettled me more than I realized.
He stares at me now, looking a bit lost, his lips parted but no words between them.
“What am I to you, Lachlan of the fae?”
His hand rises again, this time to stroke one finger along the back of my wrist. Though his touch sends a cold shiver up my arm, I do not flinch.
I can make no sense of the glint in his eyes, whether it is disdain or affection.
I return his gaze, wondering what he wants.
Who he is, really, behind his absurd clothes and mirror-gray eyes.
What does he truly think of me? Am I just a tool to him, or something more? And if more . . . then what?
He gives me no answers. His hand falls away, and he rises to his feet with a sigh. I nearly reach out to stop him, then retract my hand, bewildered by my own reaction. How does he draw me in like this, stirring up . . . something deep inside me, then leaving me feeling twisted and confused?
“I am relying on you, Miss Pryor. We all are. When I sent Fiona in, things were not as dire. But now we are growing desperate, and you’re the only hope we have.
That is why I chose you. Because you were clever and fearless, a girl who wove like a moorwitch of old.
I knew the moment I met you, twelve years ago, that you would be my finest investment . . .”
His words wash through me like a rush of wine down my throat, bringing warmth to my cheeks and a whirl of lightness to my head, but all the same, they leave behind a tinge of unease.
For all that I’ve spent the last week in his company, I still have no idea how to read him, and how to winnow the truth from the flattery in his words.
“But now I must wonder . . .” He glances at me. “Are you still that girl?”
I reflect on that uneasily, unsure of the answer. “Why are you desperate?”
He extends his hand. “Come, and I will show you.”
He leads me deeper into the ruins, where some of the old chambers are still intact, stone ceilings half fallen but the remnants sturdy enough. In one of these, on a bed of silk and evergreen branches, lies a faerie woman.
Her skin is ashen, flaking off her bones.
There is not a drop of color in her; she is all grays and shadow, her cheeks sunken, her eyes hollows.
I need only a glance to tell me she is dying.
A few other fae sit around her, singing a strange, low song in monotone, Weaving charms between their hands and embroidering spells onto her green silk dress, but I sense their magic will not stop what is coming.
“This is what becomes of us the longer we linger in the World Above, among your iron and mortality,” says Lachlan. “We call it our iron tithe.”
He kneels by the faerie and takes her hand, kissing her fingers.
“My Lorellan,” he sighs. “I was too late to save you, and that is a burden I will bear all my days.”
The faerie seems too far gone to even acknowledge his presence. I think guiltily of the iron hidden beneath my skirt and back away a little, waiting for him to finish paying his respects.
We leave quietly, Lachlan subdued. He looks weary, his eyes shadowed. A cold wind wraps around us as we walk through the ruins, swirling his hair.
“Do you understand now?” he asks me.
“I think I do.”
He pauses beneath a half-crumbled archway and studies me, the slope of the ground between us making him seem to loom.
When the wind drags a length of hair from my braid, he tucks it behind my ear.
I catch my breath, unable to look away from his glistening eyes.
A single, silver tear beads in the corner of his left eye, then rolls slowly down his cheek.
Feeling half lost in a dream, I wipe it away with my thumb. He takes my wrist, trapping the knuckle of my forefinger against the corner of his lips.
“I know you think me a monster,” he says.
“I don’t.” I did, once, but now . . .
“I have done monstrous things.”
Briefly, I shut my eyes and see my aunt, scrabbling about senselessly in the padded room where I last saw her.
But it was I who summoned him. It was I who asked him to set me free.
“So have I,” I whisper.
“Was I right about you, then?” he murmurs. “Did I put my trust in the right Weaver?”
“You did,” I reply breathlessly. The words surprise me, bubbling out of some hidden well of confidence I was not sure existed.
Lachlan tilts his head, a sad smile playing on his lips as he releases my hand. I withdraw it, shaking a little, bewildered at the flutter of wings in my belly.
“Hm.” He gives me a thorough look over that leaves me blushing yet again. “I must admit, when I saw the state of you in that wretched boarding room, I had my doubts.”
A knot of desperation sticks in my throat, as I feel the sudden, bewildering need to prove myself to this faerie, the same way I needed to prove myself to Mother Bridgid.
My magic is fading, but it is not gone. I still have my mind and its language of patterns.
I have my twelve years of grueling education and teaching experience. I am not a lost cause.
“I will bring you that branch,” I say. “You will return home, and Lorellan’s fate will not be yours.”
I try not to let myself pity him, nor any of his kind. I remember what he is, what he’s asked of me, and what I will become if I do not carry out his bidding.
And yet . . . now I understand him better, in a way. He is desperate too, willing to go to any length to save his people.
For the past twelve years, I have viewed him as a shadowy menace lurking in the shadows of my youth, the monster I summoned from the dark and set loose upon the world. But he isn’t a monster, really. He is perhaps more human than I gave him credit for, capable of fear, loss, and desperation.
Perhaps he and I are more alike than we are different.
“I will do it, Lachlan,” I say again, more firmly.
He nods, seemingly to himself, and walks over to the Telarian tapestry, his back to me, his frame rigid as he gazes at the mesmerizing pattern of threads.
“Find the way into Elfhame, Rose,” he murmurs after a long, cool moment. “You must. For both our sakes.”