Chapter Twenty-Nine
I put it off all night, and then linger in my room the next morning, pacing and twisting threads until they snap.
Breakfast comes and goes, and Mrs. MacDougal does not come knocking; I am sure she does not miss me overmuch.
But neither does Sylvie come looking for me as she usually does, which I suppose is for the best.
I tell myself I’ll write to her, to find some way to encourage her to continue learning her magic, whatever her brother might say.
But I’m not sure it’s an intention I can keep.
After today, I have no idea what course my life will take.
Where I will go, what I will do . . . nothing is certain.
But I know I cannot stay in this house another night.
Picking up my valise in one hand, my threadkit in the other, I turn and face the tapestry.
It will be left behind, and Conrad will know the minute he sees it what I was, who I worked for. He’ll know the truth and he’ll burn the tapestry, and he’ll curse my name to the skies.
At least I won’t have to see his eyes when he learns how I’ve lied and betrayed him.
But today, I’ll set things right, or as right as they may be set. I hope he will come to understand that and hate me a little less.
Drawing a few deep, bracing breaths, I start toward the tapestry—and freeze when someone pounds on my door.
“Rose!” Conrad calls, all out of breath. “Is my sister in there?”
In one motion, I pull down the tapestry and shove it beneath the bed. As an afterthought, I stow the valise too. Then I throw open the door.
Conrad is wild-eyed and unkempt, an unshaven shadow on his jaw. He has one hand on the door, the other gripping Sylvie’s fur cloak. Raw panic burns in his gaze.
“What happened?” I ask.
“We argued this morning, and then she ran into the moor. I set Captain on her trail, but all we found was this.” He raises the cloak. “Her trail ended, Rose, in the middle of nowhere. I tried a finding spell, but the trail just ended. What does that mean?”
“Where did the trail stop?”
His face hardens. “Southeast. At the ward’s edge. It’s as if she vanished.”
The blood drains from my face as a stifling wave of foreboding rises in me, a storm cloud of dread.
Southeast is the direction in which Lachlan’s castle lies.
Fates, no. Please no.
“Go,” I say. “You search east, and I’ll go south.”
“She left. She took her bag with her.” His eyes are hollow. “My father left, and he didn’t come back. My mother—”
“We will find her,” I say firmly. “Go, and I’ll set out once I’ve put together my threadkit.”
The pain in his eyes tears at me. It takes all my strength to shut the door, to shut him out. I hear him walk away, his breathing tight and panicked.
I drag the tapestry out from beneath the bed and hang it up again, then take hold of the guide thread.
With a deep inhale, I push into it, parting the fibers with my free hand and shutting my eyes against the swirling, writhing chaos beyond it.
The whispering roar of the threads fills my ears, and I do my best to shut it out and follow the guide thread to the other side.
Stepping into the castle, I exhale and shiver, still feeling the effects of the passage. It always takes a few moments to clear my head, even when I’ve kept my eyes shut the whole time. Once the dizziness passes and the roar of the threads fades from my ears, I look around.
And find the castle entirely deserted.
Lachlan is gone, as are all his fae. And they’ve taken everything with them: the carpets and tents, chairs and tables. Not even the grass is flattened where they lay. Only the Telarian tapestry remains, exactly as it had before, hung on the old stone wall.
It’s as if they never were.
I stand in the center of the collapsed great hall and listen to the wind whistling through the cracks in the stone walls. My scalp crawls, and my stomach tumbles with alarm.
Where did he go? Did he abandon his mission? Did he abandon me?
No; Lachlan wouldn’t give up this easily. Perhaps someone came upon the castle and found the fae, and they had to retreat to another camp. If so, he would have left some way for me to find him.
I look around more carefully then, this time searching for some hidden message. It isn’t long before I find it: a silver thread wrapped around the half-fallen archway into the upper rooms. I take hold of it and follow, just as I’d followed the guideline through the tapestry portals.
The day is fair but won’t be for long. Clouds brood in the east and cast a malevolent eye on these sunny hills, plotting rain.
With no houses or fences in sight, and even the ruins lost to view behind me, I feel I’ve reached the end of the world.
Lachlan’s silken thread slides over my palm, a whisper against my skin.
I must walk two miles before I see his tent, a small simple pavilion of white linen draped over wooden poles, with ribbons fluttering from the corners and a silver banner streaming sinuously from the highest point, like a dragon’s tail snapping in the breeze. Below it sits a table and two chairs.
Him in one.
In the other, Sylvie.
I break into a run, dropping the silver thread and shouting until my lungs feel raw. I call her name, my stomach clenching and fear shooting through my veins. My feet fly over the heather with a nimbleness I did not know I possessed.
“Sylvie! Sylvie!”
When I am near enough to see the blue ribbon in her hair, she turns and smiles.
“Hello, Rose.”
Slowing, my hands going to my knees as I pant for breath, I gauge the scene.
Lachlan sits easily in his high-backed, upholstered chair, watching me passively.
Sylvie’s legs dangle; she kicks them happily and sips from a dainty teacup.
There are sweets on the table, with tea and strawberries and a little bouquet of snowdrops, their soft petals as white as Lachlan’s hair.
“Tea?” he asks me. “We’ve eaten all the berry tarts, I’m afraid, but there are still some butter scones.”
Lurching forward, I grab Sylvie’s hand and pull her to me. She drops the cup, and it shatters on the gleaming white carpet laid beneath the tent.
“Rose!” she cries. “I am having tea with my new friend! Don’t be rude.”
Putting myself between him and her, I face the faerie with my fury scorching my skin, a tide of curses simmering behind my teeth. “What did you do? How did you find her?”
“She found me!” he protests, spreading his hands innocently.
“Aye, I did,” Sylvie affirms.
I turn around to stare at her, then notice a battered valise sitting by the table. “Sylvie . . . you were running away?”
“It was only for a little while,” Sylvie says.
“To make Connie understand how much I want to Weave magic. I’m tired of hiding it from him!
He only needs to miss me for bit. Then I would come back, and he’d change his mind.
I want to show him what I can do, how I can raise a river from its bed and make boulders fly and even do magic without—”
“Sylvie. Enough.” I squeeze her shoulder and glance furiously at Lachlan.
“Do you not see the pain you cause me?” He gives an innocuous shrug. “I find a little girl lost on the moors, and I save her, and yet I’m the villain?”
I turn to Sylvie. “Did he touch you, or do anything—?”
“He was going to show me some magic, until you interrupted,” she says. “He’s a Weaver like us!”
“Indeed,” agrees Lachlan, eyes glinting. “Watch closely, little Miss North.”
Before I can get a word out, his quick fingers twist his silver threads, and with a sigh, Sylvie slumps to her knees, then curls up like a sleeping cat.
I cry out and catch her, checking for a pulse.
“She’s only sleeping,” Lachlan says. “And I assure you, she is entirely unharmed.”
Slowly, I reach for my spools.
Lachlan gives an imperious click of his tongue. “You know you cannot best me in a battle of threads, Rose Pryor.”
I try anyway, thread hissing as I wrench it loose.
But I don’t even have time to break a length of it off, because Lachlan twists his fingers in the air, Weaving without thread.
Invisible hands take hold of my hair and drag me down, bashing my head against the ground.
I cry out, grasping at the white carpet, tears pricking my eyes as the roots of my hair scream in pain.
“What do you want with Sylvie?” I gasp out.
“I am telling you the truth when I say I found her. And what a fascinating creature she is.”
I look at Sylvie, unable to reach her for the spell gripping my hair. She lies so still, her face porcelain, her dark curls unbound and spilling over the carpet. She is dressed today in a white frock, lace down the front and grass stains on the skirt.
“Where are all your fae?” I demand. “Why is the castle empty?”
“The hour is late,” he replies. “Events move apace, and I have dispatched my people to the four winds, to prepare themselves and gather the rest of our kin.”
“What does that mean? What are you plotting now?”
“Were you going somewhere?” Lachlan catches my question and turns it back on me, like a knife plucked from my hand. “You are dressed for travel.”
Did he know I would come to him today? Did he know what I intended to say? He couldn’t have, and yet why else would he have lured Sylvie to the edge of the ward, where he could lay hands on her? I cannot believe his finding her was a mere accident.
“Do you intend to use her as leverage against her brother?” I ask.
His eyes narrow. “That depends, I think, on what you came here to say.”
My skin heats. “I—”
Lachlan twists his invisible threads again, and the cords of magic seize my hair and drag me to his feet.
Gasping with pain, I push myself up, only to feel his cold fingers under my chin.
He raises me to my knees and bends close, the tip of his nose grazing my cheek as he puts his icy lips to my ear.
“I tried to do things the civil way. But now I see I must resort to more brutal methods.”
My voice flutters weakly. “Let. Me. Go.”