Chapter Twenty-Nine #2
His teeth seem to sharpen into points as he hisses, “Do you really think you can still walk away? After all I’ve invested in you—the gowns, the shoes, the thread, not to mention the time?
Do you think it will be so easy for me to find another blushing maid with which to ensnare Conrad North?
No, it must be you. You have the Gatekeeper’s confidence—even, dare I say it, his heart.
” He puts his face against mine and inhales deeply.
“I can smell him on you. And yet you think to walk away?” His laugh pelts the air like sleet.
“You would not make it ten steps before one of my fae snapped you in half, witch.”
The breath leaves my lungs in a rush. He brought me here for one purpose, and he will tolerate no insubordination. And he will use any means he must. His people are dying. Of course he will not let his plans be stymied by the conscientious objections of a common schoolteacher.
Did I truly dream I could escape him? In my twelve years of being haunted by him, did I never learn my lesson?
This is the creature who killed Conrad’s father, who had a knife put to Conrad’s throat when he was a child.
I’ve seen him lie and manipulate and use, use, use everyone around him, feeding them to the fires of his rage until he’s built himself into an all-devouring inferno.
Such devils always come for their due.
All my plans crumble to ash, like cheap string burned through before it can complete its spell. In the back of my mind, I hear my aunt’s hollow, mocking laughter.
My eyes close. I draw a shuddering breath, and then release it.
“All right,” I whisper. “You win.”
He cocks his head, waiting.
“On one condition,” I continue, and the words burn through my tongue like hot coals.
I spit them out anyway. “If I bring you the branch and you dethrone Morgaine, you will give the Norths to me. Swear they shall not be harmed or touched in any way. Swear you will not let the queen harm them either. You will do all within your power to see that they are safe.”
His expression doesn’t change, but his eyes seem to gleam with cold disdain. He drops me at last and flings his arms over the sides of his chair, his long pale fingers dangling like icicles. “Are you reneging on our previous agreement?”
I sit back on my heels, hands clenched on my knees. “I am asking . . . I am begging for new terms.”
“Renegotiation was never an option. So I ask you again: Are you breaking our original contract?”
I look down at Sylvie. She looks so young asleep, her face unlined by trouble. Will she remember any of this tomorrow?
“I’d lose my magic,” I whisper. “For good.”
“And you’d secure my promise not to harm your precious mortal Norths instead.”
His eyes are as expressionless and ancient as two frozen mountain lakes.
The Lachlan who greeted me in London weeks ago is slowly disappearing.
He is less and less recognizable every time I see him, as what I know now to be his true self—Manannán the Briar King—is emerging.
And that creature is utterly a stranger, unpredictable and terrible.
I cannot believe I ever pitied him.
I look down at my hands, at my fingers, nimble and quick from the thousands of spells they have woven.
But then I close my eyes and think of Sylvie, tearstained but triumphant in the road outside Blackswire as her tormentors fled. I think of Conrad, barefoot in his kitchen, telling me he’d do anything for his little sister.
I never had anyone like that, who would have died for me. My uncle had liked me well, but I wasn’t with him long enough to form much of a bond. I barely recall my parents, who I am sure loved me, but who were stolen from me so early their faces are watery blurs in my memory.
But Conrad and Sylvie . . .
I could set them both free, if I were willing to pay the price for their freedom.
They would never have to fear Morgaine or Lachlan or any other faerie.
They could leave this place, that crumbling old house, and find a new and better life.
With Morgaine dethroned, Conrad’s duties to her would end.
And Lachlan would be bound by his vow to never touch them.
I came here to break my vow, in order to be free of Lachlan and his schemes. But he has cut off my last escape route, and now I see only one choice before me:
I must sell my soul to him all over again, only this time with much higher stakes.
With a long, slow sigh, I take a spool of thread from my pocket and unwind a strand, feeling it run over my fingers, small and fragile.
How easily it can break, yet how easily it can become anything: a sword, a shield, a suit of armor.
In that slender and delicate thread, the whole of my being sings.
Closing my hand over the spool, I hand it to Lachlan.
“Faerie,” I whisper, “I break our bargain.”
With breath held, I knit my fingers together and hold them to my stomach, waiting for . . . something. A twist of pain, a tingle over my skin, some physical, undeniable evidence of what I’ve just surrendered.
Nothing happens. Perhaps that is how magic dies, then—in silence, without a single note of farewell. It seems more cruel than the sharpest pain.
Lachlan’s countenance darkens; I think he did not believe I would actually do it. But he takes the spool, his fingers searing mine for a moment, and then he pulls off a length.
“Then I vow to you this, Rose Pryor: I’ll not harm or in any way exert my will over your precious mortal Norths, if you bring me a branch of the Dwirra Tree by midnight tonight. Succeed, and you will go free. Fail, and I will spare none of you.”
I cannot speak; I can only nod. Midnight—that is no time at all. But what can I do, with Sylvie lying here, both of us wholly in his power?
He Weaves the vowknot, a complex web spun between his hands and mine binding our oaths, then breathes a little magic into it, and it is done. Ashes trickle through our fingers.
Tears burn in my eyes. I am nothing to him. I have always been nothing to him. And now I have proved him right, groveling before him, defeated and begging. He’s taken my magic, my integrity, and now my pride. I wonder what more is left, and what more he will take.
“The clock’s ticking, my dear,” Lachlan says. “There’s really not much time for sulking.”
Then he lifts my hand, opens it, and places the spool in my palm.
“K-keep it,” I say, unable to keep the tremor out of my voice. “I don’t need it anymore.”
He only leans back, his arm slung across the back of the chair. “Do you really think you can bring me that branch without it?”
“I’ll find a way.”
He shakes his head. “I’m not taking your magic from you, girl, not yet.”
“But . . .” I clench the spool. “What are you saying? I broke our agreement. My magic was the collateral.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“Yes it was! I said . . .”
“I swear on my heart,” he says mockingly, mimicking a child’s high-pitched voice.
My voice fades as I realize my error.
Cold, choking horror clots my throat. My body seems to sink, heavy as lead.
He is a card charlatan, performing sleight of hand at every turn, always hiding his truths and purposes and only revealing them when it suits him, and even then, I can never trust my eyes.
“And so it is your heart you leave behind.”
He stretches out his hand, tenses his fingers—and I scream as a torrent of pain opens in my chest. Letting go of Sylvie, I curl up on the ground, certain I am dying, wishing I were already dead.
It was not my magic I put up as collateral. At least, not according to his interpretation.
It was my life.
He holds my heart on a string, my life’s thread his to snip at the time of his choosing.
The pain fades, but the echoes of it remain, reverberating through my body and sending spasms through my bones. I remain locked into a fetal position, breathing raggedly, the tears I’d held back now flowing freely.
Lachlan leans over me, putting his hand on my head as if I were a dog.
“There, there,” he says, but there is no soothing note in his voice, only terrible, hollow indifference. “Play nicely and there will be no need to harm you.”
“You bastard,” I choke out.
“Every choice has consequences, my dear, and make no mistake about what you chose here today: Your heart belongs to me, and with it, your magic, your freedom, your life. The only thing saving you right now is the fact that you may be of some use to me yet.”
He pulls me up by my chin, till I’m on my knees, trembling and horrified. “Now bring me what I desire, dear Rose, or I’ll have no more use for you at all.”