Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
AGNES
Two days of research and I was no closer to answers.
I’d turned the back room of Bonnie Books into something resembling a conspiracy theorist’s lair.
Papers were spread across every surface, there were sticky notes in four different colors, and a whiteboard I’d dragged from the storage closet now covered in names and dates and arrows pointing to question marks.
It was a thing of beauty, if I said so myself.
If I managed to get myself out of this whole curse situation and save Loren Brae, I might have a future as an amateur true crime investigator.
Quilliam was curled on the counter near the till, his scales catching the pale afternoon light filtering through the front windows.
He’d positioned himself on a stack of ledgers I’d brought from the castle archives, claiming he needed to absorb the information through proximity.
I was fairly certain he just liked the way the old leather felt against his belly.
He was under strict instructions to disappear anytime someone came through the door, and so far, he was a champion at hiding.
Except for the one time someone had mistaken him for an ornament, and I had to give him credit for holding the same position until the customer had left.
“You’re muttering again,” he said without opening his eyes.
“Am I?” I supposed I was.
“Aye, you definitely are.” One eye cracked open, opal and gleaming. “You’ve said Na Trì Banrigh approximately forty-seven times in the last two hours. I’ve been counting.”
“Because it keeps appearing in these documents and no one bothers to explain what it means.” I shoved away from the counter in frustration, nearly knocking over my tea, which had gone cold at least two hours ago.
“The Three Queens. Three queens of what? Scotland didn’t have three queens at the same time.
Is it metaphorical? Is it code for something? ”
“Have you considered that perhaps you’re overthinking this?”
“Have you considered that perhaps you’re underthinking it?”
“I’m a three-hundred-year-old repository of knowledge. I don’t underthink anything.” Quilliam yawned, showing off his tiny pearl-like teeth. “I simply think at the appropriate level for each situation.”
“And what’s the appropriate level for this situation?”
“Tea. Definitely tea. Yours has gone cold and you’re getting tetchy.”
I looked at the mug on the counter. He wasn’t wrong.
I was tetchy. I was also exhausted, having slept poorly for two nights running, my dreams full of shadowy figures and whispered warnings I couldn’t quite make out.
By this rate, if one more person told me I looked like hell, I might actually haul off and whack them.
“Fine,” I said, picking up the mug. “I’ll make more tea. But when I get back, we’re having a serious conversation about why none of these documents actually say anything useful.”
I walked to the small kitchen at the back of the shop, filled the kettle, and set it to boil. While I waited, I leaned against the counter and tried to organize my thoughts.
What I knew so far was that the Wright family had been Bookkeepers for the Order of Caledonia for generations. The Bookkeeper’s role was to witness oaths, maintain records, and keep connections between ... something. Someone. The documents kept referencing those who scattered.
Then Isobel Wright had done something terrible in 1746. The Bookkeeper position had been vacant ever since and that was where the curse had started for us.
And somehow, all of this connected to Na Trì Banrigh. The Three Queens. Whatever that meant.
The kettle clicked off. I poured the water over a fresh tea bag and watched the color bloom through the water, dark and rich.
There was something I was missing. I mean, clearly there was, but it annoyed me.
I carried my tea back to the front of the shop and found Quilliam had relocated to my whiteboard, hovering in front of it with his tiny wings beating slowly. He looked ridiculous—this magnificent little dragon examining my chaotic scribbles like an art critic at a gallery.
“Your handwriting is atrocious,” he observed.
“Thank you for that constructive feedback.” It wasn’t that bad, was it? I studied my scribbles. Perhaps he was right.
“I’m simply saying, if you want to solve a mystery, legibility helps.” He flew back to the counter and landed delicately on a stack of papers. “Also, you’ve misspelled Caledonia twice.”
I looked at the whiteboard. Damn it.
“Quilliam,” I said slowly, a thought forming. “You’ve been alive for three hundred years or so. Give or take.”
“We’ve established this, aye.”
“You were bonded to the Wright line. To the Bookkeepers.”
“Also established.”
“Which means you were there. In 1746. When Isobel ...” I gestured vaguely at the papers around us. “When all of this happened.”
Quilliam went very still. Both opal eyes fixed on me with sudden intensity.
“Aye,” he said softly. “I was there.”
“So you know. You know what she actually did.”
“Aye.”
I stared at him. The tea in my hands was burning my fingers, but I barely noticed.
“I’ve been sitting here for two days, drowning in documents, making conspiracy boards, muttering about Three Queens … and you knew the whole time? You knew what happened and you just ... didn’t mention it?”
“You didn’t ask.”
“I didn’t—” I set the tea down before I threw it at him. “What do you mean I didn’t ask? I’ve been asking! I’ve been doing nothing but asking!”
“I mean, not technically. You’ve been muttering out loud to yourself.” Quilliam’s tail flicked and he lifted his wee head. “You’ve been asking the books. But you never actually asked me.”
“Because I assumed—I thought—” I pressed my palms against my eyes. “I thought you’d volunteer information that was relevant to my desperate search for information.”
“That’s a rather large assumption. I’m a familiar, not a mind reader. You humans are always assuming we know what you want without you having to say it. Very frustrating trait of yours.”
I dropped my hands and glared at him. He gazed back, unperturbed.
“Quilliam.”
“Aye?”
“What did Isobel Wright do in 1746?”
He was quiet for a moment. The playfulness that usually colored his voice faded away, replaced by something heavier.
“She killed the Beithir.”
My mouth dropped open. I, quite simply, could not compute what he’d just said.
“She killed the Beithir,” I repeated, a dull ache spreading across the back of my neck and shoulders.
“Aye. She slaughtered the guardian of the loch.” Quilliam’s scales dimmed slightly, the shimmer fading. “The Beithir was important, Agnes. And Isobel Wright walked into the loch one winter night and struck it down.”
I sank onto the stool behind the counter because my legs wouldn’t hold me anymore.
“But ... why? Why would she do that?”
“That, I don’t know.” His voice was soft now, almost sad.
“I’ve wondered about it for three hundred years.
Isobel was a good Bookkeeper, from what I remember.
She was meticulous and dedicated. She loved the Order, loved her role, loved the work of preserving and protecting.
And then one night, without warning, without explanation, she committed this act that just … changed Loren Brae’s history forever.”
“The Beithir is still there, though. I’ve seen it. How can that be?”
“Aye, it’s his son, Agnes.” Quilliam flew from the counter to land on the edge of my whiteboard, his tiny claws gripping the metal frame.
“The Beithir didn’t die without a fight, Agnes.
From my understanding, as Isobel struck the killing blow, the creature used the last of its power to curse your line. ”
I sucked in a breath, dizziness washing over. How? And why? How had one woman killed a beast of such power?
“Agnes.” Quilliam’s voice was worried now. “You don’t look so good. Perhaps you should sit down.”
“I am sitting down.” I pressed a hand to my chest to slow my breathing. This was way more ghastly than anything I had anticipated.
“Then perhaps you should lie down. Or put your head between your knees. That’s what humans do when they’re about to faint, isn’t it?”
“I’m not going to faint.”
“You look like you might faint.”
“I’m not—” I stood up abruptly, knocking the stool over. It clattered against the floor, obscenely loud in the quiet shop. “I need air. I need to get out of here.”
“Agnes, wait. We should talk about this. There may be ways to at least understand it better. If you’d just—”
But I was already heading for the door. I just needed a moment to breathe.
The bell over the door jangled as I burst onto the street. Quickly, I locked the door behind me, leaving Quilliam behind, and dug my hands into my pockets.
The afternoon was grey and soft, typical Scottish weather that couldn’t decide what it wanted to be. I should go back for my coat, but frustration drove me forward. I didn’t really have a destination in mind, I just needed to move, needed to outpace the panic trying to claw its way up my throat.
Part of me had always hoped I was being overly cautious. That I was throwing away my chance at happiness for nothing and that I was just being dramatic. That Gran’s grief had manifested as superstition. And I’d followed suit.
But this?
This was next level.
This wasn’t just a curse.
My ancestor had slaughtered a massive water serpent.
The gravity of it hung on me, causing my breath to come out in anxious puffs of air.
I walked faster, my legs burning as the road sloped upward. I needed to get away from the village and where the loch hugged its shores. I couldn’t look at that water right now.
The standing stones rose ahead of me like ancient sentinels on the hilltop.
They’d watched over Loren Brae for centuries now and were rumored to grant wishes over Christmastime. I’d never been brave enough to give it a go, but hell, maybe I should look into it. Maybe a desperate wish at the standing stones was the way forward.
“Agnes!”
I didn’t stop, though my stomach twisted at his voice.
“Agnes, wait!”