Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
LIORA
We followed Mitch at a run, the dog far faster than us, but stopping to turn around every so often to make sure we were coming.
A shriek split the sky, and ice filled my veins.
“We need backup!” Agnes shouted behind me, veering off to bang on the front window of the pub.
I barely clocked the startled shouts from inside The Tipsy Thistle as I tore after Mitch.
The golden retriever was a streak of pale fur in the gathering dusk, barreling down the cobbled lane toward the loch.
My lungs burned, the cold air slicing down my throat, and my boots skidded on damp leaves as the pavement gave way to the rougher track that edged the water.
“Mitch!” I yelled. “Slow down, buddy, come on—”
He didn’t slow. If anything, he pushed harder, nails digging into mud as he veered off the main path toward the trees that lined the shore.
The loch spread out beside us, a black mirror under a bruise-colored sky. Out toward the island, the water seethed and foamed, as if something massive was turning beneath the surface. A low, eerie whinny carried over the water, the sound somehow both horse and nightmare all at once.
Kelpies.
“Holy hell.”
Behind me, pounding footsteps grew louder as people followed. Agnes reappeared at my side, breath puffing in white clouds.
“Graham’s getting the others,” she panted. “Keep going! Mitch, good lad, show us where!”
Mitch answered with a sharp bark and plunged into a stand of trees where the ground dipped away more steeply than I’d realized. I skidded to a halt at the edge of a narrow gully that slashed down toward the loch like a wound, its sides slick with moss and loose rock.
Mitch stood halfway down the slope, paws braced, barking frantically at a crumpled shape in the shadows below.
“Zara,” I breathed.
My sister lay twisted near the bottom of the gully, one leg at a wrong, horrible angle, her dark hair fanned around her head. Her cane lay higher up the slope, wedged against a root, useless.
“Z!” My voice came out strangled.
“Liora, don’t—” Agnes started, but there was no stopping me.
I went after my sister.
My boots lost traction almost immediately. I half slid, half fell, branches whipping at my arms as I careened down the steep incline. Something sharp raked my calf, another jabbed into my hip, and then I hit a patch of wet leaves and went down hard on my backside.
“Oof—bloody hell—” I tumbled the last few feet and landed in an inelegant heap next to Zara, breath knocked clean out of me, head stinging in pain.
For a moment, everything was just pain and the taste of mud in my mouth.
Then I heard her.
“L?” Zara’s voice was thin and tight with pain. “Is that you?”
I spat out a leaf and dragged myself up onto my elbows. “Aye, it’s me. You’ve picked a shite spot for a nap, by the way.”
“Your commentary is not appreciated,” she whispered, but a faint ghost of a smile brushed her lips. Her face was pale, a sheen of sweat on her forehead.
I swallowed hard as my gaze went to her leg. Even without medical training, I could see the break. Her shin bowed at an angle legs were not meant to bow.
“Oh God.” My words came out garbled.
“Don’t you dare faint,” Zara hissed. “I need you lucid.”
“I’m fine,” I lied. “You, on the other hand … What happened? Did you fall? Were you pushed? Magickly yeeted?”
“Pulled,” she gritted out. “Something … tugged. In my head. Like a rope around my thoughts.”
Another screech ripped across the water, closer this time. I glanced toward the loch and my stomach turned over.
Shapes were emerging out by the island. Equine forms heaving up from the depths, slick black hides gleaming, manes like dripping ink. Water poured off them in sheets as they pawed at the surface, eyes like coals burning through the mist.
Kelpies. A whole bloody herd of them.
“Right,” I whispered. “Cool cool cool. Love this for us.”
A flurry of fur and anxious whines breezed between us and Mitch pressed himself against Zara’s good side, whining low, trying to anchor himself to her.
“Liora.” Zara’s hand shot out and grabbed mine, fingers digging in. “Listen to me. I don’t know how much time we have.”
“Don’t say it like that,” I choked. “You’re not dying, okay? We just have to get you up this hill and to the hospital and they’ll fix your leg and—”
“L,” she said sharply, and I shut up. Her blind eyes were unfocused but fierce. “I’m holding them back.”
“The Kelpies?” My breath caught.
She nodded, jaw clenched. “They’re in my head. I can … see them. Feel them. They’re angry, L. Furious. The Stone—something with the Truth Stone and the island and old bargains. I’m like a … a dam.” Her voice wavered. “But they’re pushing.”
Fear crawled cold fingers up my spine. “Okay,” I said, trying to breathe around the panic. “Okay, okay, we’ve got backup coming. The pub knows we’re here. Agnes is up top. The Order will be here. You don’t have to do this alone.”
“Too late,” she whispered, breath hitching. “I’m already in it. I can … I don’t know, speak to them. Negotiate. But I can’t move. And my leg—bloody hell.” Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes, and it gutted me.
I squeezed her hand, my own eyes burning. “I’m here. I’ve got you. I’m so sorry, Z. For everything. For being a mess. For not telling you things. For being a shite sister.”
Her mouth trembled. “You are a shite sister but only once in a while,” she whispered. “And you’re my shite sister. I love you, you bloody eejit.”
A quiet sob broke out of me. “I love you too.”
Above us, voices shouted, branches cracking as people crashed through the trees toward the rim of the gully.
“Help!” I yelled, tipping my head back. “We need something to stabilize her!”
A familiar Highland burr cut through the noise. Archie, barking orders. Sophie’s sharper tone right behind him. Agnes. Lia. Shona. The whole bloody Order, by the sounds of it.
Magick prickled over my skin, a low hum building in the air like distant thunder.
“I’ll hold them off,” Zara muttered under her breath, eyes squeezed shut. “Just a little longer. We’re trying. We’re not your enemy. The Stone—yes, I know, I know—”
She wasn’t talking to me.
A hand grabbed the edge of the gully above, and Sophie’s face appeared, hair wild in the wind.
“Stay where you are!” she yelled. “We’re working on a safe way down. Don’t move.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I called back, voice wobbling, my head throbbing from where I’d cracked it on a rock on the way down.
Other faces appeared along the rim. Lia with flour on her cheek and a knife clutched in one hand like she’d run straight from the kitchen. Shona, eyes wide, chanting as she coaxed roots to twist into makeshift steps down the side of the gully. Willow, eyes closed, muttering something to herself.
Beside them, familiars and creatures crowded the edge.
Gnorman and Gnora, the gnomes that I’d only been told about, but hadn’t met yet, peered down with identical looks of horrified fascination.
Gloam, Faelan’s fox, paced restlessly, fur bristling.
A sleek black crow—Kaia’s—swooped close, cawing in agitation.
Bracken scampered down the side of the gully, his fur puffed out.
And there, shouldering his way through the cluster, was Torin. His gaze found me instantly, something raw and wrecked in his eyes when he saw me crouched by Zara, mud-smeared and shaking.
“Liora!” His voice cracked. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine,” I lied again, because there were bigger problems than my bruised backside and the gash in my head. “Zara’s leg’s broken. And she’s … holding them off. Somehow.”
His jaw tightened, but he nodded once, and I wanted nothing more than to crawl into his strong arms because it was truly where I felt the safest. It was a bit of a shite time to come to that realization, but nonetheless, there it was.
“Right,” Shona shouted, voice carrying over the chaos. “We need a stabilization spell on her leg before we move her. Lia, can you—”
“I’ve got it,” Lia called, already digging in her bag for herbs. “Shona, with me.”
Zara’s grip on my hand tightened so suddenly I flinched.
“Liora,” she gasped. “They’re pushing harder. I can’t—shite, they’re angry. The Stone, the island, the bargains—”
“Okay,” I said, panic spiking again. “Okay, okay, what do you need from me? I’m a chartweaver, not a Kelpie whisperer, but I’m an excellent panicker, if that helps.”
She actually huffed a tiny breath of laughter, then sucked it back on a groan as her leg shifted. “I need you to see,” she whispered. “You can see threads. I can see intent. Together we might—bloody hell, hold off!—buy Loren Brae some time.”
“See what?” I asked, throat dry.
“The choice,” she said. “There’s always one. They want to be seen. To be counted. As a part of this place. Not just monsters in the dark. If we don’t acknowledge them, they’ll tear it all down. The Stone is only part of it. There’s something about a bargain … that needs to change.”
My brain tried to process “renegotiate magickal bargains with ancient elemental loch spirits” and promptly short-circuited.
Behind us, the Kelpies shrieked again.
I risked a glance.
They were closer now, churning toward the water at the mouth of the gully. Their long tails lashed the surface, sending up plumes of spray, and where their hooves struck, the loch boiled.
“They’re coming,” Agnes’s voice warned from above.
“I know,” Zara whispered. “Right. Enough talking.”
She sucked in a breath, her fingers crushing mine, and began to chant.
The words were Gaelic. They rolled out of her in low, rhythmic waves, each phrase vibrating in my bones. My skin broke out in goose bumps, and I swear the air thickened around us.
And as the Kelpies barreled toward us, my vision shifted.
An astral map appeared before me and glowing lines flowed, the threads of all those around us, those of Loren Brae, those who had come before and those who would go ahead of us, flinging into the air in one giant astral map.
And the Kelpies’ threads joined it.