David knelt by the man, his eyes barely flicking over the knife and the broadsheet before coming to rest upon the flask. The pungent scent of blood filled David’s nostrils. He picked the flask up and tipped it to his lips for a taste. “You said your name was Edrik.”
“Some call me that,” the man said, suspicion and fear battling his gutsy bravado.
“Should we punch a knife into your gut, Edrik? Offer you a sip or two and see what happens?” David asked.
Edrik’s eyes widened and he struggled against his bonds.
“Not so sure of the power of the
“I’d have my money and be gone afore he found out.”
“More likely he’d test it on you before he paid you a penny.”
Edrik shuddered. “I survived ten years in Newgate and know a thing or two. He’d not find me easy.”
“He’d find you as easily as you found me.” David paced the cold cell. “How did you track me here?”
“There are stories about this place. Whispers. A man like me hears things and understands where other folk might not.”
“If you’re so bloody clever, why the sheep’s blood? My veins are full of the real stuff.” He toed the cord on the floor with the tip of his boot. “All you had to do was bind me with this silver and I’d have been powerless.”
“That blood was just in case. Once I had you, I’d not need it. Corey’d have paid me what he owed. Fifty pounds.”
“Fifty pounds for you. Untold wealth for him. Hardly fair.”
“It’s fair enough for me. I don’t need more than my share.”
“An honest murderer. A rare thing. So, catch me, bind me, and off to London to claim your prize.”
Knowledge flickered in the man’s eyes. David’s breath stilled, his hand tightening. “Not London? The king of the stews has left his throne empty? Where is he, then? Where would you and I be headed had you managed to capture the wolf in your net?”
Edrik shut his mouth.
“No? Loyal to Victor Corey or still believe you can escape and take your chances?” David picked up the silver dagger. Immediately, he sensed the poison sapping into his skin. His flesh crawled and a chill shuddered through him. But he clamped his hand tighter and, like a painter with a brush, drew the blade across Edrik’s arm.
The man struggled, his mouth clamped against a scream.
“You’re in the bowels of the shapechangers’ stronghold,” David snarled. “None will care or come to your aid. Shout all you want.”
“You’re a monster.”
“No, just curious.” David drew another line curved parallel to the first.
It took another sting of the blade to loosen the man’s tongue and a last deep gash to make sense of his babblings. “Skye,” he gasped. “Corey’s on Skye.”
Mother of All! Callista was riding into a trap.
David rose to his feet, shaky and sickened, dropped the bloody blade, his heart like ice, leaving the bastard where he lay, with the crescent mark of the Imnada carved deep into his bloated flesh.
The coach rattled over the narrow track, the horses straining at the harness as the mountains rose steeply on either side, covered in gray-green stands of pine and birch, the highest peaks shrouded in mist and low- hanging clouds. They had hoped to make Fort William by nightfall, but delays upon the road had slowed their progress. The sun sank red and bloody behind them, the landscape barren of life except for a few remote homesteads nestled within the glens, smoke curling white into the fading sky.
Still, if the weather stayed dry and the tracks passable, they would be crossing over to the island in a day, perhaps two.
She should be relieved. Ecstatic. Awash with anticipation and excitement. She would finally be beyond Corey’s grasp. She would finally meet her aunt, the only real family she had left. She would gain a new life with the priestesses where her gifts were more than a circus act.
She would never see David again.
At one time, the prospect would have been easy. He was arrogant, stubborn, vain, and reckless. He hopped from bed to bed and woman to woman with the ease of a born scoundrel. He was an Imnada, the sworn enemy of her people. And yet none of that mattered when she measured his would-be faults against his honor, his loyalty, and his courage. When she watched him fight to chain the rage that burned white-hot behind his gray eyes. When she felt him shudder in her arms as the weight of the Fey-blood’s curse crushed him and despair was a breath away.
No, she reminded herself. Skye was her destination. She owed it to her mother to try to mend the rift between sisters. She owed it to herself to understand the family she belonged to, even if they never acknowledged her. David was her past. He’d said so himself. He’d sent her away. Had he wanted her, truly wanted her, he would have begged her to stay. He would have given her that much of himself, surely. So, perhaps he did not care as much as she hoped.
Or perhaps, a small voice whispered, he cares more than you know and this is his final sacrifice.
She stiffened, lips pressed tight, a knot choking off her breath, the broad, windswept hills and dark mysterious lakes blurred as her eyes burned with unshed tears. She wiped a hand across her cheeks and stared hard at the wide silver sky, where clouds spread and broke and spread again. A bird rode the drafts, its wings outstretched. As she watched, it dove close to earth and she saw it was a crow, black and sleek as a missile.
Badb? One of her sisters?
She shielded her eyes. “You’re one of the true Fey,” she whispered. “You must know how to help him. If a curse can be cast, then a curse can be broken.”
The crow soared high, beating its wings before dropping like a stone toward the trees.
The word filled Callista’s head and broke against her heart. The sun slid behind a cloud, and she dragged her shawl close around her shoulders.
“I’ll warn you now, divine intervention can bring unwanted consequences.” Lord Duncallan had awakened. He sat across from her, his hand gripping his cane, his eyes bleak. “And Badb is clever and cunning. Causing trouble is one of her few real pleasures.”
“I ask again and again, but I only ever receive the same answer.”
“I assume by your glum expression that it’s not the answer you want.”
“David can’t die. He’s so strong, so full of life. He’s like a human lightning bolt, all fire and energy. How can he just . . . not be?”
“Death takes us all in the end.”
“Don’t preach to me of death. I know the place intimately. I’ve trod its paths and seen the flickering shades of countless men as vital as David, but I refuse to let him just give up without a fight.”
“Is it your decision to make?”
His words stung, and she turned back to the window to watch the passing country. If David wasn’t hers to lose in the first place, then why was she fighting so hard to keep him alive?
The sting became a hollow feeling that dropped into her stomach and tightened her throat. The answer was simple. Because she didn’t want to look up at the moon one day from within the cold stone walls of Dunsgathaic and know that he was gone forever. That she had missed her chance to have a life with him. As long as David lived, so, too, lived her hope.
The coach crested a hill. The sky seemed to stretch forever before disappearing into a gray horizon. The crow had vanished and the clouds moved slowly east, darkening the long, winding lake below.
Somewhere up ahead lay Dunsgathaic, a seat of Other power, a source of Other wisdom. She blinked, heart turning over in her chest, lip caught between her teeth in sudden inspiration. Other wisdom . . . Other power . . .
If an Other cast the spell on David, could an Other possibly . . . maybe . . . perhaps . . . conceivably lift it?
