Finn sets a hand on the hilt of his sword. “Thanks, Eris. I wasn’t quite feeling nervous enough about entering unseelie in the first place. Now my balls want to tuck tail and run.”
Thiago shoots her a look, but he doesn’t say anything.
She’s said enough.
Something’s not quite right here.
Even Grimm remains quiet, from his perch atop my shoulders.
It takes us nearly an hour of walking before Thiago holds up a hand. “The cottage is just ahead,” he says. “The children aren’t used to strangers. Strangers mean death here in the north, so don’t make any sudden moves. I speak their language, so I’ll tell them to take me to Old Mother Hibbert.”
We all nod and stamp our feet.
I feel sick with nerves. I’ve been trying not to think of it all morning, but Amaya’s within earshot. I don’t know what to say to her. She doesn’t know me—she doesn’t know any of us—and all I can hope is that she’s led a happy life until this moment.
What if she hasn’t led a happy life?
I freeze, and Thiago squeezes my hand, as if he can sense what I’m thinking.
“Soon,” he whispers in my mind, and then he’s pushing through a pair of fir trees, sweeping snow off the branches with his arm.
A little glade appears.
And there’s a cottage in the middle of it, the kind of cottage that belongs in all the old fairy tales. It stands cold and silent in the forest, and Thiago slams to a halt as he sees it, his nostrils flaring.
“What’s wrong?” I can practically feel his tension. “We’re nearly there.”
“You can see it?” he asks slowly.
I nod, and then I remember…. The wards keep prying eyes away. I’m not supposed to be able to see it.
“The fires are always burning,” he breathes. “She always keeps the fires lit for the littlest ones, and there’s more than a tongue-lashing for you if you allow them to fall cold.” He takes a step toward the cottage. And another. “The lanterns burn with faelight, night and day, just in case one of the children loses their way in the forest. Something’s wrong.”
My stomach drops. My little girl….
“Can you sense anything?” I ask Grimm desperately.
“Pain. And fear,” the grimalkin replies quietly. “And the stink of the Shadow Ways.”
They came for her, I know it.
I should have paid more attention to my dreams. The fetch no longer had need of me, because they had her….
I’m not the only one with the blood of the Old Ones. I’m not the only leanabh an dàn. And Angharad only needs one; the right kind of sacrifice to break open the Hallow that guards the Horned One.
A breathless sob escapes me as Eris pushes past us, drawing her sword.
“I can smell blood,” she says.
And that’s when I start to smell it too.
“Amaya!” I yell, shoving past all of them, but Thiago grabs my arm grimly.
“Slowly, Vi.” He turns to look at the cottage. “Because whatever did this may still be here.”
The closer we get to the cottage, the more I see signs of ruin.
Glass shards glitter in the window panes, and flames have burnt one side of the house before they were seemingly doused. Someone’s torn the shutters from the windows, and they hang from broken hinges.
There’s a trail of blood leading through the snow. Footsteps churn the snow to slush, and all around the clearing branches lie broken and cleaved, as if someone threw enormous amounts of spell craft around.
Thiago wrenches open the door to the cottage, and nothing prepares me for the sight of a broken broom lying forlornly in the entry. There’s blood on the floor. Blood on the walls. Smashed toys and an abandoned boot that looks far too small to be an adult’s.
It’s the boot that does me in.
“Amaya?” I’m choking on the word, my heart pounding so hard I swear I’m going to break a rib.
But there’s no sign of any children.
I shove inside. “Amaya!”
Thiago pushes past me and slams into an invisible ward. He feels at it. “The blood wards.” The words steal from his lips. “Old Mother Hibbert unlocked the blood wards.”
“What does that mean?” I demand.
He flexes his fingers against them. “I can’t get through. Nothing can get through. It was something Old Mother Hibbert always warned us about. If we were ever attacked, then we were to flee into the cottage and hide in the cellar while she fired the blood wards.” He curses under his breath. “It was the last line of defense, and something she would only ever do if she thought the children were at grave risk.”
“Then Amaya may be inside,” I whisper, hope bleeding through me.
“If she’s in the cellar, then she’s safe. But Vi….” He swallows hard. “They’ll last for twenty-four hours after Old Mother Hibbert’s death. She’s either dead or dying. We need to find her.”
“This way,” Grimm tells me, “I can hear someone wheezing.”
And then he launches from my shoulder and flies over the snow as if he has invisible wings.
I stagger after him, careless of the others.
Grimm follows the blood trail through the snow, to where a patch of firs shiver under the weight of their frozen burden. There’s a patch of multicolored skirts, and I find an old woman propped up with her back resting against the trunk of the fir, a bloodstained flask in her hand.
The ancient hag gulps and gasps, as if her lungs have been pierced. I walk toward her in a dream-like state, even as my mind sees everything.
“Don’t… come closer,” she hisses, and she curls her hand around a femur that looks like it was snapped in two.
I don’t know why, but the sight of her ragged fingerless gloves breaks my heart a little.
She took my daughter in and raised her as her own, despite the fact she has so truly little. Ancient blue tattoos are engraved on her haggard cheeks, and her half-rotted teeth are stained.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” I call, sweeping my
