The worry etched on her face eases, and she stares at me for a long, slow moment. “You’re her, aren’t you?”
I don’t know what she means.
“Said they wanted… a princess. But if they couldn’t… get the mother…. They’d take the child.” She spits a bloodied mouthful onto the snow. “Wouldn’t let her go…. Not one of my babies. That filth…. That filth. Swore I’d kill it….”
She laughs and shudders, and then coughs on blood.
“Where is she?” I whisper.
Tears streak down that weathered old face. “I c-couldn’t… Couldn’t stop ’em. All I had left in me… was this….”
They took her. The fetches took my daughter.
I knew.
A part of me knew the second I saw that broken door.
I rest my forehead against hers, squeezing her hand tightly. “I will get her back.”
A shudder runs through her.
“Here,” I whisper, reaching out with my magic. “Let me heal you a little.”
“No.” A hand grasps mine, surprisingly strong. “Ain’t enough… left o’ me.”
Healing is a sharp-edged sword. I can use my magic to seal those ragged wounds, but I can’t gift her with strength. All it will do is weaken her further as the magic draws on her body’s reserves.
She’s too far gone for me to bring her back. Too old. Too weak. Healing will kill her. But I hate feeling so helpless.
“Just find my sweet Amaya,” she grates out. “Find my little girl and bring her back.” Grabbing hold of a set of keys hanging around her throat, she gestures for me to take them. “Give ’em… to Larina. House… belongs… to her now.”
I take the keys and help her tip the flask to her lips, cradling her scalp as she tries to drink. My vision blurs. “How long ago?”
“Three… hours.”
Three hours. We were so close.
She slumps into the snow, and the fight slowly leaches from her eyes. Too much. Too much blood, too much pain.
“Blessed be,” I whisper, squeezing her hand.
Thank you for taking care of my daughter.
“Find… them.” The pressure of her hand begins to falter. “Find my… my babies….”
“I’ll find them,” I promise her as her hand falls to the side and her head slowly lolls back. “I promise I’ll find them all and I’ll protect them. As you have.”
And then her lungs give one last rattle.
Silence falls.
The only thing that breaks it is footsteps crunching through the snow behind me.
I tug my cloak up over the old hag’s face, dashing the tears from my eyes. There is no time to mourn. No time to regret.
I will burn that fucking bitch alive, and all her fetches too.
“Vi?” There’s a look of horror on Thiago’s face as I shove to my feet, taking the keys with me.
“They took Amaya.” My fingers unerringly find the bracelet that keeps me safe from the fetch’s eyes, and I start to slip it from my wrist. “The fetch will have taken her back to Angharad, and they’ll be preparing her for the ritual.”
My voice sounds so cool and so far away.
“They’ll be at the Black Keep.” Eris stands behind him, and I realize they’re all there.
“There’ll be guards,” Finn says, and for once his face is serious. “Angharad has packs of fetches and banes who serve her. The Black Keep…. The defenses alone…. I don’t know how we’ll get in. Or even if we can.”
It was different when it was me they were after. I was merely prey trying desperately to escape my bloody end.
But they took my daughter.
They took my daughter.
This time, I’m not prey. This time, I’m the hunter.
I drop the bracelet into the snow, feeling a little tingle run down my spine, as if my magic gives a breath of relief to be unsmothered. There’s no longer any fear left within me. Realizing the truth has scoured me down to my bones, and all I feel is empty.
Though there’s a little spark of rage there, just waiting to be kindled.
“I can get in,” I tell them.
After all, there’s a Hallow there.
It’s not just an Old One’s prison.
“And then we’ll kill them.” I meet Thiago’s eyes. “We’ll kill them all.”
And he nods.
I wait outside in the snow as Thiago leaves the keys for the eldest girl. He can’t break the wards, but he can slide the keys through them, because they belong to the house.
It’s just me and Grimm.
The others are sweeping the snow to make sure there’re no other survivors out there—children who didn’t make it back to the cottage in time, but who might have found shelter.
And the grimalkin’s tail lashes back and forth, back and forth, as he sits there and watches me.
“Did you know?” I ask hollowly, my fists shaking with rage. “You say you see the future, and everything you have said to me…. Tell me you didn’t know that I have a daughter out there who is all alone!”
For the first time, there’s a hint of doubt in his eyes. “I knew. It was not yet time for you to face your past.”
“Who are you?” I demand. “Why are you taunting me?”
“Haven’t you not realized yet?” he growls. “I have lost my child. The child you will lead me back to.”
The shock drives the heat from my face. “Amaya? Amaya is your bonded companion?”
He merely blinks at me.
“But why did you not say something?” I slide to my knees before him. “If you knew where she was—?”
But he’s looking at me, and I feel that debt of knowledge sink into my bones like lead.
“She is my child, and I promised I would protect her with my life,” he tells me, his voice serious for once. “And I would have given my life when the fetches came to get her. I saw it as clearly as I can see the grief on your face. It didn’t matter how many times I tried to twist the future, it all came down
