My heart sank. The next time, I might awaken in the Otherworld with the Fear Dorcha having captured my body for Queen Melusina.
“We have another problem,” said Rosalind.
I tore my gaze away from the seeing-glass and swung my legs off the bed. “What’s wrong?”
“The capall don’t want to approach the palace.” She stepped back giving me space to walk around the bed. “It’s best that I show you, rather than explain what has them so spooked.”
Rosalind and Nessa walked out of the suite’s bedroom area and across the space containing the sofa and dining chair.
Outside, the sun shone down from a clear, blue sky, illuminating a limestone bridge with arched supports dipped into crystalline water. A fortified tower stood at the end of the bridge, and beyond that loomed a forested hill.
I continued through the door, past the narrow hallway of the carriage’s entrance, still gazing at the pleasant view.
Rosalind pushed open the door to the carriage’s other compartment and stepped aside. “This is what I mean.”
Up on the wide window that faced the front of the carriage was a wall of black, not even illuminated by the moon and stars. Aengus and Cliach rose from their bunks and bowed.
My throat dried, and I gulped several deep breaths. That was the Summer Court.
Chapter 10
I walked past the dining table, the sight of the curse so arresting that I barely felt the bump of my hip on one of the wooden chairs. This was no illusion, as the birds flying toward the Summer Court swerved as though they had reached the edge of the world.
The darkness cleaved the countryside, seeming to erase the landscape beyond into a void of black. It reached up into the sky and swallowed the moving clouds.
I turned around to the other occupants of the carriage. “The last time we flew through the Summer Court, we encountered the Dullahan. Are there more than one?”
Rosalind hovered by the door, her features held in a stoic mask. Nessa folded her arms across her ample chest and stared at the darkness with her milky eye. She clamped her lips shut and breathed hard through her potato-shaped nose. Cliach lay on his bunk and held his golden harp to his chest.
Aengus sat at the dining table and grimaced. “There are things in the dark more terrifying than a headless horseman, and not all of them can be slain.”
A shiver rippled down my spine. “Do you still recognize this area after a thousand years? You said we could access the Palace of Bóinne without traveling through the Summer Court.”
“This is Bóinne Bridge that leads straight to the palace’s front gates.” He pointed toward the small window behind Nessa’s counter. “The river narrows a few miles west from here and backs onto the swine field. We can approach the palace through one of the outbuildings.”
“If they haven’t been demolished or moved elsewhere,” muttered Rosalind.
Ignoring the pessimism in my companion’s words, I drew away from the window and turned back to the others. They stared back at me with expectant eyes, perhaps needing me to say something to inspire their courage.
“The Dagda would have secured his servants a way to enter and leave the palace without encountering the curse,” I said. “We just need to find it.”
“I’ll tell the coachmen.” Nessa bustled past and rapped on the window. A hatch opened, letting in the scent of hay and horses. I peered over her shoulder to find a third compartment lined with pale wood, occupied by guards and stalls of capall.
I took a seat next to Aengus on the dining table as the carriage changed direction from the bridge to the riverside. Rosalind lowered herself into the seat opposite mine and pulled out a pack of blank playing cards. She raised her brows in question, and I shook my head.
The river meandered through swathes of countryside and curved around tall monoliths covered in ancient script. We passed alongside forests built upon mounds in the earth I recognized as faerie dwellings, and through villages of tiny wooden huts tightly packed beneath the canopy of tall trees.
As Rosalind and Aengus played a game with seemingly blank cards, Nessa appeared at my side. She held a small tray containing squares of twice-baked bread dipped in honey and a glass pot of tea containing a single jasmine flower with white petals clustered like an artichoke. After placing the tea and honey bread on the table, she wiped her hands on her apron and stepped back.
“Would you like anything else, Your Majesty?” Nessa asked.
I shook my head and gestured for her to take a seat next to Rosalind. My insides still roiled from my last conversation with Drayce, and I doubted I’d be able to keep anything down for long.
“King Drayce asked me to kill him,” I murmured.
Nessa narrowed her eyes. “How do you know it was really His Majesty and not the Fear Dorcha?”
My gaze dropped to the flower floating in the teapot, its petals unfurling with every passing heartbeat. “I don’t.”
Nobody spoke for several moments, and the carriage passed a stretch of river where a large male herded three goats over a swaying bridge made of fraying rope. I gathered my thoughts, trying to muster a way to explain my suspicions. “The first time I visited the dream, it’s intentions were obvious. King Drayce was in a room and wanted me to stay with him.”
“And fall into the curse,” said Rosalind.
I nodded. “I extracted him from a bed of moss that wanted to consume his body, and he returned to himself, but today…” A tight band of worry formed around my chest and squeezed my lungs until I could barely breathe. “This time, he asked me to plunge an iron dagger into his heart.”
Nessa pursed her lips. “And eliminate your most powerful ally.”
“I agree with the gruagach,” said Aengus. “Whoever you met
