Wrenn couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t see, or think, or move well enough to get away.
The two smaller kelpies galloped through the archway between the reporting henge and the rest of the castle.
Robin’s magical wedge, though, had other plans. It must have interacted with a containment spell set to hold in the kelpies because she ran face first into a doughy wall of magic.
The largest kelpie also slammed against the wedge-shield and the air oscillated. She fell backward, out of Robin’s magic shield and directly under the keystone of the arch, but still on the henge side. The grand stone rose up to her left, curved over her head, and dropped down again on her right.
The barrier shimmered in the golden light streaming in from the henge side and looked more like a thin, stretched-out cloud of pixie dust than anything capable of holding off kelpies.
Which it hadn’t. The hooves of the second two kelpies clacked against castle stones just outside the archway.
The kelpie with her snorted out an order. The other two looked at each other and galloped down the corridor.
None of Robin’s natural magic filled the corridor on the other side of the barrier, so either the kelpies pushed him ahead, or he’d whipped up a strong concealment enchantment. But strong spells took concentration, and time, neither of which had been available.
So it was just her and the particularly menacing kelpie pawing at the floor next to her legs.
He was the size of a draft horse and the same pale sickly green as all the other kelpies. He smelled fresher than most, more like sunshine on a loch than rotting lake weeds. His eyes shimmered with their normal ruby brilliance and he wore a shimmering bridle of champagne gold.
He was quite handsome for a murder pony, charming in a grand Scottish way, and able to kill a lass thirty times over before she drew a breath.
At least this one wasn’t a vampire.
He sniffed at her face as if he meant to lick her. Wrenn slapped his muzzle with a protection spell.
He sneezed and wet kelpie breath bounced off her cheek.
Ugh, she thought. Her innate protection magic wasn’t strong enough to hold him off for long, but it would keep him from biting. “What’s your name, kelpie?” she cooed. All that need to murder tended to make them single-minded and boorish, and sometimes a good fawning pampering put them into a stupor long enough for a lass to get away.
The kelpie pawed at the wood. He pushed his snout into the barrier, then backed off as if it stung.
He used his head to nudge her against the magic.
A heat prickled as her back pressed into what felt like twinkling fairy dust dough with some give, but not a lot. It ballooned out around her sides as if it were about to swallow her whole.
She pulled herself back into the henge side.
The kelpie’s ruby red eyes narrowed. He clearly understood what had just happened.
So he was more intelligent than the average kelpie. Big, extra strong, and smart—this one might be royal.
Wonderful, Wrenn thought. “You should probably turn around and go back through that portal before King Oberon takes a personal interest in your marauding,” she said.
The kelpie brayed out a laugh.
He was also unsurprisingly arrogant. So arrogant, it seemed, that he felt confident enough to nudge her even though she’d slapped him with a protection spell—and to put his bridle within reach as a result.
If she could steal his bridle, he’d have to do as she asked. Which she might be able to manipulate him into doing anyway. “You were battling elves, were you not?” she asked. “Nothing worse than an elf, huh?”
He sniffed at her face again.
“Is that portal still open?” She pointed around his massive neck.
The kelpie’s head came down and he slammed his forehead into her breastbone—and slammed her into the sparkle dough barrier.
Wrenn coughed. She inhaled deeply and allowed her silver and green protection spells to knit around her body. The kelpie wanted to use her as a shield to force his way through into the castle. Maybe she could move her arms well enough to grab onto his bridle? The leather across his muzzle pressed against her front and if she—
The kelpie rammed his head into her chest again. All her breath puffed out into the barrier. Sharp pain radiated up into her neck and down both her arms and out into her protection spells. She instinctively tried to inhale—and got a lungful of burning magic dough.
New hot pain radiated outward from her chest. She was drowning inside barrier magic. The damned kelpie had found a way to drown her on dry land, high up inside a castle, because that’s what kelpies did. They dragged you under.
If she was going to asphyxiate on magic, so was the kelpie. No kelpie would get the best of her, no matter how big and strong.
She grabbed the silver rings on either side of his mouth and yanked downward. The barrier magic resisted, puffing up around his muzzle, but enough worked into his nostrils that he tried to snort it out. He tried to buck, but the dough-like mounding of the magic constrained him as much as it did her.
Even in the tight cushioned space, he managed to slam against her again.
Wrenn fell through the barrier magic. Fresh air rushed into her nose and lungs. Burning pain still set every nerve in her body on fire, but she breathed.
And she still had ahold of his bridle. She reached for the strap between his eyes, hoping to yank off the entire assembly.
The kelpie pushed through his head and spit directly into her eyes.
Wrenn yelped. “You just can’t help yourself, can you?” She pulled on the bridle’s strap.
The kelpie charged through and
