Chapter Seventeen

I went to my room, barely having enough time to shower and wash my body before Mitchell came to find me.

By the expression on his face, it wasn't good news.

"The Huntsman?" I guessed.

Mitchell sighed and nodded. "He's in a particular kind of mood this evening. The final day of Samhain approaches, and he's especially morose."

My eyes widened in horror. "And he's asked for me ?"

Mitchell's lips pressed together in a straight line as he held out his arms in a universal ‘what can you do ?' expression.

"Lead the way, I guess." I stood up, gesturing to the door.

"At least you managed to wash most of our scents from your skin." Mitchell quirked a brow. "Though there isn't much to be done about the bite marks."

"I have nothing to hide." I jutted my chin. "I had to wash off the blood."

"Sure." He elongated the word, placing his hand on the small of my back as he led me from the kennels. Somehow, even though I was on the way to meet an ancient Fae, who was possibly insane but definitely evil, all I could focus on was that damn hand on the small of my back.

It didn't take us long to reach the castle, crossing the stone lawn and ascending the steps towards the moving cogs leading into the sky.

Though I dragged my heels, soon Mitchell deposited me at an unfamiliar door at the top of a tight spiral staircase. He knocked once and waited. When the door opened of its own accord, he ushered me through.

"Aren't you coming?" I whispered, feet hesitating at the threshold.

He shook his head. "I cannot. The Huntsman has requested privacy."

My hand cupped my throat. No matter how much I wished I wasn't scared, the Huntsman could ask me to do anything, and if he used his call, I would have to.

I felt sick.

I didn't want to go inside.

"I'll wait right here," Mitchell assured me. "But I can't go in, Doll. He has given me an order, and I cannot disobey."

I reached out, patting Mitchell's chest. I'd hoped the motion would be reassuring, but it felt like a desperate grab. "I understand," I assured him, returning to the door. "Wait for me?"

The vein in Mitchell's jaw ticked. "As long as it takes."

Instead of the Huntsman's study, I walked through the door to find a long hallway. Every inch of the wall space was filled with mounts. Dead animal heads and small creatures on tiny shelves protruding from the walls.

White stag head after white stag head, a manticore's tail, tiny pixies frozen as they danced in a ring, mounted in a jar on the shelf.

The room stank of dust and stagnant air. I hurried forward; despite my unwillingness to see the Huntsman, I didn't want to be surrounded by stuffed dead creatures.

Finally, I passed through the archway at the end of the corridor, though the stink did not abate.

The Huntsman appeared deep in thought, staring out the window at the moving parts of the castle. He wore his signature blood-red jacket, buttoned to the collar. His fingernails were bloody as if he'd dipped a hand into someone's chest and ripped out their heart.

I stopped, frozen, hoping he wouldn't see me if I didn't move.

He kept me waiting for a moment before he turned to me; his strange square pupils were so large that it was impossible to tell where his irises began.

"You were meant to fix this." He sneered.

My eyes rounded. I had no idea what he was talking about, but it felt like one of those cases of ‘whoever speaks first loses.'

"Can you see the path she has woven for me? My beloved éabha?" The Huntsman turned back to the window. "The soothsayer has told me I cannot escape my fate unless a Weaver can break the threads that bind me. Can you see them?"

Though I didn't want to help him, not after he had kidnapped me and brought me to the Aos Sí, I squinted and studied the Huntsman with a renewed interest.

What I had first assumed was a shadowy miasma of magic that clung to him, something wholly belonging to the Huntsman, appeared to be shackled. I couldn't see the intricacies without getting closer, but Weavers could shift reality. They could knit fate.

My grandmother used to wax poetic about her power in the Aos Sí and how much she had given up to escape. She had told me herself that she had made plans. The coin would help me, and I would know when to use it.

At the time, I had viewed her words as a whimsical comfort, but they might have been more accurate than I'd realized.

I couldn't lie and say the thought hadn't crossed my mind—that my grandmother had designed my destiny.

I remained silent.

The Huntsman looked down his nose at me, swaying as he pushed away from his desk. Drunk.

"You're useless!" He snarled.

I flinched, hearing Joel's voice layered over his. I remained silent.

"What's the point of you if you can't help me!" His teeth were gritted as he whirled toward his desk with unleashed madness and began to tear the books and papers apart. "Find the young Weaver in Locket." He brandished a book. "She will weave a new reality!" As the Huntsman flicked through the pages, I recognized my grandmother's cramped handwriting even at a distance.

I hadn't found her journal in the library, and now I knew why.

"If I weave what you want, will you let me go?" The words left my mouth before I realized, but I couldn't reel them back in once they were out.

The Huntsman threw the journal at me. The heavy leather volume hit me on the side of the head. It hurt , but I grabbed the book as it fell.

He approached me, his face red with anger and his teeth bared—sharp and serrated.

He reached for my neck.

And I lost it.

Joel had reached for my neck. He's pressed his hands around my throat hard enough to leave fingerprint bruises on my skin. He had choked me, hoping to kill me.

The Huntsman wanted to kill me, too.

I grabbed the magic around me, forming a snarling bramble between the Huntsman and me. I wrapped that squirming magic around my fist and flung my punch out, wild and uncoordinated. His eyes rolled back in his head as he fell backward.

He hit the floor with an almighty thump.

"You waited," I murmured, shocked, as I rushed from the Huntsman's mount room, almost tripping over Mitchell in my haste.

Mitchell grinned, standing up and brushing the dust from his shirt. "Of course, I waited." His grin dropped as he noticed my expression. The blossoming bruise on my cheek from the journal and the wide-eyed fear that made my heart pound three times as fast.

I began to panic. Unable to control the breaths that whistled through my teeth. My lungs couldn't fill all the way.

"What did he do?" Mitchell stepped into my space. He lifted his hand and placed it against my cheek.

A single tether in a storm.

A golden thread connected us.

I closed my eyes, sighing as I felt my throbbing cheek heal under his cool fingertips.

I held up the journal. "éabha's journal."

Mitchell's lip pursed. "Really?"

I nodded, looking away. "We should leave before he wakes up." I grabbed Mitchell's shoulder and started toward the stairs.

"Wait," His feet caught as I dragged him down the steps. "What do you mean wakes up ?"

"I punched him," I said, matter of factly. "My hand hurts. I think I need to learn how to throw a punch."

"Dean told me you were pretty handy with a sledgehammer." Mitchell's eyes sparkled.

"If my career as a wolf doesn't work out, I can always go into demolition."

He barked a laugh, his unscarred eye wide as if he surprised himself. "You shouldn't have been able to hurt the Huntsman." His brow furrowed. "Are you certain you punched him?"

I gave him a dry look.

Mitchell rolled his eyes. "Of course, you're certain." He muttered. "Hold out your arms."

My eyes narrowed, but I did as he said, tensing when his hands hovered over my arms. He poked my bicep before gripping my wrist in a feather-light hold, then turned my hand over. The entire time, my heartbeat roared in my ears, and I struggled to control my breathing.

Touch belonged in two categories. Sexual or painful. Mitchell's touch was neither as he surveyed my body like a blank canvas.

"You need to build muscle." He told me. "And stamina. If the Huntsman sends you out again like this, it'll be suicide. And if he remembers that punch, he will pit you against something you can't handle. Just like the manticore."

"You think he's going to send me out again?" I cleared my throat.

"More beasts have been slipping through to the Human Realities." He told me. "If you can track them as quickly as you found the stag and the manticore—"

I held up my hands. "So, I'm a soggy piece of bread that needs to toughen up before I get killed by some dangerous mythical beast."

Mitchell's lips pressed into a thin line as he struggled to hold back a smile. "You said it, not me. You should start running laps around the castle. At least ten every morning. The best weapon can sometimes be to run away."

"I don't want to run away." I rubbed my hand over my mouth. Glancing back as we hurried away from the Huntsman mount room. "I want to kill the son of a bitch. I just don't know if it will break the curse."

Mitchell stopped on the steps.

I slapped his arm. "Hurry up ."

"He's unconscious?"

"And drunk," I added. "And angry." I had no desire to tell Mitchell about the Huntsman's ramblings. Even when he blamed my grandmother, he didn't connect us as a related group. At least I had that going for me.

"We should check his study." Mitchell's expression froze, though his lips still moved. Bloodless. "We won't get another chance."

"What if he wakes up?" I hissed.

Mitchell shook his head, though I sensed he wasn't disagreeing with me. "We won't get another chance." He repeated. "He's a Mallacht Sídhe. He has to write his curses down. Blood. Spit. Ink. It doesn't matter. There has to be a record of the bargain between the Huntsman and the Beast-King's pack." His energy renewed as he turned on his heel and began climbing the steps two at a time.

I hesitated momentarily before following him, clinging to the railing.

"Doesn't Kaleb know anything about that?" I called after him. "He was around then, wasn't he?"

Mitchell shook his head but didn't answer.

My chest heaved, and my face was warm when we reached the top of the stairs. I began to see what Mitchell was talking about—I really didn't have any stamina.

He pushed through the door with all the confidence of someone who belonged there, not stopping even a moment despite the hall of curiosities that led to the study.

I reached out, trying to pull him back, but Mitchell stopped at the threshold of the study, and I collided with his back. He did not move an inch.

"The Huntsman is out cold." He whispered in awe. "Are you sure you didn't kill him?"

I scoffed, throwing my hands in the air. "I'm going to wait outside."

"Suit yourself," Mitchell smirked.

I growled under my breath as I stomped away. Every step back to the door grew harder to take.

What if the Huntsman woke up?

I shook my head to clear it.

Mitchell was a grown man. He could make his own foolish decisions.

I passed the disturbing trophies and closed the door behind me, resting my butt against the wood as I kept a lookout. The stairs curled around a sharp corner, and the stone tower was dim despite the glowing Faelight bobbing overhead.

Footsteps echoed, and a shadow expanded against the wall as someone came up the stairs. I couldn't move. I tried to think of a dozen excuses and tricksy word games to disguise what I was doing but came up blank.

Donovan, with his slicked-back hair and strange knowing smile, rounded the corner. His eyes lit up as they met mine, and his grin widened further.

"Weaver." He purred.

"That's not my name." I couldn't resist the retort, even though every hair on my body lifted—screaming danger, danger, danger .

"As much as I want to stay and chat, I must report to the Huntsman." Donovan gestured to the door behind me. "He trusts me. You should consider that when speaking to me."

I gave him a long look.

"Have you considered joining a pack?" Donovan continued, sidling closer to me. "We can always use more female wolves. My pack tends to break them far too quickly."

"I have a pack." I lowered my eyes.

"The Locket pack?" He chuckled, the sound gaining momentum as if the idea was hilarious. "At the front line of the rift between worlds? Fighting monsters every day instead of once a year? It's a punishment assignment. The Huntsman would never allow a Weaver to do such a thing, even if you're also a wolf."

I had to get Donovan away from the door. Mitchell would come through at any moment.

"The Huntsman isn't here." I blurted out. Well, he was here. He just wasn't conscious. That gave me enough leeway to say the statement even though it wasn't exactly true.

Donovan's eyes narrowed, and he glanced at the door. "I'll go to the hall. You shouldn't be skulking about. People might take it as an invitation."

My nose wrinkled in disgust, but Donovan had already turned away.

I felt like I needed a shower just from thirty seconds of conversation.

The Tuatha Dé Danann was shining down on me because Mitchell didn't leave the office until Donovan was long gone. Mitchell held a glass figurine; the tiny statue glowed with silver magic.

"Let's go." Mitchell tucked the figurine in his pocket.

I raised a brow.

Mitchell nudged me. "Before he wakes up." He said meaningfully.

"You're going to get us killed."

"I wasn't the one who punched him." Mitchell's scarred lip ticked. He patted his jacket, and his jovial mood disintegrated. "You don't understand, Mallory. I found it. The bargain between the Beast-King and the Huntsman. I found the damned thing."

"What? Where?" I covered my mouth with my hands, eying the stairs behind Mitchell's shoulder in case Donovan returned. "We can end this damn curse?"

Mitchell nodded, and a tear fell from his non-scarred eye. He touched my cheeks and leaned in, pressing his lips against mine so quickly that I was almost sure I had imagined it as he began to walk away.