Chapter 10

The cup of instant coffee in front of me was growing cold, but I still couldn't muster the energy to lift it to my lips to drink. Not even knowing how few packets were left in my bag to waste, not even to drive out the ice in my blood. One last breath of steam rose from it, curling in the morning light. I watched it as I dripped melted snow and mud onto my chair and the floor.

Neve pulled pieces of long grass out of her hair, then braced her head in her hands, drawing in several steadying breaths. Caitriona and Olwen weren't in any better shape; after fighting through the remnants of the storm, and a perilous journey down the steep path, we'd burned the Sorceress Hemlock's body in her own garden.

"Shall we say a few words?" Olwen had asked, once her magic had devoured the last of the mortal remains.

"What's the point?" Caitriona had said, brushing ash and snow from her face.

"She deserves respect," Neve had said sharply.

Rather than slice back with a cutting remark, Caitriona had let out a soft sigh. Her whole posture seemed to relax as she spoke, as if she'd unfastened a piece of armor. "I only meant, the prayers for the dead are to help their souls find the Goddess and be reborn. Lord Death has taken hers. She doesn't need a prayer or song, she needs to be freed of him. "

"Then we'll make her a promise," Neve had said. "I vow in the name of the Goddess, on the bones in my bag, on all the fungi in the forests, on the stars that blaze in the night sky—"

"Neve," I interrupted.

"Right," she said. She pressed a hand to her chest and leaned forward. "We'll get him, Hemlock."

"We will," Caitriona said.

"We will," Olwen echoed.

"We … are definitely going to try, " I'd said. Seeing their looks, I'd added, "Just hedging our bets a little here. I have enough guilt about this as it is."

I wanted to be as brave as they were, boldly declaring that promise for the wind to carry to the four corners of the world. After seeing the way Lord Death had bent the storm to his will and had torn the soul out of Hemlock's body, it was nearly impossible to keep my rising doubts at bay. But if they believed, then I could rely on their strength until I did too.

If they believed, I wouldn't run from the pain or struggle the way Nash always did.

"All right," I'd agreed. "We will."

We broke apart, moving through the burned-out wreckage of the Sorceress Hemlock's life in search of anything that could be useful to us. But what hadn't been destroyed by the fire had been shattered and torn to shreds by the violence of the morning.

I stepped out of the remains of her cottage with a heavy sigh. The stench of smoke clung to the air and my skin as I surveyed the property.

A short distance away, Neve and Olwen crouched over something in the snow, their heads bent together in discussion. When I came to stand behind them, I saw what it was: the unfinished sigil.

"What does this part of the symbol mean?" Olwen was asking the sorceress, pointing to several straight lines that jutted from its curling center .

Caitriona's heavy footsteps crunched through the snow behind me, joining us as Neve explained, "You'd include something like that to summon light, but this part, where it curls into itself and then continues straight? That looks like the sigils you'd use to create a weapon. You'd add on a little tail here for arrows, cross through it for a sword … so, a weapon made of light?"

She glanced back over her shoulder at me, looking for confirmation. Tilting my head, I could see it. "Agreed. Would it really have done anything, though?"

"If Morgan and the other sorceresses couldn't destroy him with magic alone …" Neve's voice trailed off. "Why light, though?"

The Bonecutter's earlier explanation circled back to me. I'd told the others about our conversation, but with everything that had happened, I'd put it out of my mind, even as I watched threads of darkness wrap around his fist.

"He can manipulate shadows …," I said. "It was the unique gift given to him by the Goddess. Maybe it's related to that … ?"

"Right," Neve said, her shoulders drooping. "Right …"

I knew the feeling, but the sight of her, so uncharacteristically despondent, left me scraping my low reserves of positivity for something to say.

"He can be killed," I said. "We can stop him. Hemlock didn't die in vain."

"Is that … a note of optimism I detect?" Neve said. "From our adorable doomsayer Tamsin Lark?"

Botheration. I grimaced. "I prefer misery goblin. "

"In the meantime, though, what should we do about him?" Olwen asked, nodding toward the lone figure at the edge of the property, gazing out over the cliffs.

The wind ruffled Emrys's hair, wrestling with his soaked jacket, but he stood there taking it. His shoulders hunched, as though he were curling into himself .

"Was that rider really his father?" Neve asked.

I nodded, swiping a loose strand of hair out of my face. If I let myself think about it, if I let myself replay the memory of Hemlock's death, I recognized other faces too. Other Hollowers from our guild.

I just didn't know what any of it meant, other than the universal truth of assholes always seeming to find one another.

"He has reached the end of his usefulness," Caitriona said. "I say we cut him loose now."

Neve glanced at me. "I can't tell what you're thinking."

I sighed. "That's because I don't know what I'm thinking."

I could have said, then and there, that it was time for him to leave, but I couldn't seem to summon the words from the icy depths of my chest.

Where could he go? Back to his mother, maybe. Into hiding. Certainly not back home to the Summerland estate, where his father could find him.

Hours later, the question was still circling my mind as I watched him from across the pub. He sat near the head of the bar's dragon, his head braced against his hand. He'd helped himself to some whiskey, but by the look of it, he'd had as much of his drink as I'd had of mine.

"What's on your mind, Olwen?" Neve asked, finally breaking the thick silence.

The priestess straightened in her chair, trying to put on a reassuring smile as she fed Griflet a bit of fish we'd scavenged from the pub's refrigerator.

"I've been thinking about death magic," Olwen said. "The way it transformed Hemlock's soul—it corrupted it, didn't it? I thought he could only collect the souls of the wicked dead, those bound for Annwn."

"He might not be able to harvest death magic from them," I said, "but it looks like his crown allows him to control all souls. Including those belonging to the living."

Seeing the way Lord Death had manipulated the riders and Hemlock's soul had only deepened my certainty that Cabell was under the sway of his magic.

"Then why didn't he control all of us in Avalon that way? He went to so much trouble to get us to perform the ritual …" Neve trailed off as she took in my expression. "I'm not saying Cabell isn't in his thrall. I just don't understand his choice."

"Cabell wasn't … he wasn't himself," I said. "He might have been more susceptible to that magic."

"He couldn't have influenced the Avalonians without one of us noticing," Caitriona said, running a finger along the grain of the tabletop. "Especially one of our sisters."

The ghost of that word, sisters, haunted the silence that followed.

"I don't know," Olwen said, with an apologetic look at me. "If he could master souls within our living bodies, why would he need to kill Hemlock to add her to his ranks?"

The question left a queasy feeling in my stomach. "Because he wants revenge. He wants to humiliate the sorceresses the way they humiliated him. He wants to kill them. There are a million reasons."

Caitriona's skeptical grunt carried just as much meaning as if she had put her disbelief into words.

"What?" I pressed her, that same sinking feeling from our last argument returning. "You don't agree?"

Caitriona jolted with a sharp "Ow!" as Neve not so subtly kicked her shin under the table. The sorceress lowered her brows and gave the other girl a look that made my soul shrink inside my skin.

"I only meant …" Caitriona cleared her throat. "That perhaps there is something in the hunt that … calls to the nature of his other self. The hound. And that is how Lord Death keeps his hold on him."

"No," I said firmly. I knew in my bones that wasn't right. "His humanity would rebel against that."

But Caitriona didn't look convinced.

"Are you giving up on him?" I asked quietly, trying not to let her expression crush me .

"No— no, " she said quickly. "Of course not."

The locks on the pub's door clicked open, finally ending the grim line of questioning. The bundled-up Bonecutter was swept inside by a gust of freezing air, followed closely by a human Bran.

She stamped the snow from her boots and unwound her woolly scarf with one hand. In her other fist was a velvet sack with a dark stain spreading across the bottom of it. The liquid dripped to the floor, but more alarming, the bag's contents were still wriggling around.

I really, truly did not want to know.

Her purple-lensed glasses fogged with the sudden warmth. She lifted them, assessing each of us in turn.

"Got old Hemlock, did they?" she asked, not unkindly, handing her coat and scarf to Bran to hang up. "A shame, that."

She dismissed her companion with a flick of her hand, and he transformed again, scaring Griflet beneath the table. This time, the Bonecutter held the door open for the raven, letting it slam shut behind him. The locks clicked back into place.

I asked the question I should have thought to ask last night. "Do you know what he's looking for? What he thinks the sorceresses have?"

"I'll trade you the answer for a question of my own," she said. "I know that Lord Death's original mortal form was destroyed by Morgan and the others. And so I wonder: Who'd he skin for this one?"

Something in our expressions must have given it away, because she let out a shocked laugh.

"Really? Arthur?" The Bonecutter twirled one of her ringlets in thought. "I always imagined he'd be swollen like a rotten berry ready to burst. Or moldering at the very least."

"No moldering," Neve said. "Unfortunately. Do you want me to get you a mop for that?"

The Bonecutter startled, looking down at the puddle of inky fluid draining from the bag. "I would recommend not touching it, or breathing the fumes in, if you can help it." She held the velvet sack aloft. "I'll sort this out and be back up shortly."

"And the answer to my question?" I demanded.

"Is no, I don't know." Her childish voice all but sang the words with glee.

I gritted my teeth. "That vessel better be ready."

"And you better have paid for that food and those drinks," she called back.

Emrys lifted a folded fifty-dollar bill in the air for her to see and slid it toward the cash register.

"I knew we kept you around for a reason, Trust Fund," I said.

A mordant smile touched his lips. In the past, when we'd sparred like this, his eyes would glow with the challenge—it was one of the most maddening, distracting things about arguing with him, the way he seemed to enjoy it. But now, as he gulped down half of the brown liquor in front of him, something in his expression shuttered.

I don't care, I thought. I don't.

"Didn't realize your affection could be so easily bought," he said. "Or else I might have thrown a few pity dollars your way sooner."

My hatred was a living thing inside me, but like all living things, it could be hurt, it could bleed. And what he was implying … That word— pity. It was anathema to my whole existence. In all our sparring, he had never gone so low.

"Do you have a death wish?" Neve asked him without an ounce of warmth in her voice. She rose slowly from her seat. "Because I would be more than happy to oblige."

"Shed a drop of blood here and you'll be banned from my pub until the other side of eternity," the Bonecutter warned, but not before Neve had turned and mouthed the word maggots to me.

The trapdoor behind the bar swung open as the Bonecutter brushed a hand against the dragon's eye. I tracked the sound of her heavy steps on the stairs, drumming my fingers at my side. A smell like pickled fish wafted to us from the dark pool congealing on the floor. Griflet scampered over, eyeing it with clear interest.

"What is that evil stench?" Caitriona asked, tentatively approaching. "Poison? Venom?"

"We're not going to find out," I said. We'd brought our borrowed blankets downstairs to warm up, and not knowing what else to do, I threw mine over the spill. I leapt back as the liquid tore through the fabric, consuming its fine weave like a flame devouring parchment. A heartbeat later, the entire wood plank collapsed in on itself. A single tendril of smoke rose pitifully from the hole, like a spirit cut loose from its body.

Neve and I leaned over the singed opening.

"Whoa," she said.

"Whoa," I agreed.

I'd half expected to see the Bonecutter's angry face looking up at us from the workshop, but there were only old cobblestones and dirt.

"I'll have you know that blanket was a gift from a Bavarian prince," came the Bonecutter's irritated voice.

"I'm sure your prince can replace it," I said finally.

"That would be difficult, seeing as he's been dead for two hundred years," the Bonecutter said.

Viviane's vessel appeared first from behind the bar, carefully balanced on the wooden pedestal. My heart sped at the sight of it—and stopped dead in my chest as the pedestal tilted and the vessel slid toward its edge.

The world blurred around me, slowing. I felt like I was moving through water, lunging for it. Too far—I was too far.

But Caitriona was there, with all her finely honed reflexes. The skull hovered an inch above the floor, balancing on the tips of her fingers. The rest of us stared, eyes bulging.

"Well." The Bonecutter gave her the once-over. "I suppose I should thank you for that."

But she didn't .

"Allow me," Caitriona said coolly.

"Set it down here," the Bonecutter said, gesturing to the closest table.

She placed the pedestal there and stepped back, allowing Caitriona to carefully, carefully, set the vessel down at the center of it.

Reassembled, the skull looked more silver than bone.

This isn't going to work, my mind taunted. Pessimism rose in me like a drowning tide, and after the night we'd had, I wasn't sure I could keep my head afloat much longer.

"Here," the Bonecutter said, pulling a small votive candle from the pocket of her dress. Today's choice featured a full skirt, this time made of black silk. It only enhanced the feeling that a haunted Victorian doll was staring back at me.

Caitriona's fingers lingered at the curve of the skull a moment before she took the small candle.

Once Caitriona had placed it inside the vessel, Olwen lit the wick with magic. Both drew in a sharp breath as the sigils on the vessel illuminated on the walls around us.

"So far so good," Emrys said, still seated at the bar.

Olwen shared one last look with Caitriona. She stroked the curved edge of the pedestal, closing her eyes with a soft hum, starting the echoing spell the way she had in Avalon.

The pedestal creaked, wobbling slightly as its top piece revolved in slow circles. Glowing sigils passed over Neve, the walls, the Bonecutter, until, finally, it began to spin fast enough that the mysterious language of spellwork turned to rivers of warm, streaking light.

The hair rose on my arms as Olwen's humming turned deeper, raspier. The haunting melody pulled at me, as much a lament as a prayer. Soon the edges of each sound became distinct, turning to words with no true origin or meaning. It was as if Olwen herself were the vessel, conducting the sound up through the ages.

Or from a far-off world.

My heart turned to stone in my chest. I glanced to the Bonecutter, searching for some sort of reaction, but her face was impassive .

The vessel had been created using death magic and a cauldron born of Annwn. Yet Olwen was using Goddess-born magic. It was strange to see the two magics work in tandem, but then again, the druids had once practiced the magic of the Goddess. With vessels, they'd found a way to align the two powers, and that collision—the meeting of death and living memory—was as terrible as it was beautiful.

Olwen opened her eyes, her face etched with an aching hope.

"How do we ask to see the missing memory if we don't know what the memory is of?" I frowned. "There are only a few reasons Lord Death would go to such trouble to take the skull fragment, right?"

"And fewer reasons still why he wouldn't want to crush the bone outright," Caitriona said. "I assume he would have if it had specified how to destroy him. It must be something he believed he'd need to reference again."

"You guys are thinking about this way too hard," Neve said. Leaning down so the vessel was at eye level, she asked, "Will you show us the most important memory of Lord Death you hold?"

The light continued to stream around us, the pedestal's little squeaks the only reply she received.

Nothing. I leaned a hip against the table and sighed. Olwen's lip turned white as she bit it. Caitriona only scoffed, shaking her head.

"Are you sure you repaired it correctly?" Emrys asked the Bonecutter. Rather bravely, given the way she glared at him.

"Oh, my work was perfection, as always," the Bonecutter said. "You, however, have asked the wrong question. Your phrasing is too subjective—a spell can't make that determination. You need to be more precise."

"What memory or memories were you missing until now?" I suggested.

"It's not sentient enough to know that," the Bonecutter said. "Thankfully."

"We could ask to see all of the memories that relate to Lord Death," I tried again .

"There would be hundreds of them to comb through," Olwen said. "He was mentioned in many of our lessons and in song, and I'm still not sure I'd be able to tell which one was missing."

"Oh," I said. "Right."

"What memory is Lord Death most afraid of?" Emrys offered. "No, that's subjective too."

"It is," Caitriona agreed. Her brows lowered in thought. It looked as if she might say something, but she held her tongue in the end.

"What is it?" Olwen asked.

"Viviane was very pragmatic," Caitriona said. "She used to tell me that she and Morgan were one being—her the mind and Morgan the heart. And she always cautioned against acting out of emotion alone, and encouraged us to not be too prideful to ask for help when needed."

"Sage advice," the Bonecutter said.

"Yes, that's all true," Olwen said, "but I'm not sure I'm following."

"By the time the darkness came to Avalon, all of the elder priestesses were gone," Caitriona continued. "And the pathways were closed to the remaining Otherlands. We know she at least suspected it could be Lord Death regaining his strength, but she didn't know how to stop him. She would have consulted the only other being alive who might."

A grin broke over Olwen's face. "Oh, aren't you clever? We'd asked about it before, but there were no memories to echo through."

"Precisely," Caitriona said. "If we find one now, we'll know it's the one Lord Death tried to hide."

"This all sounds very exciting," Emrys said. "But can you please share with the rest of the class?"

Caitriona turned back toward the vessel. "We would like to see all of Merlin's prophecies about Lord Death."

"Close your eyes," Olwen instructed us.

My gaze drifted toward Emrys, drawn by some self-destructive impulse, but his eyes were already shut and I followed suit.

When Olwen began to hum again, the song seemed to sink through my skin, echoing in the marrow of my bones. A warm trilling sensation raced up my spine.

The shadows behind my eyes lingered. My fingers curled at my sides, until my ragged nails bit into the flesh of my palms.

This isn't working, I thought miserably.

Which, of course, was when I heard it.

The sound of footsteps scuffing along stone. The drip of unseen water. A wick catching fire and flaring to life.

The underpath below the tower revealed itself in silky brushstrokes all radiating from that single shivering light. Then came the ivory hand that held it, the skin fragile enough to see blue veins running over the back of it. And, finally, the woman herself. Olwen made a pained sound at the back of her throat.

Her face was only partly visible beneath the hood of her midnight-blue cloak as the woman strode forward down the dark corridor. Her features were handsome but had been softened by time. Strands of snow-white hair had escaped the long braid over her shoulder.

The tangle of roots along the floor and walls retreated in her presence, slithering back along the stones like humbled serpents. She hastened her steps toward her destination.

Drawing in a deep breath, she waited for the wall of roots guarding the entrance to the side path to part and made her way toward the dark shape ahead. The bark of the Mother tree shifted as the body trapped inside twisted, pushing out against the softened wood and sap to face its visitor. The white orbs of his eyes flashed in the dark. The snap of the bark as the creature forced his mouth open sent a shudder down her spine.

"Is it the shadows … or do my eyes deceive …," the creature rasped. "Is it Viviane of Avalon … stooped and weary with age?"

"Merlin." Her tone was withering. "My, how you've … festered."

"I have called before … and yet you did not come …," Merlin continued. "I spoke your name … to the shadows … but they did not … bring you to me. "

"I've had better things to do than listen to the last of your mind rot," she said primly. "But I've use for you now."

He gave an awful, wheezing laugh.

"What knot can … the great Viviane … not unravel … that she must now … seek the help … of one … such as me?" Merlin grated out. "Perhaps the darkness … that seeps through the isle … ? The poisons drunk deep by the roots … ?"

Viviane was a tall woman and she held herself like a queen. But the question made her shrink back in alarm. "It has already reached the Mother tree?"

Merlin said nothing.

"Do not be a fool," Viviane said. "If it reaches the heart of the isle, you yourself will be consumed by it."

"It … will be … an end," he said.

Viviane's expression hardened with anger. "Is it him, then? Your former master?"

"Not master … guide …"

"I haven't the time to debate your doomed choice to worship at the altar of a false god," Viviane said. "I am asking you, as High Priestess and the last protector of Avalon, if you—shepherd of kings, keeper of stories, and prophet of dreams—have seen visions of what is to come."

Merlin let out a harrumph that expelled several beetles between his crumbling teeth. But the flattery and deference coaxed him into speaking again.

"I have seen much … when the paths turn to ice … when the world shakes and weeps blood … when the sun is devoured by darkness," he said, closing his terrible eyes.

"More of your infernal riddles," she fumed.

"The worlds will sing of the coming, chains of death broken … new power born in blood," he finished. "You know … of what I speak. The end … has come. He will have … what was once promised … to him."

Viviane drew in a sharp breath. "It will not come to that. Not if you tell me how to stop him. Did you not hear something whispered on the wind? Did the answer not come to you in a dream? You are too clever not to have divined a way to escape him."

Merlin's eyes remained closed. His lips unmoving.

"You have had centuries to ruminate on the way you betrayed this isle," Viviane said, "the very one that welcomed you, when the mortal world would just as soon have cut the heart from your chest. Do you not have any desire for atonement?"

Still the druid remained silent. Viviane wore her disgust plainly, all but trembling with barely suppressed fury. She pulled a knife from her belt, drawing closer to him. "Then I'll carve you out and burn you to cinders, the way I should have done an age ago—"

With a flick of the blade, a gnarled chunk of bark stripped from his cheek and fell to the floor. An oozing pocket of pus and sap opened on his face.

"Is that … all?" The druid's laugh was low, pitying. "You never possessed … the stomach to do … what must be done. That is why you lost … Lady Morgan … and why you … shall now lose everything else … you hold dear …"

Viviane drew back at Morgan's name, her nostrils flaring with anger. With pain.

"I will find the answer another way," she vowed. "And you— you will continue to be nothing more than a husk of what you once were."

Her cloak whirled over the floor as she turned to go, taking long strides down the corridor.

"Look … upon me with despair …," Merlin continued in his harsh, labored voice. "For I am … the Mirror of Beasts … my silver sings of eternity. … as I capture all … in my glare."

Viviane's steps slowed, but only for a moment.

"The mirror lies … beyond your reach … forevermore," he roared after her, malice and spittle dripping with each word. "And you … you shall die screaming … with all the rest! "

My eyes snapped open as I surfaced from the memory.

I braced a hand against the table as a spell of dizziness passed over me. My mind needed more than a moment to accept the sight of the sun-streaked pub after lingering in the darkness of the underpaths of Viviane's memories.

Olwen wiped the tears streaming down her face, turning for a moment to compose herself. Caitriona looked more rattled than I'd ever seen her.

"Was that the only memory?" Neve asked as the pedestal rattled and slowed to a stop. The vessel stared back at us with its hollow eyes, the manifestation of Merlin's final promise.

"I think the better question is," I began with a calmness I didn't quite feel, "what, in all the many hells, is the Mirror of Beasts?"