Chapter 21

When Cabell and I were kids, the library's attic had felt like a vast amount of space—like our very own kingdom. That was the trouble with living mostly out of nylon tents on windswept landscapes or uninhabited forests; it made everything else feel secure and comfortable in comparison.

With five grown people and all our belongings, though, it was feeling less cozy and more cramped.

"Let's set him down here—oh, for the love of—" Nash swore a blue streak as he knocked his head against the low, slanted ceiling. I hastily shook out a blanket for Emrys, and Nash dropped him onto it unceremoniously, mewling pitifully as he rubbed his own aching head.

"Why are we here ?" Caitriona demanded before she'd even fully set Emrys's legs down, spinning up the same fight we'd had leaving Rivenoak. "We should be going after Olwen—"

"Oh?" Nash interrupted. "And you know where it is they're going? Are you that eager to swing your sword around and fight shadows?"

Caitriona's anger only deepened; her head drew back, the way a snake's did before it struck. "Are you mocking me?"

"No, dove, I'm trying to make a point, however unwelcome it may be," Nash said.

I sat beside Emrys, too exhausted to try to join the argument. I'd felt my heart break before, in the armoire at Rivenoak, but looking at him now, hovering just out of death's reach, it was as if someone had reached into my chest to rip out each jagged shard. His face was too pale, too slack, but he was breathing, however faintly. I brought my thumb to my lips, biting at the hangnail there, trying to smother the scream that had been threatening to tear out of me all night.

"He could be taking her to Lord Death!" Caitriona tried again.

"Would he?" Neve said. "He seemed terrified of the hunters …"

"He's got the courage of a mouse but the scruples of a rat," Nash said.

He ran a bruised hand back through his sandy hair, his sky-blue eyes soft. He spoke in a gentle tone I hadn't heard in years—not since the last time Cabell had fallen ill. It was startling that, after everything, it could still have a comforting effect on me.

"If you hear nothing else, hear me on this, Lady Caitriona," he began.

"Don't call me that," she said sharply, swinging a fist up.

"Are you not a priestess of Avalon?" he asked calmly.

The memory of her trying to summon fire burned me all over again. The thought was cruel, but if Caitriona had voluntarily abandoned her vow … what was to say that the magic hadn't abandoned her in turn?

"Avalon is gone," she said, her jaw clenched.

"So it is," Nash said. "But you are not, and neither is Lady Olwen. I understand why you want to go rushing after her—"

"You could not possibly understand," Caitriona said, a tremor running through her words.

Neve hovered behind her, her hands outstretched, as if she might try to draw the other girl away, but in the end, she didn't. When Caitriona was fighting, nothing could stop her, not even us.

"—but," Nash continued, "do you know where Lord Death resides in this world? "

"Why don't you ask your son?" Caitriona's words had their intended effect. Nash's brows shot up, as if he was surprised she'd managed to land a hit.

"I intend to," he said.

Caitriona spun, the full weight of her ire bearing down on me. "And you didn't think to demand those answers from him? You allowed him to escape. Or did you finally— finally —see what has been obvious to the rest of us for so long: that he serves Lord Death by choice ?"

"Cait—" I began. I looked to Neve, but the sorceress turned her face down, not denying the other girl's words.

They don't believe he can be saved, my mind whispered. I looked to Neve to deny it, but she only pressed a hand to her mouth.

"He's a monster, Tamsin, and you know what must be done," Caitriona continued. "There is only one way to stop a monster."

My heart froze in my chest, finishing what Caitriona had left unspoken. Kill it.

"That's enough," Nash said sharply. "Inflicting pain on another won't ease the pain inside you."

Caitriona's nostrils flared with her next sharp inhale, but she held her tongue.

"Now," Nash continued, "you're certain Olwen and Wyrm didn't merely escape together?"

"Olwen would never leave us behind," Caitriona swore.

"Even still," Nash said. "Wyrm could be up to anything. Perhaps he only wanted to use her as a shield to escape and he's already let her go. Perhaps he's brought her to the next guild over in Edinburgh to try to get information out of her. Perhaps she's beat the snot out of him and is now searching for you. "

Caitriona's chest heaved with the force of her ragged breaths, but this time, she didn't answer.

"Say he did bring her to Lord Death … where is the sense in going to confront him when you have no weapon to defeat him or his hunters?" Nash asked. "You'd end up killing yourself, not saving her."

"So be it," she said.

"Cait," Neve said, horrified.

"Don't you dare say that," I told her, my shock finally slain by anger. "It would devastate Olwen to hear you say that."

I knew because it killed me, too, and I didn't know how to make her take it back.

"This world is appalling, full of horrors. Even the air tastes poisoned, but it's alive and Avalon is in ruins," Caitriona said, her voice trembling. "There's no place in it for me, except to protect my sister, and if I cannot do that, then what is the point of any of this? What is the point of me, when all the others are gone?"

A hush filled the attic.

Caitriona's shoulders slumped, her arms hugging tight to her center, as if she was afraid of what else might slip out. Days without sleep, with little food, and even less hope had worn through her armor and revealed the wound that had been growing for days, tearing open again and again.

I closed my eyes, hands curling against the fabric of my jeans.

"Caitriona," Nash said into the silence. "I cannot give you purpose, or a reason to persist. That you must give to yourself. Have patience with your heart. There's no steel that can be forged without fire. What you have faced before this moment has prepared you to meet it."

Caitriona swallowed, looking down at her mud-stained sneakers. The words were almost … fatherly. If it hadn't been for the look on Caitriona's face, the way she was absorbing the words, I would have made a snide comment.

"I know what it is to have what you believed was meant for you ripped away, and to find yourself on a path you never imagined," Nash continued.

My already dark mood worsened, and I had to fight everything in me not to scoff. He knew nothing of the sort. All he had ever done was follow his own whims and fancies, to the ultimate ruin of our family. I almost couldn't take this.

"But there's still good left to be found in this world," Nash said. "Olwen is not lost to you, but we cannot risk endangering her by going in without a plan to destroy Lord Death."

"We have the Mirror of Beasts," Caitriona pushed back. The raw anger was gone, but the desperation in her eyes was still there.

Nash's brow furrowed as he took a sip of his cold coffee. "I don't see how that's possible, unless you mean the Mirror of Shalott." Understanding dawned on his face. "Is that why you were at Rivenoak?"

"Right place at the wrong time," I said.

I couldn't bring myself to revisit the memories of the last few hours, not yet. But one was circling at the back of my mind, and had been since we'd arrived at the library. There had been that one moment, when I'd faced Cabell, that a thought had come to me, as sharp as the sword in his hand.

Please let me be wrong, I thought, releasing a deep breath. Don't let it all have been for nothing.

I forced myself not to look at Emrys's unconscious form. His deathly pale face.

We couldn't lose this one small win, not when we'd already lost so much.

Please let me be wrong, I pleaded. But I knew no gods were listening.

"I'm sorry to tell you that's not the true Mirror of Beasts," Nash said, his words stealing the last glimmer of hope I had left. He straightened, puffing himself up for whatever tale he was about to weave.

The words were bitter on my tongue. "It's a sword, isn't it?"

"Wait," Neve began, startled. "What makes you say that?"

The floor squeaked as Nash shifted his weight. I couldn't tell if he was proud or annoyed. "Yes, I believe it's a sword, Tamsy. How did you figure it out?"

"Look upon me with despair, for I am the Mirror of Beasts. My silver sings of eternity as I capture all in my glare," I said softly. "The blade is the mirror. You glimpse your reflection in it the moment before your death."

Nash seemed even more astonished. "Well, yes, that's what I suspect. But where did you hear that riddle?"

"The better question is, how do you know about it?" I asked. The memory of him recounting Creiddylad's story flooded back to me, as disorienting as it had been the first time. "How do you know so much about Lord Death and the Wild Hunt?"

"I've spent my life sticking my nose in places where it doesn't belong, collecting bits and bobs of lesser-known histories, and trading gossip with sorceresses," Nash said. "You think I haven't heard a scary story here and there?"

Nash lied as easily and naturally as he drew breath.

"So … what sword is it?" Neve asked.

"I believe it's one of the magic blades forged by the Goddess," Nash said. "Lord Death is nearly a god himself—and the crown he wears allows him to call upon the full might of Annwn's magic. It would take something divinely forged to kill him."

"Avalon was once home to all of the Goddess's gifts," Caitriona intoned flatly. "That included a number of finely honed weapons."

"Merlin told Viviane the mirror was out of her reach forevermore, which, by the way, is such a good word," Neve said. "So it was removed from the isle at one point or another. But, I mean, how many magic swords have come out of that place? Even Tamsin found one."

Nash turned to me, eyes alight with almost boyish excitement. "You did?"

I gestured toward our pile of things at the far edge of the attic. I'd found the sword—or maybe it had found me—at the bottom of the lake near the High Priestesses' burial mound. Even thinking about it was enough to draw the dream from the other night back to the front of my mind, and I hadn't wanted to touch it since .

"Is this … the sword of Rhydderch Hael? Dyrnwyn?" Nash said incredulously. " White-Hilt? You left behind a bloody fire sword when you went to Rivenoak?"

"What, am I supposed to walk around with it and wave it at people like a cool party trick?" I snapped. "How was I supposed to know what was going to happen?"

I'd left the sword behind because I hadn't wanted to believe there was any use for it. At least, that was what I'd told the others, but it had been far harder to lie to myself.

It was a piece of Avalon and the person I'd been there—the person I'd let myself believe I could be.

Someone who cared.

Someone worthy.

I'd only brought it to the library because Neve had made me, and because I didn't want it to be taken from the apartment while we were gone. But I couldn't shake the fear that when I pulled it from its scabbard, the blade would no longer catch fire in my hand.

The truth was, it had been a mistake on my part not to bring it. I knew Children of the Night had crossed into our world with Lord Death. It was inevitable we'd face them again, and if there was one thing a fire sword was useful for, it was scaring off monsters who hated light.

"I should have suspected something like this would happen," Caitriona said. "Avalon's dead underwent the same transformation into Children when we didn't burn the bodies."

"Is this happening to all the people they kill? Was that why Hemlock wanted her body burned?" Neve asked, horrified. "I thought the curse with the Children was connected to the isle, not to the way they died—or who killed them."

Nash pulled the sword from its scabbard, but only an inch. It was enough to spark the white flames on the exposed steel, the air whining and singing as the fire licked at it.

I stared at it in disbelief. Him? Really?

"Now I know that thing is busted," I bit out .

"Was it forged by the Goddess?" Neve asked hopefully.

"Sadly, no." Nash slid it fully back into its scabbard and handed it to me. "The first Lady of the Lake enchanted it with protective magic for a mortal king who swore to aid her in protecting the isle. I'll talk to Librarian and poke around in the stacks to see what I can find about the isle's divinely forged weapons. There's a bathroom downstairs I'd advise taking advantage of, and I'm sure we can rustle up some food from the lockers."

It was strange, in a way, to feel relief at someone else taking charge of the situation and telling us what to do. But even after Nash vanished back down into the empty library, none of us moved.

"Are we really going to leave Olwen in Wyrm's hands?" Neve asked softly.

The thought tore at me. "She's strong. As much as it pains me to say, I think Nash could be right about this—she might have already gotten away."

"And if she hasn't?" Caitriona asked. "If that despicable man brings her to Lord Death and he kills her and makes her one of his riders, or worse?"

"We can't think like that," Neve said. "Olwen is useful to him. She'll find a way to stay alive until we can get to her, wherever it is they're hiding out. But I think we're only going to get one good chance to strike at him before the solstice."

Less than nine full days. That was all we had left to find this sword, and with every night that passed, he created more hunters, and more Children. And as the Children killed innocent people, more and more would appear until they overran the mortals of this world.

"The sorceresses can help." Neve seemed galvanized at the thought of having something concrete to do. "They must have a sense of where Lord Death is hiding, and where we can find the sword. I'll write to Madrigal again and ask."

Caitriona lingered even after Neve went downstairs, still caught in that painful trap of indecision .

"Cabell won't let anything happen to her," I said, and instantly regretted it. She didn't believe me, and her certainty shattered mine. In the quiet that followed, my own thoughts began to turn traitor.

He stood by and let it happen, my mind hissed. At the tower. At Rivenoak.

"We have to find the sword," Caitriona said. I heard the tears in her voice, but didn't turn around. Didn't try to comfort her. That wasn't what she wanted.

She wanted her sister, and if I couldn't give her that, I could at least give her privacy.

I ran a thumb along the braided bracelet.

"Together to the end," I whispered.

"Beyond that," Caitriona answered, her tone hollow.

We'd made our choice, but the problem with choices wasn't in the making—it was in learning to live with them. And that was a poison without an antidote.