Chapter 26

"You again?"

The Bonecutter looked neither surprised nor irritated at our sudden appearance in the doorway of the pub. Her eyes moved over us in quick appraisal before settling on Emrys's pallid form. Neve and I struggled under his weight, lowering him to the floor as soon as it was safe to do so. I turned around and locked the door behind us.

In the late-afternoon hour, only three figures sat at the bar: Bran, endlessly polishing the pint glasses; the Bonecutter, making notes in her massive ledger; and Caitriona, glumly swirling a spoon through porridge.

At the sight of us, soot-stained and reeking of smoke, her spoon clattered against the counter as she leapt from her stool. "What happened?"

Neve stared at her a moment longer than I think she meant to, as if seeing her again for the first time.

"Well," I began weakly. "What didn't happen?"

The Bonecutter's brows rose.

"Sorry for dropping in again uninvited," I said hoarsely, my throat still feeling singed from the heat. "We'd hate to deprive you of our peerless company for too long."

"Like a balm to the weary soul," Neve added. "A cold glass of water on a hot day. "

"Or finding a rat after weeks of starvation," Caitriona offered. She glanced toward Neve expectantly. The sorceress only grimaced.

"We probably could have stopped at the glass of water," I told Caitriona, "but you're not wrong."

The Bonecutter gave a wave of her small, delicate hand. "I know what happened at Rivenoak, including that you've released a hungry primordial creature back into the world." I couldn't tell if the Bonecutter was delighted or disturbed by this. "And that your kitten turned out to be a pooka after all. I told you to get rid of that thing, didn't I?"

My temper flared. "You couldn't have added a little disclaimer about why? Or given us a warning that the Mirror of Shalott was occupied?"

"I might have, had I known for certain," the Bonecutter said, reaching behind the bar for the velvet bundle. The frame glinted as she unwrapped it. "While it might beggar belief, I am not omniscient."

"The Hag of the Moors said it could only have one occupant at a time," Neve said. "Is that true?"

"It hasn't been tested either way," the Bonecutter said. "It seems as though the size of the mirror might shift to accommodate more. I believe the sorceress who enchanted the mirror created a sort of pocket dimension inside it."

"Like a little Otherland," Neve clarified for Caitriona.

"Yes, something like that," the Bonecutter said. "But clearly I am missing a chapter of this story. Why have you arrived looking as though you've run through the fires of hell?"

In a strange way, it had been easier not to talk about it—not to force myself to relive it again through story. I tried to draw in a deep breath, but I couldn't dispel the taste of smoke from my tongue.

"Because we did," I said. "Lord Death had his retinue of ghouls burn our library."

"He was there?" Caitriona asked, anguished.

"There was nothing we could do," Neve said. "Even if we'd had the true Mirror of Beasts, it wouldn't have done us any good."

"That's not what I meant," Caitriona said. She ran a hand back through her hair, clenching it in her fist. "I never should have left. I never should have …"

"They burned it?" The Bonecutter finally shut her ledger. "Surely not all of it?"

"They destroyed the relics, too," I said, strained. "Some of the books survived, but they're probably waterlogged and unreadable."

"We have seven rare books you can add to your collection," Neve began, gently patting the fanny pack slung over her chest, where the carefully wrapped Seven Sisters were stored at a shrunken size. "If you're willing to make the same deal you did with the vessel—that you'll hold them, but allow us to use them—and knock off a few of the favors Tamsin owes you."

"Certainly," the Bonecutter said. "I'll strike two favors from my ledger."

And leaving more than I could ever hope to fulfill in a lifetime, no doubt. I tried not to grimace; I knew it was pointless to negotiate with her on the matter of favors.

The Bonecutter's gimlet gaze was on me again, cutting through me to get to the truth. "If you've been allowed to remove these rare tomes, then Librarian is gone, I take it?"

I nodded. My mind was determined to keep playing back that moment, of Cabell lunging forward with the sword, of Librarian collapsing, as if once hadn't been enough to sufficiently torment me. To scar.

"Shame, that," the Bonecutter said, crossing her arms over the bar with as much regret as she was likely capable of. "I preferred his company to most humans', and he had the most beautiful penmanship."

I couldn't argue with her there.

The Bonecutter inclined her head toward Emrys. "And I suppose you want him to be my problem now?"

"Can you get him a healer?" I asked. "Feel free to add the favor to his tally. He just can't travel in his condition."

"Oh?" the Bonecutter said. "Are you also anticipating an interesting journey? "

"Something like that," I said, sitting heavily on the edge of one of the tables. But as her words replayed in my mind, they snagged on a single word. Also.

I looked up, scanning the room, but I already knew what I would find—or, rather, who I wouldn't.

"Where's Nash?" I asked.

I had gotten so accustomed to his absence over the years, my tired mind hadn't bothered to remember he was supposed to be here.

"Where is he?" I asked again, hearing the anger building in those words.

Caitriona looked as though she wished I'd asked her anything else.

"Son of a—" I blew out a hard breath. "He left ?"

"I'm so sorry," Caitriona said. "I closed my eyes for just a few minutes, and when I woke up, he was gone."

"That rotten bastard," I bit out.

"One cannot handle a feral cat and not expect to get scratched," the Bonecutter said. "Do you truly have no idea where he might have gone?"

"No, I—" The words fell away from me. Seeing his coffee mug next to the book in Librarian's office should have been warning enough that he'd try something like this. "He knows where it is."

"Where what is?" the Bonecutter asked, too innocently.

"Excalibur," Neve answered. "The Mirror of Beasts."

Caitriona shook her head. "No—it can't be. The sword's been lost for an age."

"Are the rumors true?" I pressed the Bonecutter. "Is it in Lyonesse?"

The Bonecutter's lips twisted with thought, as if she was weighing the options in front of her now.

"Bran," she said slowly. "Retrieve young Master Dye, will you? Put him up in the flat where he won't be such a depressing eyesore."

"Yes, miss," the bartender squawked. And, sure enough, when his face passed through a beam of sunlight slipping in through the window, his eyes had an aquamarine sheen. My already bad mood worsened.

"Is it in Lyonesse?" I asked again. "What do you even want? You're a sorceress, aren't you? You're in danger too as long as the Wild Hunt is tearing through this world."

"I am not a sorceress, not anymore," the Bonecutter said coldly, watching as Bran lifted Emrys in his arms and lumbered toward the stairs up to the flat. "But if it's Excalibur you seek, I've uncovered a memory that may be of interest."

She motioned for us to follow her into her workshop. Her smile was too sharp, too knowing. "And perhaps it will answer yet more of the questions that plague you."

For once, that possibility frightened me.

It was a dagger to my soul that the Bonecutter, not Olwen, sang the echoing spell.

The pedestal creaked as it started its slow spin, Viviane's vessel throwing light onto our weary faces and tattered clothing.

"In your absence, I have scoured the High Priestess's memories for references to the sword or Lord Death," the Bonecutter said. "But with the damage wrought to it, many of them have been reduced to mere fragments. Useless for our purposes. But there was one complete memory …" She turned her small body to address the vessel. "Show me the memory discussing the daughter, and the fate of Excalibur."

That word, daughter, echoed in my mind, even as the memory dripped into place and the thought was drowned by smears of shadows and firelight.

Viviane stood at a table, her hands braced on either side of a large book. Her agitation was clear in the rigid line of her spine, the hunch of her shoulders. Her white hair glowed gold in the light of the small fire burning in the hearth.

She hummed softly to herself as she turned the page, but kept her thoughts in. A piercing screech tore through the night-dark chamber, forcing her gaze up to the opening of her window. The line between her brows deepened as she worried her top lip.

It was the cry of the Children of the Night.

"Who is the Goddess's daughter?"

Viviane straightened, taking a moment to compose her expression before she turned to greet the small elfin standing in her doorway.

"Mari," she said gently. "We are all daughters of the Goddess."

But there was a flicker of worry in Viviane's ancient eyes.

"Come, dear one," the High Priestess said, moving to one of the chairs placed before the fire. "Sit with me awhile."

Mari stepped inside the room, pulling the door shut behind her. The firelight adored her leaf-green skin, caressing it as she lifted her small form onto the other seat. Her eyes were eager as she opened the leather-bound book clutched in her hands.

"I found Morgan's diary stored in a chest, in the room beside the Sanctuary," Mari said, still bright with the excitement of her discovery. "In it, she writes of a girl named Creiddylad—the Goddess's true child, born directly of her being, not just her power, as the rest of us are."

Viviane's lips compressed. She took a moment before answering. "Morgan always did love fanciful tales."

Some of Mari's hopefulness dimmed. "Is it not true? If we could find her—her soul reborn—Morgan believes that the child would radiate the Goddess's magic. Her light. Could she not use that purifying light to heal the isle?"

Viviane reached out and gently shut the diary. Her thin fingers wrapped around its spine, and Mari allowed her to take it without a sign of protest.

"Even if this daughter—Creiddylad, did you say? Even if she existed, her soul would reside in the mortal world," Viviane said. "And we cannot lift the barriers."

"Could a soul truly be hidden, as Morgan wrote?" Mari asked. "To such a degree that it would evade the man seeking her?"

The chair creaked as Viviane leaned back. "If the caster of such a spell was powerful enough, yes, but the soul would possess magic difficult to suppress. "

"What of Seren's suggestion to find Excalibur?" Mari pressed. "It can still break enchantments, can't it?"

"It is lost to us," Viviane said firmly. "As I told you all, Sir Bedivere confessed that the sword he returned to the lake was not Excalibur—that Arthur gave it to another knight, to continue to protect the mortal world."

"Maybe that knight's—Sir Percival's—descendants still possess it?" Mari suggested.

"Merely finding the sword would not be enough," Viviane said. "You know this."

Mari nodded, all her eagerness deflated.

"Rest, my heart," Viviane said, stroking her head. "We will begin our search again in the morning."

Mari slid off her chair. "May the Goddess bless your dreams."

The older woman smiled. "And yours."

She waited until Mari had shut the door before looking down at the small volume resting in her lap. Running a hand over its weathered cover, she opened it, flipping through the pages, her eyes devouring the sight of Morgan's bold letters.

She snapped the diary shut again, her face twisting with unexpressed feeling. Closing her pale eyes, she lifted the diary and inhaled the scent of it.

Then, rising, she pressed the small book to her chest, to her heart, one last time—and cast it into the hearth's fire.

My eyes snapped open, the world swaying around me as I reoriented myself to the present, to the living world. Caitriona had gone deathly pale beneath her freckles; I understood only a fraction of what she was feeling, how difficult it was to see her loved ones alive in the past, only to wake from it like a dream and find she'd lost them all over again.

"So Percival had it," Neve said. "We just need to find where he's buried, or what remains of his family, right?"

But the Bonecutter was watching me still, as if waiting.

That cold, prickling dread I'd felt upstairs had returned. She had shown us this memory to confirm my suspicion that the sword was likely in Lyonesse, where Percival was thought by some to have died, yes. But just as a word could have many meanings, choosing that meaning depended on the context of the words around us.

We'd gotten the answer to what Lord Death was searching for, but that answer had been a distraction from the bigger question that surrounded it all.

The Bonecutter's gaze slid to my left, to where Neve was still waiting for her answer.

And my world began to cave in, brutal and swift, stealing that last bit of light.

"No," I whispered, my heart racing harder, harder.

The key to hiding something in plain sight wasn't to lie, it was to distract. And when I had looked at the history Librarian had left for us, at the illustration on the page, I'd been so focused on the sword, I'd barely noted the Goddess's light at the center of it all. That telling shade of its blue-white glow.

Morgan believes that the child would radiate the Goddess's magic. Her light.

The light I'd seen at the edge of my dream. That soft, whispering voice that filled my ears. Protect her. Protect her.

No.

No.

My stomach turned violently as the full weight of the realization bore down on me.

"Tamsin?" Caitriona asked, alarmed by whatever expression I wore.

The soul of the Goddess's daughter, the one Lord Death had destroyed worlds to find …

"Now you're starting to freak even me out," Neve said with a nervous laugh. "What did I say?"

The Bonecutter caught my eye again, nodded.

I could barely bring myself to look at Neve.

"It's you," I whispered. "Creiddylad's soul was reborn in you. "