Chapter 29

Between worlds, there was nothing but darkness.

It was unending, absolute. My first journey had been too chaotic to notice anything other than the sensation of being compressed and hurtled forward at a speed that left me breathless. Now, my mind was alive to what it was seeing—a despairing abyss, a void where no life existed. A place beyond the sight of gods.

Then the mist came, a hazy border.

Then the light.

The snow.

I burst out of the doorway, momentum carrying me even as I tried to dig my heels in to stop. But beneath the snow was a layer of hard ice, and even the spikes on my boots couldn't gain any kind of purchase. I was powerless to do anything other than fall.

The whipping winds snarled with disorienting rushes of snow. I staggered up, bracing my feet to fight back against the force of them. Snow—ice crystals—battered my face as I searched for the others in the maelstrom of white around me.

"Cait!" I shouted. "Neve! Can anyone hear me?"

Fear spiked through my chest. The portal had vanished. I couldn't even tell which direction I'd come from.

This doesn't make any sense, I thought. The others should be here. We'd come to the same place—I'd traveled through right after them .

"Neve!" I tried again. My face was stiff and aching from the cold. "Cait! Neve!"

The shouts were nothing compared to the howl of the blizzard. It seemed to laugh, sputtering ice and snow in my face until it became difficult to breathe. A growing panic simmered beneath my skin.

"Is anyone there?" I called, the words breaking at their edges. "Hello? Anyone!"

I turned in a slow circle, trying to shake the growing sensation that I was drowning in blisteringly cold light.

Alone … my mind whispered. Always alone.

"Anyone!" I pleaded. If something had happened to them—

A shadow appeared just ahead of me, emerging from the cloak of white like a drop of ink seeping through parchment. My heart leapt at the sight.

"Over here!" I shouted, waving my arms. Thank the gods, or fates, or whoever for sparing me this one single ordeal.

The shape came closer, and closer. Slowly, as if to figure out who I was too.

And then its eyes, a hideous, glowing yellow, found mine through the storm. As it came toward me, it wasn't walking on two legs, but four.

My arms fell back to my sides, limp.

"Oh … shit," I choked out, already backing up.

At my movement, it yowled. The pitch was like glass shards in my ears, and if it hadn't been for that pure, primal drive to survive, I would have doubled over and tried to cover them. Instead, terror turned into an iron band around my chest as my mind flipped through its vast archive of beasts and horrors.

The creature was the size of a horse—terrifying, even at a distance. Its tawny fur was encrusted with snow. Massive claws tore through the ice beneath it with ease. Dark spikes covered the tip of its tail like a mace.

Cath Palug, my mind helpfully supplied. A monstrous wildcat that had become the scourge of the Isle of Anglesey, claiming the lives of at least a hundred and eighty warriors before King Arthur, or one of his knights, slayed it.

Apparently not.

Maybe if the others had been with me, if there'd been someone other than my sorry self to protect, I might have stood my ground and faced the coming fight with courage. But I was alone, and there was a monster, and even though I knew—I knew —predators reveled in the chase, every instinct in me was screaming Run.

I took off like I was on fire, searching the horizon for anything, anywhere, to hide. The misty snow swallowed me, soaking through my coat and boots until both felt like they weighed a hundred pounds. My workbag clattered at my side until I pressed it to my chest.

My skin crawled, prickling as Cath Palug answered back with a loud noise like chortling—like all I'd done was amuse it.

Shit, shit, shit—!

Of all the creatures I had to come across, it just had to be the one that could outrun, outlast, and outsmart me.

The sound of its claws ripping into the ice as it ran made me look back. Cath Palug galloped toward me, its fanged mouth stretched into a hideous grin.

I pushed harder, fighting through the gathering snow until another shadow appeared ahead. A curse aimed at every god that was listening leapt to the tip of my tongue—but it wasn't another beast. It was a large formation of rocks protruding from the snow. If there were more of them, I might be able to lose Cath Palug amid them, or at least find some crevice to hide in until the creature grew bored and abandoned the hunt.

Yeah, I thought. Good luck with that, Lark.

Because, of course, there were no other boulders aside from the two standing upright and the third one, which lay flat. There was nothing but the unending blizzard.

I looked over my shoulder again, and Cath Palug had drifted farther back into the storm. The relief that washed through me was short-lived .

Only a few moments later, when some potent combination of hope and fear made me check again, it had regained lost ground and was running even faster, screeching with that same gleeful, monstrous laughter, "Ha! Ha! Ha!"

It was playing with its food.

That peculiar, horrible calm found me again as my death mark pulsed. This was my curse, wearing fur and fang.

The thought of the others coming across whatever remained of my body sickened me. I could only hope the snow would pile high enough to hide it.

No, the wind seemed to urge, easing into a soft whisper. I heard it as clearly as I had the voice that stopped the White Lady. It was the very same. Fight. The sword.

Dyrnwyn's hilt dug into my shoulder, the metal giving the exposed skin on my neck an icy kiss.

But I don't know how, I thought back, my muscles throbbing. Why hadn't I ever asked Caitriona to teach me even the most basic stances? How to hold the stupid thing—

I knew Cath Palug had gained on me when I heard its huffing breaths again. It had survived in this desolate Otherland for centuries against all odds. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that my body would give out long before its did, succumbing to exhaustion, or the brutal cold.

With no other choice, I ran toward the rocks, knowing I could at least keep my back to them and stand my ground there. Reaching back to grip Dyrnwyn's hilt, I jumped toward the flat rock—

Only to miss, and crash down through the snow and a brittle patch of ice.

The impact on the ground below jarred every bone in my body, blanking my vision. Mounds of snow fell in from above, filling the gap my fall had created until the way out was completely blocked.

Or hidden, my mind corrected.

I threw a desperate look around me, confused. I wasn't in water— I seemed to have found the true ground, and it was muddy and scattered with stones and dead grass and moss. Above me, like a ceiling, a thick shelf of ice groaned and crackled, shifting with each insistent gale.

There was just enough room to crawl, so I did, scrambling forward in the direction I'd been headed in before. Ignoring the scattered bones that lay around me, ignoring the thorned brush that tore into my clothing and skin. It was a few minutes, maybe more, when I heard the ice above me start to crack.

What began as a web of thin lines turned into longer white seams as weight was added to it. I could track each of Cath Palug's steps, even before I heard its shuddering breaths. The sniffing.

I stilled, trying to stop the tremors punishing my body and rattling the blade and the contents of my bag. My blood boiled in my veins, my pulse pounding in every muscle of my body.

And I forced myself to remember.

I wasn't who I'd been before. The Tamsin who had prized a quiet security over all else—the Tamsin who'd never been touched by magic, let alone fought for it. Who had never clawed back against death when it tried to claim her.

I remembered who I'd let myself become in that dark world. I remembered the friends who were somewhere out there in the whirling snow, just as lost.

I remembered.

Thin cracks spread over the ice as the cat came toward me. Cath Palug's enormous paws were just visible through the clouded ice and the powdery snow above it. I bit my lip, fighting my mind's desperation to run.

The beast let out a whine of irritation, and I wondered if I'd overestimated its intelligence.

But then its claws sank down onto the splintering sheet of ice. And one by one, the claws over my head began to tap out a little mocking song. Tap-tap-tap. Ha! Ha! Ha !

The calm was back, but this time, I seized hold of it. I let it guide me to whatever end the next moments would bring—mine, or Cath Palug's.

The snow shifted above me.

The ice fragmented, each fissure feeding into the next, multiplying faster than the eye could track.

I adjusted the angle of my body, reaching back to grip Dyrnwyn's hilt.

Cath Palug's face appeared above mine, even more hideously distorted by the barrier between us. Its yellow eyes glowed—but not as bright as the white fire that raced along Dyrnwyn's blade as I drove it up through the ice, straight through one eye and into its skull.

It screamed, thrashing, but I screamed louder—in rage and desperation, pulling the sword free only to hack at its neck, until its head rolled away from the body with a spray of blood.

Breath sobbed in and out of me. I let my sword fall to my side; the threat gone, its flames released with a hiss, leaving the steel to cool. I reached up, wiping the sticky blood from my face, spitting it out of my mouth.

"Ha … ha … ha …, " I snarled out, and kicked the creature's enormous head deeper into the snow.

But whatever thrum of victory I felt faded as the winds spun through the empty landscape and I was alone once more in a kingdom of monsters.

It felt like an eternity before another shape emerged on the far horizon.

By then, I'd had hours to agonize over what had happened to the others. To imagine that Cath Palug had come upon them first, and caught them by surprise, or how they'd each be wandering alone in a complete whiteout, desperately searching for the other, all the while stalked by monsters.

Over and over again, I tortured myself with it, until I finally had to accept that the others might have a point about my mind being an extremely unhelpful instrument of terror.

But whatever that was ahead—that was real.

I knelt, staying low to the ground until I was sure what—or who—was waiting ahead. But the dark form didn't change, and only grew as the storm eased the worst of its rage and settled into a gentle, rippling snowfall. The clouds surrendered enough of the sky to reveal a sunset that burnished the frosted land in a dazzling fiery gold.

"Oh, please," I whispered hoarsely. "Please, please, please …"

Ahead were what appeared to be dozens of hills, but each was too uniform in shape and size to have been fashioned by nature's hand alone. My body felt as heavy as a pillar of marble, but I forced it forward, riding that wave of incredulity and relief as I neared the hills and found round, slatted doors half hidden beneath a layer of hoarfrost and snow.

When I reached the first of the mounds, I scraped at the frozen edges of its door with numb fingers, trying not to focus on how blue the tips of them had turned. I forced myself to stop, to back up a step. There was a faster way to do this.

I kicked at the door until the sheaves of ice fell away, then dug it out from the snow, opening it to peer into the darkness inside. The other nearby doors were similarly sealed shut, but it didn't mean other creatures weren't hibernating inside.

Seeing nothing, I strained my ears and listened. Only the breeze whistling down through the small, sturdy hearth inside answered.

I shouldered the door fully open with one last burst of energy, then collapsed to the ground once I was through. A bed of browned leaves and rotting rugs scattered with snow softened my fall. For a moment, I did nothing but lie there and let the wind slam the door shut behind me.

"Get up," I ordered myself. "Get. Up."

The words were slurred by exhaustion and the shivering that overtook me. The Fair Folk who'd built these mounds had insulated them, and the difference in temperature was startling. My skin burned as sensation returned to it .

It would have been so easy to stay there, my legs throbbing from exertion. Just then, it was impossible not to consider it. But Nash, in all his limited wisdom, had taught Cab—

I drew in a deep, steadying breath.

Nash had taught the two of us the signs of hypothermia. The dangers of it. Exhaustion, disorientation, clumsiness, forgetfulness. The body using its last stores of energy to keep itself warm. If I let myself rest the way my whole being was longing to, there was a chance I'd never wake up again.

That alone made me crawl toward the hearth. Using a small broom, I jabbed up into the chimney, clearing the debris and ice until they crashed down onto the fire-scorched stones. It was a risk to allow smoke to rise—a surefire way to alert every nearby predator to my presence—but as soon as I was warm again, I could set up wards to disguise it.

The small pile of wood was damp and wouldn't light, even with a match and drier bits of leaves. The next burrow over, however, had shielded their woodpile with a waxed cloth, and the rug, with its bright floral woven pattern, had been saved by someone thinking to place a stone cap on the chimney. There was even a small bed, neatly made, at the far end of the room. The sight of it held me captive for a moment.

They expected to return home one day, I realized. The Fair Folk who had lived here, hundreds of years ago. They thought they'd return to their life one day.

Where had they ended up?

With my pick of the mounds, I stayed in this one, where it didn't feel like I was about to be swallowed by decay. A bundle of dried lavender in the corner still carried enough fragrance to soothe my nerves.

After trudging back outside to remove the stone covering the chimney, I set about making a fire. The room flushed with heat as it finally caught. I held my stinging hands over it, coughing from the smoke, but also clearing the last of the cold from my lungs.

When the color returned to my hands, I dug into my bag for the dried fruit and jerky the Bonecutter had provided. The water in my canteen had frozen solid; I set it near the hearth to melt, then went out and gathered snow in the small cauldron that had been left hanging from a hook on the wall. My arms, neck, and face still felt sticky from Cath Palug's blood, and while there'd be no hope of removing the stain from my clothes, I could perhaps rid them of the heavy metallic odor.

While waiting for the snow to melt and boil in the cauldron, I took another, closer look around the room. The Fair Folk who had lived here were child-sized, judging by the low ceiling and miniature everything. Elfins, maybe?

With food in my belly, and my mind no longer focused solely on survival, I came alive to the small details I'd missed before. Pails of shriveled berries. A little toy cat, carved from some pale wood. Four figures etched into the mud-packed walls.

The longer I sat there, the more the heat thawed me, the deeper my guilt became.

The others were still out there, somewhere—hopefully together, in some shelter of their own. There had to be more villages scattered around this Otherland. Homes built by humans. Caitriona had her spear and Neve her magic, however unpredictable it could be. They were strong. They would survive this, until we found each other again.

I sipped at my warmed water, then stripped off my coat and blood-caked sweater. My black T-shirt had been spared the worst of it and hid the now dry, stiff splatters. I kept it on. After refilling my canteen, I plunged my outer layers into the hot water and scrubbed at the stains. Hanging them to drip-dry near the fire, I set about unlacing my boots.

Only for my hands to still.

Outside, footsteps crunched through the snow. Labored breathing followed as if the creature had run the length of the world to arrive on the mound's doorstep. The door opened. Inwardly, I swore—I'd drawn the curtain back over the doorway to keep the snow out, but it also blocked the sight of whatever was out there. All I saw was a shaggy outline of fur.

Reaching back, I gripped Dyrnwyn and had started to draw it out of its hilt when the curtain was shoved aside and the beast gasped at the heat that assaulted it, shaking out its dark fur.

I rose onto my knees, the hilt in one hand, the sheath in the other, bracing myself.

Human, my mind noted.

Bent at the waist to avoid the rough scrape of the rocks and branches supporting the ceiling. Bundled up in a fur coat, a scarf wrapped around their face and neck, leaving only their eyes visible.

One gray, one green.

Emrys, my heart sang.

He stilled, looking from the sword clutched in my hands to my face.

"Well," he rasped out. "Fancy meeting you here."