Chapter 36

As it turned out, Nash's journey to Lyonesse hadn't involved bartering with ill-tempered ancient beings or breaking through the spell barriers of high magic that sealed our world off from the Otherlands. He'd slipped in like a spider through a crack between the worlds—the very one the sorceresses themselves used.

"How in hellfire did you know about this?" I demanded.

Kasumi and the other sorceresses looked just as vexed as they shuffled toward us through the icy snow, Neve on the tabletop floating between them.

"Yes, I should like to know that myself," Kasumi said.

As we'd walked the long path from the castle back to the abandoned village, the crunch of our footsteps in the snow the only sound between us, Nash had led us to the front door of what appeared to be a simple home.

The key Nash retrieved from his leather jacket's pocket looked similar to the skeleton keys we'd use to open a Vein and enter a sorceress's vault. This bone, however, was less a bone and more a claw, and it was longer than the hand that clasped it.

"Is this a Vein?" Emrys asked. "Or just a split between the worlds?"

"Give me that," Kasumi said, snatching the key from Nash. She held the razor-tipped end up in silent threat and he lifted his hands in surrender .

"After you, milady," he said, making a sweeping gesture as he pushed the door open.

Emrys had his answer. It wasn't like any Vein I'd seen—rather than a spiraling fabric of iridescent spellwork, the darkness ahead of us was shrouded in mist. It slithered out, searching.

"How?" I repeated, forcing Nash to stare at me.

"I'm a man of fewer and fewer secrets, my little imp," he said, with the smugness I knew so well. "Allow me to keep this one, won't you?"

"No," I said flatly. He pulled me aside to allow Kasumi and the others to pass through the doorway first, handling Neve with a gentleness that I begrudgingly approved.

"I traded a sorceress for it, all right?" Nash said gruffly, scrubbing the snow off his face. He looked weary as he followed my gaze.

"The girl made neat work of that snaky beast when she sent it to its death," he told me. "She'll be all right."

"I know that," I snapped. That was never my fear. Caitriona was more than capable of protecting herself. Nash had suggested searching the nearby rooms, on the off chance she'd fallen through some floor or gotten herself trapped, but we'd both known it was a waste of time. She'd probably called for Rosydd the moment she stepped out of the castle.

My disappointment stung so deep, it left me breathless. I tugged at my braided bracelet, trying to rip it off, but the knot held firm.

Caitriona was as stubborn as stone; only death would change her path now. A part of me hated her for this, and the longer I lingered there, in pain and resentment, the uglier my anger became.

We had chosen each other. We were supposed to see this through together.

Together to the end.

But I blamed myself, too. I'd felt her there on that precipice, all along, every moment since that last day in Avalon. I'd thought that if we were together, we'd be there to draw her back from the darkness that seemed to be gathering around us at every turn. To save her from her own fury .

"There are some journeys," Nash said, "we can only take ourselves."

"It's not right," I told him.

"No," he said, placing a hand on my shoulder. "But it is necessary."

None of us were who we used to be. The Caitriona I knew would never abandon a sister, or a friend. She would never seek revenge, as the sorceresses had so many centuries ago.

You weren't enough, came that old voice inside me. The one that had ruled over my heart for years like a tyrant. You were never enough to save the people you love. To keep them with you.

"Life is a mirror," Nash said. "There are times we must stare into its depths and face what we have become. The true fight is in saving ourselves if we cannot accept what we see there."

I am enough, I thought. I am enough. I wasn't going to be the one to let go of us. And maybe that made me a fool, and pathetic, and all the things I used to be afraid of, but I knew now that choosing hope was the braver thing than letting go first to avoid being hurt.

I chose them, and I would keep choosing them, no matter what happened, or who we became.

"Until she returns, we must keep moving forward," Nash said, guiding us back to the door the sorceresses had already passed through. He entered first, whistling some soft song, leaving Emrys and me to watch him disappear.

Emrys leaned down to kiss my cheek. I turned toward him in surprise, flushing.

"It'll be all right," he said softly, as if knowing every storm in my heart.

"You can't promise that," I said.

He took my hand. "I just did."

We walked through the split between the worlds together. I turned back one final time, but only to watch the shadowed land of Lyonesse vanish as I shut the door behind us .

"Where are we, anyway?"

"Highgate Cemetery," Emrys answered after a quick look around.

"It's the Circle of Lebanon," Nash corrected.

"The Circle of Lebanon located in Highgate Cemetery," Emrys said in turn.

Nash peered at him in the darkness, looking more and more peevish by the moment.

"So, London," I said, rolling my eyes.

I hurried past them, trying to catch up to where the sorceresses were cutting a slow path through the nearby tombs. Burial vaults lined the walls on either side of us, curving around to form a sunken circle set apart from the rest of the cemetery.

The location of the Council of Sistren's headquarters was a closely guarded secret, though many had assumed it was in London, just by virtue of how many sorceresses were spotted there. Every time a Hollower tried to follow them back to wherever it was they met, they invariably became lost and found themselves on the steps of the Tower of London. I'd always thought that last bit was a nice touch.

Emrys fell in step beside me, taking a long look at the cedar sapling tree looming over us. It had been planted on top of the tombs at the circle's center, its youth at odds with the vaults' moss-flecked stone facades. Their Egyptian-inspired architectural flair was dulled by age.

The family names etched into the stone above their doorways were barely visible as nature encroached from all sides. Creeping fingers of ivy and dying grass spread with abandon.

The night seemed to breathe disquiet. I felt unseen eyes watching us from beneath the stalks of leaves jutting out of the shrinking mounds of snow, through the cracks in the walls of the vaults. Cold pressure materialized at our backs, as if filling in the place Caitriona had vacated. But when I turned, only Nash was there, his expression grim as he surveyed the burial grounds.

"You okay?" Emrys asked quietly.

"Fine," I managed to get out .

I hated that my first instinct was to lie, but paranoia was contagious. It was better if one of us held on to their nerves.

"Just worried about Neve," I added, which was true. Thinking of Neve gave me something to focus on besides the horrible sensation of tingling and rot that had returned to my skin.

We followed the curve of the walkway until we found a set of stairs that would lead us out into the surrounding woodland. There, the tangle of man and nature was even more pronounced. Graves had been reclaimed by the wild, their stone markers dislodged or set crooked by stubborn roots.

A flash of red hair ahead made me slow.

"Great," Emrys muttered, ducking his chin and keeping his eyes on the ground.

Madrigal was huffing and puffing, muttering darkly to herself as her heeled boots struggled against the cobbled path.

"Nice night for a walk," Nash noted as we passed her.

She glared at him, then turned her narrowed gaze onto Emrys, sizing him up. For a moment, I was genuinely worried she was going to ask him to carry her the rest of the way.

"Why did you even come?" I asked, my hate for her overcoming even my fear of what she was capable of.

"Beastie," she growled at me. "Do you honestly believe I would have left the comfort of my home if I had any say in the matter?"

"I wasn't aware a crone such as yourself could be made to do anything against your will," Nash commented, a brow arched.

"Even I must fall to my knees at the Council of Sistren's command," Madrigal said, "and suffer the indignity of it."

"Yes, poor persecuted you," I said, rolling my eyes.

"Now, now," Madrigal said. "I vouched for you with the Council, didn't I? That was your consolation prize. Don't be sore about losing. I returned my darling pet to you—"

"He's not your pet!" I snapped, temper flaring.

"Tamsin—" Emrys began, but I was too furious to stop myself .

I spun toward her. "What did you even do with the ring?"

"Once I realized Lord Death's promise of revenge wasn't a curse as we believed, and it was worthless to me, I put it away for safekeeping," Madrigal said. "Where no one else will ever find it."

I opened my mouth to say something, but Emrys's hand found mine, pulling me farther away from the sorceress. I was angry at him for not being angry himself, but a single, pleading look reminded me why.

God's teeth, I thought, my own heart stilling in my chest. Anything he said to her, if she took it the wrong way …

"As it turns out, the only way to survive a catastrophe I'm not even responsible for is to save the others as well," she groused. "So here I am, one of the Sistren yet again, back to saving these wart-nosed banshees from themselves."

"Lovely," Emrys murmured.

Loose gravel spat up from under our feet as we made our way forward, silence settling over us again. A thick wall of trees shielded the cemetery from the rest of the city. It was unnerving not to hear so much as a car pass, regardless of how late it was.

Nash's expression was serious again; he walked with his hands behind his back.

"What?" I asked him.

To my eternal surprise, he actually answered. "Working through our options should Caitriona not return with the sword."

"And?" I asked.

"Still thinking on it," Nash said. "The trouble is that as long as Lord Death wears the horned crown, and it's this close to the solstice, he'll be able to summon the full might of Annwn's death magic."

"Are you saying no matter what we do, we have to find a way to knock the crown off his head first?" I said. "You can't know that for certain."

"He doesn't," Madrigal taunted, "but I do."

I whirled around. "Considering you're the one in danger, I'd start being a little more forthcoming. "

"Darling," Madrigal said. "I'm never in danger of anything other than a good time."

"So we find another Goddess-forged weapon or track down Cait, then we take his crown when we launch our attack," Emrys said.

"It's not that simple," Nash said. "There must always be a king in Annwn. If he's gone, another will have to take his place. The dead require a warden."

"Then let the sorceresses handle it," I said. "They owe us that much for causing this mess in the first place."

Nash grunted in agreement.

"What?" I began, turning around. "Nothing to say to that?"

But the Sorceress Madrigal was gone.

"Seriously?" I said to the empty air.

"I think she hit her limit on teamwork," Emrys said. "Good riddance."

He kept his gaze up, watching the shadowed tree branches—or maybe counting the stars between them. The tight set of his shoulders had finally relaxed.

"Can you hear them?" I asked, rubbing some warmth into his arms. "The trees?"

Emrys's smile was almost boyish. "Oh yeah, they're quite chatty. Most have been here for a long time, and they're singing to the younger trees, telling them how to find food. Most don't like the cold."

I squinted up at them in doubt.

"It's all songs," he said. "I don't recognize the sounds, but I know what they mean. How they feel."

"Which is what?" I asked, brushing a hand against a tree's trunk as we passed.

"Fear," he said, tucking his hands in his pockets. "They're not sure if they'll all survive the winter."

"Well," I murmured. "We wouldn't know a thing about that."