Chapter 4

Winter had settled over the little seaside village like a curse from an old fairy tale, imprisoning it, and all those who lived within its reach, under a low, dreary sky.

It was the sort of bone-deep cold that invariably slowed the pulse of life and left behind a heavy stillness that wouldn't be broken until morning. Here and there, frosted windows were aglow with unseen life, but no one dared to venture outside now.

No one but us.

A soul-chilling wind blew in from the coast, lashing the age-worn stone buildings until snow misted off the low garden walls and thornlike icicles broke from the thatched roofs to shatter on the ground. It became a bitter companion, following us through the narrow cobblestone streets, moaning like a restless ghost determined to put us off our search.

It was appropriate, in a way, I supposed—the village's Welsh name, with its intriguing combination of consonants, had been helpfully translated by the One Vision to Spirit Point.

While it was not on any map, I recognized it from a particularly infamous entry in Nash's journal, in which he'd described getting so blisteringly drunk he lost his boots, gave himself frostbite on both big toes, and stole someone's Sunday roast right off their table. He'd been so preoccupied with eating his turkey leg, he'd ended his night by nearly walking off the nearby cliffs .

Cabell would have been beside himself to finally see this place. I'd have to bring him here, once it was all over. Preferably in the summer. Because right now, having wandered the dark streets of the village for over an hour, searching for a place that clearly did not exist, I was beginning to worry about my own fingers and toes.

I glared at Emrys as he circled the narrow street, baffled.

"Just admit that you lied," I sneered at him, too proud to let my teeth chatter. "You have no earthly idea where the Bonecutter is, and you never did. Is this all one big game to you?"

I'd sent Emrys to retrieve whatever gear and coats he could find in the library's lost and found—our polite name for the box of freebies left behind by dead Hollowers—but the pickings had been fairly slim. Avalon had destroyed my one good winter coat, and the green utility jacket I was wearing wasn't up to a Welsh winter. Worse, it still smelled like the tuna sandwiches Amos Martinus had eaten every day until his last.

At least Olwen had been able to apply salve to my aching ribs, and the worst of my cuts. Small movements no longer felt like a hot knife through my chest, though I was beginning to suspect my whole body had just gone numb from the cold.

Emrys stopped circling, his hands on his hips. He, of course, was well bundled in a scarf and a stupid tweed jacket. His brow creased as he shot me a look of irritation. "I didn't lie. I said I knew where she was, not that I'd been there."

"And where did that information come from?"

He shoved his hands in his pockets, looking down at the road. "Maybe one day you'll have enough money to find out."

God's teeth, I hated him.

My breath blew out in a cloud of white as that old, potent blend of shame and indignation rose like bile in my throat. If he was going to use what I'd told him to hit me, then I'd gladly return each blow.

"If only Daddy's money could buy you a brain," I crooned back at him, hands curling into fists, "then maybe next time you'd think to buy some actual directions instead of being taken for a fool."

The hit had landed, but there was none of the satisfaction I'd craved, only more of that gnawing anger, that revulsion. Emrys turned his back to me, stalking past where the others had stopped to rest against the wall of a sweet shop.

"Have you even s-seen the B-Bonecutter?" Neve asked, bouncing on her heels as she tried to rub some warmth back into her arms.

"No," he grunted out. "No one has ever met her."

Caitriona pushed away from the icy stone wall, shucking off her own black wool coat. Without a word, she wrapped it around Neve's shoulders, then went back to her post, keeping watch on the empty street.

Neve tried to take it off, protesting, "You're going to freeze—"

"I'm used to the cold," Caitriona said with a dismissive wave. Remembering the oppressive gloom of Avalon, I didn't doubt that, but I also didn't like it.

It was strange to see Caitriona dressed like any other mortal; her jeans, a smidge short, and the button-down flannel shirt were strangely discordant with the very essence of her—it was like watching a king playing peasant. Her unusual, silvery hair was tucked up into a knit cap to avoid attracting unwanted attention. The black coat had highlighted the unhealthy pallor of her skin, matching the heavy smears of shadows beneath her flinty eyes.

She cut her gaze around at the cheery Christmas decorations on the nearby shops and flats, her top lip curling at battery-powered candles flickering in the windows above us.

Night had come early, as it always did when the Wheel of the Year turned to winter. It looked like everything had been closed for hours. In these farther-flung places, villagers had been set in their routines for centuries, and had a well-earned suspicion of outsiders.

Salted ice crunched under my feet as I stepped forward, gesturing to one of the buildings with lights on. "That's a hotel of some kind—maybe someone there will know where to find the Dead Man's Rest, or tell us what happened to it."

"It's here," Emrys insisted, more to himself than to the rest of us, as he continued down the street. "It's around here somewhere."

"The maggot suddenly seems too kind to curse him with," Neve muttered as she followed him, wrapping Caitriona's oversized coat around her like a blanket.

Caitriona trailed two steps behind, her gaze still sweeping the street for some unseen danger. I spun on my heel, realizing we were missing someone.

"Olwen?" I called.

She was on the other side of a bright red postbox, greeting an inflatable snowman. With all the gravity of a formal introduction, Olwen took one of its twig arms and gave it a courteous little shake.

She leapt back as the decoration lit with a flashing whirl of lights and began to scream-sing a cloying rendition of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." While she marveled at it, stooping to poke it again with her finger, I saw the word extraordinary form on her lips.

I sighed, then went to retrieve her.

"Tamsin, what is that thing?" she asked. "What purpose does it serve? Is it a talisman to frighten away malevolent spirits or mischievous fae?"

I considered the singing snowman. "I think it's just supposed to be … merry."

"Cait, look!" Olwen called over my shoulder, gesturing to the warbling nightmare. "Isn't he jolly? Air passes through him, yet he is unbreathing—"

The others had doubled back for us, but at the sight of the decorations and Olwen's tentative smile, a hard mask slid over Cait's features. Her words were harder still. "Enough of this. We haven't the time to waste."

Olwen, to my surprise, had quickly shed her shock at being in a new world and had taken to investigating it with both fascination and alarm, but mostly fascination. She pushed every single button she encountered no matter what it did, poked at car tires and intriguing machines, and stopped to inspect each new, peculiar plant. The holiday decorations with their colorful lights, the trees laden with glittering ornaments, the ribbon-kissed wreaths, had only deepened her wonder.

"You're right, Cait, of course," she said, quickly picking up the basket she'd set down. Griflet let out a soft meow from inside.

Caitriona inclined her head toward the hotel. "The liar has received instructions on how to find what we're looking for."

She marched on ahead of us, her long strides eating up the distance far faster than Olwen's and my shorter legs could. I caught a glimpse of downcast Olwen's face out of the corner of my eye.

"He was very jolly," I told her.

Olwen let out a soft laugh. "I know I'm being silly, but I want to understand this world. Every now and then I'll see something, and it'll remind me of home—like the garlands? They're so similar to the ones we would make for the Yule celebrations. The sap would stick to my fingers, and I could smell the sweetness of it and the pine needles for days, even after washing."

My breath painted the air white, the cold stinging my eyes. I wished Neve were walking with us, because she would have known the right thing to say.

"But then I remember that all of that's gone, that I have no home but this place now, and I'm not sure how I fit here," Olwen said. "I'm not sure I ever can."

My chest squeezed at how matter-of-factly she said it. "We celebrate the Yule here, too. When all of this is over, you can teach me how to make the garlands. I can't promise mine won't look like a child made it, but I'll try."

She smiled, glancing up as Neve rushed toward us.

"We've been looking in the wrong place," she announced, exasperated. "The pub's just outside the village's limits."

Rather than head back up the winding road, we walked down the main road as it curved around the buildings and continued past the edge of town, toward the cliffs. As we passed by the last house, the paved road turned to well-worn dirt, its grooves carved by centuries of wandering. The moon cast down silvery light, guiding our way. It made Emrys's solitary figure at the front of the pack look almost ghostly, a figment of a lost dream.

The pub soon came into view, its thatched roof spotted with snow. Its white stone face had been whipped raw by the wind, and the whole structure slanted ever so slightly to the right. Below, the winter sea roared as it churned against the ragged coastline.

We hurried up the path. There were a few cottages scattered around, breaking up the stretches of dead grass and what was left of the last snow. A wooden sign hung from the low-slung line of the roof, depicting a skeleton sitting at a table, his hand resting against his chin and a full pint in front of him. THE DEAD MAN'S REST , it said.

"See?" Emrys said, gesturing toward it. "Told you it was here."

"And to think, it only took you three hours to find it," I said. "Hope you're not expecting a ticker-tape parade."

"No, but you're welcome to lead the toast in my honor, Lark," he said smugly. "Don't worry, I'll buy the first round."

He had to be doing it on purpose—pulling and pulling on that thread. And for what? To entertain himself by watching me unravel?

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Olwen and Neve exchange a wary glance, but I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of taking the bait.

I turned back toward the door to the pub, relieved to see the lights were still on. Better yet, the sound of laughter and voices met us at the door. I reached for the quaint old handle, but the door swung open first, and with a faint tinkle of bells, a monster spilled out.

My pulse leapt and my ribs screamed in protest as someone grabbed me from behind, yanking me back. I gasped in pain and surprise.

A pale, ghoulish figure materialized in front of me, riding on a draft of heat and chatter. Towering in height, it seemed to float above the ground, the white fabric that covered its body streaming around it like a swirling draft of snow.

There was no flesh on its long snout—it was pure ivory bone. The set of its long teeth gave it a jeering appearance. Red glass ornaments had been placed in its empty eye sockets. Three young men trailed behind it like devoted acolytes, spilling out into the night.

I looked back just as Emrys released his hold on me, letting his hand fall back to his side.

"Bloody hell, " one of the drunk strangers yelped. "Sorry—sorry, didn't see you there!"

My mind caught up to my fear, releasing with a shaky breath as I held up a hand in acknowledgment. The same, however, could not be said of Caitriona, who reached into her sleeve for the kitchen knife she'd strapped to her forearm. She turned, preparing to follow them back toward the village.

"—too cold for it now, no drink's worth losing bits to frostnip—" one of the young men was saying, tugging his wool cap down over his red ears.

"No, no!" I caught Caitriona's hand before she could retrieve the blade, and drew her back to the door of the pub. "No need for stabbing."

She shot me an incredulous look, her dark eyes hardening as she assessed the retreating threat. "What infernal darkness has descended on this night?"

"I don't know," Neve said, a bit starry-eyed. I grabbed the collar of Caitriona's borrowed coat before she could follow the revelers. "But I love it. "

"Was that a horse skull?" Olwen said, cocking her head to the side.

"It's what's called a Mari Lwyd," Emrys said. "They're over three weeks early with it, though."

I'd seen the tradition performed years ago, at the highly impressionable age of six, to be exact. Nash had brought us to a Welsh village not unlike this one, and a group with their Mari Lwyd had barged into the pub where we were eating. They'd made sure to torment the tiny blond child trapped in the corner booth, making the Mari Lwyd clack horribly until I'd tried to slip under the table to get away.

Truly a Twelfth Night I would barter with a demon to forget.

I shoved the pub door open, letting the smell of ale, woodsmoke, and leather wash over me. My skin prickled painfully as it came alive to the warmth emanating from the glowing fireplace. On first glance, not a single soul in the pub fit the mental image I had of a purveyor of bone and poison.

"Okay, so they bring the horse thing around to houses, and it's like a rap battle between the wassailers and the people who live there," Neve said when Emrys finished his quick explanation of the Mari Lwyd tradition. "Except when you inevitably lose because you can't think of another verse about why they can't come in, they enter your home and terrorize your children by chasing them around with a skull attached to a stick. And then, to get them to leave, you have to give them free food and drinks?"

"Supposedly they help clear out the evil spirits in your house and bring luck, but yes," he said, leading us to one of the booths in the far corner. Thankfully, there were only a few patrons left in the pub this close to last call, but all of them looked up from their drinks as we entered.

I was coming to realize that, much like the Cunningfolk and sorceresses, Caitriona and Olwen had an otherworldly quality to them that invariably caught the human eye. No amount of drab mortal clothing could smother the effect. Considering we needed to lie low, my very mortal plainness suddenly felt like a gift.

Like a beetle blending into bark, I thought. Or a toad in the mud.

My gaze slid around the room, assessing. Thick white plaster covered the uneven walls, but here and there it had broken off, revealing the rough stonework beneath it. The low beams and bracings made the space feel far smaller and darker than it was. Old, rusted armor helmets lined the walls on either side of the massive carved stone fireplace, as if someone had gone out and trophy-hunted the Knights of the Round Table. And honestly, I didn't hate it.

On the whole, it was a humble space, completely at odds with the magnificence of the bar.

It had been carved to look like a sleeping dragon, its body curved around the veritable hoard of glasses and bottles of booze gleaming on the wall behind it like the most princely of baubles. The bartender was as tall and narrow as a cattail, with feathery black hair. He didn't look up from where he was polishing the silver taps.

The hair on the back of my neck prickled with the weight of some unseen gaze, but when I turned, Emrys was already looking away, and I couldn't be sure it had been him at all.

A portrait of a mysterious woman hung above the mantel, but she was largely hidden by some of the gaudiest Christmas decorations I'd ever had the misfortune to lay eyes on.

Tinsel garlands had been strewn from one end of the pub to the other. A fake tree was decorated with furry pom-poms and plastic fairies painted with alarmingly murderous expressions.

Caitriona let out an impatient huff as she slid to the center of the banquette. She cast a cutting gaze at our table's sole decorations: a battery-powered candle flickering in a fake holly wreath.

"Where is this … cutter ?" she demanded in a raspy voice. "We've wasted hours we could have spent hunting our enemy."

One of the younger men at a nearby booth caught sight of her and rose, coming toward us with a dreamy smile before I could warn him away.

"Hello there—" he began.

Whatever Caitriona said to him in the language of Avalon was helpfully translated by the One Vision into: "Kiss iron and return to the bosom of the wicked fiend that bore you. "

Her accent, melodic but unplaceable to the average ear, added another layer of fire to the words. I choked.

He blinked and turned on his heel, sailing back toward his table of friends, all of whom were now howling with laughter.

"Kiss iron?" I managed to ask.

She looked down, running a finger along the grain of the table. "Iron is poisonous to the Fair Folk."

"It's something Betrys used to say," Olwen added quietly, taking the basket from me and joining her sister in the booth. Neve slid in on the opposite side from Caitriona, shooting her an anxious glance. I took my own seat beside Olwen at the booth's edge.

"Have no fear," Neve told Caitriona, passing her coat back to her with a grateful smile. "I'll protect you from any other scoundrels who dare approach, fair maiden."

Caitriona ducked her head in acknowledgment, hugging the heavy fabric in her lap. Even in the low light, I could see that the tips of her ears had gone pink. "That will not be necessary."

Griflet stuck his little fuzzy head out from beneath the blankets as Olwen started rummaging around in the old satchel I'd given her to store her things. Drawing out the Ziploc bag of jerky I'd packed, she fussed with the opening until it finally parted with a snap. Eyes wide, she closed it and opened it again several more times, gaping at it.

"Wait until you see Velcro," Neve told her.

Emrys lingered at the edge of the booth, but I didn't move in, and neither did Neve. Correctly sensing he wasn't wanted, he claimed a chair at a nearby table.

"Should you be feeding a kitten that?" he asked.

Griflet gave him a look that asked, Is it any of your business?

I'd tried to get the kitten situated with the other library cats before we set out. I knew they were prone to theatrics and moodiness, but even so, their aggression toward Griflet had shocked me. I was lucky to get the two of us out of there with our eyes intact .

"Griflet has to eat something, and this is the best we can do at the moment," Olwen said, smoothing the stubborn curls escaping her braid. With her naiad ancestry, she was the least human of the four of us, and it showed in her inky-blue hair and the luminous ring of cerulean around her dark irises.

I'd given her the bright yellow down jacket from the guild's lost and found bin in the hope that an old thieving strategy of Nash's would still prove effective. The best distraction from anything unusual was something even more eye-catching.

Neve had been delighted by my assortment of thrift store finds at home and had been all too happy to change out of the clothes ruined by the vault. She picked at the beads on her sweater's embroidered flowers, watching as the patrons began to pay their tabs and leave. I had to admit it looked better on her than it ever had on me, the soft blue complementing her brown skin.

"All right," Neve began, her voice low as she scanned the few remaining patrons in the pub. "Anyone see any candidates for this Bonecutter person?"

We'd be sitting here all night if we were going to rely on gut intuition.

"I'll make some discreet inquiries," I told them, then added in a hushed tone, "No one stab, steal, or touch anything, please."

I stood and moved slowly through the nearby tables. A chair screeched back behind me, and I knew without looking that it was Emrys. The smell of pine and sweet greens followed me through the pub's cluttered array of tables. A fly would have been less annoying.

"Go back to the table, Trust Fund," I ordered.

"No," he said flatly. "Because you're right about the need for discretion, and you're about as discreet as a hobgoblin when you get frustrated."

Don't do it, I told myself. Don't look at him.

"Wow," I muttered. "This sure doesn't look like a workshop. "

"You really think she'd make it that obvious?" he answered.

No, I didn't. Like him, the Bonecutter was always working the shadows to her benefit.

"Feel free to leave at any time now that you've fulfilled your self-serving desire for redemption," I said coldly.

"Nah," he said, stopping just behind me. He leaned forward over my shoulder, using his height to his advantage as he brought his mouth close to my ear. The back of my neck prickled with the warmth of his nearness. "I think I'll stay. Night's still young."

I wouldn't step away. I wouldn't flinch. As angry as the taunting made me, the confusion his nearness brought was worse. My mind recognized that I was being played with, but my body didn't care.

I gritted my teeth, focusing on the last few patrons at the bar. I wasn't going to rule out the men, no matter what Emrys believed, but none of them seemed to fit the profile of the Bonecutter. Finally, at the far end where the carved dragon's head rested on its legs, my gaze settled on something I hadn't expected.

A little girl, no more than ten, maybe eleven years old, sat next to her grandfather at the bar. A sinking feeling grew in my chest as I watched her.

Her ringlets were as black as a crow's wing and danced around her shoulders as she wrote something in a notebook—homework? Her stocking-clad legs swung freely above the footrest. She wore a red crushed-velvet dress, the kind you might choose for a fancy recital. It was immaculately neat, even with the basket of crisps in front of her.

How many times had I sat at a bar beside Nash, waiting for him to find answers to his existential angst at the bottom of a glass, or meet a potential partner for a job?

"Closing now!" the bartender called. I startled, momentarily unnerved by the squawking quality of his voice.

I moved away again, leaning over the bar. The bartender's gray eyes stared down his long nose at me, waiting. His fingernails, filed to careful points, tapped an impatient tempo on the counter .

"Is there a …," I began, trying to figure out how to ask this. "Ah … a collector, or trader, or …" Grave robber. Bone snatcher. Gossip procurer. Finally, I settled on, "Are you the owner of this fine establishment?"

"No." The bartender turned back to his work, ignoring my look of irritation.

The white-haired man with a pockmarked face was the last customer to leave, sliding off his stool with only a grunt of acknowledgment to the bartender. He left behind an empty pint and a few crumpled pound notes.

And his granddaughter.

I watched in disbelief as he pulled his coat off the rack and walked out the door, letting it swing shut again behind him.

"What the hell?" Emrys said beneath his breath, starting after him. "Hey—!"

"Afraid to use my name?" came a cranky little voice beside me.

Emrys and I turned slowly.

The little girl tossed her hair back over her shoulders, shutting the thick leather notebook. Her ledger. In her hand wasn't a pen at all, but a quill carved out of joined fingerbones.

"It's just as well," the little girl said, propping her chin against her fist, "that I'm not afraid to use yours, Tamsin Lark."