“What’s the salt for?” Mairead asked, holding up the bag.
“Nothing,” I replied. “I like the taste. Goes good on rubbery microwaved vegetables.”
She made a face and scanned the barcode as I piled my supplies into a calico bag, which also got zapped with the laser.
“You’re goin’ now?” Mairead complained as I made for the door.
“I’ve got no time to waste,” I replied, the quartz clacking in the bag. “I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”
“You better,” she grumbled as I left.
Glancing up and down the street, I checked the time on my phone. It was barely lunchtime, so I stopped off at the teahouse to get a sandwich to go. I had a lot of ground to cover before nightfall.
Chapter 13
Even in the dead of winter, the forest around Derrydun was brilliant green.
Moss clung to everything—snaking up rocks, clinging to fallen tree trunks, and sprouting wherever there was a dusting of dirt and damp. Pressing my fingers against a patch, it sprang back like a sponge. Lichen clung to the side of the tower house, gray, green, and yellow.
Leaning against the wall, I felt the magic rippling through the ruined structure and stared out over the village. It had been so long since I’d been up here. Maybe once since Boone and I had dug up the athame. Glancing up, I could almost see his ghost perched on the stone above me, looking out for trouble.
Returning my attention to the landscape, I made a mental note of where everything lay. The main street, the lone set of traffic lights, the cottage, the ancient hawthorn, the druid’s cave, and the place where Boone said Aileen defeated Hannah the spriggan.
To the right, past the village, was Boone’s cottage. I didn’t look too far in that direction, the thought of him cozying up to his mother too much to bear. I would be seeing him again that much was certain, but I wasn’t sure I would like the way he would look at me when he did.
To the left of my perch were the top fields of Roy’s farm, and beyond that, the smudge of smoke gave away the position of his little cottage. Further still was the Ashlyn’s property, Maggie’s parents, along with their dozen horses.
I’d walked around the lot of it, studying the land, placing quartz, burning sage, and constructing the largest magical barrier Ireland had ever seen. At least, I figured it was. Carman was cursed out of the country, so I assumed she didn’t count in my world record attempt. Too bad I couldn’t call up Guinness and ask for inclusion in their next annual edition.
I’d found some interesting things, too. The foundations of a long forgotten cottage, another druid cave, a small ring of standing stones, and the edges of a barrow. The dead who lay beneath were long forgotten and hidden from the modern world, but my magic had sensed them through the earth. The dead hawthorn in the glade behind Sean McKinnon’s farmhouse was a revelation, but I assumed it had passed long before I came here. Its branches had been gray and brittle, snapping off when I’d curled my hand around a low-lying bough. A doorway lost forever.
When the last quartz crystal had been placed and the spell cast, I’d felt a flare of magic as all the edges joined. Stepping through to the outside, I’d felt coldness that had everything to do with exposure, and when I’d returned within, warmth had spread through my joints, tingling everywhere it went. Even the talisman around my neck heated like it was connected, too.
The barriers had worked but at a cost. In the week after I’d put them up, they’d started going haywire. Everything and anything tripped them, and I was out in the countryside checking every little magical mouse that brushed up against the invisible web. I was all for learning something new every day, but finding out just how many supernatural creatures lived around here through a million false alarms was an annoying lesson for sure.
Now sitting on the hill overlooking Derrydun, I knew the hassle was worth it. The tower house felt like an antenna, the bubble of magic left behind by the witch who had lived here in the seventeen hundreds, Mary Byrne, acting as the magical router in the Wi-Fi network I’d created. I’d totally morphed into Sarah Connor in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. In the first movie, she was all girly and whiny, and by the second film, she was a super badass soldier who didn’t take any shit lying down. Though the difference in my story was the fact I’d just made Skynet my bitch. Figuratively speaking.
Yesterday, the first craglorn had shown up since the barrier was completed. By the time I’d reached the spot where it had attempted to cross, there was nothing left of it but a pile of ashes. Later that day, the second came along for a stickybeak and got zapped, as well, but by the time the sun rose this morning, they seemed to have learned their lesson. Don’t try to eat the zappy magic.
I cast out my senses and felt the lingering shadow deep in the forest past the ancient hawthorn. The third craglorn was waiting for a weakness in the barrier to reveal itself or for me to come check on it, it wasn’t clear. It paced like a starving lion that scented blood on the air but couldn’t get to it.
Still, I couldn’t leave it lingering out there. There would be a whole lot of freaking out and severed limbs if someone stumbled across it, so I followed the path down the hill away from the tower house, my boots crunching on the gravel underfoot. There was another added benefit of my new witch mercenary slash commando job title. I had killer calves, a smaller waistline, and buns of steel.
The forest was becoming familiar now that I’d walked the breadth of it. The rise and fall of the land, the twisting of trees, the fallen foliage, and the rocky landscape were as normal to me as all the buildings and shops in Derrydun. My magic spoke to the land, guiding my way toward the shadow at the border, and it wasn’t long before it grew darker. There was a chill in the air that I’d learned was yet another witchy omen, this one a warning.
I saw the craglorn through the trees, so inky blue it was almost black. When it sensed me, it clambered toward the barrier, stopping well short of the zap zone.
Up close, it was hard to believe they were fae before. Ancient, lost, trapped in a world that wasn’t their own and cut off from the one thing they needed to survive. The other realm must be steeped in magic, I thought. Absolutely dripping with it. Magic must be their oxygen.
I wondered what this one was. Was it like the man who’d stolen Alex’s face? Or the spriggan who’d tricked Boone and killed my mother? I didn’t know how many kinds there were, but I figured there were more than two.
“Who are you?” I asked, no longer afraid of the creature standing two meters away from me.
Eyelids closed over its black eyes before they opened again.
“You’ve been driven mad by hunger, haven’t you?”
It blinked at me again, and I wasn’t sure if it even understood what I was saying.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I said. “But I will protect myself and those who live in this village. Do you understand?”
It raised its hand, its talons unfurling slowly. Swallowing hard, my gaze locked onto the razor-sharp tips, my stomach churning. Thank goodness it couldn’t get through the barrier.
“I…” the craglon rasped. “See… You…”
Before I understood what was happening, it stepped toward the barrier and thrust its hand through. The air shimmered and flared gold where its arm touched, and I stumbled back in surprise. It wasn’t meant to do that!
I called on my magic and pushed back, forcing the craglorn away. As it pulled its arm back, the barrier flexed and snapped. The shockwave ricocheted through my outstretched arm and blew me off my feet. I landed on my ass, my head spinning and my ears ringing so loudly, I couldn’t hear anything else but distortion.
Rubbing my temples, I tried to sit up, but I wasn’t sure which way that was. A shadow loomed, and everything in me was screaming danger, but the synapses in my brain were misfiring.
Claws scratched my chest as its hand pushed down onto my stomach, then… I gasped as I felt it sucking greedily at my magic, pulling my Legacy through my skin. It burned, pain blooming
through my gut and falling outward. Oh, cac, this was how it felt?
I called on my magic, but all it did was make the craglorn drain me faster. The only thing that was left to do was get it off me the old-fashioned way.
I kicked with all my strength…with a little magical oomph to go with it. It cost me, but the craglorn went flying, hitting what was left of the barrier. It fizzed and crackled, zapping the creature, but there wasn’t enough juice to turn it into ash.
“I told you,” I cried as I dragged myself to my feet, feeling like I had a bad case of indigestion. “I told you I’d protect myself, but you didn’t listen.”
The craglorn rolled onto its side, hissing and spitting, its back burned from where it had struck the barrier. Blue ooze was weeping through its seared flesh, and I curled my lip.
“I want it back,” I exclaimed, advancing on it.
I felt violated in the worst possible way like it had sucked out part of my soul and ate it for brunch.
“Mmaaggiicc…” it wailed.
“Mine.” I stretched out my arm and called it back, my Legacy flaring through the craglorn’s skin as I returned the favor.
I had no idea what I was doing, but something inside me sputtered and flared into life. I pulled my magic back out of that thing, siphoning the golden light it had feasted upon like I was scooping the tasty icing off the top of a slightly moldy donut. How I knew how to do it was beyond me, but I wasn’t asking questions.
It writhed on the ground, and I felt a pang of pity for the twisted thing it had become.
“I don’t want to do this, you know,” I said. “But I have to.”
Calling on the entirety of my Legacy, I enveloped the craglorn with golden light, reducing the creature to ash. There was no getting around the fact I had to fight them. None at all.
Glancing at the quartz on the ground, I sighed. Well, that was a bust. The barrier was pretty much blown to bits, and all that work I’d done was for nothing. Kneeling by the crystal, I tapped it, hoping there was some charge left. It flared, then died completely. Nope. I was learning the hard way why Aileen had never made her own barrier around the village. It didn’t work. Not on a scale like this.
Leaving the quartz behind, I made my way back to Derrydun, my mind swirling with the things I’d learned and the failure eating at my conscience. If I could call back my Legacy from a craglorn, could others call theirs back from Carman? Excitement mixed with the throbbing in my ass and stomach, a shred of hope lighting the darkness.
I didn’t know what drew me to Molly McCreedy’s, but I found myself pushing through the door once I got back to Derrydun. The scent of cooking food, wood smoke, and barley and hops hit my nose, and I breathed deeply, calmed by the familiarity. A group of people sitting by the fireplace turned at my entrance and proceeded to stare. Roy, another farmer and his wife, and Mary Donnelly were huddled together like they were in the midst of a football scrum.
Ever since Boone had left, the gossip mill had been in overdrive. The wheel was spinning faster than the back axle of a car in a Fast and the Furious movie, leaving a trail of rubber on the road an inch thick. Glancing down, I saw I was caked with mud, which wasn’t helping to slow the constant stream of hearsay.
“She’s been wanderin’ all over the place burnin’ sage,” Roy said, his voice floating across the pub. “It’s strange, even for her.”
“Aileen was always doin’ queer things,” another farmer added, not caring for his volume.
“Must be a family thing,” Mary Donnelly said, eyeing me across the room, sour that her wedding plans had to be thrown out. “They were all like that.”
“I can hear you,” I practically shouted. “Crazy Skye Williams has nothing wrong with her ears, thank you very much.”
“Skye, you’re covered in mud,” Maggie said, shooing the others away. “What have you been doin’ out there?”
If they only knew. Man, that was like my messed-up personal mantra. If only they knew what lengths I was going to protect them from craglorns who hadn’t seemed to have forgotten how to use their own magic…even though they were starved and on the road to complete mummification. What a mouthful.
“I slipped,” I muttered, eyeing the group in the corner. Old men and gossiping old ladies.
“Did you see the lightnin’ before?” Roy asked, ignoring Maggie and me.
“Lightnin’?” the other farmer asked. “There’s no lightnin’ this time of year.”
“Saw it with me own eyes. A bright flare, yellow like a firework.”
“You’re goin’ senile,” Mary said. “There’s no such thing as yellow lightnin’. Everyone knows it’s blue.”
“Like the rinse you put in your hair?” Roy shot at her.
Maggie clucked her tongue. “You need a dram of whiskey,” she said. “That’ll warm you right up. Don’t listen to those old eejits.”
I sat on a stool, the gravity of what I’d just experienced in the forest, catching up with me. I felt exhaustion tugging on every limb—the physical and emotional kind—and watched Maggie fussing behind the bar.
“How are you?” she asked, setting the glass down in front of me.
I knew she was getting at Boone’s disappearance, so I shrugged. “As well as I can be, I suppose.”
“Aye, it’s a difficult thing, to be sure.”
“I have…a lot of things going on.” I sighed and lifted the glass to my lips. Taking a sip, the liquor burned down my throat and hit my stomach with a bang. Wheezing, I pushed it away as Maggie chuckled.
“Still can’t hold your whiskey,” she said. “You know if you want to talk about it…”
I nodded. “I know.” But I couldn’t. Not all of it.
“I’m worried about you, Skye,” she murmured, leaning against the bar. “Is somethin’ more goin’ on?”
I blinked, suddenly on the verge of tears. Over my failed barrier, over sending Boone away, over the fear I felt about Carman’s looming assault on the hawthorn, over not being able to tell anyone about it, over protecting Mairead from being dragged back into this whole mess… The list went on, and I hardly had the breath to let it all out. The secret was burning a hole in my heart.
“I think I’ve just been trying to ignore everything,” I said, half lying. “And it’s finally catching up with me.”
“Ah, we all have to face our hurts at some point,” she replied. “That’s the law of life. You can’t avoid the truth in your heart for long.”
“You say that like you’ve been through it.”
“Aye, well most people have their hearts broken at least once in their lifetime,” she said with a nod. “But it’s what you do next that matters.”
My fingers tightened around the glass of whiskey. She was right. How many times did I have to be beaten over the head with it?
“So, what’s next, Skye Williams?”
“I’m going to fight,” I said, jumping off the stool.
“For?” Maggie called out to me.
“If I told you, I’d have to kill you!”
“That’s not reassurin’,” she said. “It’s slightly terrifyin’, is what it is.”
A wave of nausea rolled in my stomach, and I tensed.
“Skye?”
“I think I’m going to hurl…”
“Not on the floor! Hold it in! Hold it in!” Maggie raced around the end of the bar brandishing a bucket, but…
I doubled over and…
“Blargh!”
Chapter 14
The moment I got home, I puked neon yellow into the toilet bowl. Again. The color had nothing to do with my magic, by the way. That was when I discovered the mark on my guts.
I stared at the red welt on my stomach in the mirror and grimaced. A handprint with five dots all spaced out to match the five claws the craglorn had pressed against me when it had tried to feed. Gross. The word feed made me want to hurl again.
Opening the cupboard under the sink, I fossicked through the tubes of ointment and soaps Aileen had co
llected like a pack rat and found a tube of salve that said it worked for bug bites. Cooling burns and insect nibbles. That ought to cover it.
Sitting on the edge of the bath, I rubbed it into the… What should I call it? A suck mark? I shivered and made a face. Whatever it was, it was a close call. The closest I’d had since that swarm of sluagh tried to drown me at Croagh Patrick.
I seriously felt like imploding. I couldn’t do this anymore! I was the last of the most badass coven to have ever lived? Yeah, right! I couldn’t even stop a craglorn from sucking my magic let alone keep a magical barrier in working order. I was supposed to be able to do the impossible, right? Ugh.
The sound of furious knocking at the front door broke through my inner tantrum, and my heart skipped a dozen beats. Dropping the tube of ointment, it landed on the floor with a plop.
“I’m so over this!” I shrieked, barreling out of the bathroom and down the stairs. “I’ll kick your ass, then I’ll fry you to a crisp! Just you wait!”
Wrenching open the front door, I froze, not expecting what was standing on the stoop. A woman was waiting patiently, and when she saw me, her face lit up.
Her hair was long, black and streaked with silver, her face was wrinkled with age, her clothes were rumpled and caked with dirt… She looked like an older version of me. Either I was in a time warp and had come back to visit myself or… Aileen. It couldn’t be her because she’d been drowned in the earth by a spriggan, which meant a fae had taken her form to trick me. A fae brought here by the barrier, which was no longer working thanks to that hungry craglorn.
For a split second, I was dazed, but my instincts kicked in, and it was on like Donkey Kong.
I raised my hands and forced my magic to flare around my fingers. The moment it shot out toward her, the woman returned fire. Her magic collided with mine, gold and bright. I stumbled back a step as I realized this wasn’t a trick. No one had stolen her face.