Someone sucked in a sharp breath. Dark figures loomed over her, she realized. She couldn’t make them out. Her vision had become a haze of shadows. But she knew them by their auras—Sergeant McGrady, Sweet Tom Reedling, and Brandon. The men from Hawick stood around her too, all save George Gresham.
What would they do without the steward? She ignored the deeper part of her that wondered whether the question had become moot for her. Her wounds were grievous. She had seen that in Gaelyph’s expression. She knew the fading pain, the numbness, was not a good sign. Yet she still drew breath, and she refused to abandon her friends without hope.
She delved into the steward’s aura, probing for the traces of light she had known for these years since their first encounter on the shores of Skye. She remembered its immense strength, like that of a stag who stood with antlers reaching the heavens. But a coldness had come to its normal cheer. It no longer felt as of a hearth. The vast, boggy mire it had become stretched larger than a sea. Dead things floated there, stuck within its filmy grasp. She brought the image to mind, to help her make sense of what she felt.
But the image warped. It spun, making her dizzy, and she found herself curled on the ground beneath the boughs of a giant oak. She had seen it before and knew its limbs. Mistletoe draped along its bark. A familiar fey woman in a shimmering silver tunic perched in the large hollow of its trunk. Lines of age gave a noble cast to her sharp features.
“You have lost,” said the Barrow Witch.
“I am dying,” Effie replied, though she felt no fear or sorrow in the statement. “If I was to be your prized possession, perhaps it is you who have failed.”
The Barrow Witch’s face lit up in amusement. She chortled and rubbed her hands together. “Oh, that is good, my child, and bittersweet.”
Effie stood and raised her chin, glaring at the fey woman. “Have you come for your thunderstones? The one Tallia wielded is where she dropped it when she died, as you must already know. But the other—you will not have its location from me.”
The Barrow Witch’s expression remained amused. But her silence made Effie wonder. She had assumed the Sidhe Bhreige had first come to her out of anger years before, threatening with vengeance after the defeat of her brethren. Her second attempt, after the capture of Cyrus Reed, had likewise been meant to instill fear. But their encounters afterward had changed. While meddling with Les Revinirs and again in Aberdeen, the Sidhe Bhreige had sought her as a willing ally, or at least as a captured pet.
It made no sense that she would present herself to Effie now, unless it was to gloat. Yet Effie couldn’t fathom her demise mattered so greatly. The fey woman had much larger concerns to consider—unless.
Effie’s mind raced. “You fear some knowledge I possess,” she said. “That is why you have come to threaten me, and me alone, these many months.” She held no ability of Fey Craft that would warrant the attention. Almost all fey besides Clara Bowman knew more tricks of fey blood than herself.
“Tsk, child. Do not consider yourself special. I coveted your betrayer’s blood, nothing more,” said the Barrow Witch. She cast her gaze aside, indifferently. “The steward was a fool to trust it. In time, you would have seen him for the puppet he was and come begging to join me. But that matters not, presently.”
Effie saw through the lie. It rang with a self-serving hollowness. The Laird of Aonghus had made such proclamations. He had demanded her allegiance as her would-be savior. But, in truth, he had only sought the strength of her fey blood to add to his host. She sucked in a quick breath. Grasping onto the strands of that thought, she took a step back and clutched at the hem of her dress.
A dress! The feel of the fabric made her start. She had not been wearing the green, woolen frock on the hilltop. We are one. Our history is shared. Caledon’s words of comfort returned to her. They bolstered the idea germinating within her. She reached out her hand. A cane appeared in her grasp. Jack Canonbie’s cane. She smiled. The weight of the cane gave an anchor to her thoughts, a sense of certainty. The Barrow Witch might hold more power than she, and have centuries’ greater knowledge, but that did not alter the fact that they shared a common ancestry. Just as in Aberdeen, that meant she could manipulate whatever Fey Craft the Barrow Witch worked to trap them in this dream state.
Effie pulled at the giant oak, forcing it to unravel like a spool of yarn. A prism of colors whirled around them and in its place, a ring of stanes rose. Between the stanes, grass sprouted, thick and wild. The horizon filled with scattered forest and rolling field. An earthen scent filled the air along with a heavy dampness. The effort made her queasy, and she could not shake the notion that the place was not hers to control.
Removed from her perch in the hollow, the Barrow Witch floated to the trampled grass. Her eyebrow raised. “The hour is late for you to play at childish games.”
As she spoke, hooded crows popped into existence. They flooded the fields and grass. They flocked through the sky, squawking and swooping in circles.
“I have no need for games,” said Effie. “I have uncovered your secret, the reason for your fear. The knowledge I possess.”
The fey woman cackled. The noise sounded similar to that of Tallia. “You have not the Fey Craft, nor the wits, to invoke fear.”
Striding closer, Effie planted the cane before her. Crows fluttered to rest on her shoulders and atop the cane. “We are all of a shared blood, but I am a Grundbairn.”
The Barrow Witch’s eyes narrowed to tiny slits. “Do you think that matters now?”
The defiance gave Effie courage. “Even with the strength of the steward’s blood, I could not have scoured the whole of the empire to find you. It would have taken years and been like uncovering an iron bit in a sea of steel. But I no longer need to scour such a large area, do I?” Her muscles pulled taut. She knew she gambled, yet she managed to keep her voice firm. “You are near the Eildon Hills, perhaps close to the tree of the usurper, as you called the Queen of Elphame.” She had deduced as much when speaking with Sweet Tom Reedling.
The Sidhe Bhreige clucked her tongue. “Clever child, well done.” Her gaze slid to the side once more. “A pity for your friends you will not survive long enough to divine the exact location before your steward leads my host into the fey realm.”
Effie flinched. She could not imagine such a thing. She ran a hand along the cane. Missing chips and rough notches gouged its once smooth surface. Each reminded her of its previous owner, and of his sacrifice. Jack Canonbie had plunged himself into danger so she remained unharmed. Her head tilted. Her smile broadened, mouth parting in wonder. What she must do shone before her like a beacon that blotted out the sun. The answer had been within her all along. She did not question it. She knew in her heart it was right.
“No,” she said. “I don’t believe he will do any such thing. I was wrong. You do not fear I will uncover your dank lair. The knowledge I possess is something older, something from the time of Righm and Bhreige.”
A fitting end—the blood of the steward having its revenge. Tallia’s proclamation would prove more right than she would ever know. But it was the grindylow’s final act that now fixed in Effie’s thoughts. Tallia had not unleashed her fury on Effie. She had used the last of her breath to assault Caledon. The act made no sense unless she had cause to believe the steward was not fully tied to the Unseily Court.