She sensed a handful of fey nearby. They were separated by mere spans of what she hoped was solid rock and earth. The Barrow Witch was among them.
“She leads us into a trap,” she whispered over her shoulder. She had no other explanation for why the Sidhe Bhreige allowed her position to be known—and why she did not assault Effie as she had done so frequently with ease.
Effie patted Freiherr Jörg’s pouch. “But I have a surprise of my own.”
Conall nodded. He held up the torch and studied the wall. Running a hand along one of the exposed stones, he said, “These here are cut and formed on purpose.” Those he indicated formed a vertical pillar. “And here.” He pointed at similar stones on the opposite wall. “The warren might’ve been carved by the owners of the hillfort some millennia ago. Perhaps they used it for storage, or as a crypt.”
Effie took note and examined the ceiling. Such places provided opportunity for the redcaps to work their fiendish tricks. She saw no sign of a trap, but still her heart thumped harder as they carried onward.
Placing each boot with care slowed their pace. It felt like an age had passed since they left sight of the cave’s entrance, though she doubted they had travelled the length of an airship.
As the way turned, it widened into a chamber. The torchlight painted the ceiling above their heads, yet in front of them it drifted off into an open space. The walls gave way as well. Shallow pools of water collected in the depressions of the floor before them. The air grew colder and danker.
“It is good you have come to me, child.” The Barrow Witch’s voice echoed throughout the chamber. It seemed to come from all directions and none.
Scratching, like that of claws across rock, followed the greeting. Effie guessed the source to be trows, by the impressions of their auras. Perhaps a dozen of them lurked in the darkness. The spacing of their auras gave an impression of the chamber’s scope, nearly a quarter the breadth of the hillfort above it.
Effie strode forward into the chamber. It was time to set her trap, but she would need to be subtle about it. She opened Freiherr Jörg’s pouch. Her fear of the redcaps had lent her an idea, and she gestured for Conall to step beside her.
“You are wrong about me,” she declared. “I hold no betrayer’s blood. Mine flows strong and loyal.” As she spoke, she delved with her senses as she had before. She searched the warren and the ground beneath for the substance that would form her ruse.
“Loyal?” The Barrow Witch cackled. “That is an odd word for one who basks in enslavement. A flea-ridden hound is loyal. Is that all to which you aspire? It is a pity. I have watched you for many long years. I had higher expectations of your fate.”
“The Laird of Aonghus sought to twist me to his will,” said Effie. She reached into the pouch and clasped some of its contents. The black powder felt like sand. “He failed, as will you. You are the same.”
The Barrow Witch’s tone sharpened. “You have seen my power and know that I am greater than that blustering fool.” A shadow moved at the edge of the torchlight. Effie recognized the form of the elderly fey woman.
“Do you not realize I can grant you the treaty you have so long desired?” the Barrow Witch continued. “Join me, and I will give you this feeble empire and all within it. You will witness fey and man living together in peace, as you’ve so yearned. The Seily Court will bow to your authority, no longer abandoning its own to the winds. And as for these so-called lords of man, they will cow to your pleasure. They are too weak to offer you anything more. You must see they hold against you the very compassion you grant them.”
“And you?” Effie swallowed. A part of her wondered how much truth was in the Barrow Witch’s words. She let some of the black powder trickle through her fingers. In the darkened chamber, it was easy to conceal the movement—or so she hoped. “Where will you dwell once this empire is mine?”
“Why I will rule in Elphame, my child,” the Barrow Witch replied. “That is a certainty you cannot alter. Your decision to accept my terms matters not.”
Effie sputtered into laughter. She couldn’t hold it back. “You cannot enter Elphame. Your corruption is too vile.” She reached for another fistful of powder and felt the pouch was almost empty.
“I will find a means, in time. But my offer to you will not wait any longer. Would you rule as the steward of my Unseily Court? All I ask is a pledge of your…loyalty.”
“As you took from Tallia?” Effie inhaled a deep breath. Pulling with her fey senses, she envisioned the swirl of prismatic colors she had witnessed at Caldwell House. The vapors of Aerfenium they’d conjured then had been cast into a circle of urns. She had no vessel, but she had no need of one. The tendrils that began billowing from the ground she swirled into a giant ball before her.
They had errored in their assumptions while using the thunderstone at the Storr. The Aerfenium cache had not been in Edinburgh. She had deduced as much earlier, yet even having expected the cache near the Eildon Hills, when she first sensed it in her delving, it had surprised her. Surprised, and terrified.
Its presence meant the Barrow Witch could summon allies. The Sidhe Bhreige could release her brethren with a simple act of destruction. And yet, it had taken Effie only a fleeting moment to determine the Barrow Witch would not. All of her ilk held a single-heartedness that blinded them to such a possibility. Like the Laird of Aonghus and Piper of Ceann Rois, the Barrow Witch would rather face defeat than allow an equal to stand at her side. She had proven as much these past months. She’d had ample opportunity to destroy the caches she’d uncovered and had not.
Effie meant to use the knowledge to her advantage.
The Aerfenium felt like liquid silver. It hissed like steam as she pulled it from root and soil, from its ancient nest where it had lain for millennia. She imagined her ancestors standing in this same place, casting out the Sidhe Bhreige to imprisonment in the Downward Fields. The thought gave her strength.
“What is this?” demanded the Barrow Witch. She eyed the gathering vapors with uncertainty.
“You have lost,” Effie replied. She was emboldened by the shock in the Sidhe Bhreige’s voice. Her nerve remained steady. She raised the slow match for the Barrow Witch to see. “I mean to bring the hillfort down on top of us. You may have escaped the Downward Fields, but you will not escape death.”
The swirling colors of Aerfenium caught on the Barrow Witch. Her flesh flashed in violets and greens and blues. Her red eyes pointed like daggers. Her brow scrunched in fury. Effie sensed the Sidhe Bhreige’s assault and flared a golden shield before her.
A mountain slammed into it. Barbs shot through the shield, expanding and ripping it apart. Effie threw up another, but as she did a bramble of decaying vines wrapped about her legs. The shoots snaked from all around. They filled the darkness at the edge of the torchlight, from the floor to the ceiling high above.
Conall cried out. He dropped the torch and clutched his head. Effie reached for the vines that carried the banshee’s touch, but the effort left her exposed. Barbs pierced her flesh. They drove deep and stole her breath.
“Do you think I am to be toyed with?” asked the Barrow Witch. She strode forward. “Your bluff is ill considered. You would no sooner destroy this Aegirsigath than would I.” The Sidhe Bhreige used the ancient fey term for Aerfenium.