Page 93 of The Blood Queen

I turned to the man in armor. “Did you know about this?”

Metis scoffed, “Isn’t it obvious? That doddering old fool doesn’t know what he had for breakfast.”

The doddering fool’s armor creaked as he changed his position. I wasn’t entirely comfortable with his befuddled expression as Fee asked, “Where is she, Aine?”

“Her power is too corrupted to let her out.”

“She’s corrupting everything in the Carmag.”

“Anson keeps himself busy fixing it,” Aine retorted, and I could have sworn Metis—that sea witch—was laughing.

I was trying hard not to burn down another tree because my pulse pounded with the same question. Was the seidr witch a seer-witch like the Gemini Witches? And the woman in the Farmer’s Market, who was part of the coven because she was gods-damned selling effigies of the Wolf Woman—Bone Woman—whatever.

Her magic crystal, the one that turned into ash—that had to be a theatrical trick. Along with the “liminal spaces between worlds,” and the “what you seek exists there” comments. Had she been convincing me that my desires matched hers? To find the Wolf Woman and free her from prison?

And I’d taken the bait. Hot on my I-need-to-help-Grayson crusade. My cramps were back, twisting with the stress, and Grayson was not around to ease them.

Effa bounced behind my back. Caerwen’s hand pressed on my arm. I glanced down. A small patch of grass had blackened beneath my feet and still smoldered, sending up wisps of gray smoke.

I gritted my teeth and said, “We really have to do something.”

“What?” Metis and Aine said in unison, and the wave of absurdity had me closing my eyes.

“The forces of chaos,” I said. “Who needs wolf queens with you two around?”

The nymphs fell silent. Even Fee stopped his creaking. The waterfall thundering in the distance was white noise, drowning out Effa’s squeak.

“How do we undo the seidr magic?” I asked Aine.

“Why would you want to undo it?”

“Because a wolf spirit cannot survive, locked in a rune stone for centuries.”

“The wolf is near mad by now, insane.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Why worry about the wolf if your goal is to kill Amal?” Aine asked. “The wolf will die at that point, regardless.”

I hated the out-of-body sensation that made thinking difficult. But a plan was developing, one that involved finding the Wolf Woman, getting Amal’s rune back, and somehow returning her wolf—during which a dread lord and a faille would have to work together. Find some way to disarm her. End the insanity.

Or make the situation a thousand times worse…

“Where is the wrinkle?”

“I’m afraid I don’t recall.”

“Amal is destroying my world, Aine. Why shouldn’t I destroy yours?”

She said nothing. Another tree burst into flame, crackling like dried tinder and spiraling black smoke into the air.

Metis turned to Fee and asked unkindly, “Can you find the wrinkle, old man?”

“Can you swim, old woman?” he answered back, light sparkling in his eyes. “Someone was careless with that sacred blade of yours. Be grateful I saved it for you. Otherwise, a very nasty cyclops would have used it to cut up his sheep.”

My eyes closed. I was drowning in the incredulity. My feet were numb because I was fighting with the rising power that wanted to explode into fireworks. One burning tree was not enough. And I didn’t know what to say, how to explain it to them. They were nymphs with no way to understand the wolf’s relationship with the man, or woman. The torture would be unbearable, having that part of yourself ripped away.

But then to realize the rune was a stone prison, and you had willingly added the blood that locked away the wolf—the guilt would tear me apart. Amal’s emotions were a mystery. She might not realize what she’d done. But to let her suffer when I could fix it? Let her wolf suffer? I wasn’t sure I had it in me to do that. Wouldn’t it be more merciful to reunite them and then end the torture in some humane way?

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