Page 22 of The Mirror of Beasts

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.

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