Page 40 of The Mirror of Beasts

“Shall we say a few words?” Olwen had asked, once her magic had devoured the last of the mortal remains.

“What’s the point?” Caitriona had said, brushing ash and snow from her face.

“She deserves respect,” Neve had said sharply.

Rather than slice back with a cutting remark, Caitriona had let out a soft sigh. Her whole posture seemed to relax as she spoke, as if she’d unfastened a piece of armor. “I only meant, the prayers for the dead are to help their souls find the Goddess and be reborn. Lord Death has taken hers. She doesn’t need a prayer or song, she needs to be freed of him.”

“Then we’ll make her a promise,” Neve had said. “I vow in the name of the Goddess, on the bones in my bag, on all the fungi in the forests, on the stars that blaze in the night sky—”

“Neve,” I interrupted.

“Right,” she said. She pressed a hand to her chest and leaned forward. “We’ll get him, Hemlock.”

“We will,” Caitriona said.

“We will,” Olwen echoed.

“We … are definitely going to try,” I’d said. Seeing their looks, I’d added, “Just hedging our bets a little here. I have enough guilt about this as it is.”

I wanted to be as brave as they were, boldly declaring that promise for the wind to carry to the four corners of the world. After seeing the way Lord Death had bent the storm to his will and had torn the soul out of Hemlock’s body, it was nearly impossible to keep my rising doubts at bay. But if they believed, then I could rely on their strength until I did too.

If they believed, I wouldn’t run from the pain or struggle the way Nash always did.

“All right,” I’d agreed. “We will.”

We broke apart, moving through the burned-out wreckage of the Sorceress Hemlock’s life in search of anything that could be useful to us. But what hadn’t been destroyed by the fire had been shattered and torn to shreds by the violence of the morning.

I stepped out of the remains of her cottage with a heavy sigh. The stench of smoke clung to the air and my skin as I surveyed the property.

A short distance away, Neve and Olwen crouched over something in the snow, their heads bent together in discussion. When I came to stand behind them, I saw what it was: the unfinished sigil.

“What does this part of the symbol mean?” Olwen was asking the sorceress, pointing to several straight lines that jutted from its curling center.

Caitriona’s heavy footsteps crunched through the snow behind me, joining us as Neve explained, “You’d include something like that to summon light, but this part, where it curls into itself and then continues straight? That looks like the sigils you’d use to create a weapon. You’d add on a little tail here for arrows, cross through it for a sword … so, a weapon made of light?”

She glanced back over her shoulder at me, looking for confirmation. Tilting my head, I could see it. “Agreed. Would it really have done anything, though?”

“If Morgan and the other sorceresses couldn’t destroy him with magic alone …” Neve’s voice trailed off. “Why light, though?”

The Bonecutter’s earlier explanation circled back to me. I’d told the others about our conversation, but with everything that had happened, I’d put it out of my mind, even as I watched threads of darkness wrap around his fist.

“He can manipulate shadows …,” I said. “It was the unique gift given to him by the Goddess. Maybe it’s related to that … ?”

“Right,” Neve said, her shoulders drooping. “Right …”

I knew the feeling, but the sight of her, so uncharacteristically despondent, left me scraping my low reserves of positivity for something to say.

“He can be killed,” I said. “We can stop him. Hemlock didn’t die in vain.”

“Is that … a note of optimism I detect?” Neve said. “From our adorable doomsayer Tamsin Lark?”

Botheration. I grimaced. “I prefer misery goblin.”

“In the meantime, though, what should we do about him?” Olwen asked, nodding toward the lone figure at the edge of the property, gazing out over the cliffs.

The wind ruffled Emrys’s hair, wrestling with his soaked jacket, but he stood there taking it. His shoulders hunched, as though he were curling into himself.

“Was that rider really his father?” Neve asked.

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