Page 70 of The Mirror of Beasts

He threw the other hunter to the floor, prowling back toward the entrance, leaving the others to follow with their plundered treasures. Swords that cut through any surface. Shields that protected against any spell. Mantles that increased their physical strength. More, and more, and more relics that would make the dead beyond invincible.

The voices echoed back to us long after they’d left the room. “To the next, to the next!”

I counted to a hundred in my head before I dared to whisper, “Emrys?”

The heat of his body against mine, the pine-sweet smell of him—it all crashed into the adrenaline still screaming through my veins, with the horror at what I’d just witnessed. I was still so bad at this, but something in me needed to try. To comfort him. It was the only explanation I had for why I leaned forward again, listening to my own inexperienced instincts, and hesitantly pressed my lips against his upturned cheek.

Emrys drew in a sharp breath, sitting up so quickly his head bumped my chin.

“Don’t,” he breathed out shakily, his face stricken with a disgust that cracked me open. “Don’t touch me.”

He pushed the doors to the armoire fully open and climbed out, letting them shut behind him.

Heat burned in my chest, rising to spread over my face. The humiliation of it was so acute, the sensation of my heart shattering so violent, I actually thought I might vomit. Even as I tried to steel myself, to swallow the sour taste on my tongue, I caught myself hoping the darkness of the room would overtake me like a drowning tide and carry me into its depths.

You stupid, gullible idiot, my mind seethed at me, sinking deeper into the abyss of self-loathing.

All this time, I’d prided myself on being able to read people’s feelings, to use those tricks to figure out the secret longings of their hearts—the dreams and possibilities they wanted me to weave for them as I turned over each tarot card. I had been the hustler, not the hustled.

Until Emrys.

Some part of me—some tiny, desperate piece of my heart—had still held on to a sliver of hope. That it wasn’t all pretend. That his feelings for me had been as real as mine were for him.

But he’d disabused me of that notion swiftly and brutally.

Don’t touch me.

I pressed my fingers against my burning eyes, hating myself, hating him. When the stinging sensation of needles passed and the blood returned to my limbs, I climbed down from the armoire and pushed past him.

Neve spotted me before I saw her, weaving through the debris at a full run toward me. The sight of her chased the clawing bitterness away, replacing it with a pure, effervescent relief. When she threw her arms around me, I didn’t even try to squirm away.

“Is everyone all right?” Olwen asked, accepting her sister’s help over the pile of downed display cases. All of us, I noticed, were careful not to look at the bodies of the men.

“Well, I’m fine,” the hag said, her voice muffled by the floor.

I only nodded, keeping my arm looped around Neve’s shoulder. She shot me a questioning look, one that I avoided.

“What now?” Neve asked.

“We give chase,” Caitriona said. “Follow them back to whatever lair they’ve slithered off to.”

Neve leaned over the back of the Mirror of Shalott, studying the sigils there. “The current spellwork is specific to trapping a hag.” She pointed to the markings. “I don’t know what sigils we’d need to use to trap something like Lord Death.”

“I do!” the hag offered. We ignored her.

“I can write to Madrigal again and ask for the Council of Sistren’s help,” Neve said. “They have researchers—”

“No,” Caitriona cut in. “We do not involve them.”

There was a difference between being righteous and obstinate, and she had crossed from one into the other.

“Cait …,” I began. Something hot and wet struck my cheek.

I looked up, touching my hand to it, only for another fat drop to fall, striking my scalp. I looked down at my fingers, holding them to the nearest flickering light.

Blood.

A deep foreboding filled me as we climbed the hidden emergency stairs into the decoy library. It built beneath my skin like a gathering swarm of flies, buzzing in my ears and stealing my breath long before we came across the first body.

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