Page 74 of The Mirror of Beasts

He lifted his sword and I instinctively reared back. My chest seemed to be caving in on itself; the death mark throbbed sharply, as if pierced by broken bone. He strode through the underbrush and trees, sending rivers of snow falling from their branches. I struggled to draw in my next breath, my body hollow with grief.

“Tamsin!”

Through the slant of snow, Emrys appeared. His expression blazed with concern, eyes flashing as he searched the darkness.

The sight sent an unwanted flutter of warmth through me, as if some unconscious part of my mind or heart had summoned him.

Don’t touch me.

The twin flames of shame and anger lit within me, not even half as terrible as the deep longing that followed in their wake. The desperation to feel something other than loss was all-consuming, sawing me open from the inside.

Don’t touch me.

Why had he even followed me out here? Why was he doing any of this—seeming to care one moment, ripping it away the next? Was it just to hurt me, to have yet another little laugh at my expense?

“Was that Cabell?” Emrys asked, trying and failing to catch his breath.

I nodded, keeping the distance between us even as he took several steps forward. He stopped then and just watched me, his hands curling and uncurling at his sides. No doubt trying to work some warmth back into them. The snow pelted me, my eyes stinging and watering.

He raised his hand toward me, as if to grab me, hold me—only to let it fall back to his side. On another day I might have had the strength to cut him back in some way, but just then, I couldn’t overcome the quiet cruelty of it. My nostrils flared.

“Why can’t you just leave me alone?” I half begged, half raged at him. He’d taken the ring, taken my trust, taken my deepest secrets. What more could he want? What else was left? To see me break?

Emrys’s expression shuttered again as he started to turn away.

“I wish I could,” he said, “but you need to come too—we found a survivor.”

Of all the people who could have survived the Wild Hunt, it had to be Edward Wyrm.

I read the scene in a single look. True to his name, the man had somehow managed to slither his way into a small hidden compartment disguised behind one of the decorative wall panels not far from the massive hearth.

The snow blowing in through the shattered windows had smothered the fires burning on the tables, but it had also subdued the last of the Yule log. Without it, there were only the pitiful flickering of the grand chandeliers and the moonlight to illuminate Wyrm cowering on the floor, his face and balding head smeared with blood.

“—I didn’t know it would be this way!” he was telling Caitriona. She glared down at him, her expression merciless as she held the point of her spear to the loose skin of his neck.

Neve looked on, her hands on her hips. “Then what was the party for?”

“It was—”

His eyes bulged as they landed on me, as if I were another unwelcome ghost. He mouthed the word Lark.

I’d be all too happy to haunt him until he drew his last miserable breath. “Lovely to see you again, you steaming piece of rat excrement.”

He swung his gaze to the safer choice of Emrys.

“Emrys, my boy, tell them! You know how these women can be when they get something in their heads. I’ve been a friend of your family for years. I had no idea they would—they would—”

“Murder every last one of your party guests and take their souls?” Emrys finished coldly. He pushed past the others, hauling Wyrm up by the blood-splattered collar of his shirt and forcing him toward the bodies littering the floor. “Look at them, you coward! Then tell us again you had no idea this would happen!”

The fury in his voice took me aback. Maybe his had been living as close to the surface as mine. Maybe, before today, I would have cared.

Wyrm began to weep, his sobs pitiful and heaving. “It was supposed to be a gathering to greet him! To present him with the mantle! This wasn’t supposed to happen!”

“You knew the Wild Hunt was coming?” I asked in disbelief.

“Yes,” Wyrm moaned.

Emrys ripped the silver pin from his lapel, then released him, letting Wyrm’s body fall limp to the floor. Blood and champagne sprayed up around him and the old man gagged.

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