Page 82 of The Mirror of Beasts

With five grown people and all our belongings, though, it was feeling less cozy and more cramped.

“Let’s set him down here—oh, for the love of—” Nash swore a blue streak as he knocked his head against the low, slanted ceiling. I hastily shook out a blanket for Emrys, and Nash dropped him onto it unceremoniously, mewling pitifully as he rubbed his own aching head.

“Why are we here?” Caitriona demanded before she’d even fully set Emrys’s legs down, spinning up the same fight we’d had leaving Rivenoak. “We should be going after Olwen—”

“Oh?” Nash interrupted. “And you know where it is they’re going? Are you that eager to swing your sword around and fight shadows?”

Caitriona’s anger only deepened; her head drew back, the way a snake’s did before it struck. “Are you mocking me?”

“No, dove, I’m trying to make a point, however unwelcome it may be,” Nash said.

I sat beside Emrys, too exhausted to try to join the argument. I’d felt my heart break before, in the armoire at Rivenoak, but looking at him now, hovering just out of death’s reach, it was as if someone had reached into my chest to rip out each jagged shard. His face was too pale, too slack, but he was breathing, however faintly. I brought my thumb to my lips, biting at the hangnail there, trying to smother the scream that had been threatening to tear out of me all night.

“He could be taking her to Lord Death!” Caitriona tried again.

“Would he?” Neve said. “He seemed terrified of the hunters …”

“He’s got the courage of a mouse but the scruples of a rat,” Nash said.

He ran a bruised hand back through his sandy hair, his sky-blue eyes soft. He spoke in a gentle tone I hadn’t heard in years—not since the last time Cabell had fallen ill. It was startling that, after everything, it could still have a comforting effect on me.

“If you hear nothing else, hear me on this, Lady Caitriona,” he began.

“Don’t call me that,” she said sharply, swinging a fist up.

“Are you not a priestess of Avalon?” he asked calmly.

The memory of her trying to summon fire burned me all over again. The thought was cruel, but if Caitriona had voluntarily abandoned her vow … what was to say that the magic hadn’t abandoned her in turn?

“Avalon is gone,” she said, her jaw clenched.

“So it is,” Nash said. “But you are not, and neither is Lady Olwen. I understand why you want to go rushing after her—”

“You could not possibly understand,” Caitriona said, a tremor running through her words.

Neve hovered behind her, her hands outstretched, as if she might try to draw the other girl away, but in the end, she didn’t. When Caitriona was fighting, nothing could stop her, not even us.

“—but,” Nash continued, “do you know where Lord Death resides in this world?”

“Why don’t you ask your son?” Caitriona’s words had their intended effect. Nash’s brows shot up, as if he was surprised she’d managed to land a hit.

“I intend to,” he said.

Caitriona spun, the full weight of her ire bearing down on me. “And you didn’t think to demand those answers from him? You allowed him to escape. Or did you finally—finally—see what has been obvious to the rest of us for so long: that he serves Lord Death by choice?”

“Cait—” I began. I looked to Neve, but the sorceress turned her face down, not denying the other girl’s words.

They don’t believe he can be saved, my mind whispered. I looked to Neve to deny it, but she only pressed a hand to her mouth.

“He’s a monster, Tamsin, and you know what must be done,” Caitriona continued. “There is only one way to stop a monster.”

My heart froze in my chest, finishing what Caitriona had left unspoken. Kill it.

“That’s enough,” Nash said sharply. “Inflicting pain on another won’t ease the pain inside you.”

Caitriona’s nostrils flared with her next sharp inhale, but she held her tongue.

“Now,” Nash continued, “you’re certain Olwen and Wyrm didn’t merely escape together?”

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