Page 139 of The Mirror of Beasts

“Are you saying no matter what we do, we have to find a way to knock the crown off his head first?” I said. “You can’t know that for certain.”

“He doesn’t,” Madrigal taunted, “but I do.”

I whirled around. “Considering you’re the one in danger, I’d start being a little more forthcoming.”

“Darling,” Madrigal said. “I’m never in danger of anything other than a good time.”

“So we find another Goddess-forged weapon or track down Cait, then we take his crown when we launch our attack,” Emrys said.

“It’s not that simple,” Nash said. “There must always be a king in Annwn. If he’s gone, another will have to take his place. The dead require a warden.”

“Then let the sorceresses handle it,” I said. “They owe us that much for causing this mess in the first place.”

Nash grunted in agreement.

“What?” I began, turning around. “Nothing to say to that?”

But the Sorceress Madrigal was gone.

“Seriously?” I said to the empty air.

“I think she hit her limit on teamwork,” Emrys said. “Good riddance.”

He kept his gaze up, watching the shadowed tree branches—or maybe counting the stars between them. The tight set of his shoulders had finally relaxed.

“Can you hear them?” I asked, rubbing some warmth into his arms. “The trees?”

Emrys’s smile was almost boyish. “Oh yeah, they’re quite chatty. Most have been here for a long time, and they’re singing to the younger trees, telling them how to find food. Most don’t like the cold.”

I squinted up at them in doubt.

“It’s all songs,” he said. “I don’t recognize the sounds, but I know what they mean. How they feel.”

“Which is what?” I asked, brushing a hand against a tree’s trunk as we passed.

“Fear,” he said, tucking his hands in his pockets. “They’re not sure if they’ll all survive the winter.”

“Well,” I murmured. “We wouldn’t know a thing about that.”

The heaviness at our backs remained, and only gathered in intensity as we passed out of the cemetery’s gate. I took a deep breath as we hurried through the snowy spread of a modern park, trying to shake the feeling.

Then I saw the flashing blue lights.

Emergency vehicles were scattered haphazardly along the street at the far end of the green. Beyond them, between the stately buildings, was a veritable mountain of snow. Twisted into terrifying shapes, rising nearly as tall as the buildings around it, the white blanket spread out over several blocks, almost as far as the eye could see.

A helicopter arrived as we did, sweeping a searchlight over the area as more and more police and ambulances sped toward the scene. Bystanders were gathering too, watching, trying to dig through the snow with their bare hands.

Searching for the dead.

“Great Mother,” Sorceress Isolde breathed out. She looked to Kasumi, then the others, horrified. Kasumi observed the scene with her usual calm.

“What would you like us to do, my lady?” one of the other sorceresses asked.

“Go see if you can’t find the bodies before they transform,” Kasumi told her. “Will you be able to burn them without the mortals realizing?”

“Of course,” the sorceress said gruffly.

I could have screamed. This was Avalon playing out all over again. Everyone who had died, their souls snatched from their bodies—their families would never get to bury their remains. And it would continue to happen until Lord Death and his hunters were stopped.

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