Page 183 of The Mirror of Beasts

A moment became two, and then many, and soon my toes were frozen in my boots.

“Sorry,” I said through chattering teeth, “really hate to interrupt. But could we maybe continue this somewhere it’s not freezing?”

As they separated, Neve let out a slightly delirious laugh. She shot Caitriona a look that turned the other girl scarlet. “To be continued.”

“We should go,” Olwen began. “We can use the Vein.” She looked to Caitriona suddenly, her head tilting. “In all of this, I never thought to wonder how you found me there, at that house.”

“I now owe a favor to the Bonecutter,” Caitriona said, scowling slightly at the memory. “And I had to pluck nearly all my eyelashes to get Rosydd to open the portal there.”

Olwen’s exhale might have been a laugh. “Rosydd … ? You mean the Hag of the Bogs?”

“Moors,” Caitriona, Neve, and I corrected.

“We’ll catch you up,” I promised.

Olwen nodded. Glancing back over the clearing, she asked, “Wherever shall we go now?”

“Summerland House?” Neve suggested. “The Council of Sistren is there cleaning it out.”

Nausea rose in me, swift and cruel. “Not there.”

Neve, as always, understood. “Name the place, I’ll open the Vein.”

Home, my heart begged. Home.

But I didn’t know where that was anymore.

“The Bonecutter wants to see you,” Caitriona said to me. Her brows rose as she looked to Olwen. “And you as well.”

I relaxed.

“All right,” I said. “Then that’s where we’ll go.”

Olwen looped her arms in ours, guiding us through the wild thicket of the forest, to the moors that lay beyond it. But each of us looked back, stealing one final glance, at the flowers that grew amid the snow, rising from death to begin again.

Neve’s Vein brought us to the upstairs flat of the Dead Man’s Rest, though I didn’t immediately recognize it. The last time we’d been here, there’d been a few scattered pieces of broken furniture strewn about, as if it was intended to be as uncomfortable as possible to deter visitors.

Now there was a complete bedroom set: a rather striking canopied bed with plush bedding, a dresser, a marble side table with a lamp next to an armchair that looked like it would hug you back as you snuggled into it, a slightly faded but otherwise nice rug, even an empty bookshelf, waiting to be filled.

The sudden transformation was odd, even for the Bonecutter.

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” Caitriona said when she saw our questioning looks. “I knew better than to ask. She nearly took my head off with a broomstick when I showed up again.”

“Voices carry, you know,” the Bonecutter called up to us from downstairs, her voice ringing like little bells. “Hurry up, will you? I’ve waited long enough.”

The pub was empty; it was well past the hour of last call. Winter solstice was the longest night of the year, and we’d only extended it by traveling back and forth across the sea.

I’d expected to find her in her usual spot at the bar, and Bran behind the counter, polishing the already spotless pint glasses. Instead, the open door to her workshop greeted us.

“Still alive, then?” the Bonecutter asked as we entered. One of her brows arched over the rim of her many-lensed glasses. She cranked her stool up higher, switching off the small blowtorch in her left hand and setting down the pliers that were in her right.

“Barely,” I admitted. “But you should see the other guy.”

She snorted. “At least this time you’ve come with good news. And who is our new Lord Death?”

I didn’t respond, in part because I couldn’t bring myself to say the words aloud, but also because I realized what the metal pieces were in front of her.

I rushed forward, gripping Librarian’s lifeless hand. “How—why do you have him?”

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