Page 5 of The Mirror of Beasts

“Wow,” Neve said after a moment. “I hate that guy.”

My knees turned soft, and I was grateful that Neve still had such a grip on me, that she didn’t seem inclined to let me go. My heart sped furiously as I stared at the closed door, my breath shallow.

Was that really him? I wondered.

The apartment had taken on an unreal quality, hazy and uncertain. The storm seemed to have spread to my mind, swirling those same questions around until I felt suffocated by them. Was that really him?

How?

And the only one who could have understood—really understood—the way I trembled with confusion and adrenaline and anger wasn’t here.

“Are we … going to go after him?” Olwen asked faintly.

It felt like being torn in two. The logical part of my mind demanded I stay in the apartment, but the ache in my chest urged me to follow him, to demand the answers I needed.

All of it could be a trick, my mind whispered. Even if it is Nash, you know better than to trust him.

“No,” Caitriona said sharply. “That’s not our plan.”

“From everything Tamsin has told us, we have no reason to believe him,” Neve added, echoing my thoughts. “… Right, Tamsin?”

“Right,” I said, when I found my voice again.

“Is our plan still what we agreed upon earlier?” Olwen asked, looking between us. “We’ll seek out the person Tamsin believes can repair the High Priestess’s vessel?”

She gestured toward the small basket at the foot of the couch, a blanket hiding the shattered bone sculpture that had contained Viviane’s memories.

All of which would be lost to us, including the memory in the shard that Lord Death had stolen and hidden away, if we didn’t repair it.

With each moment that passed, my thoughts darkened, until that frail hope began to fade.

It was absurd, wasn’t it? All of it. Even if we found the Bonecutter, what were the chances they’d know the ancient druidic art of vessel-making? Some of the bone fragments were no bigger than needles, while others had been ground down to dust—what if there was no fixing it?

Nausea burned in my stomach, rising in my throat. I don’t know how I managed to say, “Yes. We should start searching for the Bonecutter as soon as possible.”

“About that,” Neve said. “I know we need to find the Bonecutter, but maybe we should go to the sorceresses first. What if they don’t have the full story of what happened when Morgan broke the bargain with Lord Death? If they don’t know he’s still alive, they might not realize he’s back and coming for them to get his revenge.”

“But Cabell said the sorceresses sealed off the pathways to Avalon from this side, to keep Lord Death from being able to follow them into the mortal world,” I said. “To me, that says they know some part of him survived.”

Merging Avalon back into our world was the only way to circumvent the barriers, which was why Lord Death had gone to all that trouble to manipulate us into performing the ritual.

Caitriona released a harsh breath through her nose. “Indeed.”

“Have you changed your mind, then?” Olwen asked Neve. “Do you want us to find the sorceresses—the Council of Sistren, as you called them? To warn them?”

“Yes. I think we should do that before anything else.” Neve chewed on her lip, wearing her indecision plainly. “I know we need to repair the vessel, but … the more I think about it, the more I believe we need to work alongside them to stop whatever Lord Death’s greater plans are.”

“Then send word to them, but we owe them nothing more than that,” Caitriona said sharply. “Because the more I think about it, the more I believe they’re the ones that brought this pain and blood upon themselves. The only thing that should matter to us is righting that mistake and finishing what they couldn’t by killing Lord Death. Our hunt should begin now.”

“And if he kills sorceresses in the meantime?” Neve pressed.

Caitriona lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “So be it.”

Even I startled at that. A slow thread of anxiety began to wind through me as the air took on a different, angrier charge.

Neve inhaled sharply, squaring up to Caitriona as if the other girl didn’t have almost six inches on her. “You don’t mean that. I know you care about innocent people dying.”

“That would require the sorceresses to be innocent, which they are not,” Caitriona shot back.

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