Page 40 of The Vanishing Throne

Aithinne stares at me for the longest time. ‘I feel the same,’ she tells me.

I release my breath and say nothing. I don’t tell her how much I’m struggling with my anger over what Lonnrach did to me. I don’t tell her that letting go is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, because I’ve spent hours upon hours envisioning the precise way I’d watch him die.

I want it to be me. It has to be me.

I squeeze my eyes shut. Lonnrach isn’t my kill; he never was. He’s Aithinne’s.

‘We’ll make him pay,’ I promise her. ‘I’m going to help you.’

She presses her hand to mine and I understand.Together.

Chapter 15

We travel the next day until the sun is low on the horizon. Deeper into the Highlands, the ground is entirely covered in snow. It glitters from a fresh fall, clinging to branches. It crackles under Ossaig’s hooves as we pass through the trees. The air is so crisp that it singes my cheeks.

Derrick rides between Ossaig’s ears, his wee hands clinging to the thin metal fur to keep himself steady. She runs so fast that I don’t know how he manages not to slip off at all.

‘Just there,’Aithinne says, gesturing.

Up ahead is the curving bay where the mainland ends. Skye lies just across the shimmering waters. The mountains there are shrouded in mist, rolling and white from the snowfall. I had always heard excessive deforestation had cleared away much of the woodlands on Skye, but the island across from us is covered in thick snowcapped trees with dark trunks.

It wouldn’t be possible for a forest to rise up that quickly, not without the fae affecting growth there, too. Like the jagged rocks that emerged in the Queen’s Park in Edinburgh, the fae must have altered the landscapeand brought back the ancient forests. Before their imprisonment, the entire Isle of Skye would have been covered in dense woodland.

‘Can the horses make it to the island?’ I ask.

The stories used to say that the fae on the mainland couldn’t cross water. It was one of the ways Scots were advised to escape them if they ever encountered a hunt. Fae couldn’t follow or their powers became weakened. Ossaig has already crossed rivers and streams, but perhaps deeper bodies of water are different.

Aithinne smiles at me. ‘Of course they can. But we have other means.’

Of course they can. ‘Those stories humans made up about the fae really are absolute nonsense,’ I mutter.

Derrick is snickering. ‘I’d love to know who spread those silly rumours. Humans are so gullible.’ His eyes widen. ‘D’you think if I told them that honey repelled faeries they’d put some out for me?’

‘You’re horrid,’ I tell him.

‘No, no, no,’ he says with a serene smile. ‘I’mbrilliant. I like my plan. It’s a good plan.’

I give him a pointed glare. ‘So what are these other means?’

Aithinne pulls the horse to a halt and dismounts. I do the same, waiting as Derrick lifts himself from between Ossaig’s ears to my shoulder. Absently, I reach up to touch his wings, a gesture that’s now become a habit.

‘There’s a portal from here to Skye that can’t be sensed by othersìthichean,’ Derrick says. ‘Sluaghhave been watching the island from above, and Lonnrach’s soldiers have been scouting the forests, so the horses can’t cross without them detecting.’

I go cold. ‘Have they?’ Lonnrach learned that from me; he heard Derrick mention Skye in my memories, and stole that information to try to find my friends.

You spent a year training under my enemy and that rogue pixie. I assume they often spoke things you didn’t understand.

My hand shaking, I reach beneath my coat to press my thumb to a mark on my forearm. The memory is shortly after I met Derrick,when he decided to live in my closet. A seemingly unimportant memory I would never have thought to consider vital.

‘Nice closet,’ he’d said.‘This is a good size. Not as big as what I had at home in Skye, but it’ll do.’

‘It’ll do?’

‘As my new home. It’s perfect. I like it. It’s mine.’

Once Lonnrach saw that memory, he knew where Derrick would likely take the others. Where I’d most likely run to after escaping from the mirrored room. I had given away their location without even meaning to.

‘Aileana?’ Derrick tears me from my thoughts. When he sees my expression, he misinterprets it. ‘Don’t you worry,’ he says, patting my hand. ‘They haven’t managed to find us yet, daft bastards. We built it to stay hidden.’

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