Page 100 of The Fallen Kingdom

I walk into the street and turn in a circle.

“She took this from my mind before.” I gesture to the buildings around us, each one of them lit. “She’s still using it to unnerve me.” She’s using it to remind me of what I’m giving up if I don’t tell her yes.

“It would take ages to search through this for the girl,” Catherine murmurs. “I hear those tenements off the High Street go underground.”

Kiaran looks uncertain, too. “She’s right, Kam. Maybe we should split up.”

“I changed my mind. This isn’t suicidal, it’s just stupid,” Sorcha says.

Aithinne rolls her eyes. “So negative.”

“We’re not splitting up,” I say. “Catherine, Gavin, and Daniel can’t endure the Morrigan’s powers.”

Sorcha flickers a glance at them. “I don’t blame her if she kills them quickly. Humans are irritating.”

“It must be difficult,” Gavin says. “Seven of us left on this earth, and six of us hate you.”

Sorcha curls her lip at him.

If Derrick were here, he could quickly search through the buildings for us. If he were here—

He’s not here, and you have to focus. I try to block out the doubts, the low noise of the others murmuring to each other. I search the city with my senses, risking a small pulse of power. It travels through the landscape, combing the quiet, brightly lit streets. There is no hum of electricity, no birds in the trees, no horses. Edinburgh is entirely silent.

If I were her, where would I go?

My powers continue their search through the miles of mazelike streets. Through the layers of buildings and the vast underground network of tunnels. She must be here somewhere.

When my power lingers on George Street, I sense something. Small. Subtle. Music?

The Assembly Rooms.

I open my eyes. “Follow me.”

I lead them past the shops in the direction of George Street. Past the beautiful houses of Charlotte Square; I keep my eyes straight ahead as we pass my old home.Don’t look at it. Don’t get distracted.

“Do you sense something?” Kiaran asks me.

“Music at the Assembly Rooms. It’s where I first saw her clearly. When I was taken back to the night my”—I can’t help but glance at Sorcha, my fingers curling into fists—“the night Sorcha murdered my mother.”

I had almost said,The night my mother died, but why mince words? There’s no need for politeness. Sorcha killed her. She knows she killed my mother.

Sorcha looks amused. “You certainly get straight to the point, don’t you? If I didn’t loathe you, I’d respect that.”

The city is quiet, eerily so. I remember when I went out at night, it seemed as if the city held its breath until the moment I stepped out of my garden gate. When I ran through the streets with my coat in the wind behind me, Edinburgh pulsed as if it were alive. I’ll never stop missing it; my heart is still here. It is a city of monsters, a city of secrets. No matter what happens, I keep ending up back here, right where it all started. It might be a hollowed-out hole in the ground in the human realm, but it still lives on through me.

The air is so still as we make our way past the empty shops on George Street. It’s rare that the city would be this quiet, this lifeless. I’m used to there always being a breeze. To the scent of hops and wood fires and a hint of whisky in the air.

But when I approach the Assembly Rooms, the chandeliers are all lit. The archways are illuminated, flickering with flames. From inside, I hear the melodic trill of violins playing a familiar song that stops me right in my tracks.

“Flowers of the Forest.” The song they played during my mother’s funeral. I didn’t attend—I couldn’t—but I stole out of the house to watch the procession at St. Cuthbert’s. I swear that song echoed all over the city.

“Kam?” Kiaran’s voice is soft.

“That song,” I say. “I know that song.”

I walk slowly to the entrance of the Assembly Rooms and push open the massive, heavy oak door. It’s completely empty inside. The music has vanished, as if I had imagined it. The dance floor is bare; our footsteps echo harshly across the hardwood. The only indication I had ever heard it was the soft resonance of the song in my ears, calling, beckoning. A message? From the Morrigan or her consort?

“Well, she’s not here,” Sorcha says, looking annoyed. “Any other suggestions? Maybe she’s gone to the pub.”

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