Page 95 of What Hunts Inside the Shadows

“You’re a witch?” I asked, turning my confused stare to Adelphia. She’d disappeared, the rest of her group fading along with her as if they blended into the trees themselves.

“She’s not a witch,” Imelda said, stepping forward to take Jonab’s skull from Caldris. She tucked it into her own pack, cradling it gently as if it was sacred to her. “She’s the child of a witch and a human. They all are.”

“Where are the rest of the Lunar Witches, Imelda?” I asked, studying her as she sank her teeth into her dark bottom lip.

“They left. Looking for you,” Imelda admitted with a sad smile. “I remained to guard Fallon through her lives and to seek her out each time she was born. We thought she would be safe within the tunnels, but you were out in the open, exposed to whatever may come for you. They never returned from their search.”

I tried not to let the knowledge that my life had been responsible for the loss of so many sink deep inside me. It hadn’t been my choice to leave the Resistance.

At least I didn’t think it had.

We rode on through the main streets of the village. The homes were empty as we passed, and it was obvious that whatever had happened to my mother, she wasn’t living in the shack we’d called home. My heart sank as we rode past.

“Is that your home?” Caldris asked, and something in his voice was tight. He knew logically that I’d come from nothing, but that meant something very different in the abstract than seeing it for himself.

“It is,” I said, pointing a finger to the window I’d snuck out of on far too many nights. “Brann always threatened to bar the window shut, but he couldn’t afford the iron.” A bitter laugh came up from my throat, knowing he’d probably avoided the iron because of my heritage.

Because of what he’d known about me, never sharing it.

“Your mother can come with us,” he said, and he nodded to Aramis. “Search the house. Kindly.”

“She’s not there,” I said, and I could feel it in my bones. This house hadn’t been occupied since Brann and I left, and why would it have been? She wouldn’t have been able to get herself here in her chair. “She uses a wheeled chair to get around. Her legs aren’t strong enough to support her for long, not since she had me.”

“Humans were not meant to bear Fae children,” Caldris said, and the statement made me turn a curious stare toward Fallon. I’d seen who I had to presume were her parents, and they’d been fine at a glance. “Are you certain you don’t want to go in? To take one last look?”

I shook my head. The last thing I wanted was to be reminded of the family I would probably never see again. I’d probably never know what had become of my mother, and my brother was already gone.

There was nothing left in that house but the pain of memories better left in the past, and it wouldn’t give me the answers I sought about my mother. Even if it did by some miracle, what good would it do me? She never would have left that house of her own free will.

We rode on as Aramis emerged from the dwelling, wordlessly confirming what I’d already known. My mother was gone. We passed the gallows, passed the village proper and Mistfell Manor. All bore the signs of war; all the homes were shuttered and appeared empty, as if the entire town had simply disappeared without a trace.

The air changed as we approached the empty gardens where I’d spent the majority of my life toiling, caring for the plants held within it and burdened with the task of feeding the Kingdom and the Court in Ineburn City. The scent of magic filled the air, and the thick, salty fluid of the sea was suffocating as we approached.

In all the times I’d met the ocean before, never had I felt like I would drown in it before I even touched the water. “Stay here,” Caldris instructed, lowering himself from Azra. He unsheathed his sword, striding forward as the army of the dead surrounded us. The Fae Marked remained in the carts, slumping low and practically lying down to avoid being seen. The girl from the day before still hadn’t awoken, and I looked down at her sleeping face as Fallon sat with her.

The Wild Hunt and Imelda followed after Caldris, stepping toward the boundary at the edge of the gardens. The wolves and hounds remained with us, forming a protective circle around the army of the dead as we hid in the streets of the village and beneath the copse of trees that hung over the buildings lining the road.

Fallon glanced at me as I dismounted Azra. Metal clashed through the fading light in the distance, the sky darkening above our heads far too quickly to be natural. I peered around the edge of the buildings, watching as a force of the Mist Guard emerged from the barracks to fight one last stand and keep us from crossing over the boundary.

There were so many of them—far more than I’d ever realized. They had to be reinforcements sent by the King in Ineburn City, and they wielded iron blades and traps against the Wild Hunt as Fallon and I watched on helplessly.

Taking a single step forward, I flinched back when the bodies of the dead closed ranks in front of me and kept me locked away. I fumbled for the golden threads trailing off him, but they refused to respond to my touch, or to slide around my skin and do as I commanded.

“I guess we know Caldris meant it this time,” Fallon said, forcing an uncomfortable smile to her face. I grimaced, looking back toward the boundary where the Veil had once shimmered, and to the man who stood there as if he had any right to still be breathing. The Guards at Lord Byron’s side wheeled a woman toward the boundary, her brown hair plastered to her head as rain pelted down on them. Her chair bumped over the uneven surface of the ground, jarring her from side to side as she fought to hold on to the armrests in the crude chair he’d had crafted for her as a favor to me after my father’s death.

“That’s my mother,” I told Fallon, ignoring her touch as she reached down to take my hand in hers. Between my mother and I, a battle raged. The sounds of death and fighting wrought the air, and the tang of blood filled my nostrils.

Fallon hurried out of the cart, gripping my forearm tightly. Her nails dug into the bare skin there as she peered toward the witches gathered at the edge of the Veil, and she realized who they had taken with them. Caldris, the Wild Hunt, Imelda: all of them were fighting except for the small group of the dead left behind to guard the group of us.

There was no one around to summon to my side. No one I could shout to without risking their life as they battled with the Mist Guard. The Guard that Brann had stabbed that day in the woods hadn’t been unique. There were dozens of them fighting in the gardens, larger than life and almost inhuman in the way they functioned.

“You can’t,” Fallon said, shaking her head from side to side with an urgent warning. I gritted my teeth as I turned back to the Guards who wheeled my mother’s chair up to the Veil, where the witches waited beside Lord Byron. Caldris was too busy with his fight, splitting his power between controlling the dead who guarded us and fighting four of the unnaturally large guards who shouldn’t have existed.

“I have to. I’m sorry,” I said, darting forward suddenly. I slid in the mud, dropping onto my ass and pushing through the spread leg bones of a skeleton. Its head spun in a full circle on the vertebrae of its neck, those hollow, empty eye-sockets following me as I jumped to my feet on the other side and ran forward.

Caldris spun quickly, as if he felt the moment I broke free from the circle of protection he’d created. I focused my attention on my mother, ignoring the heavy weight of his stare as he cut down the man he fought with.

The tinge of iron coated the air, the weaponry of the Mist Guard making the hair raise on my arms. If I was so affected by the proximity of it, it was no wonder why Caldris seemed subdued from his usual overpowering presence. The threads around me felt hazy, as if my fingers might slip through them should I try to reach out and grasp at them.

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