Page 146 of Threadbound

“Bloody hell,” Rob muttered, but Jamie could tell that Rob would follow his instructions. Trixie just nodded, her blue eyes wide and frightened in the moonlight.

Mad Ally grunted, then led the way, pushing aside tall grasses dotted with luminescent flowers and twinkling with frost, sending up the occasional flying creature as he shoved his way past. Jamie stayed in his wake, careful to minimize contact with anything that might cut, scratch, or rub him.

Even still, his legs ended up bleeding from at least a half-dozen cuts from thorns and brambles—he was going to assume thorns and brambles, rather than claws that moved too fast for him to see, because that way lay nightmares—by the time Mad Ally led them onto a narrow gravel path. Jamie’s arms burned from carrying Bran, and sweat was running down his spine from the effort, but he didn’t dare take off the heavy coat. It was the only reason his arms, too, weren’t bloody.

Trixie seemed to have fared the best, carefully following in Jamie’s footsteps, her lighter weight and slimmer form—and the fact that she wasn’t carrying another person—allowing her to avoid some of the sharpest branches. Rob, too, seemed to be doing better than Jamie, although Jamie could see a few gashes on his jeans, as well.

Mad Ally was impervious to the thorns, ignoring them entirely, even though they bit into the flesh of both arms and legs. He didn’t seem particularly inclined to stop to give them a chance to rest, although they were now on a path, but Jamie didn’t know how much farther he could go carrying Bran.

“Is it safe enough to rest a few minutes?” he asked, disliking how out of breath he sounded.

The wulver—his father—stopped and looked back over his shoulder. “I’ll carry him a bit,” came the answer. Jamie didn’t want to let go of Bran, but he recognized that if a rest wasn’t in the cards, he did at least need to give his arms a break, even ifhis legs had to keep moving. His legs were stronger, anyway, and he was less worried about carrying himself without Bran’s extra weight. He allowed Mad Ally to take Bran’s still-worryingly-unconscious form from him, although the wulver wasn’t as gentle as Jamie would have been. He wasn’t rough, just?—

Jamie told himself to accept the help. Mad Ally wasn’t likely to cause any harm to Bran, after all. So Jamie gritted his teeth and let his father lead them down the path.

Trixie and Rob wouldn’t let him take their bags back.

“You were carrying enough,” Rob told him when Jamie frowned at his refusal. “Give your arms a rest so you can take him back.”

Jamie nodded, then went back to following Mad Ally, his eyes focused on the wulver’s heavy boots rather than the mysterious and dangerous world around them, hands shoved in his pockets for warmth as the sweat cooled on his body. He knew that if he looked up, he’d see deadly beauty, creatures and blossoms and shifting lights. Trixie’s periodic little gasps told him as much. But all he could think about was that Bran had given nearly every ounce of strength he had just to get them here—and they still had a draught to make for two dying men. One that Jamie had no doubt would take magic to work.

And his blood, apparently.

Because he was a witch. His momma had been a witch, too, for all the good it had done her. She’d put love and care into her blankets and scarves, but none of it had kept her safe from the man who should have protected her and put her first. None of it had kept her children safe, either.

It wasn’t fair that Jamie had magic that could, if what Bran had said about the bracelet was true, act as a layer of protection. Not much, if Jamie had understood him rightly, but still. Would Jamie’s magic have been enough to protect his momma and his half-siblings, if he’d known how to use it? Could he use it nowto protect Bran and Rob and Trixie? He knew hehadmagic, but that didn’t really mean much. He had no more idea how to weave magic than he had before—just that he somehowdidweave magic, and weak magic at that.

It was at least another forty-five minutes—with no sign of the structure of the Court of Shades in sight—when Jamie offered to take Bran back from Mad Ally. The wulver passed him Bran’s still-unconscious form, although Jamie felt a surge of hopefulness when Bran stirred slightly and made a small sound as Jamie settled him against his chest, although he didn’t respond when Jamie softly called his name.

They continued, even Trixie’s gasps fading into silence and footfalls as exhaustion settled over them.

Another half hour or so—Jamie guessed, although it wasn’t like he’d been checking, although neither his fitness tracker or his phone would have been at all reliable in Elfhame—and the path had widened and plunged into a thick forest. Jamie hoped it was the same one Bran had taken him to—and that a few more curves would reveal its edge and the Court of Shades beyond.

He stubbornly clung to Bran for another half hour, despite Mad Ally and Rob’s offers to take him. The smaller fae was drifting closer to consciousness now, his hands loosely holding on to Jamie’s collar and upper arm. Jamie wasn’t about to try to pry away that precious grasp.

He was too tired to notice if or when the path became familiar, but the moonlight brightened again, although the moon itself had passed through its zenith and begun its descent.

“Bloody hell,” Rob breathed, and Jamie lifted his head, looking up to see Rob and Trixie gaping at the shimmering half-open structure that was the Court of Shades, spires and walls of stone and living wood, faintly glowing floral blooms dripping from its peaks despite a dusting of snow, lights of warmer hues flickering and gleaming in windows and from the open topsof towers. It was beautiful, Jamie thought as though from a distance, the ache in his legs and burning of his arms something happening to a body that was only half his.

He wondered what the fae inside would make of Rob and Trixie. What Rob and Trixie would make of them.

And what would happen to all of them when the war came to the Sluagh Court.

Bran had onlythe faintest sense of having passed through the doorway he’d created, and a half-remembered dreamlike impression of being held in Jamie’s arms, although he couldn’t imagine that Jamie had carried him the whole way from where they’d crossed into Elfhame to the Court of Shades. Maigdeann and Jamie had both threatened to tie him to the bed if he didn’t rest for another day, although Bran had tried to explain that theBean Nighedidn’t send double-agent wulvers to fetch people if there was time to spare.

Madadh Allaidh was a legend among the Sluagh. The wulver had spent the entirety of Bran’s life as a spy, masquerading as a traitor to Cuilleann mac Eug so that when the inevitable happened, they would have some means of knowing more about the Sunlit Court than they otherwise would. Bran remembered his father explaining that they hoped Madadh Allaidh would never be asked to come back to the Court of Shades—would never be forced to give up the Sidhe’s secrets and betray the people he had spent the last decades of his life living beside.

Bran hadn’t known that Madadh Allaidh was Jamie’s father, although the minute the wulver had shifted into his mortal form, it became obvious—Jamie looked so very much like him. Bran didn’t know if Cairn had known, although Bran strongly suspected his father was aware of far more than he let on, even to his own family.

What it did confirm was that Jamie had powerful fae blood—which, more often than not, meant that Jamie’s magic, too, would be strong. Bran absently ran his fingers over the thread and beads of the bracelet Jamie had fashioned for him. Without any sort of training or awareness, it was hard to tell, but if Jamie could unknowingly imbue this tiny scrap of thread with the ability to block even a minor spell, then it was entirely possible that with practice and intention, Jamie could be powerful indeed.

It was odd to think of Jamie as a weaving witch.

It was odder to think of Jamie as a powerful weaving witch.

Bran shifted, guilt making him uncomfortable. The idea of Jamie having power at all, much less a lot of it, shouldn’t be so surprising. No, not surprising—it seemed impossible. Bran had spent most of his life thinking of Jamie as physically and thaumaturgically helpless—he just didn’t know how to reframe that image of Jamie in his mind.

Jamie wasn’t in the room—he hadn’t been when Bran had awakened, although Maigdeann had assured him that Jamie had been here for a while until he’d fallen asleep on his feet and she’d sent him off to bed halfway through the day.

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