Page 65 of Threadbound

The remainingNeachhad fought to protect themselves and their borders, losing some three more and bringing four of thegeàrdwith them into death. But the balance had been broken—the shedding of blood shattering the uncertain and hesitant peace between the Courts of Sun and Shade.

It was not that there had been no violence between the Sluagh and Sidhe before—even open violence between theNeachand thegeàrd—but a surreptitious murder, an accident too coincidental to have been an accident, a knife or arrow that found its mark in the darkness or light when someone should not have been somewhere or somewhen.

When Corriach ni Gaotha had died at the end of ageàrdblade, caught unawares in a glen in the early hours of the morning. She hadn’t been there to cause mischief, but she had been a Sluagh abroad in daylight—enough of an excuse beyond the borders of land belonging to the Court of Shades to summon paranoia and danger, although it had not, before then, been the cause of death for centuries.

But Corriach had been outside of Sluagh territory—and so her death, although grieved and raged at, was not sufficient cause for retribution.

This attack, however, had taken place not in a shady grove with no witnesses, but in a grass-swept field, in the twilight hours when all were welcome to move between the lands of sun and shade, with blades openly drawn and hatred the only message carried by the dead.

Cairn mac Darach, his thin, stony lips pressed together, listened to his second-youngest son recount the circumstancesof the attack, the death of Tàirneanach mac Gearradh, a man he had called a friend for nearly five centuries, with a heavy heart.

The war they had long feared was upon them.

And his youngest son, once so full of promise and potential, seemed to have lost himself rather than finding a cure that might help the Holly King to recover body and mind to lead them.

There was nothing more Cairn could do for Bran but hope that—sooner rather than later—his son would come to his senses.

A thousand years ago, Cairn mac Darach had asked a question of theBean Nighe, and her answer, whispered between teeth that were at once broken and hale, had promised only that he would sire a magus, and that the war-that-was-to-come would rest on that child’s shoulders.

Cairn had never told Bran this. He knew better than to share the veiled prophecies of theBean Nighe.

But now was the time. The war was upon them, and the Court of Shades—the balance of Elfhame—was in Bran’s hands.

And Bran, Dunatis and Tiranis bless him, was in Dunehame, and their hope with him.

It was probably for the best that Cairn did not know just how sick, weak, and hungry that hope was.

Chapter

Twenty-Eight

Every morning, Jamie awoke to find that whatever he’d left the night before—more cheese-flavored crackers, cereal, some cookies once, cubes of bread—was gone, replaced by a bead or a coin or a piece of ribbon or fabric. He kept them all—not only had his momma made it clear that you didnotthrow away gifts from fairies, if they were generous enough to give you one, but he felt oddly sentimental about the things Bran left him, even though he knew that if someone were simply to look in the little basket Jamie was using for that purpose, they’d see mostly cast-off refuse, junk, or other scraps. Things with little or no value.

But they meant something to Jamie—his link to another world. One in which magic was real and there were rules about kindness and reciprocity and hospitality that he had no intention of breaking. The rules his momma had taught him about interacting with the world that he’d wanted to mean something—but that he’d long ago given up on in a harsh reality that seemed to be ruled by men like Bill Eckel, for whom fists and cold, hard cash meant far more than generosity or wonder.

Tonight, he’d looked out the window to see if he could see Bran, but his fairy-raven shadow was either well-hidden or waswaiting for Jamie to go to bed. Every few days, Jamie usually caught a glimpse of Bran, but it had been three now, and it was making him stressed—even though Bran had eaten last night’s crackers. Jamie picked up the little basket that held the collection of treasures, as he thought of them, and carried the basket back to his chair. His fingers had been what his momma used to callitchy—he wanted to make something.

He’d been neglecting his online shop a little, and he had a handful of commissions to do, but he kept coming back to the little basket with its odd collection of bits and beads. So he was going to start there.

Several of the pieces—the dangly earring, part of a keychain—were brass or other mixed metals, and the combined textures of shine and tarnish appealed to his aesthetic sense. He settled in the chair with some heated-up leftovers and put onFather Brown, then began going through the hemp flosses he used for making bracelets and keychains. He pulled out a few of the deeper tones to contrast with the metals, settling on a vivid dark blue.

A funny thing always happened when Jamie worked on his macramé. His momma had talked about her knitting and crocheting in the same way. His hands almost seemed to move on their own—tying and pulling and knotting with very little conscious thought directed at them. Sometimes, Jamie even wondered if he needed to look at what he was doing, although when he added beadwork or made particularly complicated patterns, he was definitely watching his hands with something that bordered on awe as his fingers made the threads and beads dance into a new pattern.

It soothed him, channeled the energy from his worry into something productive—although why he hadn’t been able to do it before, when Bran was missing, he didn’t know. His momma had been the same way—when she was extra worried, like whenJamie or one of his half-siblings had been in the ER for one injury or another, she wouldn’t be able to knit or crochet. But when she was waiting for something else—a roast to finish cooking or bread to rise or laundry to finish—or watching TV, then her hands would dance with the needles or hooks.

Jamie guessed he must be the same. He couldn’t do macramé when he was stressed—like it would somehow sour the string if he were too anxious or upset.

There was an edge of nervousness as he began tying the first knots with the vivid blue floss, a hint of worry about whether or not Bran was safe, about whether or not the people who’d attacked him—people who might not have been human—would come back, about his research, and always, in some distant part of his mind that he didn’t go to very often, worry about Billy and Nora and Ginny and Tommy.

Jamie knotted and tied and looped through his care—for Bran, for his half-siblings, for the people he cared about, like Rob and Trixie. Mostly, though, Bran was foremost in his mind—as these were baubles Bran had left for him.

His fingers paused when he came to the bottom of the basket and a small, tarnished brass star bead winked at him from its spot nestled amid the woven reeds of the basket.

It was a tiny bead he’d had for years and years—it was a bead that had been dropped by…

Oh.

A raven.

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