Page 70 of Lord of the Hollow Court
“You can’t stop now.”
“I have to.”
“No, Lady Braam,” Muis said, slowing slightly. There was a broodiness in his physiognomy she had not noticed before. A trill of panic resounded in Katty’s mind.But he was so kind, that night in the garden. I might not be here without him.
But that shadowed look remained, transforming his entire demeanor.
Katty was too exhausted to put on airs and attempt to command him, and was just as unsure it would help—fae were trouble enough without being sorcerers, too. With that dark cast to his eyes and brow, Katty grew queasy. She didnotwant to fall out of his favor.
She slowed anyway, unable to continue with the leaden tiara. When she glanced down at it, it had changed its shape to a medieval circlet, still visually light and feminine, even as she felt liable to drop it on her own toes in the next moment. It gleamed in the dark, brighter, even, than the vivid green of Rineke’s wings. Katty drew in a breath that resisted capture, practically forcing the air into her lungs. She was too tired to go on. The way her legs were cramping—
No.
The feeling was all too familiar. As her legs began to spasm, they moved of their own accord, taking step after step, forcing her exhausted body to follow the fae sorcerer over the root and brush-clogged path. “Stop,” Katty whispered, sweat blossoming above her lip. “Stop!”
Muis glanced over his shoulder at her. “I told you, Lady Braam, you cannot. You made a bargain to help me in my pursuit.”
Struggling for air, Katty could not breathe out a word in rebuttal. He controlled her like a puppet. How could he do this to her?Whywould he do this? He was soniceto her before.
Only then did it dawn on her fully. The Headless Horseman that led her to the Hollow Court so that she triggered the Wild Hunt, the man who helped her in the garden before changing into a stallion when the clouds receded from the moon—both of these entities were Janus Muis. He was trickster and helper, destroyer and savior. And she’d made a magical bargain with him she barely understood.
“It’s only fair,” Muis said, a hint of sorrow in his voice. “I have already aided you on your journey. Your Misman is recovering even now, your people freed from the Fae Wasting’s blight upon them.”
If it were not so hard to breathe, Katty would ask him where they were going. She was sure she should not be here—and doubly sure she should not be here withhim. The undergrowth scratched and bit into her legs as she passed, stealing what little breath she had. She saw darkness trickle down her ankle as her feet moved of their own accord.
At last Muis stopped, the power of the bargain all that held Katty upright. “Here will do,” he said. He turned to Katty, holding out his palm. “Give it to me.”
“No,” Katty whispered, even as her traitorous arm proffered the circlet to him. He plucked it from her hand as though it weighed nothing.
Turning the changeling tiara in his hands, Muis said, “This object is the origin of so many myths its truth was nearly lost. It was made in the days of the ancient fae—long before the Old World fae discovered the New. Its purpose was never to imbue the new lands with the magic of the old, but to preserve the most ancient magic of the Elder Courts—that of the gods. I’ve searched for it for so long.” He sniffed, brushing his hand down his own cheek. “I infected myself withthisjust to get close to it.”
Katty stood across from him, wilted as a dead butterfly pinned in a case. The moment their bargain was through, she knew she’d collapse.
“This was never meant to be here,” Muis said, flipping it. It slowly distended, losing its circlet shape. “The Lindendam Court’s Lord and Lady of the time never knew what they had. And neither did the rulers here.” He winced, the former tiara glowing as it flattened. “This object, used this way, must give or take until it is told not to. Its magic once poured into the land, strengthening it, some would say, while others would tell of how it smoothed the path for the Elder World fae to bring it under their dominion and end the resistance of the Golden Fae and their offspring. But once none remained who knew how to wield it, it took the magic instead of giving it. Do you understand, Lady Braam? Using it was like opening a window in a disused room. At first it cleared the air, but once the storm came, it ruined everything within. Only a sorcerer could close that window once opened.”
Katty had no idea what he meant. She barely had the energy to think, let alone parse his words on magic. Her eyes widened when they landed on the altered tiara, now a silver-white book in Muis’s hands. With a flourish to push back his sleeve, the fae sorcerer cracked open the book.
Closing his eyes, he murmured words over it, his face contorted by strain. His eyes fluttered open, revealing their unfocused darkness. Katty gasped. For just a moment, they flashed the silver of the book.
The pages brightened then, illuminating the dark wood and revealing a jungle full of glittering eyes and hanging vines. Again, Katty could do nothing but watch, unable to recoil from a leggy spider that slid down a silk thread before her face.
Slowly, then all at once, the glow faded.
“It is finished.” Muis bowed to her slightly. “I thank you for your aid.”
Katty collapsed to the jungle floor, landing in a bed of hairy vines and leaves. The last she saw of Janus Muis, he tucked an ordinary gray book beneath his arm, cracked a smile and vanished in a whorl of light, leaving Katty alone in a dark place where she knew, deep in her bones, she did not and would never belong.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Awake...
Cane in hand, Braam slid from his horse before the colonnade of Hollow Hall, not bothering to tether the stolen beast. Leaning on the raven’s head with a grunt, he offered the horse a perfunctory clap on the shoulder, calling for a groom to take it as he pushed on. He did not wait to see if anyone responded: reaching Katty was his sole objective. But as he entered his Hall in a stumble, legs still unable to straighten and hip burning like his wedding band, he was sure no one had heard his order. It was eerily quiet in his foyer. A feeling of emptiness washed over him.
Where were his people? Where were his footmen to greet him at the door?
Desperate, Braam closed his eyes and reached out, feeling for the waning power of his court—and found it changed. A vibration ran through it, as though it shook off a long sleep. It undulated beneath his touch, slippery and strange.
He seized the eel-like wave of the Hollow Court’s magic, and demanded of it,Where is my wife?
