Chapter 5
“Crap!” I tripped
over a root, I tried to back away so fast. Primal and feral, the
Wilding ones were always dangerous, always
unpredictable.
But she didn’t
attack, although she looked prepared to. She eyed the three of us,
one of her withered hands scratching her chin. Her limbs were long
and bone-thin, and she was gaunt, with one tooth showing that
curled out of her mouth and over her bottom lip. Her hair was
straggled white and looked like cotton batting, and she was dressed
in gray rags, with her equally thin legs bowed out, bending at the
knees on large pointed feet.
“What have we here?”
Her voice whistled like dry husks. “I smell Cambyra Fae on the both
of you.” She pointed to Chatter and me. I glanced curiously at
Chatter—I knew he was Fae but hadn’t realized he was also Cambyra,
and now I wondered what he shifted into.
“But you, pretty girl
. . . what are you? I smell . . .” The snow hag lifted her nose and
sniffed at Peyton, a loud and snuffly sound. “Big cat. Shifter, but
a Were. Am I right?” Her keen gaze cut through the snow,
piercing.
Peyton glanced at me,
looking for a clue. I wasn’t sure, so I held my place and watched
Chatter, who moved to block the way between her and
us.
“Snow hag, what are
you doing here?” He stood taller and seemed more commanding than
I’d ever seen him.
“You would love to
know. But surely you must guess who summoned me. I am in the same
clutches you are. But she feeds me meat for my services, at least.
Bound I am, unless another frees me, a welcome thought.” Her eyes
were glinting and I didn’t trust her, but Chatter
nodded.
He turned to me and
whispered on the slipstream. She’s giving us a
hint. She wants out from under Myst’s control.
What can we offer her? How do you deal with snow hags?
I’ve heard of them but never had any associations with them,
obviously, since I lived in big cities most of my
life.
When I’d lived in
L.A. and San Francisco, the Fae were common but they were
hot-weather Fae who had been urbanized by encroaching society.
Vamps also preferred the bigger cities, while the magic-born tended
to prefer smaller towns where there was more access to the wilds.
But the Wilding Fae—they weren’t suited to life among
others.
He nodded.
Then let me take the reins, Miss
Cicely.
Be my guest.
The snow hag must
have known we were talking about her, but she waited patiently, not
moving to attack, simply staring at us with expectant, bulbous
eyes.
Chatter cleared his
throat. “Someone binds you. Someone else would bind you stronger if
you have the will.”
“I might, I might at
that.” She snickered and I wanted to back away from that curiously
large head, but I forced myself to stay put.
“Riddle me this . . .
what binds a snow hag, but can be broken? Not a solemn oath. Not a
blood promise.”
“No, no . . . agreed.
They are too strong to be broken.” Her eyes lit up and she glanced
at me.
I looked at Chatter
and again sent a message along the slipstream. What are you doing?
Remember your history? Oh, that’s right—you did not learn
while in the city. She cannot tell us outright. She is one of the
Wilding Fae. We must guess until we find what holds her, and then
figure out how to break it.
Ah, now I understood.
If we wanted her help, we had to break the chains Myst had bound
around her without any direct instruction from her. I nodded at him
and he turned back to the creature.
“What bonds are soft
enough to be broken? My guess would be a bond unwillingly placed?”
He cocked his head.
“You might guess
correctly on that one.”
“Then a spell,
perhaps . . .” He paused and—at the wary look in her eye—added, “or
perhaps . . . not a spell outright but a trick. Let me think . . . Myst is a huntress.
Hunters use snares. A magical snare!”
The snow hag cackled.
“You might guess correctly again!”
Chatter turned to
Peyton and me. “Myst used a magical snare to gain control of the
snow hag. Magical snares can be disarmed if we figure out their
trigger. They’re very much like a regular snare, but if you trip
the trigger, you become magically bound rather than
physically.”
I screwed up my
courage and decided to give Chatter’s guessing game a chance. I
turned to the snow hag. “I’m guessing someone near might be newly
trapped. That it hasn’t been long since they were
ensnared.”
She laughed, then.
“You would guess correctly, my pretty.”
“My guess it wasn’t
far from here.”
“Again, a good and
reasonable guess.”
“How did you know
that?” Chatter asked.
“Myst is able to
enchant and bewitch, but the snow hag is obviously not enchanted by
her enforced host. So most likely, the snare was set out here, away
from the barrow. We should look around this area. Snared or not,
the snow hag is dangerous, and Myst wouldn’t want her too close,
but she thought her powers too good to waste.”
We began to look
around the area, the snow hag propping herself against a boulder
covered with a layer of ice. She looked content, staring off into
the distance, as we peeked under shrubs and behind trees. After a
few minutes, Chatter held up a broken wire.
“Found it. Now to
trace it back to—here we go.” He pulled out the magically inscribed
peg that had held it in the ground, shaking the snow off it. “I’m
not sure if I’m familiar with all these symbols, but a few I
recognize.”
Handing it to me, he
glanced around and, once again, whispered into the slipstream.
We cannot tarry, but if we can gain her help,
then we may have an ally for a long time to
come.
I understand. I took the wire and examined it. Some
of the symbols stood out clearly to me. Because of the way the
magic of the snare spell worked, the wires and pegs usually
contained the word to free the ensnared, but it would be invisible
to them. I picked through the symbols, reading them as carefully as
I could. But something stood out—something in the pattern of the
words. And then I realized that I recognized not only the pattern
of speech in the spell, but the actual etching itself.
Aunt Heather. Heather had set the snare spell for
Myst. I jerked my head up to stare bleakly at Chatter and
Peyton.
“My aunt. She’s the .
. .” I stopped at Chatter’s quick shake of the head. He was
right—if the snow hag found out who had captured her, she’d go
after her. In this case, though, that might not be a bad thing.
Heather could never return to her former state. She belonged to
Myst. But the snow hag might also seek revenge on Rhiannon—or
me—and that, we couldn’t chance.
I tucked the snare
away. Heather had touched it and so it might be useful in casting a
spell on her. “I know the chant to release you,” I said to the snow
hag. “But riddle me this: Why should I let someone free from a
magical snare?”
You never just asked
a Wilding one for a favor—that would forever put you at their
mercy. But if you played your cards right, you could bargain your
way into a deal.
The snow hag frowned,
tilting her head. “Someone might have information to share—might
play double duty and keep an eye on the enemy. For there are
secrets to this forest that even the Mistress of Mayhem does not
understand, and there are creatures who do not hearken well to her
form of rule.”
She was offering to
play double agent, to give us information and quite possibly show
us something that could hurt Myst.
With a glance at
Chatter, I said, “We would have to have a binding oath that Myst
will never find out, should someone choose to do this. Blood will
be spilled.”
“Blood, blood, blood,
the juice of life, the drink of the damned. Spill a little blood,
spill a little secret. No harm, no foul.” Her voice singsonged over
the words, traipsing like an arpeggio, a light trill on the
wind.
I pulled out my
switchblade. That was as close to a yes
as we were going to get. “Then I would say, a drop of blood for the
release word would be a good bargain. A binding oath to keep secret
our presence and to tell us truths about this woodland that Myst
does not know.”
The snow hag nodded.
“That would be a fair trade, and a fool would not accept the deal,
but one wise in the ways of the world would jump at the chance.”
She held out her hand and I cut her palm, then my own, and we
clasped hands. The feel of her blood on my palm was slippery, and
tingled, and I wondered if she had any disease, but it was too late
to worry about that now.
As soon as I pulled
away my hand, I said, “To free oneself from a magical snare, it
might be prudent to whisper the words, Arcanum, Arcanum, archanumist. Vilathia, reshon,
reshadar.”
The snow hag cracked
a wily grin and repeated the charm, and a subtle breeze swept
through. I could hear the sound of magical chains breaking in the
slipstream. The Wilding Fae tipped her head to and fro, then tapped
her nose with one long, jointed finger.
“A bargain offered, a
bargain kept. Never shirk a debt, never break a promise. Spill a
little blood, now a little secret. Myst would not like this, should
she know. Myst is a spider in her sleep, weaving her plans and
shenanigans. But not all spiders are all-clever. Myst does not know
about a subterranean pathway that lurks near here. None of her
people use it. One could climb in, traipse through the Golden Wood
without being sensed, if one wanted to hide.”
Chatter snapped his
fingers. “Of course—I had forgotten about it! There’s a tunnel that
runs from barrow to barrow. It’s been there longer than I have been
alive, and I have no idea what it was used for, but the Queen of
Rivers and Rushes closed it up long ago and told us never to play
down there. I think . . .” He looked around, then turned to the
snow hag. “Riddle me this . . . if there is such a pathway, it
would have to have an entrance.”
She burped, loudly,
and wiped her nose. “A guess that such an entrance would be hidden
beneath the boughs of a holly bush would not entirely be
incorrect.”
“Aha!” Chatter
bounded over to a clump of trees where a holly bush poked through
as the snow hag cleared her throat and spit out a plug of
phlegm.
She sniffed the air.
“Travelers wouldn’t do well to tarry long on this day, that’s a
piece of truth for the taking. And Wilding Fae best be off to home
and hearth again before the loosened snare is discovered.” With
that, she whirled in a flash of snow and wind and vanished from
sight.
“Hurry, come on!”
Chatter motioned us over to the holly bush, where he lifted the
branches, wincing as they dug into his hand. I couldn’t see
anything but dirt protected from the snow by the branches, but
Chatter whispered something and there, secreted back next to the
trunk of the tree, a faint green light appeared in a square
pattern. He quickly slapped the ground three times and the
light—and dirt—vanished.
“Down, both of you.
It should be safe and it will get us close to the Court of Dreams
portal without being noticed.” He motioned to me. “You first, Miss
Cicely. I have to go last to close it up again.”
I hesitantly slipped
over the side. “Is there a ladder—” I started to ask but then
stopped as my feet felt rungs. They were silver. As soon as I
touched them, the metal resonated through my body.
I’d always liked
silver, but since I’d first turned into an owl, the metal had
started to affect me more and more—gold, too, to some extent, but
especially silver. Silver was strong with Fae magic, and gold, too,
though not as strongly. When the Fae came in contact with silver it
was like meeting a friend who made you shiver with their touch. I
hoped I wouldn’t develop the bad reaction to iron that most Fae
had.
Clinging to the
rungs, I slowly let myself down, but I was not climbing through
dirt. No, I was moving through some sort of portal, through a
dimensional space. All around me was a misty green, swirling like
silk, smelling of raspberries and lemonade and warm drowsy
afternoons, and it made me want to breathe deep and never let the
scent out of my lungs.
I reached the bottom
finally, after what seemed like a very long climb, and jumped off
the ladder. Peyton was right behind me, and lastly, Chatter. He
glanced around. It was so dark I wasn’t sure what he could see, but
after a moment, he held out his hand and a miniature flame sprang
up in his palm, only it was the color of sunlight shining through
tree leaves, and it flickered merrily as he held his hand out in
front of him.
The light illuminated
the passage, but another flicker caught my eye. I took a moment to
examine the walls. I had thought them to be dirt and compacted
soil, but they were actually stonework—a wall built to shore up a
tunnel that was thousands of years old, and yet the air in here was
as fresh as the air outside. The walls sparkled: Between the stones
and mortar were shards of colored glass. As I looked at them
closely, lights flickered from within the pebbles.
“What are these?” I
pointed to one particular stone that was shimmering with a fiery
color.
“Magic holds up these
walls, the magic of summer. The sparkle you see is encapsulated
sunlight, woven into the core of the gem.” He glanced over at me,
his eyes shining in the reflection of the light, and I began to
realize just how much the Court of Rivers and Rushes had lost when
Myst came sweeping through.
A thought occurred to
me, but I didn’t want to say anything. Not yet. But what if Lainule
had hidden her heartstone down in these tunnels? What if that was
why she had sealed them over? Could we possibly find it and return
it to her?
My promise to her
rang sharply, though, and as much as I wanted to take a look around
and see what we could find, I couldn’t bring myself to do so.
Bound by oath . . . she had extracted a
promise from me, and I was powerless to break my word. Right now. But later . . . when the risk wasn’t so
great . . .
Gathering my
thoughts, I turned to Chatter. “It’s close to two P.M. by my guess.
We need to get moving.”
“Right, but you’re
going to find that time no longer matters. At least for
now.”
I wanted to ask what
he meant, but he turned away and led us through the winding tunnel.
Though it was empty and clear—and actually fairly warm and dry—I
felt we were being watched, and it left me uneasy. But I had no
sense that Myst or her minions were aware of us. No, it was more
like walking through a memory book, where the scent and sounds of
old parties and dances that had long ago faded from time played out
just on the threshold of hearing.
Even Peyton noticed.
“What’s that?” She stopped.
“What?”
She turned this way
and that, then relaxed. “Nothing, I guess. I thought I heard
something, but . . . there’s nothing here.”
The sudden shifts and
currents continued, and as time went on, it felt like we were
wandering through a dream. My feet on autopilot, I drifted in and
out of the slipstream, trying to catch the voices slipping past in
a rush of whispers. There was a peal of laughter, soft words on a
dusky summer’s night, a shout of recognition. After a while, I
stopped trying to understand and simply let them wash over me and
vanish.
After a long time,
Chatter held up his hand and pointed toward a fork in the passage.
“To the left, then another few moments, and we reach the ladder to
climb out.”
I bit my lip,
wondering what might be waiting outside for us. “How long have we
been walking?”
“This passage is
inside the barrow structure. Time shifts while we’re here . . . it
bends. There’s no telling how long we’ve been in here, compared to
the outer world.”
I’d experienced the
time shift before, when I entered Lainule’s realm over at Dovetail
Lake. I’d also noticed a shift when I turned into my owl self.
Either time flew by without my realizing it, or I’d seem to be out
for hours and when I returned, only moments had
passed.
I could never seem to
control the time shifts, and I didn’t understand them yet, but they
were definitely part of my awakening Fae nature. It was as if a
part of myself had been locked away, waiting for Prince Charming’s
kiss—only the kiss had been a pendant and instead of waking from a
magical sleep, I woke to a magical form. Until then, like all of
the magic-born, I’d followed the time threads of the yummanii and
the Weres, although magic-born—like the Weres—lived
longer.
We climbed the
ladder, Chatter going first, and again, the silver compound
resonated through my fingertips, into my body. At the top, he did
something I couldn’t see, and then we crawled out through the
opening, onto the snowy surface. The first thing that struck me was
that it was almost dark.
“Crap, the Shadow
Hunters will be up and about soon. How far did we come? How far in
are we? We can’t have been walking that
long.”
Chatter flashed me a
ghost of a smile. “We covered well over twenty miles, but I have no
idea how long we were walking.”
“We’re deep into the
woodland, then.” Shivering, I glanced around. It had been nice and
warm belowground, but now the icy teeth of winter bit deep and I
shivered, realizing I’d felt safe down in the tunnel. Now I felt
terribly exposed again, and terribly vulnerable. “How far to the
Court of Dreams?”
“We’re near the
portal.” Chatter pointed toward a rocky foothill that rose through
the tree line. “We have to go halfway up, and then a path to the
right leads to the cave where the portal is. The climb is rough at
first, over the rocks, but that part doesn’t last for more than
about fifteen minutes and then it’s fairly easy going, though all
uphill.”
We scrambled over the
heap of granite boulders that had piled upward. Another alluvial
deposit, like back at the creek where we’d escaped Myst and her
hunters? No, not a wide enough swath, but I definitely recognized
glacial activity here. The Washington mountains were full of
rockfall and sweeping alluvial fans left from when the last ice age
retreated from the area.
During the summer,
the conies—or pikas, as some folk called them—lived on the rocky
slopes. The creatures were within the lagomorph family, like
rabbits, but they looked like a cross between mice and hamsters.
Pikas didn’t hibernate during winter but would be hiding beneath
the boulders with their haypiles—the grass and food they’d managed
to tuck away for the winter.
I scanned the area,
looking for any sign one might be out and about, with no luck. I
wasn’t sure why I hoped to see one—it would just set off my owl
instinct to hunt, but for some reason the thought of the resilient
little creatures braving the winter seemed inspiring. And right
now, we could use all the hope and inspiration we could
get.
We managed to get
past the rock slide and finally found ourselves on a snowy slope,
leading up through the trees. My legs were burning from the
exercise—I’d thought I’d gotten plenty on the streets, running from
gang members, irate landlords, and thugs, but the past couple of
weeks had put my body to the test and I’d discovered muscles I’d
never even known existed. The lactic acid was building in my
calves, and I longed to sit and rest.
I glanced over at
Peyton. She looked to be sweating as much as I was. “I’m about done
in. How about you?”
She nodded, her hands
thrust deep in her pockets. “We should have brought walking sticks.
Chatter’s fully Fae; he can walk on top of the snow, but we have to
slog through it.”
And slog we did. The
higher we went, the deeper the snow became, and at this point it
reached my knees. Each step was like wading through thick
mud.
“Chatter, how much
farther?”
He glanced over his
shoulder, then stopped. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you two were
tired. Not much farther. See that clump of fir ahead? The ones next
to the snowed-over ferns?” He pointed to a stand of trees about two
city blocks away, up the mountain. “The path to the cave takes off
there, and we will be on a trail that runs parallel to the
mountain. The going won’t be so difficult then, and from there,
it’s probably another twenty minutes to the cave.”
I motioned to the
sky. “It’s almost dark. Are we in danger from Myst, do you
think?”
He bit his lip,
thinking, then shook his head. “I don’t think her attention is
directed toward the mountains. She seems to be focused on the city
and the area down below. Remember, we’re a good twenty-some miles
from your house. I doubt if she sends her spies out this far. And
while they might pick up our scent back near the beginning of the
underground passage, I used a magical charm to ward the entryway
from sight. I might not be a powerful mage, but I’m very good with
hiding and camouflage.”
Nodding, I motioned
for him to lead on. Since we’d gotten him away from the Indigo
Court, Chatter had really blossomed out into his own. In some ways,
being Grieve’s sidekick had kept him cowed. Now he took charge
naturally and did not hang back waiting for orders.
“I tell you this,” I
said to Peyton as we headed toward the stand of fir. “Once we get
home, we’re hitting the gym a lot harder. If there are any more
twenty-mile hikes in our future, I want to be in shape for
it.”
She laughed, and we
continued to trudge through the ever-falling snow.
A half hour later, we
stood in front of the cave. It was squat and wide, and we’d have to
crouch down to enter.
“Does the portal
start when we enter? I mean, is the cave mouth itself the actual
portal?” I stared at the black maw, not certain how I felt about
stepping into a dark, dank hole in the mountain. Especially one
that might contain, oh, say . . . a bear. Or a cougar.
“No, the actual
portal lies within the cave. But don’t fret,” Chatter said, seeming
to perceive my worry. “Animals steer clear of here—they can sense
the energy and it scares away most of them. Oh, we might find a rat
or mouse or some such creature, but I wouldn’t worry about large
predators.”
“Spiders?” Peyton
asked. “I’m not afraid of them but I don’t like them.”
“This time of year?
Unlikely.” He brushed away a snowflake that drifted down to light
on his nose and stooped to enter the cave. “Come on, let’s
move.”
The sky had turned
deep indigo now, the indigo of twilight, and with the silvery
clouds that covered the area, it illuminated the entire valley
below with a bluish glow. I gazed at the wonderland. Myst had
brought winter with her. Though she might be terrifying and
ruthless, she was also beautiful and breathtaking, and so was her
season. The air was chill and I listened to the slipstream,
lowering myself into it to see what I could pick up, but the only
sounds were those of burrowing animals.
As Peyton bent to
crawl into the cave, I happened to catch a glimpse farther down the
mountainside. Gleaming in the odd light, three Ice Elementals
strode through a secluded clearing, their bodies faceted and
angular. They were not hunting—I could tell from their stance—nor
did they appear to take any notice of our movement. If they were
aware of us at all, they gave no sign. They swept through the
clearing with strong footsteps, focused on their journey, and
against the evening sky they shimmered like diamonds. Another
moment, and they were hidden beneath the tree cover
again.
As I scrambled to
join Peyton and Chatter, all I could think about was the incredible
beauty that such a harsh and unyielding season
contained.