4
Effie jerked in shock. She recognized the Fey Craft the steward’s companion used. She could fight it and perhaps overcome it. She could reclaim the power of the fey blood to work her glamour. But the effort was not what the steward desired. Caledon trailed after his companion, marching into battle as if in a stately procession. He made no gesture toward her, nothing to signal she should do anything other than what she had been told.
He understood a simple truth as clearly as she—that despite the friends she had made and allies she had won, the fey of the Seily Court did not trust her. Not fully. In their eyes, she was still the daughter of an outcast and the granddaughter of a betrayer to their kind. She simply was not one of them and never would be.
A tremble started at her shoulders. It threatened to take control, but she forced herself to calm. She had no time to indulge in pity. Whirling, she scampered up the brae. If the steward and his companion did not want her to aid them directly, she would find another way. She wouldn’t abandon the fight, no matter how they regarded her.
Her boots slipped as she climbed. The ground had dampened, yet she guessed all around her would freeze anew by morning. She hoped that would not include herself in the number. Already, her fingers and nose had numbed.
Rifles cracked below. Shouts followed from the soldiers. They had rallied as Caledon joined them in the fray, and it was now the cries of the fey host that carried a note of panic. She kept her gaze fixed ahead of her, though. Her friends needed her.
Above, she sensed Edgar huddled among the trees along with Gareth and Gwendoline. She could not see them, only feel their auras. Jaelyn snuck along the ridge. The brownie arced a path toward the outcrop of stone. Effie spied the movement of a dark shape there, but the aura was masked. A fey, and a tall one at that, she guessed.
Creeping closer, she tried to remain as silent as possible before she remembered the tall fey could sense her aura as surely as Gareth had a tail. Her arms prickled. She suddenly felt very exposed and very foolish. Stooping, she groped about for a rock, as if the weight of it might bring her some comfort.
“Come closer, Oak Seer.” The harsh rasp held a mocking tone, but underneath it ran an edge of seething hatred. A blue glow lit up the features of the dark form, revealing a familiar and horrid face. The shield hiding the auras of the fey host disappeared.
Effie gasped. The fey woman’s hair had thinned since the last time she’d seen her. Loose strands hung like an oily mop over a face of burnt and shriveled flesh. The angry scars and oozing wounds were Effie’s doing. She had thrown a concoction of smoldering chemicals at Tallia as they fought in the warren of Les Revinirs beneath the streets of Edinburgh.
The ruined skin hung on gaunt cheeks. Effie recognized its grey hue and the hunched way Tallia stood, with her long arms dangling and brow lowered. In the warren, the fey woman had betrayed Cecily McCray and caused a violent rift in their cult. But now she had fully become a fiend, and she had done so in the name of the Barrow Witch.
Tallia held a slender stick in one hand. The brilliant blue glow burned from its tip. Its radiance made her fingers appear white as bone. Slowly, she made a slashing gesture. Flashes like embers flared from the tip and dripped to the ground.
Effie’s chest tightened. The familiar blue glow confirmed what she had suspected earlier but refused to believe. The bolt had been made of stardust, a fey substance that burned brighter and hotter than perhaps anything save Aerfenium. Effie had grown up witnessing the substance being used to fuel wondrous devices, and she knew of fey who inhaled its vapors in rituals of Fey Craft. But she’d never heard any tales of it being used as a weapon.
Tallia’s eyes lit with a sinister glee as she watched Effie. “Mother grants her most faithful children gifts more powerful than your pitiful mind can conceive.” She waved the stick faster, and a comet’s tail formed in its wake in a glittering display. “It is a kindness that your end will come so swiftly. You deserve so much worse.”
“What have you done?” Effie demanded. “What have you become?” She knew the term of endearment referred to the Barrow Witch, and that the fey woman’s aura had changed somehow, as if a rot had come to it. It reminded her of Cyrus Reed and the auras of the poor pixies he’d performed his alchemy upon.
“Something more. Something better.” Tallia cackled. “Something unstoppable.” She snapped her wrist. The tip flared, and a burst of blue light shot at Effie. The bolt hissed as it came. The stardust seared the air.
Effie dove aside, crashing into the turf once more. Pain flared along her arm. She bit her lips together to keep from crying out as the scent of singed cloth rose to her nose. She was bleeding, she could tell, but thought the bolt hadn’t directly struck her. Only its radiance had kissed her flesh as it zipped past.
She hurled the rock she clutched at Tallia and scrambled to her feet. As she did, Gwendoline screeched overhead and swooped low over the brae. A pistol fired from the trees and pinged off the stone of the outcrop. Effie had come to aid her friends, but it was now they who rescued her.
The warmth of gratitude washed over Effie. She blocked out the pain in her arm and rushed forward. She had no place to hide within the bracken that would protect her from the bolts of stardust. Her only hope was to close the distance with Tallia and render the weapon useless.
The warmth increased. Her footsteps lightened. Behind her, a primal howl tore through the night, and one of the fey host winked from her awareness. She could feel them all now that the shield had dropped. Their number had halved since the arrival of the steward. The onslaught of the rallied soldiers, now protected from Fey Craft, had turned the tide. What remained of the host began to tuck tail and flee.
Effie realized the warmth was not natural. Like the warmth of a hearth, it took the chill nip of night away and gave promise of something hearty and satiating. The impression came from Caledon, who sought to calm and encourage her.
The shadowed outcrop rose from the brae before her. Tallia stood, glaring at her, eyes narrowed to slits beneath a clenched brow. She raised the stardust device, but as she did Gwendoline swooped. Wee talons raked Tallia’s head. The owl screeched, yanking free a tuft of hair. Tallia screamed and batted at Gwendoline, but the owl flitted away, too fast for the swipe.
Effie beamed in delight. She forced her arms to pump harder. Her scratched knees rubbed against the confining folds of her dress. Her boots slipped with every step, but she pounded a lumbering gait and willed her balance to steady.
The clack of seashells was all the warning she had before the tusked fey lunged from the bracken. Effie yelped. Her legs tumbled over the fey, and she flew to the ground once again. The tusked fey rose above her. Its body had the form of a fat sow. Thick arms raised the rusted hook above its head. The clacking shells fell quiet for a heartbeat as the weapon reached full height.
Effie brought her singed arm up to protect herself, though she knew it would do her little good.
But the blade didn’t fall. The fey grunted and toppled to the side in a clatter of shells. Behind it, Jaelyn crouched. The brownie reached forward and ripped her dirk from the tusked fey’s back.
“I didn’t…” Effie said. She panted. She still reeled. “I didn’t sense him.”
“Aye, you’d forgotten about him,” said Jaelyn. “’Tis good I hadn’t, Grundbairn.” The brownie wiped her blade on the damp heather. “Not all the host was revealed to us. A simple trick for those relying too much on their fey senses and not paying enough attention to that right afore their nose.”