Effie felt her cheeks flush. “Thank you,” she said, swallowing. Her gaze swung to the outcrop. Her body tensed. She expected another searing bolt to streak forth from Tallia’s device. But the place she’d last spied Tallia stood empty. The woman’s aura had receded into the darkness of the outcrop.
And in a blink, it disappeared once more.
Effie grunted. Anger fueled the feral part of her. She let it push back the fear and pain. Rising, she strode forward. Jaelyn marched with her, dirk at the ready. Vaguely, Effie registered that a quiet had fallen over the ravine below, and that Caledon and the lieutenant were among the auras milling about there. The knowledge bolstered her confidence, but she did not pause to consider them further.
Caledon had already made his position on her involvement clear, and she had no desire to hear it again. He could act as he saw fit. She needed neither his approval nor direction.
As she and Jaelyn approached the outcrop, a giant cleft revealed itself within the exposed stone. Effie guessed it had come from a slide in ages past, from the way the grass and bracken grew around and through the stone. The outcrop itself jutted from the brae like a giant wart. Its height loomed above her head.
She pressed against the edge of the cleft, peering within. But she could make out little beyond the few paces before her. Night had fully fallen, and only the light of the stars and moon illuminated her surroundings.
Frigid to the touch, the moss-covered stone gave off an earthen and damp scent. Effie breathed it in and considered. The dim light was devoid of the brilliant glow of stardust, but that did not necessarily mean the device’s owner had fled. She had already fallen into more than one trap from Tallia, and she would not let her fury goad her blindly into another.
What she needed was a torch. She smiled. That, or a pair of eyes built for the dark.
Effie closed her eyes and used Fey Craft. Within the span of a dozen breaths, Gwendoline glided to her shoulder on silent wings. Remain alert, she sent the owl, using her fey senses. Make sound only if you see danger. We hunt.
She let her hand trail on the stone as she padded forward. She took each step slowly, testing with her foot before shifting her weight. A rustle came from within the cleft, and her heart froze. But she could not spy the sound’s source. Her own breathing filled her ears, despite her efforts to remain quiet.
Jaelyn tapped her leg, urging her to keep moving. Gwendoline watched intently, perched on her shoulder as rigidly as a statue. Another step brought Effie onto a downward slope. The stone beneath her feet had worn smooth from years of constant battering by wind and rain. She risked looking down to help steady her balance. As she did the rustle came again.
Gwendoline screeched and took wing. Tiny prickles ran along Effie’s flesh. Her gaze darted up, and she sucked in a sharp breath as a figure emerged before her, one that looked nothing like Tallia. One that appeared as a ghost, all the same.
The lass was perhaps fourteen. She trembled with a chill and rubbed at her arms. Her smock dress was torn. A week’s worth of dirt covered her face and arms. Ginger hair sprouted in a nest atop her head. It hadn’t been combed in some time. Taking in Effie and Jaelyn, her eyes went wide. She opened her mouth to speak, but fell into a shuddering sob that brought her to her knees.
Effie rushed to the lass. She took the girl’s shoulders and hugged her tight for warmth. An odor she couldn’t quiet place met her nose, but she shoved the worry of it aside. Jaelyn charged deeper into the cleft, disappearing except for the scrape of her footfalls.
“What’s your name, lass?” asked Effie, though she already suspected the answer.
The girl gathered herself and wiped her cheeks. “Clara,” she said. “It’s Clara Bowman.” She brushed aside a couple stray ginger locks. As her fingers pulled away, strands of the hair came with them. They floated slowly down to land in a clump near her feet.
5
Effie’s eyes pulled wide as she watched the ginger tresses fall. Instinctively, she reached out to feel the girl’s aura, but the Fey Craft that hid it remained in place. Still, the balding could mean only one thing. The answer to the riddle of creatures long thought extinct suddenly appearing had revealed itself.
Tallia and the poor lass were mutating into grindylows.
“The creature fled,” said Jaelyn, returning from the depths of the cleft. “Her lanky legs carried her out some hole faster than my own could take me.” The brownie grunted and folded her arms across her chest. The admission touched on her pride.
Clara shuddered anew. Her head swung to where the brownie had emerged. Her hands returned to her face as her arms hugged tight to her body.
“We will find her,” said Effie. Despite her shock, her fury toward Tallia had not fully abated. “Twice she has tried to kill me, and twice she has fled in defeat. I do not intend a third such assault to go unanswered.”
“What of this one?” Jaelyn nodded toward Clara. “I do not need to spy her aura to ken what she is.”
“A grindylow.” Effie closed her eyes as she spoke the word. She thought again of the girl’s tresses, what the balding signified. The first they’d encountered had seemed a creature from tales of old, but Tallia’s aura had been known to Effie. And it had changed. It had rotted, as surely as the woman’s appearance.
“Or at least becoming one,” Effie continued, “through the same alchemy we have seen before. Tallia becomes the same, though I have no doubt the choice to do so was hers.”
“Aye,” Jaelyn answered. Her hand fell to the grip of her dirk. “Can the same be said of this one?”
“No!” Effie shouted. She read the brownie’s intentions. Jerking forward, she planted herself in front of Clara. “The lass presents no danger. She has done no harm. Just because the aura befouls does not mean the creature is evil. Think of the poor goblins. They had no choice to become what they are, and even changed, their manner is more playful than wicked.”
Jaelyn grunted. “Do not scold me, Grundbairn. The grindylow we slew held no mark of compulsion. Nor did Tallia. Whatever their auras once were, they hold none of it any longer.” Her stare hardened. “And do not doubt for a moment them wee goblins would cast ye down and eat ye if you gave them the chance. Changed is changed, and they are no longer one of us. They are no longer of the Seily Court.”
Effie stiffened, but the argument that found her tongue unraveled before she uttered a word. Still, she refused to remove herself from the brownie’s path. They had not traipsed through frozen bracken and icy moor only to abandon the lass to a cruel fate. Nor would she stand to see any harm come to the lass when the girl had done nothing against them.
Not yet, anyway. The thought snaked into her head. It disgusted her, but she had to swallow it down.
“Miss Effie, your arm.” Edgar broke the silence that had fallen. He strode toward Effie but stopped short of her, remembering his decorum. He held a torch in one hand that brought a flickering warmth to the cleft. A look of worry painted his face. Gareth trailed at his heels, tail tucked but wagging.
Effie had blocked out the sharp ache the stardust burn had left. It returned to her as she inspected her sleeve. The cloth had singed and blackened, yet thankfully it had not seared into her flesh.
“It must be bandaged.” Edgar started to shrug from his coat. Gareth whined his agreement.