Kyrian drew Thiago aside the second we returned, and the pair of them are holed up in Kyrian’s study. The Prince of Tides was furious to discover the defenses of his city had been breached, but apparently, my insight isn’t needed.
Rather than spend hours cursing him in my room, I head for the Prince of Tides’ library.
If the men are going to whisper secrets together, then I’m going to see if the prince is telling the truth.
Slipping through the double doors that leads to the library, I’m so focused on the mission that, when I finally light the lantern I brought, the library nearly stuns me.
It’s a circular room, and books line the shelves. We’re on the second floor, and as I head to the rail and glance over it, I realize there’s another circular row of shelves below me, and looking up through the hollow tower, more above me.
“Erlking’s cock,” I breathe.
Say what I like about Kyrian, but his library’s almost gorgeous enough to make a girl want to snuggle up to him. There have to be more books here than in every other library I’ve ever seen combined.
It’s going to take me half a century to find the books I want, unless he’s got them catalogued in a predictable manner.
I brush my fingertips over the leather spines of the books, making my way along the shelves and searching for books that might contain any mythology on the Old Ones.
The mark of the creature’s fingers still itches on my arm, the burn white against my skin. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before, and the handprint still tingles as if I’ve been marked somehow.
I need to know what it was.
And I need to know more about this leanabh an dàn, if I’m to save him or her.
Kyrian’s library is ridiculously extensive for a piratical lout. There’s a number of bestiaries, historical manuals, and explorer’s journals on the second level, but nothing quite details what I’m looking for. Down or up?
I glance over the rail again. It’s dark on the lower level, with locked glass cases displaying rare—and probably dangerous—books. If I were a betting woman, I’d say that’s where he keeps his most important books.
Slipping down the stairs, I set the lantern on one of the shelves and examine the books. Whatever that creature was that attacked us, it’s got to be Unseelie.
The problem is that the Unseelie kingdom is comprised of everything the Seelie Alliance deems impure.
All the other races that were cast into the darkness were gathered under the rule of Sorcha, the first Unseelie queen. Hordes of creatures, vicious and vile, flocked to her banners. Dozens of creatures unknown crawled out of the northern forests for a chance to go to war against the Seelie, and many others were spawned when the Horned One cracked open the earth and unleashed them from the Underworld.
It could be anything, and yet the thought of its frozen touch tickles against my memory, as if I heard something once and just need to see mention of it again to prompt my recall.
Otherwise, I’m probably going to wake in the middle of a restless night with the answer on my lips.
Hours later, when the candle flickers low, fat globules of wax weeping down its side, I finally find an answer to my riddle. There’s a grimoire in a glass cabinet with a lock that’s easy to pick open. The cover is a leather so soft I don’t want to know what’s it’s made from, and the pages whisper when I slowly open it. Touching it gives me the creeps, but that old, familiar feeling is back.
The answer is in here somewhere.
Each page details magic dark and powerful, and with every page I turn, my breath becomes a little shallower. This is dark magic. Summoning spells for the Old Ones. Blood sacrifices. A means to speak to the creatures of the Underworld.
It’s an abomination, and it should have been burned, not locked away in a library somewhere.
But there are creatures in here, some I’ve never even heard of. Creatures from the Underworld painted in grotesque detail with horns, and extra eyes, and leering tongues.
And as I turn the next page, I finally see it painted across the page.
Fetch.
The Heartless: Created by the Horned One himself, they were summoned from the bowels of the Underworld and are of neither plane, but somehow both. They can walk through shadows and are invulnerable to any mortal weapon, including star-forged steel. Their only weakness lies in direct sunlight and they can only be killed by the blood of the purest. The only other option is to find the hearts that were cut from their chest in order to bind them, and burn them. They were used as hunters by Sorcha, and once their prey is marked, they cannot lose their trail and will remain inexplicably linked until one or the other dies.
Another chill runs down my spine as I slowly close the grimoire and examine the mark that seems to be sinking even deeper into my skin.
The creatures that attacked us are fetches.
And I’ve been marked.
I steal the grimoire from Kyrian’s library and slip back to my bedchamber. There’s no sign of anyone in the hallways, not even servants, but I can’t help feeling as though something’s watching me, and after what I read, I’m practically running by the time I reach our wing.
The light beneath Thiago’s door paints a bright line across the carpets, but my room is pitch-black. I slip inside and lock the door, resting my spine against it.
“Did you enjoy your little rendezvous?”
A little shriek escapes me as Thiago clicks his fingers and lights the candles by my bed. He’s stretched out on the mattress, one hand cupping the back of his head, the muscles in his biceps flexing as he watches me.
Erlking’s hairy b—
I clap a hand to my racing heart and hastily shove the pair of books and my lantern on the nearest table. “What in the Underworld are you doing in my room?”
On my bed….
“Waiting for you to return, of course.” He rolls onto his side, fingers idly stroking the bedspread as if he wishes it were me. I ignore the soft caress and the way my skin prickles in anticipation. His gaze drops to the books I tried to secrete on the table. “Stealing some of Kyrian’s books, were we?”
Kissing him in the alleyway like that was a bad idea.
Really bad.
Because now I know what awaits me, should I let him lure me into bed.
And it’s not going to be awful at all.
Wouldn’t. It wouldn’t be awful. I want to punch myself in the thigh at the thought, because even my mind is betraying me.
“I thought I distinctly told you to stay in your room.” The sound of his voice is still a purr, but now it has a bit of edge to it.
“And I thought you wanted my help working out what Angharad is doing, but I’m fairly certain the pair of you shut the door in my face earlier.”
He sits up. “So you thought you’d ignore me. Was that supposed to be retaliation?”
“I’m not thirteen,” I reply archly. “If you and Kyrian want to keep your secrets, that’s fine. But I’m not going to sit here in the dark, waiting for you to throw me a hint. How else am I going to learn anything?”
“You do remember that we were attacked several hours ago?”
I hold up my arm, revealing the white fingerprints. “Really? I had no idea.”
He pushes to his feet, and while I was firmly aware he wasn’t wearing a shirt, the aggression in his stance highlights every flawless inch of him. It’s like the candlelight is doing its best to revere each muscle.
“If the city isn’t safe, then the palace might not be either. We don’t know what those creatures were, or what they want.”
“It almost sounds as if you think I’m stupid.” I cross to the fireplace, warming my hands. “They stepped out of the shadows, Thiago. I doubt they’re going to balk at these stone walls—” I rap my knuckles on the fireplace for emphasis. “—just because they belong to my bedchamber. I was just as safe in the library as I was here. Oh, and you might not know what they are, but I do. Thanks to my little expedition.”
He pauses.
“They’re fetches.”
“I know.”
It stops me in my tracks. “You knew.” I hold my arm up, “You didn’t think to tell me?”
“I’ve never seen them before,” he snarls. “It wasn’t until I was speaking with Kyrian that I realized Angharad’s set her pack of hunters on your trail.”
“My trail?”
A hint of strain shows around his mouth. “You didn’t notice how they went straight for you?”
I’d been too busy fending them off. I’d assumed—
“Why me?”
Thiago paces. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? Or you don’t intend to tell me? Since you’re the Prince of Secrets….”
He whirls on me. “I don’t know. The only leash they wear is Angharad’s, which means she wants to get her hands on you for some reason.”
Between my mother and the Unseelie Queen, I’m not certain which option is worse. “Do you think Angharad knows I was there? At Mistmere?”
“If she knows you were there, then she knows I was there,” he replies. “And yet it practically shoved me aside to get to you.”
It makes no sense.
I have little enough magic. I’m not my mother’s heir, nor am I likely to be named as such. I’ve never even come face-to-face with Angharad, other than that glimpse of her at the Queensmoot. The idea she even knows who I am is ridiculous.
Out of the two of us, I’d have thought her to be more interested in the prince. He’s powerful, dangerous, and was one of the dominating factors in the Seelie winning the last war and driving the Unseelie Queens back.
He picks up a golden cuff from the bed. “I want you to wear this. It will help cloak your whereabouts and protect you. You might wear the fetch’s mark, but this will muffle your precise location. It’s why I went to see Kyrian.”
I let him close the cuff around my wrist. The filigreed gold is finely woven in the shape of birds and feels warm against my skin, soothing the seeping chill from the fingermarks. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” With a sigh, he hauls a chair in front of the door and sinks into it.
“What are you doing?”
“Someone has to keep watch, Vi. They can walk through stone walls.” He turns his face to stare through the arches that lead to the balcony, moonlight cutting across those sharp features. “And I refuse to lose you.”
This time, the dream steals me away to a ruined castle.
Thirteen eyeless sorcerers kneel around a Hallow, chanting, and there’s a black skull with horns in the middle of the circle. I step through the shadows and find myself watching them emotionlessly.
Skirts rustle like dry leaves, and then Angharad appears from the nearest arch, a crow resting on her shoulder. “Well?” she demands.
The fetch bows before the queen. “I have found your sacrifice, my queen. She is marked.”
It makes my heart flutter in my chest, as if some part of me is aware of the danger. I don’t know why the fetch is in my dreams, but it feels like I’m staring out through its eyes.
It feels like this is not a dream at all.
“Fetch her for me,” Angharad says. “The Hallow is nearly resurrected. I’ll offer her heart to the Mother, and then She and I will make a deal.”
I whimper.
There’s no escape. All I can do is watch as the chanting begins to rise in tone.
“Vi,” someone whispers, and I turn into a warm embrace. “You’re safe. You’ll always be safe in my arms.”
“Please.” I’m tugging at something. Fighting my sheets. My flailing arms.
“Vi, wake up.”
There is no escape. I feel my body turn, stalking through the ring of sorcerers.
“Wake up,” says a whisper in my ear. Then there’s a soft curse. “Dream of me, Vi. Not them.”
A gentle mouth brushes against mine.
The sensation tears me in two. One moment, I’m ducking down a long corridor, and the next my eyelashes are stirring, a large, muscular form kneeling over me. I can taste his breath on my lips and feel the stroke of his tongue.
My fingers clutch at his shoulders as I wake with a jerk.
“Thiago.”
He wraps me in his arms, drawing me against his chest. “Shh, Vi. Shh. You’re safe.”
“I was inside the fetch,” I gasp. “And Angharad was speaking to me—to it, rather.”
He runs a smooth hand down my spine. “They can’t hurt you, Vi.”
“Yes, they can,” I snap. “They were speaking of using me as a sacrifice to resurrect the Mother of Night.” My heart still pounds. “D-do you think it was real? Do you think I was somehow seeing through its eyes?”
“It’s possible. Fetches create a bond with their mark. It’s how they track them. Perhaps it uses that bond to see where you are and what you’re doing. Perhaps you managed to follow the trail back to the hunter?” Every inch of Thiago goes still, as he strokes my back. “I won’t let them hurt you, Vi. I won’t let them have you.”
“How are you going to stop them? They can walk through shadows.” I push to my feet, wrapping my arms around myself. “Sunlight is their only weakness, or the blood of the purest, whatever that means.”
Why me?
Why are they searching for me?
Thiago’s face turns hard and cold, and the tattoos that crawl up his throat writhe. “There are ways to counter a creature of the shadows. Trust me, Vi. It will not have you. No matter what I must do.”