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“I thought the faeries were gone, abandoned these lands,” Kade said.
Miss Patricia laughed, bitter and low. “The faeries never left. We don’t see ’em like we used to.”
Aaron nodded. “’Tis true, and we found this on our doorstep this morning.”
He handed over a folded piece of parchment. Kade opened it, and as he read over the words, every inch of him that had relaxed earlier went taut, his protective instinct readying for action. He read over the words again to be sure, his knuckles going white as he held the note tighter. He shook his head. The commissioner was wrong. This kidnapping might be related to the murders, and Evelyn needed to see this, too.
Kade nodded. “Let me grab my things and find Saige. She’ll want to help. Where is your farm?”
“Dinberry,” Tessa’s father said.
“I’ll meet you there.”
Kade rushed up to his room and grabbed his leathers, threw on his cloak, and gathered his sword. He paused at the small writing desk, looking over the spare parchment and unused quills. Still folded was the letter he’d planned to send Eldrick days ago as well as Evelyn’s necklace from Blair.
His protector instinct screamed to write to Eldrick, his eldest brother. To tell him he found Evelyn, explain about the murders and ask his brother to send help. With the contents of the letter in mind, alerting the witches and the wolves was the right thing to do, the rational thing to do, but why did the idea make him sick?
He trailed his finger over the letter and necklace, while his other hand gripped the hilt of his sword with purpose. Perhaps now was the right time to give it to her. Kade’s heart sank like stone in his belly. He didn’t want to hurt Evelyn, couldn’t lie to her any more than he already had and betray her trust. Damn that kiss. He shut his eyes, flexed his fists, and shook his head.
No, he’d tell her. Soon. He’d come clean and tell her after they killed the vampyr.
Until then, he would continue building their relationship, showing her they could be partners against the darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Evelyn
“To the Byrne family,” Evelyn said, repeating the letter aloud again. “At sundown, we take her head. Sincerely, the Far Darrig.’”
Cold, unrelenting horror coursed through Evelyn’s blood, freezing her insides with icy anxiety. Cyrus had found her shopping in the market with Tovi, and when he’d recounted Tessa’s kidnapping, they hadn’t wasted any time in heading to Dinberry.
The sun shone high and bright, a much-needed reprieve from the last few rainy, dreary days. The roads snaking through the hills buzzed with activity and twice as many merchants and farmers as usual, everyone traveling south to Callum for the Autumn Festival. Evelyn had almost fallen into that contagious excitement earlier with her friend, had been fooled to believe they had a moment of reprieve from these murders.
Her head.
Evelyn shut her eyes in disbelief. “I hadn’t wanted to be right, but fucking flames, Cyrus. The witches’ creed, the body parts. Tessa’s kidnapping could connect her to the murders. Head is the third body part in the witches’ creed.”
“I know,” he said beside her.
They hurried up a thinner offshoot of a path and away from the main road. The stone shingles of a cottage came into view beyond the mound of a hill.
Evelyn paused, reading the signature at the bottom of the letter. “Assuming the vampyr didn’t write this letter, why are the Far Darrig involved?”
Cyrus appeared as confused as she, brows furrowed, lips thinned. “Alliances? With the body parts, maybe these murders are more complex and the vampyr needed help. The signs have also pointed to a mature vampyr since the beginning, and we know they are more coherent than a scáth. It’s not impossible for them to form an alliance.”
Evelyn digested his idea. “Help with what, though? Why choose the Far Darrig, a faerie tribe? Why Tessa specifically?”
Cyrus ran his hand over his beard. “Maybe because they’ve had a feud with the Byrnes for so long, it was easy to convince them, and Tessa was accessible. There are also theories suggesting faerie magic created the vampyrs.”
Evelyn blinked and glanced at Cyrus. He looked out across the land, seemingly lost in his thoughts. No one truly knew how vampyrs came about, but theories had been tossed around by scholars for centuries. The one constant in those theories: witches’ bones.
What they’d been used for or how they’d been used had always been a mystery. Evelyn’s head pulsed with a headache as she thought about the many mysteries before her. The murders. The origin of vampyrs. Now a kidnapping. She had a gut feeling she was missing how they were all connected.
Atop the hill, the Byrne farm came into full view. A white, squat cottage sat on the left, along with a large barn to the right. Cows grazed in a buttercup-dotted pasture, unbothered by the three men arguing outside the cottage. A woman beside them cried as she held on to a young girl, her eyes wide with fear. Evelyn recognized the Byrne family as the farmers who dropped milk off at the Runaway Radish, along with their son-in-law, Aaron Collins.
Poor Commissioner Doyle looked weary, his face flashing with relief as he noticed Evelyn and Cyrus. He rushed over to them.
“Thank the hills you’re here. The Byrnes are a hot-headed bunch. Be ready.”
