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The raised voices grated against Evelyn’s headache. They didn’t have time for arguing. Not with Tessa’s kidnapping and the Far Darrig wanting her head. They already could have succeeded in aiding the vampyr’s mysterious endeavor.
“I say we march into that forest and get Tessa ourselves!” yelled the youngest man, with a mop of red curls, pitchfork in hand.
“The Far Darrig and the Byrnes have a treaty!” John replied. “We all know that.”
“Which they broke!” Aaron retorted.
Evelyn held up her hand, shaking her head. “What treaty?”
The family stopped, eyeing her and Cyrus.
John sighed. “My great-great-granddad forged it with their clan leader after the Battle at Byrne Farm. Every year we pay a tithe, a winter’s supply of goods for no violence on our farm. We may have lost the forest, but for four generations, we’ve had no quarrel.”
“Mischievous tricksters, but never violence,” the woman Evelyn assumed to be Tessa’s mother added. “Knocking over cows in the night. Switching sugar with salt in the cupboards.”
“Aye, but they’ve stolen a few geese,” Tessa’s brother muttered.
“This is no goose. They have Tessa!” Aaron said. Unlike his in-laws, his hair was dark brown instead of red. He wore a gold band on the fourth finger of his left hand. “We have to do something. Bargain with something. Perhaps the entire farm? We can’t enter the Gray Wood, but we have to get Tessa back.”
Cyrus stepped forward. “This Gray Wood, what is it?”
“A forest,” John said, “and the Far Darrig live in it and control it. Humans don’t ever go in and those that do never come out.”
“Is that where they took Tessa?” Evelyn asked, worry heavy like a brick in her belly.
Mrs. Byrne nodded, looking down at the younger girl clutching her waist. “We believe so. Jenny found her barrel of apples outside it.”
The youngest, whom Evelyn assumed to be Tessa’s brother, shook his head. “There shouldn’t be a discussion. We march in and get Tessa back.”
“Aaron is right. We should offer a trade, not march in and start more violence,” John said.
The argument continued, Tessa’s husband and her brother shouting at each other. Her father interjected, shaking his finger. Jenny watched, silent as a mouse while Mrs. Byrne attempted to calm them down.
Evelyn placed her hands on her hips and sighed while Cyrus pinched the bridge of his nose. They were going in absolute circles. If they didn’t act soon, Tessa would no longer be the target of a kidnapping, but another name added to their list of murder victims. Evelyn’s flame raged inside her, building and building until her fingers twitched and skin grew hot.
“We don’t have time for this!” she shouted.
Her words cut through their raised voices, and everyone fell silent.
“We need to save Tessa before it’s too late.” She waved the letter in her hand. “Before nightfall, too, so we don’t have to fight both the Far Darrig and the vampyr.”
“Wait,” Commissioner Doyle said. “You think her kidnapping is related to the vampyr?”
“What do you mean?” Aaron asked. “Tessa isn’t like McKenna or Fiona. She’s a married—”
“No one is insinuating anything about Tessa,” Cyrus said, his tone direct and silencing. “We have a connection regarding the murders, and since the Far Darrig want her head, we have reason to believe they’re working with or for the vampyr.”
“Fine, let’s say you’re right. What do you plan to do?” Aaron nodded to Cyrus. “Do you think you’re the first man to enter the Gray Wood with a sword? And you’re just a young woman, one I hear used to be a mere barmaid.”
Aaron’s tired, angry gaze fell on Evelyn, but she didn’t cower. She saw Aaron’s doubt, and suddenly Evelyn was angry for ever directing such venom at herself. Her patience wore thin. She needed to protect Tessa if she was still alive and being a protector suddenly rose above everything else.
“I happen to be a witch,” Evelyn said, setting her shoulders back.
The Byrne family stared, and Commissioner Doyle’s mouth fell open.
Beside her, Cyrus straightened. He gave her a look that seemed to say, Are you sure about this?
No, in fact, she wasn’t, but she was beginning to believe that maybe her doubt did her no favors. Doubting herself, doubting her sisters, doubting her flame. She needed to set those all aside at the moment.
