Bran let out a guttural yell of denial, fury and fear leaving an acidic aftertaste on his tongue, fingers clenched around glittering motes of magic as he faced off with the Fae. “Give her back!”
“She was never yours to begin with,” the Fae said in that rumbling voice of his.
“Bullshit. She’s mysister.” He’d lost his mother. He would not lose Aisling, not like this.
The Fae smirked at him, a terrible expression for a beautiful nightmare. “You know nothing of the Fae, witch.”
The witchmark burned against Bran’s palm, aforcefilled with all his rage and grief. “And you don’t know witches. This is not your land.”
“It was, once. It will be again. You witches cannot hold us back forever.”
The Fae resided in the Otherworld, the way to it found at the end of forest paths, in the fringe of the wyrding, through hidden mounds the stories taught people never to approach. The mortal world wasn’t theirs to claim, not anymore. Witches had stood against their encroachment since the Fae were banished from Ireland millennia ago, magic cultivated amid a history of fighting.
Iron would always hurt the Fae, but witch magic could be just as damaging. Except it usually took an entire coven to eradicate the Fae and the lights when an incursion happened upon a town, and here, it was only Bran.
Somehow, he would have to be enough.
He cast the witchmark with furious intent. Magic exploded away from him in a concussive blast that drew on the remnants of witchmarks carved into the Shoppe’s foundation and the circle in the basement, all of it anchored in iron, and channeled it like he was a river. Bran focused on the Fae lord—for the antlered Fae could be nothing else—wanting the bastardoutandgonefrom his home.
The Fae lord skidded back from the force of the attack, his own magic deflecting Bran’s with an ease that made his fear deepen. The creatures that had followed the Fae into the Shoppe fought against the force of his magic, screaming all the while in hideous voices.
Then a sound cut through it all, high and angry, Jupiter’scawechoed by the sound of others. His familiar flew into the Shoppe, followed by dozens of ravens and crows, awake outside their normal daylight hours, their eyes glowing the same glittering gold as his familiar’s.
Never before had he seen other corvids afflicted with magic in such a way. It wasn’t Bran’s doing. For a moment, Bran thought it was the Fae. Then Jupiter opened up the bond between them, her presence awash with the power of Nature and something else that lurked deep he’d never felt before.
Bran didn’t have time to question it, and in the end, it wouldn’t matter. There wasn’t a world where he could repudiate her, not now, not after they were bound. So Bran took the support offered, took the power of Nature and that thread of something darker, and clawed another witchmark in the air, this one a mix oftrespassandhearth. When he cast it, he let it tap his reserves with no restrictions.
This was his home, and he didn’t want the Fae in it.
The Fae lord retreated before the spell could take effect. Magic ripped away from Bran, but it didn’t touch Jupiter or the corvids, the essence of Nature passing harmlessly through them. Bran stumbled from the effort, witchmarks burning in the air before disintegrating in seconds.
The lights outside suddenly vanished, and he let out a wordless, frantic cry of protest and scrambled toward the door through the debris in the Shoppe. Bran staggered outside into the warm summer night, finding the road empty and the forest dark, the only light to be seen that of the full moon in the black, starry sky.
Chapter Seven
Bran shifted where he sat, the porch step creaking under the movement. He raised his head at the sound of a motor growing louder from down the road, two black trucks in the distance coming closer. He barely noticed the soft light of dawn hitting his skin, numb in a way even the encroaching summer day couldn’t warm. Moving his head didn’t hurt as badly as it had before he’d choked down a healing potion from his mother’s stores and called Mac.
The trucks eventually pulled off the road and parked in the dirt space in front of the Shoppe. Cillian was the first one out of his truck, his presence making Bran dig his fingers into the muscle of his thighs. Cillian wasn’t in uniform, and Bran wondered if it was Cillian’s day off. His jeans and T-shirt looked rumpled, as if he’d pulled on the first thing that had come to hand. His hair wasn’t even tied back, falling loose past his shoulders, and his wide-brimmed hat was nowhere to be seen.
“Bran!” Cillian called out, his long legs eating up the distance between them. The concern in his voice made Bran flinch. He steeled himself against the urge to turn away. “Bran, are you all right? Where’s Aisling?”
Bran didn’t answer Cillian. Instead, he watched Mac get out of histruck and slowly approach. Bran licked his lips, mouth still so utterly dry as he stared at Mac. “I need to talk to you.”
Cillian drew up short, glancing between them. “What’s going on? What happened to the Shoppe?”
Bran wrapped his fingers around his left wrist, grinding the beads against his bone, wondering what use iron was to hide his thoughts when the Fae and the lights already knew he was in Pelham. Mac seemed to understand that Bran was holding on to his sanity by sheer goddamn luck and said, “Can Cillian take a look inside?”
Bran nodded tightly, not moving from his spot on the porch. “Nothing will harm him.”
“Bran,” Cillian said, stepping closer, raising a hand as if he were going to try to comfort him.
He turned his head, hunching his shoulders, refusing to meet Cillian’s gaze. His jaw worked, and he only half listened to Mac urging Cillian to get eyes on the crime scene inside. Bran bit back a hysterical laugh at the wordscrimescenebecause that seemed to be the only thing his life was these days.
After a moment, Cillian stepped past where Bran sat on the porch, carefully picking his way into the wreckage of the Shoppe. The door was a hopeless cause, so there was no way to keep the conversation private. Mac still tried, crouching in front of Bran, anguish bleeding into his eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, but Bran cut him off, getting the words out first. He didn’t feel like being the star in an interrogation, no matter how well-meaning. “The lights came last night. They took Aisling. I couldn’t—they had a Fae lord with them. He wanted her.”
Mac flinched with his entire body, face losing all its color. “Bran…”
“He went back to the Otherworld. I’m going there to get Aisling back.”
