Bran scratched at his tattoo, trying to rub off some of the black sap. The corded leather bracelet on his left wrist, with its iron and bone beads with witchmarks carved into them, remained surprisingly clean. He twisted it around until he found the bone bead that had Aisling’s favorite flower carved on it in the form of a witchmark unique to his little sister. Their mother had planted Canada anemone around the Shoppe when Aisling first started kindergarten. The white petals nearly matched her hair, and Aisling had declared the flower her favorite for that reason alone.
He wanted her back. He wanted to take her out of this nightmare and get her home, where they could grieve, just the two of them, for what they had lost. It was all he wanted, and Bran realized, when Jupitercawedout a frantic warning, he wasn’t going to get it.
“Get back in the trees,” Bran hissed, already turning to run into the forest.
They made it to the side of the road when horses came around the bend down the way. The animals mostly looked like their counterparts back home. Bran couldn’t make out the three riders, but he knew they were Fae, and that made them the enemy. One of them raised an arm in their direction and shouted in a language he didn’t understand. It sounded like it could be Gaelic, but he wasn’t sure. The only Gaelic he knew were from rituals written down in his coven’s grimoire, and his accent, he’d been told, was atrocious.
“Run,” Cillian said, raising his rifle. “I’ll hold them off.”
Bran grabbed him by the back of his T-shirt and yanked him toward the trees. “We stay together, you asshole!”
No way was he letting Cillian run around the Otherworld withouthim. Bran didn’t let go as Cillian got his feet under him, and they ran back into the forest, both of them looking for a place to hide. But hiding from the Fae was a whole different ballgame than hiding from the lights. Not to mention, they were in an unfamiliar place, and Bran didn’t know where to go. Even Jupiter, when he tugged on their bond, couldn’t give him better directions thanrun.
They jumped over roots and tore through shrubbery, trying to make it deeper into the forest before the Fae reached them. But they were the interlopers here, and Bran was acutely reminded of that fact when one of the Fae dropped down from the damn treetops right in front of them.
“Mortals,” the Fae said in heavily accented English, his lips twisted in a smile on his too-beautiful face Bran didn’t trust.
Cillian rocked to a halt, brought up the rifle, and pulled the trigger. The sound of the long gun going off echoed loudly in the forest, disrupting the quiet. Birds took to the air, chirping wildly from the disturbance. The Fae took the bullet right in the chest, staggering back with a look of surprise on his face before collapsing to the ground. Bran grabbed Cillian by the elbow, urging him on. “Let’s go, let’sgo!”
Cillian didn’t argue, matching his stride to Bran’s as they left the Fae behind to die—and Bran wouldn’t feel guilty about that—but they’d only gone so far before the pressure in the air changed. Bran recognized the force as magic, but even as his fingers bent to shape a witchmark, the spell slammed into them and sent them both flying. He landed in the dirt rather than against a tree, managing to not knock his head this time around. The impact forced all the air out of his lungs, leaving him gasping for breath, body aching.
He distantly heard Jupiter call out to him, and Bran dazedly pushed an order down the bond for her tostay back. He lifted his head, frantically looking for Cillian. The other man was sprawled at the base of a tree trunk, his rifle lying some distance away, and he wasn’t moving.
Bran swore, heart beating fast as he shoved himself up from the ground, pain shooting through his ribs. He wrapped an arm around his chest, carefully taking a breath. His ribs hurt, but they didn’t feel broken. Gritting his teeth, Bran got to his feet, looking around wildly for the Fae chasing them as he hurried to Cillian’s side.
Please be alive, Bran thought desperately as he knelt by Cillian, touching two fingers to his throat. The pulse that beat against his fingertips made Bran sag in relief. He gripped Cillian’s shoulder, shaking him, trying to wake him up. “Cillian?”
“What an interesting name to call your friend.”
Bran twisted around on his knees, ignoring the pull in his ribs, and faced a pair of Fae who stood mere yards away, having not heard either of them approach. He raised his arm, drawing a witchmark in the air, knowing it would be the same as drawing a target on his back. “Back off.”
The Fae who had spoken was beautiful in the way all the stories said the Fae were. Tall and lean, he wore a velvet moss-green coat and pants with intricate silvery-white embroidery that matched the waistcoat. The outfit wouldn’t have been out of place in some 1700s European court, as if he were the gentry on an afternoon ride. His deep brown hair was straight and long, falling to his elbows and not tied back in any way. His companion was a lady dressed more like the Fae that Cillian had shot, garbed in duller colors and carrying a bow with an arrow nocked and aimed in their direction. Guards, maybe, or servants.
The courtly-looking Fae studied Bran with narrowed brown eyes, lips curling hatefully. “Witch.”
His guard drew her arrow back a fraction more. She said something in the Fae’s language that Bran didn’t understand but which had the Fae in charge making a gesture with his hand. A root exploded from the ground, wrapping around Bran’s wrist too quickly for him to process. His hand was yanked to the ground, along with the rest of him if he didn’t want to break his wrist, the witchmark sputtering out. Another root wrapped itself around his other wrist, pinning him down further. He yanked at the hold, but the roots wouldn’t budge.
“I think our lord would be interested to know what a witch and their companion are doing in Tír na nÓg where the Summer Court rules,” the Fae said.
Bran dragged his fingertips through the earth, prepared to pour his magic into the barest of witchmarks he could eke out, when Cillian made a sound that had Bran snapping his head around. He stared in horror at the root wrapped around Cillian’s throat, threatening tosqueeze tighter than it already was, Cillian staring desperately back at him.
“Let’s not do anything rash, shall we? I would hate for your companion to pay the price of your decisions.”
Bran slowly flattened his fingers against the ground, never looking away from Cillian’s face. If it was just him, he’d use all the magic at his fingertips to fight, but he wouldn’t risk Cillian’s life.
“You should have stayed behind,” Bran said in a cracked voice as the Fae approached.
Even with the root wrapped around his throat, Cillian always had to have the last word between them. “Never.”
Bran closed his eyes, drew in a shuddering breath, and tried to remember everything his mother had ever taught him about bargaining with the Fae.
Chapter Ten
Cillian flexed his wrists against the root tied around them like rope, knowing better than to touch the one wrapped around his throat like a collar. The other end of it was held by the dressed-up Fae on horseback who’d run them down in the woods. The horse was going at a pace that forced Cillian to walk quickly if he didn’t want to choke.
His backpack hung from the Fae’s saddle along with Bran’s. His rifle was slung over the Fae’s shoulder, his only real weapon so close but completely out of reach, the same way Bran’s knives were, hidden away in his backpack on the Fae’s orders. The guard rode behind them, leading the third horse with their compatriot’s body draped over it.
Bran could have maybe gotten them free if Cillian wasn’t at risk of dying the instant he tried anything. Cillian looked to his left over the horse’s rear at where Bran walked on the other side with his hands tied behind his back and the threat of Cillian’s broken neck keeping him from casting any magic. A tree root from the forest was wrapped around his torso, the other end of it tying him to the saddle.
