Bran hesitantly approached the display case, staring down at thegreen rolling hills and darker forests, the glittering blue lines of rivers and pools of lakes, and brown peaks of mountains in the west and north. It looked exactly like the huge island that held Ireland and Northern Ireland back home, only this map was carved up with border markings that made no sense to him, with city and town names that didn’t match the counterparts he knew.
Ainmire tapped a finger against the glass case, and Bran sucked in a breath as markings in the same style he’d seen on the standing stone in the wyrding glittered into being. It was, he realized with a sinking stomach, a language not unlike the witchmarks were. But where witchmarks held the language of intent, this appeared to be the Fae’s own everyday form of communication.
The elegant whorls of words flowed over the case like a waterfall, taking the glass with them, as if it never even existed. Whatever magic was in the words seemed to animate the map inside, causing rivers to flow and an invisible wind to blow through the forests. Hints of clouds came and went above the island, casting faint shadows on the land below. Miniature waves crashed against the shores, as if the island truly sat in an ocean.
Ainmire moved along the length of the table as the librarian disappeared down another aisle, pulling Bran along with him by way of the leash even when Bran wanted to plant his feet. But thoughts of Cillian in that cell kept him moving, kept him compliant. Ainmire came to a stop on the eastern side of the map. “Look here.”
Bran looked down at the map, seeing the markers depicting town and city names now glowed golden. The brightest were four cities in the north, south, east, and west, all held within boundaries marked with black lines.
“My domain lies here,” Ainmire said, pointing at an area. Below, a swath of land and a town flashed gold. It was miles from what Bran assumed was the capital that sat in the exact location Dublin did back home. “The Dagda rules from Murias, and his Summer Court holds sway over Tír na nÓg.”
The border surrounding the eastern portion of the map glowed brighter. Bran studied the area, trying to see where the wyrding was around the town the Fae lord claimed, but he couldn’t find anygray spots that would depict it. “This doesn’t mean anything to me. Why are you showing it to me?”
“I’m showing you the mirror of what we Fae lost when you witches forced us to the mounds after raising the wyrding against us. We made the Otherworld our home and filled the wyrding with lights because we had to, but we never forgot what we lost. We have never forgiven you witches for that, but we have found uses for you.”
“Like the witch in your home? You broke her mind.”
It was the only answer he had for the slavish submission that other witch had shown, the way they’d gone about their chore so happily in the enemy’s home, barely clothed and collared like an animal.
“Your magic was ours once, but it has changed over our lifetimes. We must identify the changes somehow.”
“By experimenting on us? By killing us?” Bran couldn’t help the way his voice rose.
“You think your hypocrisy absolves you. It doesn’t.” Ainmire glanced at him, a slight, condescending smile on his face that Bran wanted to tear off. “You witches drove us out of Éire, but that was not enough for you. Your covens come through the wyrding to attack our towns and kill our people. Is it no wonder we do the same to you?”
“Because you attack first!”
Ainmire shrugged that accusation off. “I have buried enough of my people who died at the hands of a witch over the centuries to tire of it.”
“And you what? Want to ally with me to try to stop it?”
“Pets can’t be allies,” Damarus mockingly said.
“Not a pet,” Bran snapped over his shoulder.
“Your current predicament belies that. You’ll become accustomed to such a role soon enough,” Ainmire said. He reached out then, so quick Bran couldn’t dodge, the Fae lord’s hand wrapping around Bran’s right wrist with a strength he couldn’t break. He tried, but even digging in his heels wasn’t enough to stop himself from being dragged closer to the table the map sat on. “Be still.”
The order echoed in his ears as if he’d stuck his head in a large bell and rang it. Bran shook his head, the edges of his mind prickling with the sense of something trying to getinbut couldn’t.
Always keep iron close.
Habit turned into tradition was what saved him in that moment, the iron beads on his bracelet that no Fae had yet touched or been burned by, were an anchor for his stubbornness that kept a Fae lord’s power out of his mind. Bran glared at Ainmire, body rigid, holding himself so tight he thought his bones might break if enough pressure was applied.
“You will be a challenge,” Ainmire murmured, far too much pleasure in his tone. “Damarus?”
Bran bared his teeth at the Fae lord, not daring to punch him, even though he wanted to.
Damarus sidled up to the table, that too-sharp knife of his in hand. “My lord?”
Ainmire drew Bran’s hand down toward the map, fingers angled over Baile Átha Luain. Ainmire caught Bran’s gaze, pinning him with his words. “Do not move, or you know who will be punished.”
Bran clenched his teeth together, his one free hand fisted at his side. His gaze cut to Damarus’ knife as the other Fae angled it to touch the point to one of Bran’s fingertips. It didn’t feel like anything at first, the blade so sharp his body’s reaction was delayed. Only when a drop of blood welled up did the pain set in, like a needle being stabbed under his fingernail. Bran winced as the drop of blood fell onto the map, next to the town’s name marker. It sank into the forest there, turning the miniature treetops gray, a spot of darkness in all that green.
“Every city and town in the Four Lands has a map like this in a library, whether a grand one like here or a one-room dwelling in the farthest-flung reaches of a Court’s rule,” Ainmire murmured into Bran’s ear, making him shiver involuntarily. “Every time a witch makes it through the wyrding, we take their blood to warn others the wyrding has its tendrils in our land once more and an incursion might be imminent. This mark will show on every map. Can you see them now?”
Bran stared at the map, and maybe it was because of his blood now connecting him to whatever magic lay in the construction of such a display, but shadows popped up across the island, some small, some large. All the dark stains broke up the sprawling greenery of a world that mirrored his own.
“All those areas are past and present incursions, a blight that never leaves, places where your kind have come to murder ours.”
