He flexed his hands before making a sharp swiping motion from elbow to wrist. Brilliant golden sparks twisted around his forearm and into the palm of his hand. He tipped it, magic falling to the floor like a firefall, golden and bright.
The intent of the spell flowed down the connection tying it to the witchmark anchored on the bead of the bracelet his sister wore. Bran’s stomach twisted, lurched, as his awareness was stretched thin, his ability to orient himself difficult in the Otherworld. Jupiter steadied him, anchoring him in that maelstrom as Nature washed through him.
His magic poured out of him and flooded the floor, following the lines of the map. It snaked to a spot on the eastern side of the painted island, pooling in a gray area. The bead on his bracelet with the witchmark of Aisling’s name pulsed brightly, and Jupitercawed, the gold flecks in her eyes shining like stars. Bran fell into it, fell into their bond, letting Nature drag his awareness over the face of a world he’d never walked until it slammed into a grayness he couldn’t see through—but he knew that beyond it was his sister.
Bran came back to himself with a wrench, staggering forward. An arm wrapped around his waist, drawing him up against a warm, firm body, and Bran couldn’t help but lean into the touch. Cillian’s voice was a low reverberation in his ear that made him shiver. “I got you.”
Bran swallowed audibly, trying to steady his breathing and ignore the hot spike ofwantthat cut through him. “There. She’s there.”
Niamh walked over to where Bran’s magic glowed brightest, her steps slow, tracing a route inland from the coast. When she stopped, thetoes of her boots almost brushed against Bran’s magic. “This is the wyrding.”
Bran’s stomach sank, fear latching onto him like a wild animal. They’d been in the Otherworld for what passed for a week or longer. “How do we get there?”
Niamh tilted her head. “The wyrding appears where it likes. The passages between the mounds that connect the Otherworld to yours are different than the shadow paths that link each spot of blight. For those, you enter the wyrding in one location and arrive somewhere else, but you have to follow the lights to find them.”
“Those monstrous creatures?” Cillian asked dubiously. “They tried to kill Bran.”
Niamh looked as if she was sad they hadn’t succeeded. “I know the shadow paths there. I’ve traveled them before on your behalf and Verlin’s. If the witch can use his magic to locate his sister, I can lead him and you to her.”
“Bran?”
He stared at the glow of his magic on that map whose paint had to be imbued with its own kind of power. So different yet so similar to that grand map in Ainmire’s library, all of it meant as a warning. “I’m not leaving Aisling behind.”
He was all she had, and she was all he had. He refused to look at Cillian, forcing himself to pull away from the other man’s hold, even though it was the last thing he wanted to do right then. He would save Aisling from whoever or whatever had her, even if it killed him, but he wouldnotleave her in this place.
“That wasn’t in doubt,” Cillian said, as if agreeing to Bran’s crazy ideas was nothing new. And it wasn’t, if he let himself think of their past. “How do you get us to one of these shadow paths?”
Niamh sighed, stepping back from the dying embers of Bran’s magic as he drew it all back into himself. “We must head into the wyrding.”
“Is it close to here?”
Niamh smiled bitterly, taking measured steps to a spot on the map that looked like their position, scuffing the toe of herboot over a smear of black paint close to a village marker. “It is always close when witches are around.”
Bran bristled at that but held his tongue. She was his way to Aisling, and he’d take any insults she tossed at him if it meant she could get them to his little sister. “Then let’s go.”
“Hold his leash,” Niamh said to Cillian, the biting words a reminder and warning all in one.
Bran grimaced but pulled the leash out of his pocket and handed the end to Cillian. Their fingers brushed in the handover, and he suppressed a shiver at the way Cillian looked, holding his leash, in total control. Cillian eyed him carefully, gaze searching. “All right?”
“Just don’t let go,” Bran muttered as Niamh headed for the door, yanking it open.
“I won’t.” Sunlight spilled into the room, haloing Cillian in a way that made it impossible to look away from him. “They’ll have to fight me for you.”
It shouldn’t have made him ache, but it did, some part of him wanting Cillian to mean it in a way he had no right to want, not after how he’d left seven years ago. Bran dropped his gaze, licking his lips, cognizant of the thin metal that connected them as Cillian led him out of the room, aware, too, of the collar around his throat with Cillian’s emblem on it. A claim that somehow felt right despite his initial trepidation.
He blamed the sun for the heat in his cheeks as they left the stone building. Jupiter flew out behind them and back into the sky. Niamh took the lead when they reached the village square again, making nice with the Fae in charge. It wasn’t long before she split her people up, leaving some behind to trade and the rest going with them. They left the village, starting down the dirt road that curved between low hills, a forest dotting the horizon in the distance.
“What was the excuse you gave them?” Cillian asked once they were out of earshot.
“Hunting,” Niamh said. “I never said what.”
Fae and their word games. Bran hated both. “How appropriate.”
“I told my second-in-command to scry Carrick and Seamus and send them through the wyrding to us at the coordinates you gave.They’ve traveled the shadow paths before. They’ll know where to find us.”
“Is the wyrding that easy for you Fae to traverse?”
“Yes and no.”
