The Beithir dropped me onto the rocks like a cat depositing a half-dead mouse.
I hit the ground hard, the impact driving the air from my lungs, and dots danced across my vision. For a moment I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything but lie there gasping while my body cried out in protest.
“Agnes!” A distant shout from the shore had me scrambling to my feet, arms raised, ignoring the pain shooting through my ribs.
Graham stood, his face stark and tragic on the shoreline, and my breath caught as a wall of water crashed over him. In seconds, he disappeared beneath the surface of the loch, and my heart broke in pieces.
“Graham!”
The word tore from my throat, raw and desperate. I rantoward the water’s edge, but there was nothing I could do. Nothing but watch the spot where he’d been standing, now empty, the water churning and dark.
“No. No, no, no?—”
The Beithir rose from the loch between me and the shore, cutting off my view. Water cascaded from its massive body, its scales gleaming in the moonlight like wet armor. It was even larger up close. Its head alone was larger than my car, its eyes burning with an ancient fire that made my knees want to buckle.
“You called for me, didn’t you, Bookkeeper?” Its voice rolled across the island like thunder, vibrating in my bones, rattling the stones beneath my feet. No more was his voice just in my head, as my friends shrieked in response across the loch. “So? Speak.”
“Graham—” I couldn’t tear my eyes from the water. “What did you do to him? Where is he?”
“The curse takes what it is owed.” The Beithir’s tail swept through the loch, sending waves crashing against the island’s rocky shore. Shouts erupted from the other side. “Your bloodline owes an enormous debt. One of yours took my father, as I’m sure you well know. It’s my duty to take what is yours.”
“No. You were lied to. The curse isn’t even yours, it’s the Cailleach’s! She’s responsible for your father’s death.”
The creature went still.
Its eyes narrowed, the fire in them flickering with what might have been surprise or might have been rage.
“What did you say?” The words came out as a hiss and I shrunk slightly.
“The Cailleach. The dark one. The hungry winter.” Iwas shaking—from cold and fear and the desperate need to find Graham—but I forced myself to keep talking. “She cursed my family. Not your father. She did it to punish Isobel for ruining her plan.”
“You lie.”
“I have proof,” I said, racing through my words, my teeth chattering. “I have Isobel’s own words. She wrote down everything that happened. The truth about your father, about why she killed him, about all of it. It broke her heart. She’d loved your father and respected him.”
The Beithir’s massive head lowered, and he brought those burning eyes closer. Close enough that I could see the rings of age in them, the depth of centuries of solitude and grief.
“A Wright woman murdered my father. A king taken down by a lowly Bookkeeper.Thatis the only truth that matters.”
“The Cailleach corrupted your father. He was her puppet, her weapon. She spent years twisting his mind, filling him with her whispers, until he wasn’t himself anymore. He was going to slaughter all of us. The Order. The keepers. Everyone. He was no longer in service to the Clach na Fìrinn. Isobel killed him to save them and to save the Stone.”
“Lies!”
The roar sent me stumbling backward, my feet slipping on wet stone. The Beithir reared up, lightning crackling along its spine, its mouth opening to reveal those endless rows of needle teeth.
“I should destroy you now, for speaking lies about my father?—”
“I’m standing on the Stone of Truth!” The words burst out of me before I could think better of them. “This whole island…it’s built on the Clach na Fìrinn. The Stone that can tell truth from falsehood. If I were lying, wouldn’t you know it?”
The Beithir hesitated.
Its jaws were still open, lightning still flickering between its teeth, but it didn’t strike. Its eyes moved from me to the ground beneath my feet, to the ancient rocks that formed the foundation of this tiny island.
“It can’t be …”
I sensed a shift in him and inched closer, using the only tool I’d ever had in my artillery.
My words.The truth.
