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“Mad? Why would I be? Hurt that you did not trust me enough to break for me, perhaps. Hurt that day at the stream, you bit instead of letting me in. Bitter that I was robbed once again of my pleasure with you. Hopeful that in the future, when you are less scarred by the blade of loss, I might once again labor for your whims. But mad? No, my dear Pearl, never mad.” Another kiss was pressed to my head. “I would have you in my bed writhing and begging for my attentions. I would have you walk beside me, stupefying hapless Fae with the radiance of your joy. I would not have you at my side out of a sense of guilt nor to replace another who was too foolish to hold on to what he had so undeservingly been granted.”

“I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to do that.” I was honest with him. There was no point to the deception now.

“And so you shouldn’t be. What young Fae can predict the tides of the magic of the heart? Hmm? Not even I can perform such feats. Perhaps tomorrow you will wake and forget his name. Perhaps a thousand years from now, you will be walking the corridors of your fortress of sorrow, still bound in widows’ weeds. Not even the gods can predict the mighty tempests of the Fae heart. And so you should not try, my dearest Pearl. Merely live. Live and accept that each day the sun rises is his gift to you, and every star that blinks at night is yours to him. Come to a place where you grant him that gift and accept his every day. And see the beauty in that for what it is.” He pulled me closer, squeezing me tightly. “Now, enough of this melancholia. While the camp is being built, we shall climb one of the trees, and I will show you what is left of your ancestral lands.”

“I would like that very much.”

Brittle Spear helped me up from the blanket.

“My Pearl, there is one more thing, though.” I turned, tilting my head in question. “It might be wise to consider continuing the ruse. As it is right now, there are no other Fae besides those who are our companions who know the Banfhlaith of the House of Magic has returned. But soon others will. It might be wise for us to consider what that means, and what it might mean should she be connected to Ard Tiarna Iron Thorn of the Fómhar. “

“I don’t want to think of Fae politics bullshit today, maybe tomorrow. Or a thousand years from now.”

A bitter smile twisted his face. “Maybe.”

The way meadow was a flattened plateau overlooking the sharp decline down into the valley of an ancient lake, and the open vein that fed it with runoff from the Old Teeth. One of the many nearly black trees with glistening stars of snow caught in their boughs overlooked the edge of the flattened campground. One of its great arms leaned over the precipice and afforded whoever had the bravery to climb it an unhindered view of the lush valley below.

I was feeling brave, even though Brittle Spear boosted me up into the tree and scowled with caution as I scooted out into the branch. I wished I were as skilled with magic as my mother and father had been. I wanted to sail over the edge unburdened by simple flesh and take in every mile of the lush grasslands, forest meadows, farmlands, and forgotten vineyards below. I wanted to take it all in, but all I had were a pair of Fae eyes and the will to lean closer to the song of the winds rolling down off the mountain behind us.

I followed the slice of the silvery-black river until it emptied into the lake’s basin, looking for any buildings. Even just one to tell me where the House of Magic had once been. But there was nothing. Just reclaimed nature and what looked like a dirt road that fought back against the silvery grasses slowly marching to meet each other. In some places, the road down from the mountain completely disappeared into the grass. In other places, great boughs of trees split its course. Some were rather normal-looking, and some were strangely crooked and gnarled, as if an old man had been caught out in the middle of a magic curse and frozen in time, sculpted in wood and leaves.

It didn’t take me long to find the fabled magic storm, anchored to what I assumed was the ruins of my ancestral home. Where the storms that had chased me and my companions had been a swirling ball of light, this one reminded me of space. It swirled and spun lazily with nowhere to go, looking exactly like a spiral galaxy I had once seen in a science textbook when I was a kid. Except this one wasn’t millions of miles wide. This one was large enough to be the size of my fist, even though we were at least a day’s journey away from its epicenter.

Below it, there was nothing—just a bare scar of dirt beside the lake where even the hungry grass dared not to encroach. I imagined the wound the land endured to leave a scar of that depth and severity. Over two hundred years later, nothing grew but the nightmares of others. There were no piles of rubble. No shattered beams. Nothing. It was as if the spiral galaxy above the scar had just swallowed everything, like a hungry black hole.

I narrowed my eyes on it, straining to see in more detail. And as I looked down at the magic storm, its spinning debris twisted like arms around the eye of a great aerial cyclops, staring right through me.

The whispers of that cave had haunted me ever since I was pulled free of it. In the quiet moments between then and now, when I thought there was no sound at all to fill the void, I could almost make it out. But the moment that magic storm turned toward me, I heard it loud and clear.

“The weaver has returned. Hail to the great weaver.”

Fear locked my limbs and shot through me as the disembodied voice boomed through my head and settled within me, in the spot I was starting to identify as the resting place of my silent magic.

The bough beneath me rocked, swayed, and I tumbled free from it, colliding with the ground. Brittle Spear looked up from his communion with the tree, unaware of the voice that had shaken me.

“The fuck was that?” I gasped, my lungs struggling to draw in breath.

“What was what, my Pearl?”

“The voice? Didn’t you hear it? It was loud enough for you to hear it.” Confusion spread on his borrowed face, and I groaned. “I swear I’m not hallucinating. I swear it. I heard it.”

“Magic is strange and twisting in this place, my lady. Even when your honored father was still alive to tame and sculpt it, it was deepest here in his realm, and stranger things than a mere ghost whispering in an ear occurred regularly.” He crouched and helped me to stand. “What did the voice sound like or say?”

“I’ve heard it before.” A brow fought to break free of his control to soar above his eye. “Stop looking at me like that. I’m not fucking crazy. I heard it. I’ve been hearing it since the mines.”

“Then it is an old friend. Tell me, Banfhlaith, what is your friend’s name?” He folded his hands behind his back, a casual courtier listening to a child tell tall tales of rebel butterflies fighting battles against beetles.

“I swear to fuck, Iron Thorn, I will gut you if you don’t stop looking at me like that. I didn’t know what it was saying before. It could have been reciting poetry—”

“I do so enjoy ghast poetry. So delicate.”

“—for all I know.” I forged on, unwilling to allow him to sidetrack me. “But this one was very clear. It said, ‘The weaver has returned. Hail to the great weaver.’ What the fuck does that mean?” Panic was scratching at my voice; I didn’t like it. There was a conspiracy in the air, and I was just along for the ride. Just here to hold on tight and hope whatever freaky powers that be wouldn’t toss me into a pit of lava at the end of the rollercoaster.

Brittle Spear did not mock me, though, as I expected. Instead, he watched me, a predatory gaze that often crept into his features, pulling his face into sharp lines as if he couldn’t control it. I heard the flex and creak of his leather gauntlets beneath the cover of his armored hands. He rocked on his heels, a false smile curling on his lips. “Did it now?”

“What does it mean, Iron Thorn?” It wasn’t a question. I knew he knew what it meant.

He rolled his shoulder, the plates of his armor rubbing against each other. “It could be any number of things, truly. It could be that the cold and frequent hits to the head have addled your mind. Could be that your magic is so constipated and looking for a way out that it is leaking out and trying to drive you to use it more.”