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Quentin was leaned on the car, watching.

I had to do it. He told me I was brave, I couldn’t chicken out now.

Magnus was there. Waiting for me. He hadn’t come home, though I one-hundred percent knew he meant to.

And I wasn’t going to wait anymore.

Three days? Long enough.

Old Magnus, I was on my way.

I began to recite the numbers but then stopped. Deep breaths.

I jogged. And then did sort of a jig, jiggling from one foot to the other. I got this. I totally got this. I was the motherfucking matriarch. I recited two of the numbers. I wasn’t scared. Two more. I knew the forest, I knew the castle. I had done this before. Three numbers. This shit was totally handled. One last number and the screaming, awful, horrible ripping began.

63 - KAITLYN

Ipeeled my eyes open. I was face down on a forest floor. I flipped to my back and stared up at the careening primordial trees pointing up to the sky. I would have given anything to have Magnus’s hand on my hip, guarding over me while I floundered.

A rustling. What the...? I lifted my head—a red squirrel was about a foot away from my fingers, sifting through the leaves. I dragged my hand, stealthily, to my side. It scurried away. I probably should have forced myself up, but I could barely move. I sank back down into unconsciousness.

This time when my eyes opened I forced myself up. Still dazed I opened my backpack took out a protein bar, ate it, and washed it down with water. I sat for a few moments with my head on my knees listening to the soft rustling noises in the surrounding woods.

Then it crossed my mind that soft rustling noises meant that shit was in here with me and why would they not want to eat me? I would be delicious, full of vitamins and yoga and McDonald’s French fries. I would be the greatest feast a varmint in the year sixteen-something ever had.

I climbed to my feet, stretched out my legs, slung the backpack across my back and trudged in the direction, I hoped, of the castle.

64 - KAITLYN

Balloch loomed large. I slowed down and didn’t really want to keep going. I really needed Lizbeth to be there to greet me. It was evening, by the looks of the sky, but summer, so I couldn’t really tell.

It smelled of baking grains and horse shit. The stable was right there, same place. Actually not much had changed which was a major relief. I would walk right up to the guards at the gate and ask to see Magnus.

If they didn’t know who I was talking about, I would run.

Easy.

One, two, three, go.

65 - KAITLYN

The men were smelly, dirty, and terrifying.

I channeled a sort-of impression of Lizbeth. “Good day sirs, um, I be needin’ tae speak tae Master Magnus, might I partake of the inside of the...” I wasn’t sure what I was saying. You would think that on a trip of four hundred years I might have taken a moment to practice.

One of the men grunted.

The other spoke in Gaelic to the first and then swigged from a mug close by. Great, just my luck they were drunken guards.

I was trying not to look nervous. Trying for imperious. Also trying to watch their faces. Did they know who I was talking about?

“Master Magnus?” I interrupted their discussion, they laughed. But they were looking at each other not at me, maybe it was an inside joke. “I am here tae see Master Magnus⁠—”

The other man spit on the ground and gestured with his head for me to head through the gate — holy shit.

My heart soared. I stopped myself from asking, “Master Magnus? He’s inside right?” No questions, just walk in, get past the Campbell guards, find Magnus. He was inside or else why would they tell me to go in?

I straightened my spine, rolled my shoulders back, and walked straight across the courtyard toward the main doors. A group of men leered at me as I walked. I picked up my pace and I wished for Lizbeth’s arm to loop through mine.