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She didn’t how long his reach was and the men he’d brought along with him weren’t too far away.
Almost a dozen years inside one mortal body had given the Redcap plenty of time to amass energy he’d need to make that jump, and still have enough leftover power to launch an attack at Gia.
As if he could hear her thoughts, he glanced past her. She didn’t have to follow his gaze. The tie that bound her to her shade was unbreakable. Through her bond, Gia could feel her shadow’s hold on Amy...and with magic only a Fae shadow had, Gia sensed the Redcap’s intention.
Gia threw a blade, smiled as the Redcap shrieked. The blades were iron, created in Underhill by one of the few weaponsmiths who weren’t just immune to the kiss of iron, but able to manipulate it, form weapons powerful enough to take down even the strongest Fae.
Gia was no weaponsmith, but one gift her part-human ancestry granted her was an immunity to the dangerous effects iron had on most Fae.
She smiled as the Redcap danced backward, the features of his human ride contorting to reflect the boggart’s fury.
“Iron is such a bitch, isn’t it?”
He didn’t look at her, though.
His gaze locked on Amy as he wrenched the blade from his chest, breaths ragged. “Do it.”
It came out a snarl, the rage in his voice so thick the words hard to understand. “Now. Or the boy dies.”
Gia shifted in an instant, spinning so she had both the Redcap and Amy in her line of sight.
But she wasn’t the target. Not yet.
Amy looked at her, agony and regret on her face. “I’m sorry.”
A split second later, red-hot pain torn through the bond Gia shared with her shadow, a million tiny pinpricks of it burning into her skin, reflecting the agony her shade felt after Amy threw a small pouch, now aflame, at the shadow’s feet.
A hex bag, Gia realized belatedly. How...?
Her shade sent the message to her, even as the shadow tried to fight off the disabling effects—salt, chamomile, yarrow. All harmless to Gia, but the salt and yarrow could destroy a shade. Destroy a shade and in the intervening shock, a shadow-witch lost nearly all of her magic.
In desperation, Gia severed the link between herself and the shadow, sending her companion back to Underhill, the only way the shade might yet survive.
Robin Redcap lurched toward her, a maniacal smile on his features. “Did you think I spent all this time sitting on me arse? No, little witch, I learned every damnable thing about you and your kind that I could. Now...I’m going rip off your head, drink from your dying corpse.”
Still reeling from the rebound of severing the bond and the echoes of her shade’s pain, Gia stumbled backward.
From the corner of her eye, she saw the boy and Amy, a woman Gia had once thought to be a friend. The boy had his arms around his mother’s waist, shaking his head and pleading.
Lightning lit the skies once more, the rain turning to a downpour.
Over the cacophony, Gia shouted, “Do it, then. Or are you just going to talk?”
He snarled and lunged.
