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“Then it’s safe. Asher can’t get it.”
Wild hope boiled through her until Ruan’s grim face dashed her down again.
“If Asher defeats us, nothing is safe. The Keun Marow feed off the magic of fey and Other. Conor’s death alone would give them a strength unseen by any in our time.”
She held out a hand. “Stop!” She didn’t want the words spoken. To give her deepest fears voice was to give them control.
Conor dead. Conor as feast for those horrible, nightmarish creatures. She covered her face. Let the anguish come. Burn through her. Pass on, leaving an echo of grief she’d loose when she must. But not before she had to. Now was the time for action.
She straightened to face Ruan. “Surely, you can’t want Conor to face Asher any more than I do. Please. We have to find a better way.”
She met his eyes and saw his thought pass like a shadow over his features. She was the way. That’s what he was thinking. Her death at the quoit was the one way this could all be avoided. And yet Conor had refused. She would live on, and Conor would die to make it so.
But if he died without defeating the demon, would she have gained anything but hours—days at the most?
Her hands curled to fists. Impotent rage churned her insides. She wanted to scream.
The reliquary was the key to everything. Only how to use it to gain the greatest advantage?
A snap and a sudden sting across her palm caused her to open her fist. The bone figure lay in pieces, its head crushed from its body, pearls of blood lining her hand.
“I’m sorry,” she said, knowing he would understand.
Ruan flushed, his jaw clenched, frustration darkening his eyes to slate. “So am I.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Ellery did what she always did when in doubt; she worked. Lowenna had seen this need to keep hands and mind busy and offered space in her own sprouting herb garden.
“I’ve warned away the gardeners. You shouldn’t be interrupted. I tend this plot myself.”
When Ellery drew in a sharp, heady breath, Conor’s grandmother smiled. “Tending the earth will bring you solace. It always has for me.” She glanced up at the house, still caught in long, morning shadows. “Conor wrestles with himself. He longs for a life he sees slipping away. You can bring him back. You can hold him among us.”
“But for what? If Asher wins, there’s no life for anyone.” Ellery pushed her hair off her face with the back of one gloved hand. “And Conor’s made it clear he doesn’t want anything to do with me. I think you’ve overestimated my appeal. Or Conor’s interest.”
Lowenna offered a serene smile before departing. “Perhaps,” was all she said.
Gardening wasn’t one of Ellery’s strengths. Left alone, she dug into the earth with more enthusiasm than skill. But the solitude and the heat on her back, the spring birdsong and the gritty dirt between her fingers did more for her spinning, twisted thoughts than all the words of comfort that came before.
The sun moved higher before being swallowed by fast-moving clouds that flattened out across the sky, dull as gun-metal, their edges licked black. They crowded in, turning a bright morning into an oppressive, humid afternoon.
She stabbed at the soil, plunging her spade into the soft loam with wicked relish. It was Conor. Cousin Molly. Her father. It was everyone who’d ever underestimated her. Under-valued her. Used her for their own purposes and called it love.
She missed lunch. Hunger gnawed, but she’d prepared. Unwrapping a napkin, she laid out her cheese, her bread, two brown, wrinkled apples, leftovers from the fall. She reached an arm above her head, working the knots out. It felt good to be sore. It had been too long since the exertion of physical labor. A lifetime since she tended her own home, her own garden.
Meals. Mending. She couldn’t say she liked the chores, but they gave a sense of satisfaction she’d never realized she missed. It also made her bloody tired. A bonus. It meant she wouldn’t brood over might-have-beens and what-ifs. Wouldn’t dream of kisses that burned away the world around her, leaving her body a white-hot shell of searing heat. Wouldn’t yearn for a love that wasn’t meant to be.
Rain speckled the walk. Her apron. She raised her face to it, letting the cool drops splash over her cheeks, ease the flush of her thoughts. She shook the crumbs out, stuffed the napkin into a pocket and tossed the apple cores beneath a bush. The drizzle became steadier. The sky darker.
She’d worked most of the anger and resentment out of her system. And managed to clear a good portion of Lowenna’s garden for planting. But she wasn’t ready to go in. Wasn’t ready to face the compassion mingled with disappointment. She was too new at navigating the crosscurrents of familial feelings. Self-conscious. Awkward. And they were Conor’s family, after all. Not hers. No matter how hard they tried to include her. Make her feel as if she belonged.
Ignoring the rain, she walked away from the house. Away from the terraced gardens and then the manicured lawn. Past the rows of tall slender poplars, the heavier stands of ash and elm. Over the footbridge and beyond the ivory columned folly, abandoned slick and dripping until summer.
This track ran uphill. She’d purposefully avoided the low-lying, wooded paths Conor had led her through. This track was different. Nothing sheltered the meandering curves, only scrubby brush that huddled against the stone walls as if for protection against the wind. It blew steadily, driving the rain into her face. Taking her breath away with it when it pushed on.
Sky and ground mingled, making the top of the hill indistinguishable until she crested the rise, surprised by the suddenness of her ascent. Behind her, the roof of the house poked above the crown of trees. Before her, the track dipped steeply down. Ending at a long wide stretch of beach. The Channel beyond. All of it gray. Misted with rain. Except for the man who stood alone with his back to the water, one hand resting on a boulder, jutting from the sand. A sharp, black shape amid a swirl of fog and foam and wave.
She felt the tensing of h
