“If it involves you, then it is my fight,” I respond. “And I go willingly.”
She strokes over the skin between my thumb and forefinger. It feels almost as good as when she touches my antennae. Unable to help myself I hum with pleasure.
“I appreciate it, but with Reavely taking up the mantle of king of the Yeavering, I don’t know if there is a fight anymore. And given my presence here is entirely secret, I doubt Tam Lin is coming for me because I want to destroy the Faerie.”
“The Wyrm did a good job.” I laugh. “And the Barghest. Other than Tam Lin, there are no powerful Faerie left. You have achieved what you came here for.”
“Only if the lottery is ended and until I hear it directly, I can’t be sure.”
“You need to go beyond the veil?”
“I can’t go back,” she says, and the bonds which have clamped around my chest like iron bands loosen. “I’m unable to use any of the portals without magic. It was something we didn’t expect.”
“The bounds between the human world and the Yeavering have become difficult to breach, even for the Faerie. The Yeavering itself did not want to make it easy for those who wished to pass.”
“Have you been beyond the veil?” Kaitlyn asks.
“Not me. My parents. They went and they never came back,” I explain.
“I’m sorry, Linton.” She presses her cheek into my chest, and I rumble with pleasure.
“You were not there. It is not your fault or yours to apologise for. The borders between our worlds were always leakier beneath our feet, in the mines and caves. What happened to them happened to many Bluecaps.”
“Doesn’t make it any better for you.”
“I had my wings by the time they left.” I sigh. “But I missed them.”
There is a clatter behind us in the kitchens, and Kaitlyn lifts her head from my skin. I instantly feel its loss. Bluecaps, whenwe were numerous, liked to be close with each other, sharing warmth and gently preening each other’s wings.
“We should go,” she says. “I’ve had enough here for today.”
Together we walk up the stone stairs and out into the light of the courtyard. A group of the brothers are practicing their particular form of magical defence. Their bones click on the cobbles as they swirl and move as one, like a flock of birds.
Kaitlyn stops, unable to peel her eyes from their movements. “What are they doing?”
“It is an ancient form of defence, one to reclaim the soul,” I reply. Unable to help myself, I’m drawn away from her, into the dance of the dead.
As one creature, we turn, spin, block, and parry. As we move, my body becomes lighter and lighter until, by the end of the practice, I see Kaitlyn watching me, and it feels like my heart is about to explode in my chest.
“That was incredible.” She smiles at me as I return to her side as quickly as I left it. “How did you know what to do?”
“I came here after I escaped the Shadow Keep and when Warden urged me to leave the Night Lands entirely.” I trace a finger through her hair. “My vision couldn’t be trusted and all I had was rage.” I look at the departing brothers. “They helped me regain my sanity. I couldn’t hurt what was already not alive. I couldn’t damage them, and after a while, my vision was mine again and the rage…well I could channel it into my work.”
“The monks set you up as an assassin?” She glares at their departing backs.
“They helped me find a path which was best,” I respond. “And it took me to you.”
KAITLYN
Iam more confused than ever about the monks. On the one hand, they are actual skeletons, so how they have any thoughts or feelings escapes me, but also, the reason they know Linton is they helped him when he first returned from war.
But also, they turned him into an assassin. None of this makes sense. My soul might feel lighter for finally confessing the real reason I’m here in the Yeavering to Linton, even if it was the case I took my sister’s place in the lottery.
I saved her in order to save humankind from the Faerie because the lottery was even fouler than the creatures themselves.
Our country was eating itself. The secretive world of who got taken and who got to stay was unbearable. It would break everything…in the end.
But to take a broken thing like Linton and plunge him into the war beyond the veil and the Yeavering—it is completely unfair. I can’t do that to him. I can’t do it to myself.
