‘We have all taught Maeve. She’s special, that little one. Wild wood all the way through. A woman of Kilfayne and the blood of the de Wildes. Like you. But her time hasn’t come yet.’
‘The de Wildes run to boys,’ Alex murmured absently, running her fingers over the pattern. It was like a maze and she kept getting lost.
‘That’s what happens when something kills all the girls.’ Her voice was stark all of a sudden and when Alex looked up those piercing green eyes were very close. Her teeth were bare too, the teeth of a fox perhaps, and the white hair drifted like dandelion seeds. ‘I taught you too, Alexandra. Or tried to. I kept you safe for as long as I could. You are mine as well, a part of me. You and Maeve both. We entwined the blood of the wise women with the blood of the de Wildes time and again, but you all leave, or die. Not that I blame you. Ah, but this time, because he used poorwee Maeve and you too…this time because he took the guardian we set to watch the boundaries…’
‘Has he won? Crom?’ Alex asked. She hardly dared to say the words. Because it would mean she had failed. It would mean she was dead. And that was what this felt like, being in this place. Alone. Like she had died.
‘Not yet,’ the woman of the wild wood purred. ‘Not unless you decide to stay like your brother. Will you go back and bury Crom for once and for all, my child? Bind him deep underground and wind the roots of the wild wood around him? Keep him there forever and stand watch? Will you do your duty for both your lines?’
Both her lines. Both Maeve’s lines too. Her ancestors included the wise women of Kilfayne. Theo had loved Sally who had given birth to Maeve. The two, wound together, like these patterns of tangled twigs, vines, reeds and flowers. The Cailleach was of the land. And all this land was once her wild wood.
And if Alex didn’t…the god of the hungry grass would rise again, and this time there would only be Maeve to stand against him, all on her own. Oh, in ten years or more maybe. But she wouldn’t have Nick. She wouldn’t have anyone. If she even had ten years. Because if Crom escaped now, wearing Nick’s face, and turned up at Patricia’s house in the village…
Alex had to do something. Now.
‘Put him back in the ground,’ said the old woman of the woods. ‘Bury him deep and bind him tight, then call the wild wood. We will do the rest.’
The old woman – her gran who was not her grandmother – blew her a kiss, and something slammed into Alex’s chest with the force of a jackhammer.
CHAPTER 49
ALEX
Alex thudded onto the marble floor, back inside the house, her clothes, skin and hair all soaked, while the wind and the storm screamed on outside, rattling the windows and the doors like some kind of demonic force intent on its destruction. And perhaps it was. If Crom could tear down Wildewood Hall, and kill her in the process, that might free him too. He already had Nick, the guardian of the wild wood. And he had almost had her as well.
With no idea of what had just happened or how she had found herself back here, Alex tried to make herself move, to roll onto all fours and get up. She was clutching the circle of vegetation in her hand, half crushed and still as wet from the rain as she was. She had no idea where it had actually come from and how she had brought it inside. Her hands were torn and scratched, with smears of blood, dirt and sap all over them. Had she made it? Or found it?
Or…or had that dream been real? Had she been given it?
She thought of the stone circle, and the light of that ancient sun, and the Cailleach. And the old oak tree.
If that was real, Nick was gone.
Something like a stone landed in her chest and all her ribs seemed to tighten. She felt brittle, like she would crumble to pieces. Her eyes burned. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t…
Blaise’s soft laugh echoed through the hall and that brought her back to her senses. He was still here. And so was Crom. Without Nick to contain them, their spirits roamed free.
Bury him deep…
That’s what her grandfather had tried to do, right under the house, in the undercroft after she had let it out. He had buried it deep, bound it with charms and sealed it up again, hidden the very chamber which contained its resting place.
The study door was open so she made for it.
Nick could still be outside in the storm, in the forest. He’d been helpless and lost and…
Or he was gone. Really gone.
Alex had to push the thought away. There wasn’t time.
‘Really?’Blaise’s voice asked.‘You’re just going to abandon him to his fate? The man you so recently claimed to love? The man who sacrificed himself to save you?’
‘You said he wasn’t a man,’ Alex snarled.
His figure coalesced from shadows now, standing behind the desk. His desk, of course. He had ruled this house with a fist of steel and a voice which wrapped it in velvet. Now he appeared again, drawing on every ounce of power left to him. He looked like his portrait, in the prime of his life, heartbreakingly handsome, a Regency rake who would sit perfectly in any period drama and steal the heart of everyone who looked at him. His smile was a twist of disdain on his perfect features and his eyes dark as his soul.
‘True,’he told her.‘He isn’t. I am here though and I can be whatever you want me to be, Alexandra. You know that. You always knew that. I will give you whatever you want and allyou will ever know is pleasure. Just stop this foolishness. Accept your fate.’
The urge to listen to him was powerful. Because it would be so easy. He didn’t lie to her. He never had. Her family had done nothing but lie. To her and to Nick. Everything was based on lies. From the very first. The de Wildes had lied and lied and used all those lies to gain power and influence. They had used the power of the wild wood to draw on the power Crom granted them. Their daughters had been the price, unless they ran as far and as fast as they could away from this place.
