"What do you think —" she said at his back, but he never slowed or turned.
"I don't know."
They found the orc woman in the office. She had obviously been crying. Her eyes were still glassy, ringed in red, a pink flush at the tip of her green nose. For the first time, Ris took Elshona in closely. She and Ainsley were the same age, which was just a year younger than she was herself. She had fine features, sharp cheekbones and a strong jaw, the shape of her brow strangely reminding her of Tate. It occurred to Ris for the very first time that chef and owner were possibly related.
"I don't know what you want me to tell you, Ains. I don't have anything to say. He's gone. He's not coming back. There's a note for you, if you'd like it."
"He left a note?"
Ainsley's voice was flat, and Ris couldn't help the hand that rose to her mouth on its own accord.I think your boyfriend is in crisis.Perhaps, Ainsley had been right. Tate had been in crisis and Ainsley had been the only one to notice, although no one had intervened.
Her mind instantly went back to that night at the bar of Gildersnood and Ives. Once they had vacated their booth, Tate and Silva announcing that they were leaving, taking a walk downtown before heading home, she and Ainsley had relocated to the bar, finding two empty stools near the end. Ruby was bartending that night, Ris’s favorite employee. As they were leaving, Tate had said something to her, something that made the barkeep throw her head back and laugh uproariously. The conversation had been too fast for Ris to understand, too laced with industry jargon and slang, but Ainsley had thrown his hands up when a crack was made at his expense. Tate had put his arm around Ainsley's shoulders as he shook with laughter, leaning in and kissing the shaved side of his head.
"You're the best anyone could possibly wish for, lad. Don't ever forget it."
That was what Ainsley had been referring to when he had told his mother Tate had beenuncharacteristically niceupon his exit that night.
"He's not up there swinging from the rafters, if that's what you both think."
"What am I supposed to think?! For fuck's sake, Shona, you're the only one who seems to know anything and you're keeping mum. Forgive us for being concerned. You can either tell us what you know or —"
"What I know is that he's gone. He's gone, Ains. He's not coming back. The best thing you can do is make your peace with it and move on. Because it's not going to change anything if you don't."
"Tell me where he is." Silva's voice came from behind them, soft and defeated sounding. Ris and Ainsley both whipped around, but Elshona only closed her eyes, squeezed shut tightly, as if she might be able to wish herself away. "I'm not leaving until you do."
For a long, terrible moment, the only sound in the office was the steady picking of the antique mantle clock on the top shelf of the desk, before the orc woman broke down. She began to cry furious tears, spinning in her chair.
"What do you need to hear, Lamby? Do you want to know that he's a bogeyman? Do you want to know that he's a ghost, haunting an entire village? Do you need to hear that he's the cautionary tale people tell their children, so thattheydon't wind up disappearing one day? 'Don't ever go into the forest, Gorza. There are strangers there who will take you away.'" She broke off for a moment, choked on her tears.
Silva moved further into the office, obliging Ainsley to step out of her way as she pulled out a chair, dropping into it calmly, uncaring of the other woman’s tears.
"Tell me everything."
By the time Elshona was finished speaking, Ris wished she could go back to that morning, before she'd chosen to go into work that day, before she had glanced down to her phone to see Ainsley's text. A small part of her wished she could go back a full year ago, a year and a half. Before they had befriended Silva, she and Lurielle. Before they had let her into their circle, before they had asked her to come on a weekend trip in place of Dynah. Before she had ever come to this strange little town, before any of these people had been part of her life.
Elshona had choked her way through the rest of Tate's story about the day he'd attempted to meet his father. The orcs had turned him away, and that is where the story had ended, the way he'd told it.
"He went into the woods," she rasped. "After they'd turned him out, he probably thought it would be a faster way back to Castlemartyr. And he never came out. His family went looking for him, but he was gone. Until the day he wasn't." She'd shuddered, lost in a memory she'd needed to shake herself out of. "That was the story I heard growin' up me whole life, the story everyone in our clan knew. My grandmother told it to us, just like her grandmother had told it to her. When I met him he was tendin' bar in the next town over. Barely looked a day over twenty. Later that year, he was meant to go to Dublin, open a new pub for a mate of his. He never made it. I think he knew then, too, that they were comin’ for him. He put me on the train that night. He’d never bothered with that before. We'd been at a party, and . . . he put me on the train, told me to go straight home. And then he calls me out of the fuckin' blue ten years later. 'Culchie, have you missed me?'"
Elshona had choked on her tears then, cutting off. The tension in the small office was making her temples throb, and Ris began to scan the shelves for the barest hint of a bottle of painkillers.
"Who?" Ainsley had demanded. "Who was coming for him?!"
“The man,” Silva had said tonelessly, the first time she’d spoken since Elshona had begun her story. “From the other side of the wishing well.”
Elshona had looked up miserably, first to Silva, who said no more to clarify her strange guess, then to Ainsley. "The strangers. To take him back to the Otherworld. He’s gone, Ains. And there’s no reachin’ him.”
The knowledge that she had even known someone from the other side of the veil made Ris shudder. "I feel like the Bureau for Otherworld Activity is going to come knocking on our door," she said with a toneless laugh.
Beside her, Ainsley looked shell-shocked. “I . . . I mean, there has to be something we can do, right? Someone we can call?
Elshona cut him off immediately. "Ainsley, who are you going to fuckin' call? Do you think there’s a hotline for this sort of thing? ‘Has your loved one been affected by the Fae? Call this 800-number today.’"
He scowled as she laughed, a broken, hollow sound. Ris gripped his wrist, as the orc woman continued.
"He forced me to put the restaurant in my name." Elshona murmured. "A few months ago. That's what we've been going rounds over the past year, Ains. That's why we've been at each other's fuckin’ throats. He told me I could do it or he would turn me out and that the choice was mine. Heknewthis was coming." She looked up, her eyes bright with tears. "Everything will be in probate for a few months, but the process has been started for everything. He left labels on the things to be shipped, an account set up to take care of his mam. There's bleedin' notes for everyone. He's not comin' back.”
"He told me not to wait for him." Silva was staring at some fixed point on the floor, her eyes unseeing and her tone flat. "I'm sure . . . we were talking before he left. I don't know why I can't remember anything. It feels like someone took a black markerand scribbled over parts of that night . . . I'm positive he told me not to wait for him. I thought he meant going to sleep.”
