Now the bailey bustled with colour and noise. Stalls lined the walls, draped in autumn fabrics and piled high with goods—carved wooden toys, bolts of dyed cloth, copper pots that caught the weak sunlight. The smell of roasting meat mingled with spiced cider and the earthy scent of dried herbs. Children darted between the crowds, and somewhere a fiddle was playing a tune that had people tapping their feet.
Elodie wandered through it all with a smile she couldn’t seem to hold in.
Happy?Gareth signed from beside her, his grey eyes warm.
“Ridiculously,” she admitted. “Is that allowed? After everything?”
Especially after everything.His hand found the small of her back, steadying her as a child nearly bowled into her legs chasing a runaway apple.You’ve earned it.
She had, hadn’t she? She’d survived kidnapping, and finally, finally, stopped being afraid of wanting things. Of wantinghim.
Mine, he’d said in the courtyard at Dunharrow, and she’d saidI love you, and everything had clicked into place like a key turning in a lock.
“That stall has ribbons,” she said, pointing. “Marian would love something for her hair.”
Spoiling the servants already.
“She saved our lives. I think she’s earned a ribbon or two.”
His mouth twitched.Go. I need to speak with Miles about the patrols.
She rose on her toes and kissed his cheek, still a thrill, being able to do that whenever she wanted, and waded into the crowd.
The ribbon stall was picked over but still had some lovely pieces, deep green and gold that would suit Marian’s colouring. Elodie was haggling cheerfully with the merchant (her medieval bargaining skills had improved dramatically) when she felt it.
A prickle at the back of her neck. The sense of being watched.
She turned.
An old woman stood at the edge of the market, slightly apart from the bustle. Her cart was rickety, piled high with oddities—cloth bundles, pottery jars, strange wooden carvings that seemed to shift when you weren’t looking directly at them. She looked ancient, with pale eyes that seemed to look through rather than at the people around her. Those eyes were fixed on Elodie.
Something cold slithered down her spine. She knew this woman, was certain of it, though she couldn’t say from where.
“There you are.” The peddler’s voice was like dead leaves scraping stone. “I’ve been looking for you.”
Elodie’s feet carried her forward without permission. “Do I know you?”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not.” The woman’s laugh was dry as autumn. “Time is strange that way, isn’t it?”
She reached into her ragged cloak and produced something wrapped in a scrap of frayed cloth. Slowly, deliberately, she peeled back the layers.
Fire opals blazed in the pale afternoon light. Gold worked into an intricate setting. A clasp that seemed designed to close itself. The necklace.
Elodie’s hand flew to her throat. The world tilted sideways. “That’s not possible. It vanished when I arrived. It disappeared?—”
“Things don’t vanish, child. They simply go where they’re meant to be.” The old woman pressed the necklace into Elodie’s hands. The metal was warm, warmer than it should have been, and humming with something she could feel in her bones. “And this has been waiting for the right moment.”
The sky darkened. Not gradually, all at once, clouds boiling out of nowhere, blotting out the weak sunshine. Wind shrieked through the courtyard, tearing the last leaves from the trees and sending them swirling like spirits. The market erupted into chaos, merchants grabbing for their wares, people scattering, children crying out in alarm as everyone took shelter.
Thunder rolled in the distance, then closer, then directly overhead. The necklace pulsed with heat in Elodie’s hands.
“Samhain,” the peddler said, and her voice had changed, gone strange and resonant, as if more than one person were speaking. “The night when doors open. The night when choices must be made.” Her pale eyes held Elodie’s. “You came through on Beltane, when the veil was thin. Now Samhain offers you a path back, if you want it.”
If you want it.
Lightning cracked across the sky.
“ELODIE!” Gareth’s voice, his actual deep velvety voice, rough and desperate, cut through the thunder. He was fighting through the panicked crowd, his face stark with fear.
