“Where was he, when you saw him last?” Sam asked. “Is he still in Ireland?”
“I can’t be certain,” Aunt Lucy said. “But I think I have enough strength left to show you.”
Sam dizzied, stumbling against the wall, as a feeling swept through her, cold as winter’s breath.A vision.Except it was not the kind she was used to. Fractured images broke the darkness of her mind.
A vaulted building of moss-eaten stone built on a hill, hollow eyes of windows half swallowed by the earth?—
A wooden wall covered in silver bells, each engraved with a name?—
Scratches gouged deep in a standing stone?—
Sam pulled her mind free with a gasp. “Where is that place?”
“I’m afraid I’m not certain,” Aunt Lucy said with a tremulous smile. All the color had drained from her again, her form flickering, as if the vision had stolen all the substance from her. “But I bet a clever girl like you could figure it out.”
“Your haunting me?—how did it start, do you know? Did he just... ask you?” Sam said, unable to keep the need from her voice. Her grandfather had spun her stories, taught her to use Morse code by tapping out secret jokes over dinner. Had sent Aunt Lucy to watch over her when he knew he had to go away. He would never hurt her. Would he? “Nothing to do with the Wild Hunt?”
“Ah, well,” Aunt Lucy said, and her eyes slid to the windows, to the fog pressing against them, “I didn’t say that.”
Chapter Seventeen
The Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin (Baile Átha Cliath)
Two Days Before Samhain
Sam froze, unable to tear her gaze away from the window as a black shape cut past, wings of smoke singeing the sky. This time, there was no Mr. Enfield in the streets, no Lord Lusk in the field. No one else the Wild Hunt might have come for but her. She ought to have had more time! Lord Lusk wasn’t even cold.
Withered fingers that sharpened into bone scraped down the glass with an earsplitting screech that cut right through her, until the window was covered in black taloned hands, scrabbling at the glass like a swarm of locusts. They couldn’t come inside, she reminded her galloping heart as she stumbled back from the window. You were supposed to be safe if you made it home and stayed there until the break of dawn. Mr. Hayes might have been pulled from the folly, but that was only because he’d opened the window?—
The window burst. A shriek tore itself from Sam’s throat.“Hel!”Desiccated arms groped through the breach, like cats pawing a mouse in its hole, bringing with them the musky, acrid scent of rotting meat.
It seemed the Wild Hunt wasn’t playing by the rules anymore. Sam cast about for something, anything she might use as a weapon, but all she had were books and clothes...
And us,the song whispered, curling around her heart like a vine, begging to be let in, or was it out? It was getting harder for Sam to tell. It frightened her, how sorely she wanted to listen. Even Hel hadn’t been able to save Lord Lusk. If Sam had listened to the song, then?—
“Sam!” The door slammed against the wall.
“Oh,hell,” Aunt Lucy said, before Hel’s iron knife sailed through her and she snuffed out. If Sam had any lingering doubts that it was the mark and not the ghost that doomed her, they dissipated as the horrors of the Wild Hunt clawed through the broken window, scrabbling across the walls and the ceiling like spiders. Sweat pricked on her brow as the room grew thick with the smoke of their wings.
“Sam, get out of here,” Hel ordered. “Find somewhere safe and stay there until I come to fetch you. I’ll handle this.”
Guilt twisted in Sam’s gut. Even Hel knew there was nothing Sam could do but run. She was helpless.
Are you truly?The song skirled in her mind, rising along with the wind.Or are you afraid?
Sam shrieked, flinching back as one of the desiccated horrors lashed out at her, its talons smoking through the air, only to crumple to her knees under the weight of another?—its touch clammy and cold as the grave. Ash spattered over her, hot as blood, as Hel’s second knife split its face.
Hel yanked her knife out of the wall. “Go!” she shouted as Sam scrambled to her feet.
This time, Sam listened. But it was too late. Halfway to the door, her feet peeled off the ground, just as Mr. Enfield’s and Lord Lusk’s had before her, a heady weightlessness claiming her, as if she were already a ghost.
Sam squeezed her eyes shut.You can no more suppress a thing’s true nature than you can hold back the tides.
And this time, when the tide of the song pulled at her heart, she couldn’t bring herself to resist, no matter how monstrous that made her. The song cut through her like shards of glass, singing through flesh and blood and bone, filling her up until she flitted at the edges of consciousness, struggling to hold on.
Strangest of all, the Wild Hunt stilled, mouths gaping, as if to scent her. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she was aware Hel was shouting at her, but her words tumbled past like autumn leaves. Instead, Sam focused on the tenuous connection she felt with the Wild Hunt, the sense of...recognition.
Then, as quickly as it had come, the Wild Hunt was gone, the desiccated horrors swept out of the window like so much smoke.
