Ruari.
All the fear she’d been gathering turned to fury. Sam had already lost in every way that mattered; that he would toy with her now, when she was of no use to him, was a cat’s cruelty. She tried to pull the feather out, but it was stuck, as if Ruari had made a hole in the soft flesh of her wrist and glued it in?—or as if it had grown out of her. But that was impossible. Gritting her teeth, she yanked hard, hissing with a jolt of unexpected pain as the feather popped free, blood oozing down to wet her fingers.
How had he even done it? Even if he had some device, some alchemy to ensure she would not wake when he worked his torments, the night prior had not involved a lot ofsleeping. Besides which, she liked to think she would have noticed a black feather sticking out of her wrist when she’d gotten dressed that morning.
“Anchors up, lads,” the captain called. The ravens rose like a black wind, blotting out the sky as they circled the ferry, and Sam became aware of a crowd gathering, exclaiming and pointing at something she could not see. Dread pooled in the pit of her stomach.
“What are all those people looking at?” Sam asked an old man.
“You didn’t hear?” the older man said, smacking his lips around his pipe. His skin was spattered with freckles and flecks of red from a lifetime in the sun, his hair long since drained of color. But his eyes were still sharp, a stormy hue that reminded Sam of the sea. “A man died last night. The baker’s boy found him this morning, still warm.”
“But what are they looking at?” Sam demanded.
“Oh, his hat,” the older man said offhandedly. “The brim was embedded in atree. Don’t see that every day, do you?”
The hair rose on the back of Sam’s neck. The Wild Hunt. It had to be. But her grandfather had been taken into custody, had been secured in an iron cell! He couldn’t possibly be behind the attacks, even if whoever was behind them was using his hauntings to target their victims.
And that night was Samhain. When the sun set, the Otherworld would spill out, the Wild Hunt’s power swollen like overripe fruit. Instead of cutting down one or two men that night, they would harvest the field, and everyone with a haunting would perish. Including Sam.
Sam ought to stay on the ship. She’d had a death omen, after all. She ought to put all the salt of the sea between her and the sluagh. But time was slipping away?—by the time word got to Hel and Jakob, it might be too late.
She had to get back to warn them. Ravens screamed overhead as Sam leaned over the railing. The distance between the ferry and the dock yawned. Hel or Jakob might make the leap, but Sam couldn’t. Nor could she imagine swimming in the cold, stormy waters, not with her heavy skirts pulling her down. Which left only one solution.
It didn’t take her long to locate the captain, a grizzled man with long features and a distant stare. The mellow scent of tobacco hung around him in a cloud, a pipe clenched between his teeth.
“Sir,” Sam said, “I need to get to shore at once, it’s an emergency?—”
“Can’t be done, miss,” the captain said, without taking his eyes off the sea, as he steered the ferry away from the dock through the chop. “Whatever it is, I’m sure it can wait till Wales.”
Except it couldn’t. She thought about explaining, but it sounded absurd even to her own ears. Besides which, who would believe she was an agent of the Society? If, indeed, that’s even what she was anymore.
But Sam had skills of her own, didn’t she? She scanned the shore, her gaze landing on a young boy with a flop of sandy hair squatting on the docks, examining what must have been some sort of oceanic arthropod.
“That’s my son!” Sam cried, pointing at the boy. “You have to go back. He’s still on the shore. He must have wandered off at some point, oh, please?—”
“Your son?” the captain frowned. “You don’t look old enough to have a son.”
“He’s all I have left of my sister,” Sam begged. “If anything happened to him?—”
An older woman scowled at the captain. “Oh, have a heart! What are you waiting for, her whole life story? You’d leave a little boy defenseless and alone?” At her word, the other passengers began muttering amongst themselves, agitating in her defense.
“Help the poor woman.”
“Heartless bastard.”
“That poor boy...”
Unexpectedly, tears pricked in Sam’s eyes, and she turned them on the captain, remembering, at last, their power. The way men could never stand to see a woman cry, despite generally being the cause of it. “Please, sir.”
“Fine. Have it your way,” the captain snapped. “But if the Dobhar-chú takes us?—”
“Thank you,” Sam said with feeling.
The captain called out orders, bringing the ferry slowly around. The moment the gangplank was extended, she dashed off the ferry, running straight past the sandy-haired boy. The captain’s curses blistered the air behind her as he realized her deception, but Sam ignored him. She ignored everything as she sprinted for the Shelbourne, the ravens darkening the sky behind her like a cloak. Breathless, she pulled herself up the stairs of the hotel, praying the other woman was still there, that she wasn’t too late.
“Hel!” Sam burst into Hel’s chambers. A soft whistle was all the warning she got before a knifethunkedinto the door beside her head, pinning her honeyed curls to the wood. Sam froze, her heart racing.
Despite how they’d left things between them, Sam’s heart couldn’t help but thrill at the sight of Hel, her scarlet tie undone around her neck, and those cutting eyes, focused entirely on Sam. Her revolver was in pieces on a formerly white cloth, Hel apparently in the process of cleaning it.
