“No.” The word is ripped from her lips, and she clutches her chest.
I stare at her. “She’s a faery half the time ... which means ... she has a faery parent. The dowager duchess has lived here as one of us.”
“And others have, too,” the queen mouths. “The public must never know.”
I don’t want to believe the impossible, but I cannot ignore reality. “That’s what you knew. There are faeries here. Spies.”
Morag’s eyes widen, and I know my answer. Isabeauisa monster, but not the one I seek. I know the answer, know the only possible remaining answer. Isabeau is a faery. Her father was human. And Isabeau is not the killer. The pieces click into place, and I am filled with relief, hope, and horror all at once.
Her mother, the dowager duchess, is a faery spy and the Beast of Brimmond.
“I could never deny my brother,” Queen Morag says softly, voice sounding pained as if her throat is sore from forcing words out. “Whatever he wanted, I made possible. Surely, you must see. He gave me love, and veracity, and loyalty. He never wanted my throne ...”
“What did he want?”
The queen sighs. “All Isaac ever wanted was a beautiful, loyal wife and a clever child of his own. I had no idea Maébh would become so deadly if she was untethered.”
“Isaac took a wife who was not human,” I clarify, needing to hear it spoken, needing surety that my beloved’smotheris the killer.
Morag nods. “My brother never asked for much, soanythingIsaac wanted, I allowed. And if it bought me leverage in other matters, what was the harm? As long as that kind of faery has a human tether, an anchor to bring their better angels forward, they are harmless. She looked human.”
In all my thoughts of Isabeau, on figuring out the Beast of Brimmond, I had not—until this moment—thought about the fact that I left my mother and sister alone with a monster. My father’s killer is with my mother and sister. In trying to keep them out of harm’s way, I left them in the beast’s lair.
“I must leave.Now.Keep Isabeau here and safe.” I run from the room, through the hallways, and through the city. The ride back to Maudite Castle is not long, but every moment means that my family is in peril longer.
Hunters must always put duty before heart, and I have failed. I have failed everyone.
I am glad I hesitated in killing Isabeau, but in thinking it was her, I allowed the true Beast of Brimmond to be left alone with my mother and sister. That is my first priority. The second matter—that my beloved is a monster—is suddenly not the worst part of the day.
Chapter 33
“[The Phynnodderee] is condemned to remain in the Isle of Man till doomsday, in a wild form, covered with long shaggy hair, whence his name.”
—The Fairy Mythology Illustrative of the Romance and Superstition of Various Countriesby Thomas Keightley [1870]
As I race from Regina Centrum to the Maudite estate on a borrowed mare, my mind fills with unwelcome images of Mother and Rylan lying dead on the ground. I want both to ride faster and to slow my pace so I can scan the underbrush for bodies. Now that I have identified the quarry, thegeasto hunt and stop the beast fills me with urgency. The challenge is doing so before the beast kills the rest of my family.
Is the beast always restricted to nighttime?
So far, the bodies have been found in early morning, and my two encounters with the beastly side of Isabeau when she did not have her sleeping tonic and the second encounter with the beast were both at night. The first was during early morning. The only exception to the pattern was Emma’s midday attack, but I cannot understand how that was the same beast—or whether it was a hoax. At best, either way, I have a few remaining hours to reach the dowager duchess. I urge my borrowed horse to speed, but there’s a limit to the mare’s ability to race on unfamiliar terrain. The bulky saddle adds weight that likely adds afew more seconds to her time, but I can’t try a saddle-free ride on an unfamiliar horse.
I am grateful that I am coming from Regina Centrum, as opposed to the manor. There, I’d have to cross through Brimmond Wood, but I am still faced with the difficulty of a horse more accustomed to tracks and city roads. As the mare grows tired, I am less than an hour’s ride from Maudite Castle. The road is pitted but fine. I traversed it only yesterday, so I am not prepared when the horse stumbles.
In the next moment, I find myself flung through the air.
Although I expect to land on the ground, I instead tumble through a net of branches and leaves into a muddy pit. My quarry has taken the time to construct a trap. I am on my back, staring up at the horse, who gazes down at me for another moment before backing up with an alarmed sound and running. I cannot see where she flees, but the result is the same: I am trapped, delayed, and unable to get to the castle right now.
I stare at the late-afternoon sky and try to plan. Under me is a few fingers’ depth of muddy water. The sticks, leaves, and moss that hid the trap are all around and over me. Evening will come soon, and with it, the Beast of Brimmond will shed her human disguise.
And kill my family,my terror whispers.
The pit trap is primitive, but all the same, I am not sure how to escape. I am in a hole deep enough that even if I jump upward, I have no chance of grasping the ground above to pull myself out.
“I do not have time for this.” I scan the sides of the hole, hoping to find an option to scale it.
Several roots jut out of the earthen walls, but as I tug on them to heave myself upward, they all snap and rip. I try jabbing my fingers into the walls, but I cannot get purchase in the mud-slicked sides that way either.
“I am the Hunter, not prey,” I repeat periodically as I whittle broken branches into small stakes.
