Wytchcraft: A Matilda Kavanagh Novel (7 page)

My smush-faced cat looked at me before he jumped down from the bookshelf by the door and crept toward the envelope. He crouched down, his pink nose dangerously close to the edge of the envelope, and I saw him twitch his whiskers as he sniffed it. His tail swished slowly back and forth across the floor as he considered it. When he sat back finally and began to clean his paw nonchalantly, I felt safe enough to pick the envelope up. I could feel some sort of energy when I traced my name, Matilda, not Mattie.

I turned it over and pulled the letter out. It was from the Dunhallows.

Dear Ms. Kavanagh,

We look forward to your quick resolution of our business arrangement. Please know, if you have any questions or concerns, we are at your disposal. We are eager to resolve this matter in a quiet and efficient manner. We understand our emissary has explained the urgency and stakes should this situation not resolve itself satisfactorily.

Ever your servants,

Lord and Lady Stoirm Dunhallow

I stared at the letter. They were ambiguous enough, but I knew what they meant. I held my breath as I upended the envelope and watched Owen’s ring slip out, falling into my empty hand. I rolled the cool metal ring between my fingers, feeling the zing of the charm I had laid in it so long ago. It was a simple charm of protection, not that it had helped him now, but there was no mistaking it for a fake. They had taken Owen to get me to obey.

“Damnit!” I stomped my foot and crumpled the letter and the envelope before tearing them into a hundred pieces. I screamed wordlessly and the pieces of paper burst into flames in my hands, the ashes smoldering as they drifted to the floor where I stomped on them. I heard Artemis hiss in surprise as one flaming bit hit him on the tail, and he shot out of the room faster than I could track. When all the paper was obliterated and only the black smudges on my hardwood floor remained, I finally stopped. Owen’s ring cut into my palm in my closed fist and my head was in some invisible vice. If I wasn’t careful, I was going to lose what little food I had in my stomach.

“Sneaky fucking fairies!” I yelled at the ceiling. My heart pounded against my ribs as I walked back into the kitchen. I took a swig of soda as if it was something stronger, slamming the can back down the counter. I felt Artemis twining around my ankles, having come out of hiding when the tiny fires had stopped. I bent down and picked him up, holding him against my chest and burying my face in his fur.

He was purring, a deep rumbling that calmed me as he rubbed his face against mine.  “Mrrrow.”

“Yes, I know,” I replied with a dramatic sigh. “I know I have to go get him.” I set him back on the counter by his half-empty bowl so that he could finish his breakfast. “I have to do something about this hangover first. No way I’m dealing with fairies feeling like this.” I started pulling out spelling supplies.

***

A couple of hours and a two headache charms later, I was standing in the middle of Carraway Park at the
stithen
of the fairy mound. There was no door or archway or anything that told me how to get inside the mound. I wandered around the raised earth, careful of the toadstool rings and clover flowers that were scattered around the area. The last thing I needed was to piss off another fairy.

“Um,” I said, clearing my throat. “Hello?” My voice was weak, but part of me really didn’t want anyone to answer me. I turned on the spot, checking behind me for anyone, but when I turned back around, I ran right into a man, knocking myself back on my butt.

“Ms. Kavanagh, I presume?” the tall, silver-eyed fairy said, not bothering to offer me a hand to help me up.

“Yeah,” I said, biting off the word as I climbed back to my feet, dusting grass off of my jeans and straightening the strap of my bag.

“This way,” he said, gesturing to the high archway that led to a dark tunnel into the ground that wasn’t there a moment before. Without waiting for me, he turned and headed into the dark.

“Awesome,” I said, taking a deep breath to fortify myself before I followed him in.

Once inside the tunnel, the opening closed behind me without so much as a rumble. One moment it was there and the next gone. I tried not to think about how I was going to get out of there as I followed the ever helpful fairy man in front of me.

I expected to have to walk for miles before I ever reached my destination, but after just a few moments, we were walking into a grand throne room. I had to wonder if the short trip wasn’t some magical illusion, the realm just shifting around me. Our steps echoed in the nearly empty room. The ceilings soared high overhead, dripping with twinkling lights and vines of night blooming jasmine that perfumed the air. At the far end were two rather subdued thrones.

I expected huge, ornate things that glittered with huge spires reaching for the ceiling. Instead, the Lord and Lady sat in two low, backless wooden chairs. They almost looked like naturally shaped tree stumps with curving armrests. The only thing grand about them was that they were raised on a dais, so though they sat low, they were still above their audience.

My escort moved to the side, melting away and leaving me to approach the formidable fairies all by myself. I could feel the twinge of pain growing in my jaw, inching up to my temple. I opened my mouth to flex my jaw, trying to loosen the muscle and relieve the pain. I gripped the strap of my bag with both hands, clutching it in front of my chest like some sort of shield. Stopping a few feet from the bottom step of the dais, I was at a loss as to what to do. They weren’t my royalty, but I felt the compulsion to curtsey or bow my head tugging at me.

I lifted my chin slightly, refusing to be cowed by the matching pair of black eyes bearing down on me. Willow, the Lady of Dunhallow, lifted her chin in return, staring down at me, the sharp line of her pointed nose a perfect right angle on her face. Stoirm, the Lord, was a black cloud of anger at her side. He sat forward in his chair. His elbows flared out to the sides, braced on the curved armrests, his silvery brows drawn together over his black, endless eyes.

Locked in a three way staring war, I knew they were waiting for me to speak first, possibly to throw myself at their feet and grovel, beg for their forgiveness. Well, they were going to have a long time to wait then. I had nothing to beg for; I hadn’t done a damn thing wrong and they were just going to have to get over themselves. The throb was growing in my jaw again, but something inside of me said if I broke the eye contact, took a moment to work my jaw apart again, I would lose this battle. Somehow I would appear weak before them, and then they would have me in their little mind game trap. I’d let my head split open from the throb before I let that happen.

“Ms. Kavanagh,” Lady Willow said so suddenly that I nearly fell forward on my face. I took the chance to nod, ducking my face to recover from my look of surprise, but I didn’t trust my voice, so I kept my mouth shut.

“I understand you are still refusing to tell us what you have done with our son,” Lord Stoirm demanded, his voice tumble of gravel and rocks.

“Wait, what?” I blanched, blinking stupidly at them.

“Understand there is nothing you can say that will appease my husband’s anger,” Willow said as she rose to her feet, her gossamer gown sweeping around her as she moved to edge of the dais.

“No, I mean,” I held up my hands, as if I could stop her from coming any closer, my eyes darting back and forth between her and Stoirm, “I don’t have your son, I swear.”

“Ms. Kavanagh,” Willow said, taking one step down from the dais, drawing my attention back to her. She moved down the steps like a fog drifting over the still surface of a lake. When I blinked again, she was in front of me, towering over me, her dark eyes snapping with trapped lightning. “You do understand the dangers of lying to the fae, don’t you?” She placed one finger under my chin, tilting my face up to look into her eyes. The sharp point of her nail pressed into the soft flesh under my chin, threatening to cut me open.

“Yes,” I managed around a swallow, trying to speak around the lump forming in my throat. “I’m not stupid. I wouldn’t lie to you. I don’t have Roane, but I know you have Owen.”

Willow stared down at me, her face going unnaturally still in that way that only the immortals could manage. It was as if you could see the exact moment when their hearts stopped beating and the blood in their veins froze. Only her eyes remained alive and I dared not look away from her. Willow had the power to grind me into a fine dust in the palm of her hand. If she willed it, she could turn me inside out and trap me in my own flesh, never dying, always suffering.

I could feel my vision going soft at the edges as I stared into the black depths of Willow’s eyes. The room around me faded away as I pitched forward and fell into her gaze and everything went black as my body became weightless.

“I see,” she said, breaking the spell and bringing me back to reality. The floor was hard under my feet and my bag was a weight on my shoulder again. Willow turned, taking her finger away from my chin. My heart was a rabbit trapped in my chest when I finally remembered how to breathe. I didn’t even mind the sting of pain under my chin when her nail pricked my skin; I was just happy that she was no longer touching me.

“She is telling the truth?” Stoirm asked as his wife climbed the steps to rejoin him at his side.

“It appears that way,” she said, sweeping the train of her gown out of her way before lowering her body bonelessly into her seat.

“But she is the one that caught Raegan,” Stoirm pressed, turning his body to face Willow.

“Yes,” she agreed.

“No,” I cried out, making the mistake of taking a step forward. Willow’s head whipped around toward me, power snapping around her body like live wire caught in a puddle of water. Her eyes were wide and wild, her fingers curling into the armrests of her chair, and I suddenly couldn’t move. A weight pressed into my chest, constricting my lungs until I couldn’t breathe. I managed a small whimper, a tiny noise begging for mercy.

When Willow released me, I fell to the floor with a gasp. I braced my hands on the cool marble floor, feeling the prick of tears building behind my closed eyes. I needed to get the hell out of here; every second I spent here I was risking my life and sanity. I could feel the lump of the jar in my bag that held my knockout powder. It was strong enough to take down an ogre, but I didn’t think I was fast enough to get it out and use it before either of the maniacal fairies in front of me stopped me.

“I did not catch your daughter,” I breathed, pushing back to sit on my feet. The room was spinning a little too much for me to attempt to stand just yet.

“Ms. Kavanagh, I warned you about lying to us,” Willow said, raising her hand.

“No, no, no,” I begged, “yes, fine, I brewed the damn spell that was used to catch Rae, but you have you believe me, I had no idea that bridge-dweller was planning on catching the Princess. I am so sorry. If I had known, I would never have done it.”

The tears spilled over, running hot and salty over my cheeks to drip onto the floor. I hated myself a little bit just then. I scrubbed my cheeks with the sleeve of my coat, trying to keep from smearing my mascara.

“So you admit it then,” Willow said, letting her hand, and whatever punishment she had building in her fingers, drop.

“No, Jimmy caught Rae,” I said, finally pushing to my feet, happy that the room stayed in place when I did. “But I did make the charm. That’s all I’ll own.”

“That is enough,” Stoirm said. I pressed my lips together. There was nothing I could say that would change their minds about my guilt, no matter how many technicalities I tried to argue.

“Matilda Kavanagh,” Willow said, her voice ringing through the room, “you are in our debt for the danger you placed our daughter in. For that we have called on you to repay this debt by returning our son, Roane, to us.”

“But I don’t have him,” I said, feeling the fight drain out of me. It was stupid of me to come here; I wish I’d just stayed home. But I knew, if I had stayed home, they would have come for me eventually, and I didn’t want them in my home.

“Then you will have to find him. If you do not, we will resolve the debt in a manner we find satisfactory,” Willow said coolly, turning her head to rest her chin on the very tips of her fingers, looking at me sideways. I had a feeling she wasn’t just talking about my life or Owen’s. By the look in Stoirm’s eye, he was planning on taking both our lives to even the scale.

“I offered that dude,” I waved uselessly behind me, “to make him a seeking spell to find Roane, but he said no.”

“You are welcome to make a seeking spell,” Willow said, turning her face to look at me again. I wished she wouldn’t.

“Great, I just need something of Roane’s and I can have it brewed tonight,” I said, a wash of relief flooding through me. “You can send that guy back to my apartment and I’ll give it to him. When you find Roane, you can let Owen go.” I was walking backward, back the way I’d come, and was just about to turn around and run when Willow stopped me with a word.

“No,” she said simply, but her voice rang through the room, reverberating up my legs through the floor. I stopped and turned back around to face her, feeling as though she was going to be right behind me when I did. I was more than a little surprised to see that she hadn’t moved an inch.

“No?” I asked.

“No,” Willow repeated. “Oh, you can make your little seeking spell, if that’s what you have to do to find our son, but we will not be doing your work for you.”

“Toads,” I cursed under my breath, gripping the strap of my bag, twisting it in my fists. “Yeah, fine.”

“Roane has been missing for three days,” Willow said.

“Only three days?” I blanched, interrupting her. Stoirm shot me a look, and if he could’ve cut me down with his eyes to lie bloody on his floor, he would have. I mumbled an apology, dropping my eyes.

“Yes, three days,” Willow said. “I understand that doesn’t seem like an inordinate amount of time to someone like you. However, Roane has never refused to answer our call before. If our son was on some sort of holiday but safe, he would have sent word.”