Farris gestured into the hall. “Well, as you were coming along, I heard one of them mention well, something about witches.”
Tamara frowned, a fragment of memory skittering spiderlike up her spine. Christine had said something about witches at Slaughterbridge. It had been her intention to visit the site this very day. There were a hundred other creatures who could be responsible for these crimes, but the coincidence seemed worth noting, particularly given the local lore about witchcraft and Slaughterbridge.
“Go and ready the carriage,” she instructed Farris, moving to peer out into the corridor, at the partially opened door across the hall. She could not make out many of the words from here, as though the men had purposely lowered their voices.
She turned to him again. “Is Serena still spying on the fairies?”
“I believe so, miss.”
“Good. I’ll be along shortly, and we shall see if we don’t have better luck locating Richard Kirk today. Then it’s out to Slaughterbridge.”
Farris nodded and went to fulfill her instructions, moving with surprising grace.
She waited several moments and then slipped into the hallway. A glimpse as she passed the partially open door revealed the two constables and the innkeeper, Roger Price, gathered in an elegant sitting room, though all of the men were standing. Tamara pretended to be occupied examining a portrait upon the wall. She began to contort her fingers, whispering the first phrases of a German spell that would temporarily improve her hearing, but then the voices in that other room rose in volume, and no magic was necessary.
“The man is dead, gentlemen!” Price said. “I’ll thank you not to treat his memory so shabbily within these walls, particularly as you haven’t a single clue as to the whereabouts of his granddaughter.”
“It’ll be easy enough for you to find another barmaid, I should think,” one of the constables, a man with a ragged voice, said curtly. It was clear he was unused to being upbraided by anyone.
Tamara flinched at his callousness.
“Ah, well, it’s good that you’re on the job, then, since you’re so set upon locating her and the other girls that’ve gone missing,” Price sneered. “I’m well aware that the two of you are more used to manhandling drunken brawlers than solving murders and mysteries, but you’re wasting your time here.”
“See here, sir,” the other constable protested. “The dead girl in Market Square the other day, Betsy Harper, we figured she’d thrown herself from the clock tower. The whole village thought so. But after last night— ”
“After last night, what, precisely? What do you gentlemen think you’re going to learn here?”
“Well, sir, two of the girls did work for you.”
Price cursed loudly. “You imbeciles. You think I’ve got them stashed in the basement or the stables? By all means, have a look around. And now I think that’s quite enough of my time you’ve taken.
“I’ve had two girls who worked for me go missing in a handful of days, and I fear for them, gentlemen. These are fine girls, and I’m fond of both of them. Now you’ve four missing, and four people dead, and what are you doing with your time? Asking insulting and ridiculous questions. Now that you’ve inquired, shouldn’t you be out actually searching for the girls?”
“There are dozens of men out in the forest already— ” began the ragged-voiced constable.
“Yes, but the girls are still missing, aren’t they? Which means the job isn’t done yet. I’ve spent some time out there already myself, but now I’ve got my farrier and his son searching in my stead. Someone’s got to look after the inn. What excuse have the two of you got, then, for hanging about here and ridiculing a dead man?”
“That will do, Mr. Price,” snapped the other policeman. “The old man rambled on about witches. Said he’d seen ’em as a boy, so he knew what they were when they come for the girl. Claimed they stole her out the window, carried her off into the sky. What are we supposed to make of that?”
“I couldn’t say, constable, but you could bloody well show some respect for the dead. Witches! For God’s sake. The only mystery the two of you are fit to solve is what’s at the bottom of a glass of ale. Now if you’re through, why not get on with your work, and let me get on with mine?”
Tamara turned toward the window in the corridor and set about examining her reflection there, fussing over the pins in her hair. The innkeeper emerged from the room first, grumbling in frustration as he headed into the tavern proper. The constables came out of the room after him, one of them clutching his hat in his hand, the other holding a pipe as though he meant to throw it at the retreating back of Mr. Price.
They hesitated a moment as they emerged and saw her in the hall, but then they made to depart.
“Excuse me, gentlemen,” Tamara said softly.
The loutish pair turned and studied her appreciatively. Tamara acted the coquette, resisting the urge to scowl at them.
“Yes, miss, what can we do for you?” asked the man with the pipe.
She glanced shyly down a moment and then lifted her gaze, feigning anxiety and a delicacy that had never been hers.
“I couldn’t help overhearing part of your conversation. I hope you’ll forgive me for that. But there is so much talk in the village about these missing girls, and now murder. A young lady cannot help feeling a bit afraid.”
The other constable, a brutish man with a bent nose, grinned at her, revealing a few brown teeth and many gaps between.
“Ah, well, miss, you’ve got nothing to fear with us around. We’ll keep an eye out for you.”
Yes, Tamara thought, I’m sure you will.
“You’re too kind,” she told them. “It’s a comfort, truly. Particularly as the girls who’ve gone missing, as I understand it, have all been quite young, and I feel I might bear a resemblance in that sense to the others who’ve fallen prey to whatever evil lurks in Camelford. What of the couple who met their untimely ends last night? Do you think the culprit is the same?”
“No reason to think so, miss,” said the bent-nosed brute.
The constable with the pipe looked at his comrade. “No reason to think otherwise, you mean.”
They looked at each other in consternation, and Tamara was grateful to the pipe-smoking gent when he turned to her, dropping all pretense.
“The bride was a young lady no older than yourself, miss. Truth is, we think they came for her and her new husband tried to stop them, ended up getting both of them killed.”
Tamara stared at him. These men might be loutish pub creatures, but they were not as inept as she had first believed.
“You said them. Have you any idea who they are?”
The constables both dissembled a moment and then the brutish one slipped on his hat. “Only theories at this point, miss. All we can tell you is that it’s best that you don’t go out after dark on your own.”
“After dark?” Tamara asked.
The pipe smoker shrugged. “It’s all happened after dark, at least so far.”
“Thank you, gentlemen,” she said, noting how their initial response to her had been sobered by the topic at hand. “I’m grateful for your concern.”
She was tempted to explain to them what Christine had said to her the previous afternoon about witches, but she knew it was a foolish impulse. Given their dismissal of the tale told by a dying man who’d witnessed the actual events as they unfolded, they were hardly likely to credit the opinion of an outsider, never mind a girl.
When they had said their goodbyes and departed, she hurried back toward the front of the inn, already casting her mind forward to the impending search for Richard Kirk. Hopefully, Farris would have the carriage nearly ready now.
The days were passing too quickly. Four human girls had been spirited away, and four people murdered. She had no idea how many fairies had been abducted or killed.
If Richard Kirk was correct, and the vanished girls had merely been abducted, they had only days to live. Tamara refused to give up on them. Every moment that went by was another bringing them nearer to their deaths, and the weight of that knowledge was heavy upon her conscience.
STREAMERS OF SUNLIGHT fell through the branches of the trees high above, but those golden rays never seemed to reach the forest floor. It was as though the shadows swallowed the day and night never quite surrendered in the depths of the wood.
Rhosynn of Stronghold knew that her perception might well be colored by the grief in her heart, by her fear for her missing sister, but every tree seemed to hide an enemy now. She felt the forest closing around her as she moved among the trees, twitching and birdlike, watching every branch and leaf for signs of trouble.
The bow was light in her hands, an extension of herself, and the arrow felt right and murderous where her fingers touched it. The string of the weapon hummed with her need for vengeance.
“Rhosynn,” Fyg said at her side.
She frowned and looked at her cousin, even as the other fairy girl slipped between two thin birches, a dark metal dagger clutched in her hand.
“What is it?” Rhosynn demanded. “Why would you speak, Fyg, and risk alerting the killers?”
Fyg flinched and pushed a lock of shimmering golden hair away from her green eyes. “Don’t say that word, Rhos. Mellyn is dead, but Lorelle and the others are alive still, I know it.”
Rhosynn sighed. The air was claustrophobic around her. The magic of the wood still danced upon her skin, but she felt strangely anchored to the earth, as though she would not have been able to take flight even if she wanted to.
“All right. Even so, I told you that you could come along only if you kept quiet. If the dark ones are here in the wood, it would be nice to catch them unaware.”
Fyg nodded earnestly. Rhosynn appreciated that she did not mention the fact that no one was allowed to leave Stronghold alone now, and this little search party would not have been given permission to depart if there had not been at least three of them.
Rhosynn frowned. Three. She glanced around.
“Looking for me?” a voice whispered above her.
Swift as a fox, Rhosynn raised her bow and drew the string. Had she not seen the familiar magenta sparkle of Ghillie’s eyes, she might have shot her cousin through the heart.
“Fool,” she whispered harshly. “Come down here. And try to keep up from now on.”
“Keep up?” Ghillie replied, fluttering down to the ground, into the deep shadow amid the trees. “It was you who lagged behind, cousin.”
“That’s what I was trying to tell you,” Fyg confirmed. “That Ghillie had passed us by, and I’d lost track of her.”
Rhosynn frowned. “It was a foolish thing to do, Ghil. They could be upon you in an instant. We’d not hear a sound, and you’d be gone. Stay within sight.”
All humor drained from the group as Rhosynn recalled the details of Lorelle’s disappearance. She had been quite close by, and still hadn’t been aware of any danger.
“You’re right. I’m sorry. I’ll be more careful.”
Fyg sheathed her dagger and crossed her arms sternly. She was the littlest of them, but the grimmest as well.
“She’s not the only careless one. Rhosynn, you didn’t even know that Ghillie’d gone ahead. If I hadn’t hurried after you, and called your name, you’d have left me behind. With Ebrel now vanished, we’ve five of our people missing. If you don’t have a care, one of us is sure to be number six. Ghillie and I want to end this as much as you do, but we must be smart about it.”
Rhosynn smiled. “You’re right, Fyg. My apologies. I was being a fool.” She arched an eyebrow. “Though I don’t think Ghil’s got anything to worry about, does she? Wouldn’t be her they’d take. Only the pure among us suit their appetites. And after her night with that French boy on the riverbank, she’s hardly that.”
Ghillie kicked her in the shin. Rhosynn let out a small yelp of pain, and then the fairies were laughing together again. It felt wonderful to share a moment of lightness, yet Rhosynn felt guilt, as well, as though it was wrong to allow herself even to smile while Lorelle and the others were still missing, and their abductors remained unpunished.
“All right, hush now.” Rhosynn adjusted her grip upon her bow, and nodded to her cousins.
Fyg and Ghillie started through the forest again, the shadows of the wood clinging to them as though they could smother the magic in them. More and more Rhosynn wished she and Lorelle had just fled this place the moment things had begun to get dangerous. But there was nothing to be done for it now. She would not leave until she had her sister back, or justice, if the worst happened.
The Council of Stronghold had only just begun to allow search parties— hunting parties, Rhosynn thought them— to venture out into the wood. The humans were all through the forest, but the magic of the outpost would keep them away from the enchanted part of the wood, which left it for the fairies to explore—
Rhosynn froze.
Out of the corner of her eye, she’d seen something move.
She glanced to her right and something glittered in the shadows. It was there only for a moment, and then gone, but she had seen it.
She swung the bow, drew the string, and took aim. “Sprite. Show yourself.”
Nothing happened. Fyg and Ghillie stared at her, then glanced into the wood in the direction she aimed, then looked back toward her again.
“Now,” Rhosynn said.
Serena darted around from behind the tree. She flew to within a dozen feet of the fairies and then hung in the air, tiny wings fluttering furiously, arms crossed just as sternly as Fyg’s had been moments before.
“You does what now, Rhos? Hmm? Going to shoots us?” Serena demanded in her tiny, piping voice.
“I’m considering it,” Rhosynn replied.
“Serena!” Fyg snapped. “Aren’t you in enough trouble, little one? Now you’re spying on us. Why, there are those at Stronghold who would accuse you of spying for our enemies, if they were to hear.”
“We isn’t a spy, grumpy Fyg, and how dares you to say it!” Serena shrieked. Tears sprang to her eyes, and her face flushed lavender. “You breaks our heart. Not a soul at Stronghold loves Aine like we does, and not a one wants her back more! Shame on you!”
Fyg had such a guilty expression on her face that Rhosynn would have laughed, had it not been that she herself felt a measure of shame. The council’s treatment of Serena was inexcusable. Yet that did not give the sprite leave to spy on them.
“It isn’t the enemy she’s spying for,” Rhosynn said. “It’s the Protector of Albion.”
Serena only harrumphed and looked away, not behaving at all like a captive.
“And how do we know the two aren’t one and the same?” Ghillie asked.
The sprite’s eyes went wide with fury, and she darted like a hornet through the air. With her tiny hand, she slapped Ghillie’s face. It could not have hurt badly, but Ghil cried out as though stung, and backed away.
“Oh, you foolish little thing. I’ll kill you for— ” she began.
“No,” Rhosynn said, holding up a hand. “She defends the honor of her friend. You cannot fault her for that.”
Serena hovered once more in the air. She jabbed an accusatory finger toward Rhosynn.
“You pretends to be our friend, Rhosynn, but we doesn’t have any friends left at Stronghold. Not with Aine gone. And now she’ll die, and your sister, too, and the others, all ’cause the council doesn’t think they needs the Protector’s help. If they lives, it’ll be Tamara Swift’s doing, and none of Stronghold’s.
“Fools,” the sprite sniffed.
Then she darted off into the trees with a musical trill and a cascade of lavender light. Rhosynn didn’t attempt to shoot her with the bow, nor did Fyg or Ghillie make any move to stop her.
Serena had spoken true, and it cut them deeply.
FARRIS NEEDN’T HAVE BOTHERED with the carriage. Tamara ought to have realized straightaway that Richard would be out in the forest once again today, searching for his sister. By late morning, she had joined the search party, though she had little hope that the ordinary men combing the woods would meet with success. She and Farris were searching, instead, for Richard Kirk.
They had joined a party led by Camelford’s two inept constables, who obviously thought themselves responsible for the leadership and organization of the entire effort. No one argued with them. They might be poor constables, but they were strong men with keen eyes and seemed as desperate as any other man to find the missing girls. The men were welcomed among the searchers.
On the other hand, the group seemed troubled by the presence of a woman. Even the constables, who had made their appreciation obvious earlier in the day, observed many times that she’d be safer back at the inn. She had to remind them that it was they themselves who’d told her nothing bad had happened during the day— as yet.
Tamara ignored their hesitations, and they were forced to accept her help. They spread out through the trees, all staying within hailing distance of one another, and moved through the forest looking in the dense brush for any sign of the missing girls. Farris was off to Tamara’s left, and a carpenter named Hayes to her right.
They wandered the woods for hours. Sometime after one o’clock, a group gathered in a clearing to share water, bread, and cheese. Tamara hadn’t expected to find any clue as to the whereabouts of the girls, but she had begun to despair of ever setting eyes on Richard Kirk again.
When he walked into the clearing with his father, just ahead of Peter David and his hounds, Tamara let out a small gasp of surprise that caused several men to look at her. As she was the only woman in the group, Richard could not fail to notice her, and as soon as he had somberly greeted some of the others he waved away the food they offered and strode over to where she and Farris stood.
“Miss Swift, isn’t it?”
“That’s right.”
“Thank you for your efforts. I admit, I’m surprised to see you out here.”
“Because I’m a woman?”
Richard frowned. “Because you’re a stranger. An outsider. Most of those traveling through Camelford these past few days have moved along more quickly than usual, but you seem to have no other destination.”
“At the moment, I do not,” she replied.
Tamara did not elaborate, and to his credit, Richard did not pursue the subject.
“Well, I’m grateful,” he said, then nodded toward Farris. “To both of you.”
“Least we can do,” Farris replied. “Least any decent person could do.”
The young man’s gaze grew distant. His mind seemed already to be turning back to the quest for his missing sister and the other girls, and Tamara could not blame him. She glanced around to be sure they would not be overheard.
“Richard,” she began, watching his eyes closely, both to gauge his response, and to communicate to him her own sincerity, “you told me of the special rapport you have with Sally. That you can feel her, even get a sense of her surroundings, and that you sometimes know things that she knows.”
He blinked as though she had spat at him, and took a step backward, then took a look around to confirm for himself that no one was near enough to have heard her words.
“I was distraught that day, Miss Swift.”
Tamara narrowed her eyes. “Are you now telling me that it isn’t true?”
He averted his gaze, staring at the ground. “Not at all.” With a thin, tired, uncertain smile he raised his eyes once more. “It’s just not the sort of thing I’m used to discussing with strangers. Or with anyone else, for that matter. When I have spoken about it, well, you can imagine the sorts of things people have said about me.”
“I can, in fact,” she said.
Richard cocked his head to one side and looked at her as though for the very first time. There was a profound sadness in his eyes that did not mask the basic decency and warmth that also lived there.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “Yes, I see that you can.”
Farris cleared his throat to draw her attention, and Tamara followed his gaze to discover that the elder Mr. Kirk and the hounds master, David, were peering at her and Richard. She shifted her position to keep the young man between her and their observers, for his own privacy.
“Have you sensed anything more through that connection, anything else Sally is feeling that might help us locate her?”
Richard hesitated a moment. “There are others there,” he said, and once again his gaze seemed distant, though now in an entirely different way. It was as though he was seeing into some other world, a realm beyond the ordinary human senses, through which he could connect with Sally.
“This will sound peculiar,” he added, then glanced at her, “though perhaps not to you, now that I think of it. Some of the girls that are around her have a sort of light to them. I’m not sure they’re entirely human.”
“Go on.”
“The fear comes off all of them like something alive. It’s enough near to buckle my knees when I feel it. And the trees— ”
Tamara glanced past him, checking to be sure no one was coming closer. Farris busied himself by taking off his coat and picking brambles from the fabric.
“What of the trees?” she asked.
“It’s as though the trees themselves are holding them. Pricking Sally’s skin. Like claws.” He said this last in a rasp, and in his voice she could hear some of the fear he had absorbed through his sister. Richard breathed evenly, but Tamara could see it was an effort.
His eyes closed. “It hurts,” he said softly.
When he opened them, he blinked as though awakening. “There’s one other thing. There are shadows, dark figures, tall and thin, all angles and glittering eyes. I have no idea what they are, but— ”
“Witches,” Tamara interrupted.
Richard stared at her. “What?”
“Christine’s grandfather said they were witches.”
For a long moment Richard said nothing. Then he shifted, as though released from some trance, and glanced around at the other men in the clearing, and at his father and the hounds master. When he turned back to Tamara, he nodded slowly.
“Well, maybe they are at that. Would explain a lot, wouldn’t it? If you believe in that sort of thing.”
The words were heavy with irony and frustration.
“Yes, if you believe,” she said, lifting her chin. “I would be grateful if you’d let me know of any further developments, either in the search or through the rapport you share with Sally.”
“I’ll do that. Though I still am forced to wonder why you care so much. Whatever has happened to my sister and the other girls, it isn’t as though there’s anything you can do to help them.”
Tamara raised her eyebrows. “So it might seem, Richard. But if something unnatural is at work here, I may be the only one in Camelford who can help them.
“That is, of course, if you believe in that sort of thing.”
She stepped back and gave the smallest of bows. “You’ll forgive me, I hope. There’s business I must attend to elsewhere. But trust me when I say that I have not given up my dedication to this task.”
“Of course,” Richard said, inclining his head.
As she turned to go, and Farris fell in beside her, the young man watched them curiously.
Only when they were well away from the clearing did she speak her thoughts aloud.
“Witches,” she said.
“So it would seem,” Farris replied.
“But every reference we’ve come across in Grandfather’s library suggests that they’re extinct.”
“Apparently not.”
Tamara smiled and glanced at him. “All right. Let’s see if Serena has returned to seek you at the inn, and I’ll summon Bodicea.”