by E. E. Holmes
Dragos did not return Ileana’s smile, but inclined his head in a bow that left no room for doubt. He would, without hesitation, lie for his High Priestess.
From the shadows of the back of the tent, a hulking Caomhnóir stepped forward and, in one deft movement, had grasped both of my arms and forced them behind my back. Before I was able to do more than gasp in surprise and pain, he had secured my hands with something thin and hard that bit into my flesh—a zip-tie, maybe? I began to panic, and in my panic, lost some of the control I had gained over Annabelle’s body. My words, as I began to shout, were slurred and disjointed. “You can’t do this. We came here to tell you something. Something very important, please…”
“I cannot imagine that anything a pair of traitors would have to say would be of even the slightest interest to me,” Ileana said with an unconcerned shrug. She was already turning away from us, flicking a hand languidly over her shoulder. “Lock them up. Irina’s old haunt should do nicely for them, seeing as it’s their fault it’s currently unoccupied. You should find an adequate collection of chains and ropes to ensure they behave themselves.”
The Caomhnóir holding my arms began to drag me backward toward the tent flaps. Behind me, I heard the scuffling struggle of Annabelle likewise being dragged from the tent. My mind threw itself into a panic. Once I was locked up, I might never have another opportunity to speak to Ileana. She might decide to lock me up and forget about me, like she tried to do with Irina. This might be my last chance to get Agnes’ message to her. There was no way to do it without the two Caomhnóir hearing it as well, but what choice did I have? I dug my heels deep into the dirt floor of the tent and focused every ounce of mental energy I had on forcing those six crucial words out of Annabelle’s lips:
“The Sentinels have begun their watch!”
Ileana froze on the spot, her shoulders rigid, one hand paused in the air, reaching toward the raven to stroke it again. The hand began to tremble. She slowly lowered it and turned to face me. Her face was an ancient mask of shock and horror.
“What did you say?” she whispered hoarsely.
“The Sentinels have begun their watch!” I repeated in a breathless voice.
A shiver passed over Ileana’s features—for a moment, it seemed she would speak to me. She was staring directly into my eyes, burrowing into them, right past the veil of my disguise to the soul hiding behind it. In that fraction of a moment, I felt I had not a secret in the world those eyes could not divine.
And then…
“Take them away. Lock them up. Tell no one,” Ileana whispered, and turned her back on us once more.
10
Unlikely Allies
“SHE KNOWS.”
“You think so?”
“Absolutely. Didn’t you see the look on her face when she heard Agnes’ message? She knows.”
“Then why do you think we’re still rotting away in here?”
“Here” was Irina’s old cage, a makeshift prison fashioned from a dilapidated Traveler wagon so filthy and run down it would have been unfit for a wild animal, let alone a human being. In the year since Irina had occupied it, the forest had started to claim it as its own. Some kind of creeping vine had wound its way through the wheels and up through the holes in the floor. Spiders had festooned the shadowed corners with elaborately spun webs. Something small and furry had built a nest of dead leaves and twigs in the space between the open door and the wall. Faded runes still graffitied every inch of the interior, and though none of the markings looked fresh, some of the Castings were still active. The force of their magic pressed down on us like weights, making my chest feel heavy and my head pound. Even if the Caomhnóir had not searched us and confiscated the rest of the Soul Catchers, I don’t think we would have been able to Walk and re-enter our own bodies, even if we had dared to try it.
As soon as we’d been pulled from the tent, Annabelle and I had both been gagged, so that our screams wouldn’t alert the rest of the Travelers to our presence. The gags had only been removed when we’d been securely chained up inside the abandoned wagon, which was far enough from the main encampment that I doubt shouting and screaming for help would have done any good at all. But I knew enough about Travelers to know that there were no secrets in a Traveler camp, and it was only a matter of time before the rumor of our imprisonment would be spreading from wagon to wagon like wildfire. At the very least, Annabelle’s relatives would be looking for her in the morning, and it wasn’t likely they would buy any kind of lame cover-up story that might occur to the Caomhnóir. No, every Traveler would know who was locked in this wagon by first light, I was certain of it. They’d be crowding the edges of the clearing, trying to bribe the Caomhnóir guarding the perimeter and gawking for a peek at the Northern Girl in chains while they finished their morning coffee. So much for my plan to keep my mission from Agnes a secret.
Once again, I had screwed things up beyond the reasonable hope of repair. Classic Jess.
“Jess, are you listening?”
“Huh? Sorry, what?”
“I said, why do you think Ileana locked us up here, if she understood your message?” Annabelle asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t know. I just don’t know. Maybe I scared her. Maybe it just caught her off guard. Maybe she didn’t want to say anything in front of the Caomhnóir—God knows I would have preferred if they hadn’t been there, but I wasn’t sure if I’d get another chance. But she knew, Annabelle. She definitely knew.”
“What… what does it mean?” Annabelle asked softly. “Are you allowed to tell me?”
“Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t,” I told her. “Agnes didn’t explain it. She just told me who to give the message to. She promised me they would know what it meant.”
“You don’t think… maybe she’s going to try to bury it, do you? Just leave you here so that no one ever finds out?” Annabelle’s tone was calm, but it was forced, too. I could tell she was steeling herself for the very real possibility that she would never get out of here.
Her words fell like lead inside of me. What if Annabelle was right? This was always the danger, wasn’t it? This was why the truth had been so closely held, not just to protect it from the Necromancers, but to protect it from the Durupinen themselves. After so many centuries of power, prestige, and tradition, what Durupinen in her right mind, especially one in such an influential position, would want to give all of that up? Why wouldn’t she just bury it deeper, so that no one would ever discover it again?
But the answer whispered itself to me, in a voice very like Agnes’. Because it had already been buried too long. They cannot run from it now. It has found them at last.
“It’s possible,” I finally managed to reply. “But even if she does, I don’t think she’ll be able to hide it for long. Pandora’s Box is open.” I dropped my head onto my knees. “God, Annabelle, I am so sorry I dragged you into this. It’s all my fault.”
“Stop that,” she snapped, and even in my own voice I could hear her familiar exasperated tone, like at any given moment she would decide to stop tolerating me permanently. “Wallowing in self-pity won’t get us out of here. Now, think. What’s our next move?”
I tried to concentrate through the constant Casting buzz. “Fuck, Annabelle, I don’t know. I can’t reach anyone at Fairhaven because I can’t use the connection unless I’m in my own body. There’s no one here in the camp that’s going to help us, unless you think one of your relatives might…?”
She raised one of my own eyebrows at me, which incidentally, made me look like quite the bitch. “Choosing a distant Dormant relative over the orders of the High Priestess? Not a snowball’s chance in hell.” She laughed. “I’ve persisted in returning here to get back to my roots, you know, but the truth is, it’s been futile. The Travelers have got a crust I’ve never been able to crack, no matter how many stories about my grandmother I tell or how many of her old photos and trinkets I parade back here. I’ve only ever been tolerated. I expect some of them will e
ven be relieved to know they’ll no longer be required to make the effort to accommodate me.”
“Not all of them. That one woman—Zina?—she seemed pretty excited to see me when I was pretending to be you.”
Annabelle smirked. “She’s the exception to the rule. She was my grandmother’s niece. She actually remembers my grandmother before she ran off to marry my grandfather.”
“One exception might be all we need,” I pointed out, grasping a bit desperately at this tiny ray of hope.
Annabelle didn’t reply. She just stared forlornly down at my knees, as though she was wondering if she’d always be forced to occupy a body in ripped black jeans.
I opened my mouth, hoping that I might find the right words to comfort her, to tell her just how sorry I was to get her into this mess, and that I would find a way—somehow—to fix it. But I was spared the struggle, for I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye and was so distracted that I forgot all about apologizing.
A Caomhnóir was running from the northern perimeter of the clearing, waving his arms in an effort to flag down the Caomhnóir that was patrolling the southern side. The speed at which he was moving was notable, as was the franticness with which he waved his arms, but honestly, the thing that gave me the most pause was the size of the Caomhnóir—he was incredibly slender and slight, his uniform ill-fitting and hanging from his limbs as he sprinted around the edge of the clearing. I could not remember seeing any Caomhnóir amongst the Travelers who was so slight of stature, so delicate of build.
Annabelle followed my gaze and had also spotted him now and, like me, was utterly nonplussed. “What the hell…?” she whispered as she watched the figure close the last few yards between himself and the other guard.
The small Caomhnóir, whoever he was, had his fellow on the ground in one swift, fluid motion that caused both Annabelle and me to gasp aloud. Before the felled Caomhnóir could so much as cry out, his attacker brought his elbow down on his face with a resounding crunch, and the Caomhnóir on the ground moved no more. The tiny Caomhnóir then slunk from shadow to shadow like a lithe predator, closing the space between himself and the wagon bound by catlike bound, until, with one last graceful leap, he landed on silent feet. Annabelle and I both struggled to stand. Annabelle had gathered up a handful of her chains to use as a weapon. All I had managed to do was put my hands feebly out in front of me to protect myself.
“D-don’t come any closer!” Annabelle stammered breathlessly.
“I can hardly break you out of here if I can’t come any closer, Jess,” said a familiar, bored voice.
My heart was in my throat. I could barely choke out my next words.
“Catriona?! Oh my GOD! What… how… what are you doing here?!”
At the sound of her name, Catriona pulled the rough woolen hood from her head to reveal her cascade of golden blonde hair. She looked at me in utter confusion.
“Yeah, that’s right. Have we met?”
For a split second, I couldn’t understand why she was asking me such an absurd question. Then, I remembered that I was inside Annabelle’s body, a fact that Catriona could have absolutely no inkling of.
“Cat, it’s me! It’s Jess. I Walked, and then occupied Annabelle’s body. I’m trapped in here,” I explained.
Catriona narrowed her eyes at me. “That’s not possible. If you’re Jess, then who’s in there?” she asked, pointing at my body.
“That’s Annabelle. You know her, she was part of your investigation into David Pierce. She’s part Traveler.”
Catriona opened her mouth, undoubtedly ready to unleash a snarky, dismissive retort, but then she froze, her mouth half-open. Cautiously, she took first one, then several steps forward, looking deeply into Annabelle’s eyes. I saw the exact moment when she recognized my spirit behind them. “Jess?” she whispered, her eyes darting now to my body, as though it were a dangerous object she dare not touch.
“Yeah, it’s me,” I told her, and watched the truth expand like a small bomb, dilating her pupils and turning her pale.
“So, does that mean… the Dormant…?” she pointed a shaking finger at my body, and Annabelle within it coaxed my hand into a sheepish sort of wave.
Catriona’s eyes went as wide as saucers. “But how… how did you…” she swallowed convulsively. “I’m starting to think that I don’t even want to know what I’ve just gotten myself into. But tell me anyway.”
Glancing nervously over her shoulder, she seemed to decide that we were too exposed, even with the clearing deserted and the single guard unconscious in a heap in the grass. She shoved with all her might against the ancient sliding door of the wagon so that it squealed along its track and closed maybe another foot and a half. It wasn’t much, but she seemed satisfied with the additional coverage. She folded herself into the newly created shadows and began to examine my chains, and then Annabelle’s. “I’ll work. You explain,” she said bluntly.
“Annabelle is a Walker, too,” I said, the words tumbling out over each other in my relief at seeing a friendly face. “She figured it out last year when I was here for the Walker Irina’s trial. And yes, before you point it out, we know that a Dormant shouldn’t be able to have any such abilities, but it happened anyway, and so all formerly accepted rules about Walkers and Dormants are now outdated garbage, okay?”
I watched as Catriona made the enormous mental effort to swallow this news whole and, admirably, she managed to choke it down. “Right, then,” she said at last, and continued her examination of the chains.
“How did you know I was here?” I asked her as she worked. “Nobody knew that I’d left.”
Catriona gave me a withering look. “Did you really think, after the conversation we had, that I wasn’t going to keep tabs on every single move that you made? I’ve had people Tracking you since you left the grounds.”
“Of course, you have,” I muttered, barely refraining from rolling my eyes. It probably wasn’t the best idea to roll my eyes at the person who was, at that moment, attempting to free me from bondage.
“I would have done it myself, obviously, but I was… otherwise engaged. Then I was informed that you had been tracked to the edge of the Traveler encampment. I knew then that I had to get personally involved.”
“Why?’ I asked.
“Because I was one of only a few people who knew how dangerously close you’d been to being charged with high crimes against the Travelers,” Catriona snapped at me. “Your status in the Northern Clans was all that saved you from extradition back into the forest to face their justice. I have it on good authority that Celeste herself had to intervene, and that the banishment of your loverboy was the price of your freedom.”
Anger reared inside me like a feral animal. “Are you kidding me? How dare she accuse me of crimes when she’s the one who—”
“Jess, save your indignation for someone who needs to hear it. You’re preaching to the choir, okay? Blast… this… bloody… ah, here we are!” Something deep inside the lock gave a screechy, rusty click, and the shackle around my left ankle fell away. Catriona kicked it away from me and moved on to the right ankle.
“But how did you know we needed help?”
“I had staked you out and saw you get captured,” Catriona said. “Or rather, I saw her get captured.” She pointed to Annabelle, who was hanging on every word of her story. “And once she’d disappeared into the camp, I knew I was her only hope of getting out.”
“How the hell did you get in here?” Annabelle asked her. “The borders are sealed with Castings. Every intruder, living and spirit alike, set off all the Caomhnóir defenses.”
Catriona held up her left wrist. Upon it was a strange set of braided leather bracelets. “I borrowed these.”
I squinted down at them. “What are they?” I asked, but even as the question left my lips, I thought they looked familiar.
“The Caomhnóir wear them. It allows them to cross back and forth over the borders without tripping their own intruder Castings,”
Catriona said.
“Borrowed it? From whom?” Annabelle asked.
“I set a little trap for one of the Caomhnóir patrolling the border. Turns out he couldn’t resist the chance to help a damsel in distress.”
I grinned. “What did you do?”
Catriona shrugged, smirking. “I popped the bonnet on the car, popped the top few buttons on my blouse, and adopted an expression of general feminine helplessness. Bob’s your uncle, he was unconscious, bound up, and all snug and cozy in the boot—but not before I had these for my own. Honestly, what a complete git.”
I wondered silently if the Caomhnóir now trapped in the trunk of Catriona’s car was Ruslo, a young Caomhnóir who had fallen victim to a similar ploy by Irina once and nearly gotten himself killed. If he’d made the same mistake twice, there was no doubt he’d be stripped of his post and relegated to the lowest of drudgery. I tried to give a shit but found I just couldn’t.
The second set of locks sprang open and both of my legs were at last free. Catriona unwound the excess chain from around my body and sliced cleanly through the bonds around my wrists with a lethal-looking knife I also recognized as a Traveler Caomhnóir accessory.
“I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me why you’re here, of all places, unless of course you harbor a burning desire to rot in a remote forest prison for all of eternity that I simply didn’t know about, in which case, this little excursion makes perfect sense,” Catriona said.
I rolled Annabelle’s eyes. “You already know I can’t tell you that.”
“I know circumstances have changed since we last spoke,” Catriona said through her teeth as Annabelle’s ankle chains fell away. “How many times do I have to rescue you from certain peril before you trust me, Jess?”
I bit my lip. She had a point. I wasn’t going to be able to get out of here without her help, and I couldn’t deny that she’d saved my life nearly as many times as Finn had by now. She was practically my honorary Caomhnóir at this point. I heaved a deep sigh. “Let’s concentrate on getting back over the border,” I finally said, choosing to stall rather than commit. “There will be time for explanations later.”