“That wasn’t a wraith,” River said quietly.
Another gust of ice-cold wind whipped at me. I caught my balance, my gaze catching on the shape of Winter’s house ahead. But the blast of wind hadn’t come from that direction. No—the source was inside the forest, somewhere in the mass of trees on our left that covered the ends of both territories where they merged.
At the gates.
I stood on tip-toe to see over the fence. Holly stood in the centre of the lawn, the silvery mark on her forehead glowing bright blue. Her hair streamed backwards as a breeze blew in the opposite direction from us, out of the gate.
Winter’s gate was opening—a path directly into the Unseelie Court.
I kept still, watching her. Holly wasn’t looking at me, but at the steel-looking sharp points of the gate, the only place in the mortal realm that led directly into the heart of the Winter Court. And someone was coming out.
I hardly dared breathe. A voice in the back of my head—maybe the human part—told me to run. They’re coming. They’ll kill you. Run.
I pushed those instincts aside, standing my ground. Immunity to faerie magic didn’t take away the raw fear that came from facing something as inhuman as the Sidhe, but part of me was in stark denial that she’d had the audacity to open the gate at all. Numbness flooded my body, giving way to a fresh wave of fear when three figures rode through the gate on horses white as the snow beneath their hooves.
Sidhe. There really are Sidhe involved in this. This was worse than I’d feared. Even knowing necromancers had teamed up with Holly to summon evil Vale fae, part of me had hoped the culprits were human.
Looking at the Sidhe was like trying to keep an eye on the horizon while on a rocking ship. Everyone saw something slightly different, depending on their definition of “out of this world scary”. Beauty and horror, though some mortals confused terror for rapture. It was the recognition of a being which was utterly alien, and didn’t belong on Earth.
The three figures on horseback wore gleaming silver armour, and though they weren’t looking at me, I knew they all had the bright blue eyes of powerful Winter Sidhe. A glow surrounded the three of them like the moon on a winter’s night, and I didn’t blame the first humans who’d set eyes on the Sidhe for thinking they were angels. Devils, more like. Who’d said that? Agnes?
They’re poison to mortals, even if they don’t mean to be. An eternity is nothing to them. You’re just curious insects.
Except for the Lynns. They were definitely delegates from Winter, from the rippling blue and silver banners they carried… so did that mean Holly wasn’t working with the Vale outcasts, after all? Holly shouldn’t have been able to open the gate. Not when she’d broken the treaty and nearly got Hazel killed. They should be punishing her for her crimes. More to the point—she was heir, not the Gatekeeper.
“You called us?” said a soft female voice that caressed the skin like a kiss. Leaving a sting in its wake. The part of me not immune to the Sidhe’s magic longed to see the speaker, yearned to see the beauty that went with the voice, but I knew better than to move any closer. Holly was the focus of their attention. She should by rights be scared out of her mind. These were the beings that snapped humans in two like children playing rough with old toys.
“Yes,” Holly said, with a low curtsy. “I hope you don’t mind if I ask you for a favour.”
I sucked in a breath, wincing. Nobody willingly made a bargain with the Sidhe if they knew all the potential consequences. And Holly sure as hell would. She was the Gatekeeper’s heir. What could possibly have happened to make her that desperate?
“I need…” She paused. “I need to be freed from the binding. My mother—she—”
“You ask for the impossible,” said the female voice. “No vow can be broken, yours least of all.”
“I—” Holly’s body was rigid. Terrified, as she rightly should be, considering the beings casting judgement down on her. Either they’d tongue-tied her, or she had nothing to say.
Holly had always struck me as a rule-follower, not a rebel. She’d liked the power. And from the pact she’d made with the necromancers, she wanted to use it.
“I cannot accept the offer,” said the Winter delegate coldly. “Even from the heir. Are you truly so indifferent to your own life?” She moved her own hand, and Holly was sent flying head over heels in the snow. “When you ascend to the position of Gatekeeper, you will never set foot in this world again.”
A gasp escaped Holly, then she flopped onto the grass. I stared at the Sidhe and her steed, completely stunned. One of the few consolations to being the Gatekeeper was being able to live in both worlds. Now the Winter Sidhe had taken that away. She’d never survive in Faerie, regardless of her magic. They’d effectively given her a death sentence.
The Sidhe’s magnificent white steed turned around, and she rode away without a final word. The two other Sidhe knights followed her, and nobody looked away from the gate until it had closed.
Chapter 18
River tugged on my arm. “We need to move. Now.”
Holly crouched in the snow-covered lawn as though the gallows waited ahead of her, and I hated the rush of pity that momentarily drowned out my fury at what she’d done to Hazel.
“I’m not leaving until I get some answers,” I said.
The hedge rustled, and several redcaps ran out with gleeful cries. “Trespassers get eaten,” one of them growled.
Blazing anger rose, quelling my disbelief. I didn’t care if Holly saw or heard us. You’ll pay for what you did to my sister.
I whipped out my iron filings and flung them into the nearest redcap’s face, then grabbed my knife. River’s sword gleamed silver, and magic burst from his free hand, sending a dozen redcaps sprawling into the dirt. I found one who looked alert, and rested my foot on the redcap’s chest. His eyes bulged.
“Not Lynn… not you.”
“Oh, you’d better believe I’ll end you. Who told you to murder my sister?”
He sank his teeth into my foot. I swore and kicked out, glad I’d worn my thickest boots. Those teeth were razor sharp and hung on tenaciously. It took three kicks to shake it loose, sending the creature flying into the hedge. Iron shards spilled carefully from my hands, forming a barrier between me and them. River’s sword cut down, severing hands and limbs, but they kept swarming, drawn by the smell of fresh blood. Over the fence, I’d lost sight of Holly altogether.
Well, it worked last time. As a redcap tackled my legs, I grabbed it by the back of its neck, hoisting it into the air, and stabbed it in the neck. The redcap moved at the last second so the blade sank into its shoulder instead, and it wailed.
“Quiet,” I snapped. “You tried to kill my sister. Who gave you the orders? Holly Lynn?”
“Lynn… no. Not that one.”
“Arden?” The redcap wriggled free, dripping blood everywhere, and fell shrieking beneath his companions as they pounced on the source of fresh blood.
“Ilsa,” River said urgently. “We have to leave.”
“No, we don’t,” I said. “A Lynn gave them the orders. Not Holly. There’s only one other Lynn here.”
The Winter Gatekeeper. Who could command Arden? I only obey the Gatekeeper, he said. He didn’t say which Gatekeeper.
River’s expression darkened. “I don’t think I can go much further from Hazel without surpassing the limits of my vow—frankly, I’m surprised I got this far.”
“Are you really.” My thoughts were clear—sharply so, and it hit me exactly how screwed up the situation was. “Did your vow by any chance to say Guard the Gatekeeper’s heir? In those exact words?”
His mouth parted, surprise furrowing his brow. “Yes. Why—?”
I marched towards the fence. So that’s how it is. She knew. They all knew, except me.
Holly had been behind the house and I hadn’t seen her pass by, so I aimed for the section of fence hidden by hedge, where I’d climbed over the day before. The house’s sheer wall rose opposi
te, stark and ice-coloured.
“Are you seriously climbing over there?” River demanded. “Ilsa! You’re—”
“She did it,” I said. “The Winter Gatekeeper ordered my sister’s death, and she’s in there somewhere. But Holly just argued for the Sidhe to free her from the bargain. Aren’t you a little curious as to what it all means?”
“Of course I am, but—”
“But nothing. Is there a spirit barrier on the place?”
“No, there isn’t. But…” He paused. “I sense something.”
“Necromantic?” I rested one foot on the fence.
“Possibly. I can’t get a reading on it.” He pulled himself over the fence easily and reached out a hand to help me climb down. His hands were warm in contrast to the chill coming from the direction of Winter’s gate. A thick coating of snow covered the grass and the house’s roof, and icicles fringed the blacked-out windows. All the curtains appeared to be drawn, and there were no other signs of life… or death.
“Ready?” he asked, his eyes wary.
“Yeah. Just watch out for those redcaps.”
We ran from bush to bush like spies in an action movie. Coldness poured from the house in waves, making my teeth chatter.
I raised my head, trying to see through the window without moving within view. “Are you sure she’s not in there? The Gatekeeper?”
River swore under his breath. “I sense something… it’s inside the house.”
I ran the last metre to the row of thorny, frost-coated bushes directly beneath the house, and before I could question whether I was making a stupid mistake, I put my hand on the book in my pocket and almost unconsciously, let its power flow through my skin.
Greyness seeped across my vision, blotting out the world. River was a steady glowing presence beside me, but other than that—ow. I’d tried to push my awareness outwards to the house in front of me, and it was like I’d hit an invisible shield. Was there a spirit barrier on the house? If I went inside, I’d know, but that’d put me at the mercy of any tricks Holly had devised.
But where’s the Gatekeeper?
“It’s locked,” River said. “I’d almost say there’s a spirit circle, or something similar, around the house itself.”
“Shit. Is the wraith inside the house?” Holly really had lost her mind. I crouched beneath the window, extending my awareness again the way I’d known which direction old Greaves’s ghost had been in by the graveyard. Holly must be behind the house, but I couldn’t sense her spirit at all. Whatever spell was on the house entirely blocked my awareness. Spirit circle… now I knew what to look for, I picked up on the lights buried beneath the snow, surrounding the house in a perfect circle.
I grabbed River’s arm, pointing. His attention sharpened as he saw what I’d sensed with my spirit sight—a candle, burning even beneath the snow, encased in ice below the window.
“Good catch,” he murmured. “I wouldn’t move it without knowing what the circle contains, but here…” He stepped to the door, running his hands over the wood. “The circle contains the whole house. Opening the door won’t let the spirit—whatever it is—escape.”
I nodded. He hissed out a breath, withdrawing his hands. “Winter magic. A spell.”
“The window?” I suggested. But the house was doctored with the same type of spell that Mum had put on our own territory, governed by whichever rules the Winter Gatekeeper chose. It was entirely possible one of us would end up turned into an ice statue the instant we stepped inside. If not me, because of the truce, then certainly River. And he was Seelie, so he’d probably get hit twice as hard.
Think, Ilsa. If I’d been attempting to break into Summer’s house… but I was a Lynn. The normal rules didn’t apply. This might not be my house, but I knew the magic that sustained it as intimately as my own. And it’d never harm another Lynn.
“Step back,” I said to River out of the corner of my mouth. “This is gonna set off the defences, but they can’t hit me.”
“You’ll draw Holly’s attention.”
“I don’t care. Whatever’s in that house must be what’s screwing with the spirit line.”
“Wait—how are you so certain about that?”
I shook my head. There was no time to explain—and I wasn’t about to let that wraith attack anyone else.
I slammed the heel of my boot into the door. It might be magic, but I’d seen my own house crumble under an onslaught of debris. It wasn’t invulnerable. River’s sword could probably cut it down, but that would trigger the defences. I, on the other hand, wouldn’t.
Bang. Bang. The door rattled in its frame. I knew where the lock was, thanks to it being a mirror of the one on our own house, and I vividly recalled the time Mum had knocked it clean off its hinges in a temper. Not to mention when River himself had done it… using necromantic magic.
Greyness dampened my vision, and the echo of that cold, binding power passed over my skin. I gripped it, hard, and shoved.
Icy wind blew the door inward, and I grabbed the door before I lost my balance. River exclaimed behind me, and I knew he’d seen what I’d done—but he’d disappeared. So had the house. All that remained was a screaming void of grey, and a… thing trapped within it. My consciousness crept outwards, pinpointing the shadow to where the Lynns’ living room was in the waking world.
A spirit was trapped inside. A powerful one. The whole house trembled with energy, making my own power feel muted by comparison. A wraith? No way. It shone too bright, a blinding presence, somehow familiar…
No. It can’t be.
The Winter Gatekeeper was already dead. It was her spirit tethered to the house, trapped in what must be a giant summoning circle.
Damn the Sidhe, now I knew why Holly was so desperate to free herself from the curse. With the Gatekeeper dead, she’d be the next one. So she’d… bound her. If the Gatekeeper continued to exist, that meant Holly herself wouldn’t ascend to the position of Gatekeeper. She’d found a way around the vow. And the necromancers had obviously helped her preserve her mother’s life, tethering it to this realm. Which meant she wasn’t dead, she was somewhere in between, caught in the veil.
Oh my God. It was her magic that had raised the dead, the wraiths, and caused chaos up and down the Ley Line.
River moved to my side. “She’s going to mess up the whole spirit realm.”
I blinked the greyness away, stumbling backwards beside him.
“She’s dead,” I whispered. “I don’t understand. She was alive—she was absolutely fine the last time I saw her. She’s only Mum’s age.”
“I think that’s the least of our concerns.”
No kidding. This was some secret and a half. How long had she been like this? Could she even be banished?
I have to try. “River, could you… banish her?”
“Not while the circle’s locked,” he whispered. “It has some power source I can’t detect.”
“Of course. It must be the necromancers. They’re still here somewhere. We have to kill them.”
“I can’t let you do that, Ilsa,” said Holly. She stepped into the hallway, a gleaming icy dagger in her hand. “You’re trespassing.”
The knife left her hand as she threw it at River. He deflected it with the side of his blade, sending it clattering against the family portraits on the wall. Despite the horrible presence within, the house looked exactly the same. How had neither of us picked up on this yesterday? She must have had the spirit barrier set up all along.
I waited, my body tense. I couldn’t harm her, after all. But there was no way I was letting her keep that thing imprisoned here, barely contained, with enough power to shake up the Ley Line itself.
Holly’s mouth twisted. “You people don’t know when to quit.”
“We’re tethered to the Sidhe, same as you,” I retaliated. “Not that it means anything to you, seeing as you tried to have my sister killed.”
My hand crept towards my own knife. I knew how powerful, how devastating her
magic was—and that River had no defence against it.
“I didn’t try to have your sister killed. Him, though—I don’t care.”
Icy shards materialised in the air, daggers aimed directly at River. If I got in the way, my magic wouldn’t save me. River’s sword sliced diagonally, severing a dozen of them at once. Whoa. I’d forgotten, given the power we were faced with, just how strong a faerie talisman was. Maybe enough to outdo a Gatekeeper. But that spirit—
Icy air blasted down the hallway, rattling the portraits, causing both River and I to stumble backwards in the direction of the doorstep. Death energy. I wasn’t immune to necromancy.
Holly raised her palms, the circlet on her forehead glowing with silver-blue light. The same power Hazel had used to blast those Vale faeries to pieces.
I shoved River out the way and tackled her. We slammed into the wall, the magical assault bouncing off my shield and leaving River unharmed. He swore, and the house moved, its magic rattling my teeth in my skull. The house’s magic must have picked up on the intruders and now it wanted to throw us out.
River stepped backwards off the doorstep and I moved in that direction as well. The spirit circle was outside. We needed to break it to free the spirit. And then… presumably, she’d move on, through the gates to the afterlife. Beyond. Right? That coldness I’d felt from her, though… she still retained some kind of awareness. A person as powerful as she’d been in life probably did keep her mental functions after death. What Holly was doing was sick, twisted and cruel… but I couldn’t forget that it was the Gatekeeper who had the authority to give Arden orders, and had supposedly set those redcaps on us. If I believed them.
Icicles rose from the windows to throw themselves at River. He cut them down, driven backwards away from the house. We could theoretically make a run for it from here, but that was the coward’s way out.
Hereditary Magic Page 17