The Castle of Water and Woe (Briarwood Reverse Harem Book 3)

by Steffanie Holmes

  “If your hot dreadlocked housemate can keep the tea and hot chocolate coming, I’m there.”

  I laughed, thinking of Rowan’s fervent belief in the infinite healing powers of a cup of tea. “I’ll make sure of it.”

  We embraced again. Over Jane’s shoulder I saw the door open and Officer Judge enter. She tapped her wrist. I slunk away from Jane. “Look after that boy of yours.”

  “Oh, he’s not getting away from me again,” Jane said, clutching Connor against his chest.

  Officer Judge escorted me down the path. I sat in the squad car, wringing my hands, nerves tugging at my stomach. True to his word, Corbin had done most of the talking when the police questioned us at the castle. I wasn’t even named as one of the people who found or touched the babies. So why did they want to talk to me again without the other guys around?

  “Do I need a lawyer?” I asked, hoping I didn’t have to call leggy Emily to come bail me out of jail.

  “No. You’re not being detained. This is only voluntary questioning to clarify some details. Why, do you think you need a lawyer?” Officer Judge turned the car down the main street of Crookshollow – which the guys called the “high street” because they’re English and weird. The quaint little village had a reputation as being the most haunted place in England, and all the stores played up that fact with spooky names and decorations. Back in Arizona, I’d never been allowed to celebrate Halloween (the Crawfords believed it was “satanic”), but I always loved the fun decorations and costumes at school. Corbin told me that Britain didn’t really celebrate Halloween, but living in this town was the next best thing.

  After what we’d been through tonight, the plastic witches and hanging ghosts in the shop windows didn’t seem so much fun any more.

  Office Judge led me through the station to an interview room that looked exactly like the interview rooms on TV – bare grey walls, a table and two chairs, a second table by the door with some recording equipment set out. A woman in plain clothes who introduced herself as Detective Inspector Davies sat at the table.

  I repeated the story we all told, that Flynn and Corbin had been outside trying to get Obelix – the fat, recalcitrant castle cat – to come back in for his dinner, and they found the babies crying in the woods. I said I’d been sleeping at the time and all the commotion had woken me up, so I came downstairs to see what was going on. I hadn’t heard or seen anything out of the ordinary, and the furniture in the Great Hall was moved around because I was forcing the guys to clean the place up a bit.

  “You were dressed in this outfit when the officers arrived at Briarwood,” Inspector Davies said, gesturing to my current outfit of skirt, shirt and my old Coopersville High sweatshirt.

  Shit.

  “Yeah, well, I sleep naked, so I didn’t exactly want your officers to get a show.”

  “There’s fresh dirt on your sleeves and ankles,” Inspector Davies pointed out. “Where did that come from?”

  I looked down at my wrist, where a smudge of dirt ran along the cuff. I also noticed a bloodstain on my collar, and more droplets of dried blood on the hem of my skirt. They must’ve happened in the fae realm. Inspector Davies hadn’t mentioned the bloodstains, but the way she was staring at me with that focused intensity, I know she’d noticed them.

  Double shit.

  “Oh,” I said. “I was in such a hurry. I just pulled on the first clothes I grabbed from the hamper. I was helping Rowan in the garden in the evening, and then he was showing me how to make sausages, and I guess I got pretty filthy.”

  “Mr Smith will be able to corroborate this story?”

  I nodded. If you can get Rowan to say anything at all.

  “You are American. How long have you been in Britain?”

  I counted in my head. “Only seven days,” I said. It felt like three months, so much had happened since I’d arrived at Briarwood.

  I didn’t bother explaining I was actually born in England and that I’d been illegally adopted. I didn’t want to give her any reason to look more closely at me.

  “And you are renting at Briarwood?”

  “I am the owner. I inherited Briarwood House from my mother. It’s been held in trust for me until I turned 21.”

  If Davies was surprised by this news, she didn’t show it. “And how long have you known Jane Forsythe?”

  “I met her a few days ago. I went to visit her after I heard what happened to Connor. I don’t think she has many friends, and she was having a hard time coping. I helped clean up her cottage a bit, then then later she came to visit me at Briarwood.”

  “What do you know about Jane Forsythe?”

  “Not much. Like I said, we’ve only been friends a few days. She’s a single mom. She lives in her grandmother’s cottage, and she doesn’t get on with her mother.”

  “Were you aware she was arrested for street solicitation in 2016?”

  What? At first I thought she meant Jane was trying to sell knick knacks from a street cart without a permit, but then the inspector’s words clicked in my exhausted mind. Jane had been trying to solicit sex. I tried to marry that information to my picture of Jane, and I just couldn’t make it stick.

  Inspector Davies watched me, those careful eyes studying my expression. I kept my face passive, trying not to let my surprise and shock seep through. “No, I was not.”

  “Or that in 2014 she was held in custody on suspicion of managing a brothel?”

  I shook my head. Good God, what has Jane been involved in?

  Inspector Davies continued. “You’re new to this village, Maeve, and to England, and you probably expect a slower pace of life from the school shootings and terrorist attacks in your country.”

  “That’s not—” but the inspector wasn’t finished.

  “Just because Crookshollow looks quaint and picturesque doesn’t mean it’s not possessed of its own dark criminal underbelly. I’m giving you a word of warning. Your friend Jane has been in and out of this station several times since she was sixteen. She runs with some unsavoury characters, and we believe the kidnapping of her son may be related to gang activity. She is not the kind of friend that you want here. Landowner or not, you are on a Visitor’s visa, and if I find out you are caught up in any kind of criminal activity, I won’t hesitate to send you back to the States. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Am I free to go?” I asked, meeting her stern look with one of my own. The nerve of her, dragging me all the way to the station to tell me who to be friends with. Not even my own mother would do that.

  Of course she wouldn’t she’s dead.

  “Yes. Please don’t leave the county. We may wish to question your further.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” I said through gritted teeth.

  I stepped out of the interview room, shaking with fear and rage. Corbin and Arthur were sitting on the hard benches outside. They rushed to me, yanking me away from Inspector Davies. “We were so worried. Jane called and said they’d taken you here. They wouldn’t let us in to see you.” Arthur wrapped his huge, protective arms around me. His scent – hot smoke and sweaty musk – enveloped me, calming my nerves instantly. Exhaustion battled against desire in my head, and I longed for Arthur to pick me up and carry me to bed, his beard tickling my face as he whispered song lyrics in my ear.

  “You’re not to speak to the police again without a lawyer present,” Corbin scolded. “I don’t care what they tell you. One wrong more here and we could be in serious trouble.”

  “I’m more worried about Jane,” I murmured, thinking about what Inspector Davies had said. Somehow, they were going to try and blame her for Connor’s kidnapping, which was so ridiculous it would be laughable if it wasn’t so deadly serious.

  Outside, a beat-up old classic car straight out of a gangster movie sat in the visitor space. To my surprise, Arthur unlocked the driver’s side door and folded his body inside. “Come on. Get in.”

  Corbin rushed around and held the door open for me, but I shook my head. “If
I get in that thing, it’s going to fall to pieces.”

  Arthur stuck his hand out the window and thumped the bonnet. I swear I heard the car groan in protest. “This is a classic Jaguar Mark Two from 1961. It’s a thing of beauty. They don’t make cars like this anymore.”

  “Of course not,” I grumbled, wedging my legs into the tiny bench seat in the back. “They came to their senses.”

  “Arthur’s a bit precious about this car,” Corbin said, sliding into the front. “But he’s the only one of us with wheels, so if we want to go anywhere beyond the village, or need a ride back from the shops or the pub, we have to play nice.”

  “Speaking of playing nice.” Arthur steered the car out into the high street. The engine made a grinding noise. I gripped the edge of the seat, bracing myself for the coming explosion. “You didn’t have to go to the station to answer more questions. I don’t like that they took you in on your own, instead of just asking follow-up questions back at the castle. I think they were trying to intimidate you. Tell us everything you told them.”

  I recalled the questions as best I could, about putting my clothes on, and about Jane’s past. Corbin cringed at the Inspector’s harsh words.

  “Jane’s choice of profession – which is legal in this country, by the way – doesn’t disqualify her from a dignified and thorough investigation into her son’s kidnapping.” Corbin’s voice rose in annoyance. “If I wasn’t so concerned that they might try to pin this on us, I’d turn this car around right now and give her what for.”

  “It’s probably for the best. I think turning this car around might cause a rip in space-time,” I said, as Arthur lurched the Jaguar up Briarwood’s long, winding drive.

  By now it was approaching 2AM. A full moon shone through the trees, and as we rounded the last corner and drove under the inner gatehouse, Briarwood rose out of the shadows – dark and imposing in the gloom. Once again, I felt a surge of awe. These walls had seen hundreds of battles over the centuries, and they still stood high and proud. Briarwood would keep us safe.

  Arthur swung around the side of the house, toward the Victorian addition Flynn used as a workshop. The garage door was modern, and Arthur hit a button and it rolled up. Corbin leapt out just as Arthur rolled the car inside. Flynn’s massive sculptures and piles of junk loomed down in precarious stacks on all three sides, giving Arthur only inches of clearance to jiggle the ridiculous car inside.

  “I should have got out with Corbin,” I grumbled, as I pushed at the door, vainly trying to make it open more than an inch.

  “It probably would have helped,” Arthur grunted, leaning his shoulder against his door and pushing. THUMP, THUMP, SMACK. Junk rained down on top of the car, but at least Arthur managed to slide out. I was still trapped inside the world’s most impractical car.

  “Help me.” I tried the door on the other side, but it was no better. A hundred eyes of a large metal spider glared at me through the window.

  “I’ll be there in a second.” Arthur battled his way over a giant metal robot with hub caps for eyes.

  “Climb out the window,” Corbin suggested.

  I ran my fingers along the door, searching for a button. But of course there wasn’t a button. My fingers wrapped around an enormous crank handle, and I wound it down until the glass panel disappeared inside the door. I slid my body out, adding streaks of grease and dust to my already filthy clothes.

  Corbin held out his hand and helped me clamber down the last slope of Flynn’s junk mountain. “I thought you told Flynn he had to clean this mess up,” he said to Arthur.

  “I did,” Arthur growled, touching a large tear one of Flynn’s contraptions had made in his Iron Maiden t-shirt. “He claims this is tidy. Something about a piling system.”

  “The Irish have no sense of decorum,” Corbin grinned as we walked through the portcullis into the internal courtyard.

  The door of the great hall flew open, slamming back against the stones with such force it might have splintered less sturdy wood. Flynn and Blake tumbled out, their arms laden down with bags and boxes.

  “Look lively, Princess.” Blake threw a bunch of candles and stones into my hands. “Carry these. We need to get down to the sidhe. Now.”

  FOUR: MAEVE

  The sidhe. Of course. I’d been so busy with Jane and Connor and the police and Flynn’s damn piling system that I had forgotten we still hadn’t found a way to stop the fae entering our realm. The message that the coven were still alive and that Blake had joined us must have reached Daigh by now. Several fae were likely already in our realm, getting ready to attack us, or worse – hurt more innocent people.

  “Can we—” Exhaustion tugged at my eyelids. I swayed on my feet. I thought of my soft bed up in my tower bedroom, the sheets pulled up tight around my body, cocooning me inside its heavenly warmth.

  But no sleep for the wicked witches. Or indeed, the good witches. We clearly had some spellcasting to do. I remembered what Daigh had said to me; We have a weapon the likes of which you cannot even imagine. The Slaugh. Would they try to raise them tonight? Could they? If we could stop this from happening, we had to try.

  “How did you figure out the spell so quickly?” Corbin demanded, casting a suspicious look at Blake.

  “It’s not the same spell. Briarwood is surrounded by some powerful wards – unpicking that magic is going to take a lot more effort,” Blake explained. “For now, we just need to hold back the tide – I’ve already seen two Far Darrigs and three green guards come through tonight. I’ve managed to cobble together a simpler version of the wards that protect Briarwood. It won’t hold them forever, but it’s a start.”

  “But how did you find—” Corbin started, but Blake was already pushing past him.

  “No time to explain. Hop to it, witches!”

  “If fae are out there, we need weapons.” Arthur ducked inside, returning a moment later with his beloved sword and scabbard, a second sword – which he passed to me (with a look of trepidation on his face) – and several daggers he tossed to the others. I noticed that Rowan didn’t take one. I patted the pocket in my skirt, where the four objects the guys had given me – a medallion from Flynn, a small dagger from Arthur, a twig of rowan from Rowan, and a charm written out on parchment from Corbin. I hoped like hell they’d be enough to keep us safe.

  I followed Blake and Flynn across the formal garden, down the hill – leaping and skidding over rough dirt and irregular stone steps – through the tiny wood, where the temperature cooled under the gloom of the trees, standing the hairs on my arms on end. We emerged near the stone wall Flynn and I hid behind, when we’d first encountered Blake.

  “Look, Princess,” Blake pointed, his grin wicked. “It’s where we first met. Isn’t this romantic? We should have brought a picnic.”

  “I was just starting to like you, and you had to go and mention that particular incident,” Flynn said, swinging his legs over the low wall, candles and spell books flying from his arms. “My face has only just returned to its usual handsome state. What did you do to me, anyway?”

  “I was trying to give you a message for Maeve, to warn her about the king. At that stage, I didn’t know she was so close I could’ve just told her myself.”

  “Well, stay out of my head from now on.” Flynn stepped over the wall. I noticed that in addition to the candles and other objects in his arms, he struggled with the enormous Briarwood grimoire. “Next time you want to know something, just ask me.”

  “If it makes you feel better, I am sorry. But any amount of pain was worth it to get us to the point where we could fight Daigh.”

  “It’s easy to say that when you’re not the one in pain,” Flynn grumbled.

  “If we—” Blake started over the wall, but he didn’t get to finish his sentence.

  An arrow flew past his face, embedding itself into the hill behind us. Another arrow made a thwack sound as it plunged into the earth. My stomach lurched to my knees.

  “We’re under attack!”


  FIVE: MAEVE

  My heart leapt in my chest, and my hand flew to the hilt of my sword. The wall loomed in front of me, and I knew that as soon as I stepped beyond it, I’d be a Maeve-shaped porcupine.

  My boys, however, had no such sense of self-preservation.

  “Show yourselves, you wankers!” Arthur yelled, vaulting over the wall. One hand drew out his sword, while the other fired a ball of flame in the direction the arrows came from.

  A Seelie soldier ducked behind the sidhe as the fireball crashed into the ground in front of him. Flames licked the grass, burning bright as the dry blades caught alight.