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My nose wrinkled in disgust, but the Huntsman had already turned away. The Dullahan clicked his fingers, and the horse continued forward.
Further away, fat blood-red roses sat in shallow flower beds leading to a staircase. As my eyes drifted higher and higher, following the walkways that stemmed from the garden like branches, I tried to make sense of it all but couldn’t.
A castle with towers that sat at strange angles, defying gravity and moving like pieces of a clock amidst a sky of orange and purple. The colors were all wrong. Too vivid. My head hurt.The building made no logical sense. Just luxury and whimsy combined with an MC Escher painting.
It occurred to me, as I watched the slowly shifting cogs of a castle that it seemed more like a clock, connected together with moving parts. A strange block-like building, half buried in the ground, sat at the botton of the staircase.
It was hard to wrap my head around the sheer scale of the buildings when my only frame of reference was Locket, Tennessee. The castle in the distance was bigger than anything I’d ever seen—unless you counted the Empire State Building on TV.
At the top of the steps, a disk spun ever so slowly. Ringed with various doors of all shapes and sizes. The Huntsman’s walk did not slow as he led us towards the moving entranceway. The Dullahan’s horse stopped at the bottom of the steps, the headless horseman reached for my waist, and I closed my eyes, wincing as the durrach pulled me from the horse and deposited me at the bottom of the steps.
Kaleb nudged the back of my legs with his wolfy nose, glancing at the Huntsman on the steps. I understood, staggering to catch up. My hands prickled with pins and needles, and my head swam.
We were in the Aos Sí.
I couldn’t believe it.
My grandmother had mourned Faerie. Her home. For many years. She had lamented that she could never return. She had woven too much to escape from the Huntsman and didn’t have enough magic to protect herself if she returned.
As the Huntsman led Kaleb and me through the castle, traveling further and further into the stone depths, it became clear that while the moving palace was elegant and clean on the outside, the inside was a different story. The stone bricks weredamp, the walls were covered in lichen, and the glass was dusty. The air smelled stale, though it was thick with magic.
I had no idea what the Huntsman’s plans were for me.
I was a Weaver, and not a very good one.
The Huntsman had seen through my facade in seconds. The part of myself I’d hidden all my life.
The wolf.
I had seen it in the Huntsman’s face—the compulsion to claim another ‘hound’ for his collection.
I didn’t remember getting on the Dullahan’s horse or even the journey from the Human Realities to the Aos Sí—and that terrified me.
My mind filled with all of the terrible things he could do to me, and I would never know.
I was an idiot.
I never should have gone to Dean Hart for help. Even if the coin had told me to.
None of that mattered now anyway because Joel was dead, and I was under the Huntsman’s thumb. Exactly where I didn’t want to be.
I didn’t ask where we were going. Clearly, I was still a prisoner because no one removed my bindings.
Kaleb moved like a puppet, a loyal dog at his master’s heels.
I smelled the rusted iron before I saw it. The magic in the air was repelled by its very presence.
The Huntsman grinned, the edges of his mouth stretched to the very end of his cheeks. “You can stay in the dungeon until I can be certain you will behave, Weaver.”
I didn’t say a word as I looked up through the ratty tendrils of my hair, my expression empty.
“Samhain endures for several days here. Seven more hours of night in the human world.” The Huntsman explained.“You will join the Wild Hunt tomorrow. If you prove biddable, you will sleep in the kennels with the others.”
“Why do you need a Weaver?” My voice was dry, and my throat closed with thirst.
The Huntsman cocked his head to the side. “Why does anyone?” He answered benignly.
He was Sídhe; he could not lie, but that didn’t mean he had to tell the truth.
