Page 115 of The Filigree Key

“That looks like a key around your neck. Well done, cider witch!” the honey badger praised.

“It’s just you,” Emmett whispered.

Cody whipped around, looking back the way we had all come, his bottom lip trembling. “Where’s the boy?”

“Why do you have that sword?” Shari asked nervously.

Unable to hold my grief back any longer, I stumbled fully out of the Rabbit Step Spell and released a chest-wracking sob. Daphne dug her heels into the field, sliding herself to a stop. I buried my face into the silken braid of her mane, just for a moment. Just to let myself feel before I had to shove every emotion down and focus on the task at hand.

Lewellyn’s words, which I had been suppressing since the castle, rang like a death knell: ‘Damn it, Arthur, you’ve been a bear too long. You’ve only got one shift left in you, don’t you?’

“Where’s my boy?” Cody hollered. Emmett tried to restrain his friend, but the beaver fought to dismount. “Let me go! Where’s Arthur?”

My voice was a broken mess of heartbreak. “The bear stayed behind so we could get away.”

“Bear?” He knew what that meant. Cody renewed his struggling, but the honey badger put him in a headlock.

“Don’t you dare,” Flora snapped.

“Everybody make room,” Daphne ordered. “Meadow, dear, get on. I’ll get you there.”

“He gave her the sword so Ossian couldn’t use it against anyone else,” Sawyer told them when we were all seated and moving again, the wight once again helping Daphne manage.

And it was all I could manage to stay on the horse. I couldn’t shake that final image of the bear—my Arthur—flinging himself at the Stag Man and the fae king heaving that mountain of a grizzly off him with the same effort he’d use on a forty-pound burlap sack of potatoes.

“Arthur is so much stronger than either of us knew,” Sawyer assured me through the bond. The cat leaned against me from where he sat wedged between my thighs.

I didn’t reply. In fact, I wasn’t sure I could form a single coherent thought. There were only fragments buzzing away up there—portal, Wandering Mirror, Arcadis, Marten, Arthur. Arthur, Arthur, Arthur.

Had Lewellyn gotten out? What of the prisoners? Grandmother? And the Coalition rescue party, what of them? Did they know one of their own battled for his life at this very moment? And my family hiding in Grandpappy’s secret whiskey cellar—

“You’ll drive us both insane thinking like that,” came Sawyer’s voice again. His tone only held a hint of chastisement. “You can’t be responsible for the actions of everyone.”

“But I am responsible.”

My cat familiar would not be deterred and tried again. “Make it manageable. First things first and second things second.”

The portal of starlight appeared as Daphne crested the hill. There were no Brothers standing guard—stretched too thin, they had more important things to guard than a locked portal. From where the key was stuffed between my breasts, warmth bloomed and the purr-like vibrations hummed stronger. Like was recognizing like.

A gust from the incoming storm cut through the veil of snowflakes and brought the faint perfume of composting apples and sweet hay. Daphne’s hooves hit the country road a moment after, a steady trot bringing us closer to the clover field.

“I will alert your family to expect your friends,” the wight told me. “Then I am gone, Violet’s Daughter.”

“You were—are—incredible, Gwyn. I can’t thank you enough.”

“Gwyn?”

I flushed. “Sorry, it’s what I call you in my head. To make you more personable than just ‘the wight.’”

The wight seemed to hum. “Gwyn,” it mused, testing the name out. The Irish setter loped off towards the apple orchard, still murmuring. “Gwyn.”

Daphne dipped her head, navigating the drainage ditch between road and field, and after a few well-placed steps, her hooves were crunching down on the frost-covered clover. As we approached, the glow of the portal dimmed so every detail from the filigree archway to the keyhole on the door could be admired. It seemed as delicate as glass, belying the strength of the magic within. Like my oak tree, the door was solid, glittering opal.

Even though I’d seen it before, I joined my friends in collectively holding our breaths in shared awe.

“You anchored this?” Flora gasped. “It’s incredible.”

“I can’t even weave something that intricate,” Shari said.