Page 48 of The Filigree Key

That wasn’t the answer she’d been looking for, but didn’t have the power to bend me to her will. So she said nothing at all.

After one last glance around the room, I asked quietly, “Do you need anything?”

A healing boost would only raise Ossian’s suspicions, and Grandmother knew that too. “No,” she answered, flipping through the pages of her book to find where she’d left off.

No farewells, no well-wishes, no endearments uttered past her lips. Perhaps she was afraid of what it would mean if she did. Perhaps she was just being stubborn because, yet again, I would not conform to the exact letter of her law.

“I love you, Grandmother,” I whispered as I opened the door. A nudge from my foot dislodged The Pillars of the Earth, and I pulled the door shut after me.

Finding a lump lodged in my throat, I swallowed thickly. “C’mon, Sawyer.”

The tomcat checked his whiskers for any crumbs of ham biscuit before climbing into the bag. As I’d feared, there was no way to zip it shut with all the extra supplies taking up space. I chewed on my bottom lip, wondering what I could stuff into my dress pockets.

“Thistle thorns,” I ended up muttering, just flopping my arm over the cat and the opening of the bag. The thick fur of the fox coat would hide most of the bag from view anyway. And a Rabbit Step Spell could scurry me from one end of the castle to the other in less than half a minute.

“Thank you,” I told Brandi. Then I spared a glance for all the other inmates, most of them who I remembered from before. There were some new faces and a few that were missing. “Whatever you do, don’t draw any attention to that sand Sawyer sprinkled. You won’t be forgotten,” I promised them.

“No rush or anything,” Brandi snarked as I stepped into the stairwell. When I glanced over my shoulder, she had a sassy grin on her face. “I’m gonna have sculpted calves from working all day in heels and killer quads from all these weeks of squatting over that bucket. See if you can hold on to your man Arthur then.”

Arthur.

Without another word, I rushed up the steps.

Just that one little word set my heart hammering for a way out like a miner caught in a landslide. Would the wight keep its word and bring me to him? Could I even risk it when I had roused Ossian’s wrath? Should I even be thinking about Arthur when I had a brother to save and a town to liberate?

“Lass,” a voice hissed, startling me. From the way the words were enunciated, this wasn’t the first time I’d been hailed.

It was full nighttime now, the glass dome crowning the atrium black as obsidian. To my right, in the wall that separated the great hall from the atrium, a stone was missing. Filling the gap was the chubby face of a woodchuck.

“Roland?”

“Shhh! Cernunnos is back, lass, and in a state and no mistake. He’s been searching for you.”

Oh my Green Mother, if he found Sawyer—

“You know how I mentioned unconventional methods for finding Ricky?”

The woodchuck blinked, surprised by the abrupt change in subject. “Yes, but—”

“This is that method.” I yanked Sawyer out of the foraging bag and shoved him at the woodchuck. Or rather, into the woodchuck-sized entrance into the servant passageway.

The tomcat wasted no time squirming past the flabbergasted rodent into the safety beyond.

“Lass!” the woodchuck exclaimed when he recovered himself. “I agreed to alternative methods, not felonious ones. That’s a cat!”

We all jumped as the unmistakable sound of furious hooves clomped down the hallway, originating from the foyer. The king of the castle had returned. There was no time to shove the overstuffed foraging bag into the gap, and, quite honestly, I really doubted it would fit.

“And he’ll help find Ricky,” I explained quickly, backing away. “Won’t you, S—”

“Find a way back into the dungeon through the servant passageways, probably by removing a brick or two like I did with your chimney, and use the Lugus Spell to camouflage myself as I explore the tunnel,” the tomcat rattled off. “Yes, I know. Another side quest.”

“Cernunnos’s Horns,” the woodchuck muttered. “Good luck, lass.”

With that, he replaced the stone, and the hallway wall became seemingly seamless once more. I yanked on the zipper to close the foraging bag (just barely) and held it tight against my stomach as I sprang over on light feet to the settee in the atrium and sat. Folding my hands in my lap, I adopted what I hoped was an unaffected and unbothered posture.

The stomping hooves grew louder and suddenly, the fae king stepped into a slant of moonlight.

Mud splattered his calves and bits of leaf clung as high as mid-thigh. Sweat darkened his curls and flattened them against his forehead and neck. His breath misted into twin jets of blue-tinged frost as he snorted an exhale. In the shadows of his face, his jewel-bright eyes blazed green with power.