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It had been a trying night. Allowances ought to be made.

Ethan’s expression was hard to read, but a muscle twitched in his jaw. He nodded once, eyes dark as the sea behind them. Then he crouched to whisper something in Oliver’s ear. Briar could not hear what he said. She exchanged a glance with Sorcha.

When Ethan straightened, Oliver was even paler and had broken out into a cold sweat. Ethan looked grimly satisfied.

“What do we do with them now?” Sorcha wondered aloud. “Do we just let them go?”

“I am sure the Order is on their way already,” Briar said.

Sorcha turned hastily to the Black Shuck. “Time to go! Don’t let them see you!”

Shadow panted at them, his breath eye-watering, before dashing into the fields. Swallows and starlings burst out of the grass, squawking as he passed.

“You can’t just let a Black Shuck—”

“Shut up, Ambrose,” Sorcha snapped. “You tried to stab me. You do not get an opinion.”

“Best not tarry,” said the Iron Witch from the tower—who, they had discovered, was also the daughter of a selkie from the Orkneys and a sailor from Samoa. Her name was Scathach. “The Order is bad enough when they don’t feel the need to posture on top of everything. Today they will be unbearable.”

“Thank you,” Briar said. They had been more understanding than she could have ever expected.

Scathach waved that away. “Go on with you. But come back and talk to our rowan trees soon, would you? We don’t have a green witch here anymore, and between the stone and the iron, they do have a time of it.”

“I will,” Briar promised. It would be a pleasure. She had never worked with a grove of sacred trees before. And Holdfast was lovely in its own way: harsh, wind-worn, unassuming.

“What about Petal? And the others?” Briar asked as she and Ethan and Sorcha followed the Black Shuck’s example and chose the fields over the road. “We need to make sure they weren’t hurt or captured.”

“They’re fine,” Ethan said.

“How can you know that?”

He nodded to the shimmering albatross flying toward them. “That’s my boatswain’s familiar. Three flicks of his tail feathers mean everyone is accounted for.”

“Even Petal?”

He grunted. “Do you think my crew would leave her out now? You saw them.”

Relief felt strange after everything. It made her lightheaded. She swallowed a giggle. Too much had happened, was still happening. Her swan flew in the dragon’s fiery wake but did not stray far, for which she was glad. They had only been separated by the iron collar for a short time, but the shock of it lingered under her skin. It was like having a limb removed. An organ.

The sky turned to a lighter gray with swirls of pink and a thin, thin line of orange on the eastern horizon. There was the flicker of firelight from several small bonfires. The main solstice fire would be at the Crown, the circle of standing stone at the top of the highest hill overlooking the hillfort remains.

“Is that Goliath?” Sorcha asked, spotting the horse picking through the grass for dandelions. “What’s he doing out here?”

“Ethan stole him,” Briar said.

“Later you’ll tell me how we all ended up in Holdfast. And about the roses. You know I hate roses.” She waggled her brows at Briar, angling away so Ethan would not see her face. “I’ll get Goliath home and meet you at the Crown?”

Briar nodded, feeling oddly nervous. She had fought off Iron Crows, a grimsong, a truth spell, an iron collar. She could have this conversation.

“I know you are leaving as soon as may be,” she said to Ethan, watching her friend charge through the fields singing a song to the puzzled horse. She couldn’t quite look at him. “But it’s tradition to light the main bonfire at dawn for the solstice.”

“Like swimming at midnight and counting fireflies.”

She nodded. He paused. She heard the shift when he stepped closer. He tipped her face up toward his, smiling faintly.

“I suppose I had better. Whenever you go off for a bit of good luck, you come up against kelpies and Keepers.”

She smiled back shyly. “That’s true.”