Shifting Shadows: Stories from the World of Mercy Thompson(19)

“Nonsense,” she said. “My father wore silver, and it never burned him.” She ran the chain through her fingers once. “I don’t have much magic left, but silver loves me. Try it now.”

I took it, and it lay gently on my hands. And when I put the chain over my head and settled it around my neck, it did not burn. It was chill from her magic.

“I don’t know that I will be able to come back,” I said.

“If you will let me have a lock of your hair, with Haida’s aid I can come to you,” Ariana told me. “I may be without power, but Haida is more than a match for a mortal witch. I have a debt to settle.”

“She is not mortal,” I said. “Not anymore. And there is no debt to settle between us. I but healed where harm was given. Haida freed me of my grandmother’s leash. If there is a debt, it is between Haida and I—and it goes the other way.”

She frowned at me, the expression making her look a lot less young. “Nonetheless,” she said.

I hesitated, but in the end I let her cut some of my hair. And I admit to leaving her home with a lighter heart because of the silver chain and the loss of a few strands of hair.

ELEVEN

Samuel

It took me three days to find the witch’s hut, though the distance I’d traveled to Ariana’s home in the first place had not been nearly so long. Doubtless it was some sort of fae magic. I spent all three of those days working out how to sneak up on her.

It was then somewhat anticlimactic that when I reached the hut, it had been burned to the ground. Even when I shifted and let the wolf’s nose test the ground, I could not find any sign of where my grandmother or my da had gone. Though I had been gone only a bit more than a week, the fire seemed seasons older.

I stayed wolf for three more days, searching for scent trails. On the fourth day, I went to the oak where my father used to make me change into human. I found nothing new there and was leaving the little hollow when my grandmother stepped out of the shadows.

“You return at last,” she said. “I knew you would come.”

I raised my head and met her gaze. She looked worn. Older by decades, not just a bare week. Her brown hair was spiderwebbed with gray, and her skin had forgone the blush of youth for dryer parchment.

“Underhill time doesn’t run as ours. You’ve been gone a full year,” she said, understanding my confusion full well. Da had told me she couldn’t read every thought a person had, but she could pick through the surface of a mind fairly easily. “’Tis good for your da’s sake that it wasn’t two years, or I’d have lost patience and used him up.”

She clicked her fingers, and my da crept around out of the trees. His head hung low, and he’d lost weight, a lot of it. His ribs showed, and so did the bones of his hips. His coat, which should have been thick and rich this time of the year, was starred and sparse.

A year. What had she done to him in a year?

Da didn’t look at me. All of his attention was focused on the witch. Another person might have thought that she’d broken him as she had broken Dafydd. But I knew my da: if he’d ever looked at me with that expression, I’d have known my days on the earth were numbered on the fingers of one hand.

“You rescued a fairy maiden, Samuel,” the witch purred. “She freed you, but she could not take your father from me as well.” She smiled gently, rubbing her fingers through the hair on the base of Da’s neck. “Between the two of you—you killed not only the fae lord but the rest of my wolves. I had plans for him—and for them.”

I stared at her and concentrated hard on her words so that she would not pick out any other of my thoughts.

“Of course your father told me,” she said. “Did you think him loyal to you?”

No. I thought him bound against his will, helpless to keep her from ruffling through his memories. How she could think I believed otherwise, with him pinned to her side like the crazed beast she’d made of him, I do not know. Maybe it had been so long since any had courage to call her on her lies that she thought we all believed every word out of her mouth.

“I will make a bargain with you,” the witch told me. “By an oath of blood.” She took out a knife and pricked her thumb so that a drop fell out. “You take me to this fairy lass, and I will free your da from my magic.”

There were so many things wrong with what she promised that I could not hide my sneer.

“My blood oath,” she said coaxingly, “my blood oath that your da will walk free of me to live his life, and you to live yours as well. All you need do is take me to the fairy.” She shuddered and closed her eyes and licked her lips. “I wasted the fairy lord’s pain, not realizing what I had until I had finished with it—the fool angered me too much, and I was not attending my business properly. He told me he was a great lord—but all the fae do that. I didn’t believe him. I have never heard of a great fae lord losing his magic—not while Underhill still stands. They cannot lie, Sawyl, but they can stretch the truth into a lie. Assuming he was less than he claimed, I tried to use the magic his sacrifice gave me. It was too much, and I forfeited the power of it rather than destroy myself.”

That explained the burnt hut. Magic’s first child is always fire.

“Your da told me that the fairy lord is dead and his body gone to earth.” She looked down at my da without fondness. “He said he also burned the wolves’ bodies, so they are useless to me. And I must have power.” She held up a wrinkled hand so we could both see it. “Without power, I age, Sawyl.”