The Iron Thorn - Caitlin Kittredge [170]
The memories unspooled like a needle under the skin. My first encounter with Tremaine. Draven’s smirk. The doctor who’d stared at me with his mossy eyes. The same eyes that looked back at me from the rippled glass now.
“You know who I am, Aoife.”
It was my father. My father had saved my life. I felt a flutter in my chest. He hadn’t left me in the end, hadn’t believed I shouldn’t have had anything to do with my birthright. He’d helped me as much as he could.
And I’d betrayed him. I’d betrayed every one of the Graysons, Conrad, even Nerissa. Draven had the witch’s alphabet. Tremaine had his queens, his open gateway, his place ruling the Thorn Land, which was no longer dying, but was awake and hungry after hibernation.
All I had left was my Weird, but I was not bowed. I had Dean, and Cal. I had my wits, and I still had my mind.
I could stay away from the cities. I could find a way to stave off the iron madness, and I could get the witch’s alphabet back.
I would find my father and the truth.
As the first sliver of hope in a very long time slid back into view, every light in Graystone went out.
Bethina screamed, and her tea mug shattered on the library hearth.
“Stay calm!” Dean shouted. “Find Aoife.”
“She’s there,” said Cal, his eyes like lanterns in the full dark. “By the window.”
Outside, a blue flash lit the garden for just a moment, a streak of heat lightning in the coldest part of the year.
My shoulder twinged and my Weird rubbed against new magic in the room. In the blue, witchly light I saw three figures: two short and one tall, two crook-backed and elfin-faced and one with shaggy black hair, a tattered tweed blazer and a face that mimicked my own.
My heart twitched, stopping my breath for just a moment before I flew to the tallest figure and threw my arms around him. “Conrad!”
“Hey, little sister,” he whispered. “I’m home.”
I pressed my face into him, memorizing his warmth and his scent, the bony rib cage I thought I’d never embrace again. “I thought you were dead. He told me you were dead.” Even after Tremaine had admitted he’d lied, I’d thought I’d never see Conrad again.
“I know,” Conrad said. “I know you did, and I’m sorry.”
“How did you … where have you …” My questions tumbled over one another, tangled and fell.
“All I can say at this moment is that we have to leave,” Conrad told me. “The Winter Folk are coming for all four of you—their scouts are in the garden.”
Another flash of lightning, another glimpse of the creatures skittering through the shadows. They were taller than nightjars now. Paler. With more teeth. Folk.
“Where can we possibly go?” I asked Conrad.
“There’s one place where they can never find us,” Conrad said. “The Land of Mists.”
“No,” Dean said instantly. “That’s bad business.”
“You don’t get a choice, Erlkin.” One of the two figures hunched behind Conrad spoke. It was little more than a shadow, its silver teeth the only solid thing. Bethina’s shadow-people who’d come for Conrad. “The Wytch King commands it. You and the daughter and the ghoul and the mortal. To the Mists, now.”
“Aoife, please,” Conrad said. “I know I don’t deserve your trust after what happened but I’ve changed. I’ve healed. The madness doesn’t follow us into the Mists, and once you’re away from the cities and the worst of the iron. We can stay sane if we stay out of the Iron Land.”
Cal lifted his head, flaring his nostrils. “I smell silver and hawthorn trees. Cold blue blood.”
“That’s Tremaine and his Winter men,” Conrad said. “We’re out of time.” He snapped his fingers at the Erlkin behind him. “We have to go back to the Mists. Now.”
In the reflection on the window glass, a black shape grew and gathered, until our reflected images became a bottomless door, a swirling vortex in the flat of the windowpane.
“Come with me,” Conrad said. “I promise, everything will be explained.”
“In Lovecraft,” I said. “In Ravenhouse. I saw our father.”
“Impossible,” Conrad