Page 74 of Witch Unbound
Lauris let out a bark of laughter. “Yeah, why not?”
I looked down at the brooch on my chest. Still gold. Still unmarred. “We can’t stay here much longer. We need to find this tower.”
“It looks like Bramble’s finished talking with Minerva,” Lauris said.
Curiosity nibbled at me, but if Bramble wanted to share what Minerva had told her, she would. I hoped she did.
Right now, we had a tower to find.
I hopped off the ledge and onto the steppingstones before making my way nimbly across the brook and back to Rune.
He took my hand as I stepped onto the grass and drew me close to press a soft kiss on my forehead. “Wren’s confident he can get us to the tower from here.” He spoke against my skin, lingering for a moment.
I leaned in and wrapped my arms around him. “Good. I just want to get this over with and get home before anyone else gets hurt.”
Wren was frolicking in the blossoms with loads of little pixie lights. He looked carefree and happy, totally the opposite of his bossy guide mode. It felt like a shame to pull him out of this happy place, but we had a job to do. Ursula and her team needed our help and there were children who needed saving.
“Wren, buddy, we have to get going.”
The lights racing around my mogwai buddy came to halt to allow him to focus on me.
“Wren find the tower, Cora.” He padded over. “We go now?”
“Yes.”
“Wait.” Minerva joined us with Bramble in tow. “The journey from here to the tower is fraught with danger.” Her gaze slid to Bramble. “A warping could occur at any moment and you’d be lost.”
Bramble made a sound of exasperation. “We don’t have a choice. Innocent lives are at stake.”
Minerva pressed her lips together and nodded. “Yes. I understand that. Which is why your journey must be instantaneous. You will use my mirror.” She waved a hand toward the brook and the water began to bubble faster. Something gilded and golden broke the surface. The frame to a mirror. It was four feet wide and over six feet tall, surface gleaming silver and showing no reflection. “This is our doorway to Faerie. Our window to our dying world. We watch and we wait.”
“Is this how you saw us?” Lauris asked.
“Yes.” Minerva’s smile was almost sly, and a shiver ran down my spine. “It was fate that I was scrying at that very moment. I saw your party.” She looked at Bramble, who smiled thinly. I recognized that smile. It was her get-me-the-fuck-out-of-here smile. “And I knew we had to help.”
Who was this woman really, and what was her relation to Bramble, because there was obviously something there. Whatever it was, Bramble didn’t seem too keen on it.
Minerva stepped up to the water’s edge and waved her hand in the air. The mirror flickered to life and images began to scroll across its surface, like a projector gone berserk. The dead forest, a lake so still it looked iced over, a mountain wreathed in inky fog, cracked gray land that seemed to stretch for miles, and finally a forbidding black tower with turrets jutting left and right off the top. The mirror stopped scrolling.
“That is where you wish to go,” Minerva said. “A dark place that has been taken over by outside forces.” Her tone dropped. “It’s a bad place.”
Outside forces? “What do you mean?”
She blinked as if coming out of a daze. “Forces not of Faerie and filled with a different sickness to the one that plagues our land. Something else lurks within those walls. I sense it. Yet it does not show itself. Only emissaries come and go. The lesser fae, the darklings who do their bidding.”
Shit. “Minerva, what have you seen. Did you see people go in there recently? They would have been suited up in uniform. Not fae. Witches.”
She nodded slowly. “Three were taken in a day and night ago. They did not go willingly and not all will have survived. Two were severely wounded.”
“How?”
She looked down, blinking rapidly. “They had been fed on.”
Wait, had I heard her right? “What? What do you mean?”
“There were limbs missing. The darklings feast on flesh and prefer to keep their prey alive, taking what they need a little at a time.”
Oh, God. I was gonna be sick. “We need to get them out. Now.”
