Page 25 of Kill the Beast
Nadia didn’t argue. She didn’t roll her eyes or snap that she didn’t need a babysitter. She simply said, “Okay.”
Ragnhild seemed as taken aback by that as Lyssa was. “Okay,” the old witch said slowly, staring at her apprentice. “Well, then. That’s settled.” She hobbled to where the claw sat beside the chalk drawing of the glyph and bent over with a grunt to retrieve it. “Do you mind if I stow this somewhere safe while you’re gone?”
“Not at all,” Alderic said, waving his hand as though it was of little consequence to him where it was kept, as though he could simply get another one if she lost it.
Lyssa resisted the urge to snatch the claw from the witch’s hands and hide it somewhere only she could find it. Ragnhild glanced at her, as if she could sense the battle raging within her, but when Lyssa didn’t move or argue, she slipped it into one of her apron pockets.
“You said before that the Beast is hibernating,” she said to Alderic as she made her way to the worktable, grabbing one of the stubby drafting pencils Lyssa kept in a lumpy clay jar in one corner and scribbling something in her leather book. “How long until it comes out again?”
“It appears at sunrise on the solstices and equinoxes only,” he replied. “At sunrise the day after, it goes back to its den and stays there until the next turn of the seasons.”
Rags grunted. “How veryfaerie,” she said, as she scribbled more notes in her book.
Lyssa chewed her split lip, angry at herself. How had she never noticed that? The Beast had a predictable pattern, and she had completely missed it. Lady Bright, Eddie had died on the Summer Solstice, and shestillhadn’t pieced it together. Although, in her defense, it wasn’t like there was a massacreeverytime the seasons turned. Trottingham had happened a full ten years before Buxton Fields. There had to be some other factor at play, one neither of them had figured out yet.
“The Vernal Equinox is a couple of months away, out there,” she said, nodding in the general direction of the Gate. “We should be able to make it, if we don’t dally here too long.” At Alderic’s questioning look, she added, “Time isn’t the same in these woods. A day here can be a week there.”
“The Vernal Equinox.” Alderic’s expression was bewildered, as if he couldn’t believe this was finally happening. Lyssa felt much the same way, like the entire thing was a dream she might wake up from at any moment.
“You approve?” she asked him.
He seemed to consider it. “The Beast has lived far too long already. Better to dispatch of it as quickly as we can.”
“Hear, hear,” she said, raising an imaginary glass. This time Alderic didn’t hesitate before pretending to clink his own glass against it. “May winter’s end bring the end of the Beast with it.”
CHAPTER
EIGHT
DESPITERAGNHILD’S PROTESTS,Lyssa did not join the witches and Alderic for dinner. A knot of anxiety and anticipation had formed in the pit of her stomach, obliterating her appetite and making the idea of idle chatter unbearable—not that she would ever admit to it in front of Alderic. What she needed was solitude, in order to untangle her thoughts and worries, prepare herself mentally for the road ahead, and start figuring out what ingredients she could use for the sword. She gave the usual litany of excuses:I’m exhausted, I’m sore, I’m not hungry, the hot springs are less annoying than you are,but Ragnhild thrust a bowl of vegetable soup and a hunk of crusty bread into her hands anyway.
Lyssa was too tired to argue. She tossed the bread to Brandy as soon as they left the cottage, and sipped at the broth while she walked up to the springs. As always, it needed more salt, but Rags had compensated with plenty of fresh thyme and basil.
Leaving the bowl of soup at the edge of the pool for Brandy to finish, Lyssa slipped into the steaming water and let it work its gentle magic on her, loosening her muscles, healing her cuts and bruises, and dulling the sharp edge of her anxiety into something she could at least think around.
Once she had relaxed a little, she began to mull over her list, trying to come up with some ingredients she could gather for the sword. But she couldn’t seem to focus—she only got as far asEddie’s grave dirtbefore her mind wandered to what had happened during the deciphering spell, and to what they had discovered about the Beast’s glyph.
Whatever the reason the monster was created, the emotionalnature behind it seemed fitting. After all, this was deeply personal to Lyssa as well. It made sense that the weapon used to destroy it would be the most personal she had ever forged in her career as Ragnhild’s blacksmith.
That’s when it struck her. Alderic. Alderic was coming with her, which meant that he was going tobe therewhile she gathered ingredients of deep emotional significance to her. She imagined the thousand questions he had asked about glyphs and aelfs and magic turned on her, instead.
“Ungharad’s flaming sword,” she groaned, running her hands over her face in frustration. She would rather scoop out her own eye with a jagged spoon than tell him what she was gathering and why.
Rags and those stupid fucking bones. Tethering Lyssa to this buffoon of a man who…
Who is the sole reason the Beast is within your reach at all.
The thought came unbidden, and her temper flared as hot as the water she was soaking in. “That doesn’t mean I have to like the idea of babysitting him,” she muttered, and Brandy huffed a sympathetic sigh.
The first streaks of dusk had settled over the Witch’s Wood by the time she gave up trying to wrangle her thoughts and climbed out of the pool. She could work on her list of ingredients in the morning, before they left for Warham. A good night’s sleep would certainly help—and maybe by then Alderic would have his own list of items that Lyssa could use as a starting point.
As she passed the cottage on her way back to the smithy, leaving her empty bowl on the railing for Rags to find in the morning, Brandy started to growl, his hackles rising. Lyssa had just grabbed for a pistol that wasn’t there—it was on her desk in the loft—when she noticed Alderic coming down the porch steps, tripping over the herb pots while he clutched one of Ragnhild’s quilts to his chest.
“Oh, hello,” he said, raising a brow as he took in her wet hair, the damp clothes clinging to her skin. Clothes she had only begrudgingly put on because he was here. “Nice night for a swim.”
She snorted. “What are you doing out here with a quilt?”
“I was going to scope out the grass and see if I could find a suitable patch for the night.”
