Page 36 of Kill the Beast
She fished her list out of her pocket and handed it to him. He unfolded it carefully, a little furrow forming between his brows as his eyes darted across the page.
“Your handwriting is atrocious.”
“I’m a faerie-killer, not a secretary,” she said.
“Why did you circle ash?”
“Why do you think?” she said, rolling her eyes. “I know where we can get some ash wood that fits Ragnhild’s parameters. We’ll collect that first. Unless you have a botanical item for the elemental category—if you do, we can use the ash as our faerie repellant instead, and the moon phase won’t matter.”
“I do not.”
She sighed. Of course he didn’t. That would have been too easy. “All right, then. Botanical item: ash wood collected during the waning moon. We’ll have to get the water next, since it also needs to be collected during the waning moon.”
Alderic looked up at her. “Do you have something in mind for water?”
“No. Do you?”
Those simple words seemed to open an old wound; Alderic’s expression turned hollow, and when he looked back at her list, she could tell that he wasn’t really seeing the paper anymore.
Lyssa felt that strange urge to comfort him again. “Come on, rich boy,” she said, trying to goad the pain off his face. If he was annoyed with her, he wouldn’t be mired in memory, letting it eat him alive. “I know there’s something. Let me guess—happy,sun-drenched summers swimming in your private lake? Or… boating, maybe?” He got that pinched look that seemed to indicate she’d struck a nerve, and she grinned. “Itisboating, isn’t it?”
“I am not going to dignify that with an answer, but yes, there might be water of some significance we can use. What about the other items?”
“The grave dirt will be simple,” she said. “The Beast had plenty of victims to choose from, and we can pretend to be planting flowers if there’s anyone around that might be suspicious if we show up with a shovel.” He didn’t need to know that she had a very specific grave in mind already.
“Those are all the elemental items,” he said, consulting the list again. “That leaves salt, coffin nails, and our personal concerns. What are we going to use for those?”
“The salt and coffin nails are just a suggestion,” she said. “They both fall under the faerie repellant category, but we only need one. Does the water you’re thinking of come from the ocean?”
“No.”
She blew out a breath, her chest tightening with anxiety. “No salt, then, becauseIcertainly don’t have an emotional connection to it.”
“What about coffin nails?” he asked.
“Coffin nails are… tricky to acquire,” she told him, “which means we may have to use regular iron for our faerie repellant.”
“Do you have an emotional connection to regular iron?” He handed the list back to her.
“It kills faeries,” she said, shoving the paper into her pocket. “And in case you hadn’t noticed, I am a big fan of dead faeries.”
He frowned. “Will that be enough, though?”
“I don’t know,” Lyssa admitted, patting Brandy’s side. He was still leaning against her legs, so heavily now that it was an effort to stay upright. “Maybe we can use extra personal concerns to make up for it.” Except that she didn’t have any. Alderic seemed to collect things like an ice-blond magpie, though. Some of themmustbe tied to happy memories of the person he had lost to the Beast,despite his struggle to think of anything. “We can figure those out later. For now, let’s focus on the elemental items.”
“Sounds good to me.”
As she drew another Door and knocked to activate the magic, she said, “The Doors can only ever lead us to the Gate, so we’ll come out in the Wood, leave our packs by the archway, and then go right back through it. It might be disorienting. Hold tight to my hand when we’re in the in-between, and don’t let go until I tell you.”
“Why are we leaving our packs in the Wood?”
“Because we won’t need them to get the ash—it’ll be quick. We’ll pick them up when we come back through, on our way to wherever we’re getting the water.”
Alderic shouldered his massive pack with a grunt and threaded his fingers through hers. Then Lyssa grabbed Brandy’s collar with her free hand, and together the three of them stepped through the Door.
CHAPTER
TEN
