Hunted

Chapter 29

Lord Grundlebeard was overdue for a visit. He was my best lead on finding out who had orchestrated my hunting and attempted assassination. But I didn’t know his real name, and if I asked about him in Tír na nÓg he might hear of it before I could get to him. A better gamble, I decided, would be to seek out Midhir. Either he was the man behind it all anyway or he could tell me where to find Grundlebeard.

If Midhir truly was the mastermind, then I didn’t want Oberon and Granuaile along; neither of them had the magical defenses I had, and Midhir truly was the sort of magician who could turn someone into a newt. They’d be safe with Goibhniu.

Instead of shifting to our cabin in Colorado, I shifted to Brí Léith in Ireland, the old síd of Midhir. It’s near the modern wee village of Ardagh in County Longford. Some people call such hills “faery mounds” today, and some may even harbor a genuine superstition about them but don’t understand their true function: Every single síd of the Tuatha Dé Danann is an Old Way to Tír na nÓg. In fact, they are the oldest of the Old Ways.

When the Milesians defeated the Tuatha Dé Danann with their iron, they said—thinking they were clever—“We’ll split the land with you. You can have the bit of Ireland that’s underground.” The Tuatha Dé Danann said, “Okay, fine,” though in much more heroic language. But of course they didn’t live in their barrows forever; they simply used them as the first fixed points for channeling the earth’s magic to create the plane of Tír na nÓg and bind it.

Almost all of the síde were filled in now, and the Tuatha Dé Danann didn’t leave enough artifacts behind to tempt archaeologists to go mucking around in them. But Ireland’s elemental, Fódhla, remembered all the interior spaces as they used to be. It would take little effort on her part to restore the interior of any síd. And once a síd recovered its original space, then a Druid looking to use the Old Way hidden inside could do so.

I wanted to do it this way rather than shift internally in Tír na nÓg to Midhir’s land. The internal tether would land me outside his castle or fortress or whatever he called his home, which would doubtless be guarded. The old síd, however, long abandoned and forgotten, would put me somewhere inside his walls. That’s why most of the old mounds were filled in now; the Tuatha Dé Danann didn’t want random citizens appearing by accident in their parlors. I heard it happened a few times to Aenghus Óg in recent decades, whose síd at New-grange had been closed and overgrown for centuries before archaeologists reopened it in the 1960s. By utter chance, a bloke or five had stepped along the precise path to take them to Tír na nÓg, and then Aenghus had to feed the unfortunate sods to something hungry. Couldn’t have them returning and telling everyone the way to Faerie.

I took a moment to take in the view and enjoy the sun and air. It had been too long since I’d been home. Fódhla—a poetic name for Ireland in the same way Albion was for Britain, named after one of the tutelary goddesses of the isle—welcomed me back and was only too happy to restore Brí Léith to its former shape. The surface changed only slightly, but underneath it was hollow and spacious again, and the entrance appeared on the south side of the hill. I asked Fódhla to oblige me with a small skylight at the top to provide some light in the inner chamber, and she knocked that out in a few seconds. After checking my surroundings to make sure no one was watching me, I cast camouflage on myself and ducked inside.

It took some time to discover the proper path. Every síd was different, and the paths were laid out in such a way that accidental passage was unlikely—but not impossible. As I looked at the ground in the magical spectrum, the path began to show up as a binding once I took the first two steps in the correct order. So there was a significant amount of shuffling to be done, because the path itself wasn’t something the elemental could help me find. I stepped and pranced around for three hours, my back and left forearm healing all the while, before a sidestep on the north side revealed the third step to me, and then the fourth, and so on. I paused to draw Fragarach and boost my speed and strength. I fully expected defenses of some kind on the other side. As I wound my way along the path, the dim ambience from the skylight faded until I was plunged into total darkness and the air cooled precipitously. I had passed through to a damp, dark chamber somewhere in Tír na nÓg, most likely a cellar on Midhir’s grounds. I froze and silently cast night vision through the silver charm on my necklace. It didn’t help me at all. There wasn’t any light to magnify.

I smelled mildew and—over a coppery tang—peat and something that reminded me of bitter almonds. The white noise of industrial earth was gone, no background hum of electronics or motors or anything of the kind. But nature was missing too: no wind or water or scurrying of tiny feet. Except that something was breathing softly nearby. Perhaps more than one something. I couldn’t locate it; the acoustics were bizarre, and the noise seemed to echo faintly from all sides. The chamber I was in might be stone and rather large.

Slick quarried stone or tile lay underneath my feet, so I was cut off from magic here. I’d have to rely on my bear charm, and it was already draining because I’d never dispelled my camouflage. I let it go, along with magical sight, because the darkness was camouflage enough and I might need the magic for something else—and besides, the magical sight wasn’t showing me what waited there. The night vision I left active in hopes that I’d find a minuscule light source to help me survey my surroundings. Not for the first time, I wished I had some way to summon light, or even fire, the way some witches and wizards could. I’d wrap my shirt around Fragarach and use it as a torch if I could. As it was, I had no choice but to explore by touch and hope I didn’t wake whatever slumbered in the dark. Or stumble into a trap. I felt like the Inquisition victim in Poe’s “The Pit and the Pendulum.”

Stretching out with my left foot and feeling with my toes to make sure there was something solid underneath them, I took a slow step forward. Nothing happened, but there was progress. But when I lifted my right leg to take another step, I must have triggered a magical motion sensor, for a loud fwoosh announced the sudden lighting of candles all along a high shelf that circled the room—which was, in fact, circular, once I was able to focus. Though candlelight is generally quite soft, so many lighting at one time in total darkness while I had night vision on blinded me for a few moments. I dispelled the night vision and saw that I had lots of company in the room. The light also woke—and blinded—the many, many small creatures that had been sleeping on another shelf below the candles, about waist high.

They were tiny pale-green winged humanoids with flat black eyes and mouths out of proportion to the rest of the head. Hairless and sleek, they had stumpy legs and thick, overlong arms with large, three-fingered hands. In the middle of each palm—though I couldn’t see them yet—they had another mouth. I recognized these guys. I didn’t know what their proper name was, but I called them pieholes, because they didn’t really care what they shoved into the three they had. Goibhniu claimed that these were the original tooth faeries, but I didn’t know how humanity could have possibly transformed these things into stories of kind critters that gave a damn about children’s teeth. These could never be mistaken for anything but what they were—the ravenous, swarming bastard spawn of the Dagda and something he humped one day.

I supposed many pantheons had some incurably horny figures in them, viewed by their adherents with everything from amusement to fear. For the Greeks it was Zeus and Pan; in Vedic tradition it was Indra; and for the Irish, it was the Dagda, whose reputation, like that of many pagan deities, suffered somewhat at the hands of Christian scribes. He was sometimes depicted as a rather oafish sort with an abnormally large reproductive organ. It wasn’t because he was freakishly gifted in truth; it was merely to mock and stigmatize his sexuality. To the Irish he was unequivocally good, gifted with vast powers, and his carnal proclivities represented his urge to create life rather than an aberrant personality. Sometimes the life he created was a son or daughter of extraordinary magical talent—namely, Aenghus Óg, Midhir, and Brighid. But sometimes the life he created was bloody dangerous, and over the years a vast menagerie of magical self-sustaining horrors was born. Pieholes were one of the worst, and I thought they’d been wiped out centuries ago for everyone’s safety.

Unfortunately, once they blinked a few times, the pieholes recognized me as well: I was food and they were hungry. That bitter-almond smell was their collected shit, which ringed the base of the walls in discolored chalky mounds like mine tailings. Their wings snapped up from their backs, and their yawning mouths grumbled with a low rolling sound between a drone and a growl.

“Guys. Wait,” I said, foolishly thinking they’d listen. The warning growl stopped in unison and there was a half second of silence before they screeched and launched themselves at me, hundreds of them from all directions, hands outstretched and miniature mouths gaping with sharp, yellowed teeth.

I dropped to the ground on my right side, tossed aside Fragarach, and curled into the fetal position, managing to throw a protective left arm across the side of my face and ear. They fell upon me, and their hands latched on to whatever they could and bit down with those palm-jaws like lampreys, uncaring if it was cloth or raw meat underneath. My cold iron aura destroyed them in a puff of ashes before they could take a bite with their much larger mouths, but that didn’t stop them from tearing up two little gobbets of my flesh each and then plopping them wetly back onto my ruined skin as they expired. More of them kept coming; they weren’t quick learners. All they saw when their brothers exploded was a clearer path to dinner. Some of them chomped onto the half-masticated pieces of me that didn’t have to be torn free, but plenty more kept going for the freshest meat available. My whole left side seethed with them, a boiling mess of blood and cloth and ashes mixed with shredded muscle tissue. I triggered my healing charm and let it draw all the magic it wanted; it wasn’t the time for conservation. Even if I somehow survived the onslaught, I’d bleed out quickly if I didn’t get the wounds under control. I didn’t try to shut down the pain, because there was no point in diverting my limited magic to comfort. The verdict on whether I lived or died would be delivered soon enough.

Had I brought Granuaile and Oberon, they would have been consumed inside a minute. Cold iron was the only thing giving me a wisp of a chance. Hundreds of tiny bites have a way of turning seconds into hours. Teeth scissored through the flesh all along my left side, and then the plosive thump of the faeries’ deaths punched each wound before a new set of teeth took another bite. I gritted my own teeth against the scream that wanted to erupt as my substance was gnawed away. No one would hear me over the screeching of the faeries, and even if they did, it probably wouldn’t be someone anxious to help me. Apart from that, I was afraid that if I opened my mouth, one of the pieholes would reach into mine with its hand-jaws and chomp down on my tongue.

After an interminable time of sharp, churning pain, the noise and the bites and the deaths ended, leaving me shredded and covered in a thick paste of ashy blood. It drained slowly through the grate in the floor, which I had not been able to see until now—faeries had been everywhere. The floor was indeed a slick quarried stone, sloped gently to encourage the draining of blood—the source of that coppery smell. My thoughts were sluggish and I didn’t want to move lest I exacerbate my condition, but I had to do something. My bear charm was empty, and if I didn’t get out of there soon, I never would. My eyelids drooped and I wanted to sleep but knew I’d never wake up if I did. How had Midhir fed those damn things? He had obviously fed them regularly or the shit wouldn’t be piled so high, and he hadn’t schlepped in victims via the Old Way—it had been unused for centuries before I stepped through. Still, he’d maintained a huge swarm of pieholes here to guard it. That meant it was a weakness in his defenses he’d gone to great lengths to protect.

I half-dragged, half-flopped my left arm off my face and whimpered when I saw the chewed tissue. Though the blood wasn’t pumping—my healing charm had shut down most of it and I was functioning on collateral circulation—I thought I could see a faint gleam of bone near my wrist and the top of my hand. I felt a new appreciation for the word raw.

There was no way I’d be able to walk the Old Way out of here. My left leg wouldn’t be in any better condition than my arm, and I was drifting dangerously close to passing out. Even if I could get to my feet, I couldn’t cast magical sight to see the proper path anyway. And that was probably my doom right there; the exit was most likely as plain as day in the magical spectrum if I only knew where to look—the Morrigan had set up something like that at one of her lairs—but all I could see now were very broad hints that I was well and truly fucked.

I turned my head up to the ceiling and could feel that it had been liberally gnawed on. The haircut Oberon had been suggesting had been delivered by faeries anxious to sample my scalp.

The ceiling offered no signs of a trapdoor or any other egress. No ladders rose from the floor to the ceiling. But there had to be a way out besides the Old Way in.

The drain, perhaps? Too small for me. Where was the conveniently human-sized ventilation shaft that appeared in every movie?

Ventilation, I surmised, was supplied by tiny holes no bigger than a sparrow underneath the shelf of candles. They were gaps, basically, between stones. Large and numerous enough for good air flow, far too small for the tooth faeries—or me—to get through.

My attention returned to the drain. Too small to squeeze through, but perhaps it led to plain old earth below, something I could tap into and replenish myself.

Something else was draining through the grate besides my blood. It thinned out and flowed more quickly near my feet. There was water coming from behind me, but just beneath my feet.

I tried to push myself up using my right arm, but that was a fail; my abdominal muscles, not to mention parts of my back, had been chewed upon and were on strike. I had to pull myself around using only my right side in extremely awkward fashion.

The water trickled out from a source in the rock wall, no bigger than the ventilation holes above, so it offered no escape. It did offer hope, however.

That thin trickle represented the only source of water for the pieholes, so they had been careful not to shit anywhere near it. The space on either side was clear for a few feet, and what it revealed was blessed, glorious bare earth. The quarried stone didn’t extend all the way to the walls—it had simply appeared that way on all other sides because the hills of faerie shit obscured the stone’s edge.

I should have known there would be earth here somewhere. There could hardly be an Old Way without it—nothing to bind to otherwise. Now all I had to do was drag myself over there before I died. It was probably fifteen feet.

I pushed it as much as I dared and it still took me three or four bloody minutes to inch my way across the slick stone that distance, but the agony of my left side made it seem longer. Based on the look I’d had at my arm and hand, I imagined that my left side looked like ground beef, or like Hel’s dead and rotting half. Most of the motor function was gone, so it was all deadweight. I curled my fingers around the edge of the stone and made one last heave before flopping the back of my undamaged right hand onto the earth. Energy rushed into me through my tattoos, and with it came relief. I drank deeply from the water stream to rehydrate, laboriously shut off every source of pain, and drifted off to sleep, healing now on autopilot.

When I awoke an indeterminate time after, the candles had either burned out or the magical switch had snuffed them due to a profound lack of movement. I shivered and a new thrill of pain washed up my spine. I was running a fever and had the chills because my many open wounds had no doubt become infected. I took a drink from the stream to slake my parched throat—I’d been unconscious for a good while—and my bladder informed me it was ready for a blowout special. I had to move.

I tried to lift my left arm experimentally to see what kind of calamity would ensue. Turned out I couldn’t extend it properly or raise it far from my side. It was locked into a bent position because vital hunks of my triceps were missing. My leg was in much the same shape; my range of movement was very limited and it sure wouldn’t hold my weight. I could rebuild all that tissue in a week provided I ate a whole lot of protein and kept in touch with the earth, but there was no food in this chamber. I had been the food. I couldn’t get better until I escaped; I’d only get weaker.

I filled up my bear charm and then reluctantly removed the back of my hand from the caress of the earth. Firmly bearing down on the pain in my side, I pushed myself up with my right hand until I was leaning, awkwardly, on what I supposed I must call my right flank, though I didn’t generally think of myself as having flanks. The darkness remained uncomfortably Stygian.

Grunting and sweating with the effort, feeling tugs of tissue that I knew would be screaming at me had I let them, I forced myself to a precarious sitting position—enough that I could take my weight off my right arm for a few seconds. I lifted it from the floor and waved it madly over my head and almost cried in relief when the candles relit. That was a remarkable binding, and I hoped I’d have an opportunity to learn it.

Using my right arm for support once again—a bit unsteady and weak—I looked down and gasped. Scabbed and purulent skin covered most of my wounds, but many were still open. With smaller wounds my healing spell could cannibalize tissue from elsewhere to fill in what had been lost, but in this case I’d lost way too much.

My condition wouldn’t improve until I ate a cow or five. Casting magical sight, I scanned the walls for clues. They were made of flat flagstones piled on top of one another and mortared together with lime. I didn’t spy anything magical until I looked behind me above the spring. One of the stones was outlined in the telltale white glow of magic. I heaved myself slowly over there and pushed it, breathing heavily by the time I made it.

Crackling and grinding ensued as twenty slabs of stone broke free of the mortar and rotated out into the circular space, forming a stairway beginning directly over the spring and just missing the slope of the first mound of faerie shit. The stones were long ones so that they swung out past the two shelves where the candles rested and the pieholes had roosted. Once safely above the candles, the stones didn’t swing out: A bunch of them swung inward instead, creating a narrow doorway through which I could escape, if only I could get there. Natural light filtered from it, which was especially encouraging.

Climbing those steps with only half a functioning body wasn’t going to be easy, but I didn’t have a choice, just as I didn’t have a choice about whatever waited for me up there.

Fragarach still lay where I’d tossed it. The strap to its scabbard had been gnawed through, but the scabbard itself had fallen off my back and looked intact where it lay near the center of the room. I dispelled magical sight and boosted my strength in hopes that it would allow me to move faster. Dragging myself around was still laborious but quicker with the assist. I retrieved Fragarach and slid it into the scabbard, took time to make a generous donation to the drain, and then returned to the bottom of the steps as the energy in my bear charm dwindled. I paused to rest and fill it back up. I’d have to deplete it for strength again to get up the stairs; I doubted I’d be able to make it otherwise.

Once I was ready, I clutched Fragarach by the scabbard and reached up to the second step, laying it there. Then I placed my hand flat on the step, elbow high, bunched my right leg under me, and pressed myself up to a somewhat vertical if severely asymmetrical position. The movement pulled my mangled left side in new, subtle ways, but the stabbing pain that accompanied it wasn’t subtle. I paused to deal with this torture, then improvised a wretched, miserable bunny hop to ascend the stairs. At the top, gasping and sweating, I discovered that the passage was a very short hallway that led to another open door, through which I could see sunlight on stone and hear the chuckle of a fountain. Once into the hallway I was able to brace myself against the wall and knew that the going would be a tiny bit easier. I closed my eyes and smiled, relieved that I’d made it out of that pit. Whatever awaited me ahead, at least I wouldn’t literally die at the hands of greedy pieholes.

The open doorway was made of shifted flat stones identical to the ones on the inside of the pit. Hopping through it, I found myself facing a hallway graced with paintings and sculptures and lit by circular skylights spaced periodically down its length. I was standing in a niche with a small stone selkie fountain on one side and a chair on the other, the skylight above me presumably disguising this secret entrance as a reading nook. Or something.

The ground was blessedly bare underneath my feet, and I could feel the magic there—a common feature of all the homes of the Tuatha Dé Danann. With the exception of a few rooms here and there, they would never willingly cut themselves off from power for the sake of interior design. And who needs a foundation when you can bind everything you need to stay still with the earth’s help? Their estates also rarely had a second floor; if they did, they were reserved for non-magical guests or those who did not depend on the earth for their power. That meant I wouldn’t have to climb any more stairs to find Midhir. Having a steady supply of magic again, I cast camouflage and magical sight. The nose of the selkie fountain glowed white, giving its purpose away, and I pressed it. The stones behind me shifted and the door to the piehole pit closed. Midhir couldn’t have used this as a way to feed them, though; they would have flown out if he had. That meant there was some other way to access the room, but I wasn’t terribly interested now that I was out of there.

I checked the hall to see if any noises I’d made had drawn attention. Apparently not. There were no signs of magical booby traps in either direction, so I took a cautious hop into an exposed position. Now that I was paranoid about discovery, it sounded abnormally loud. I supposed there was no good way to hop stealthily. Since my left side was ruddy useless, I turned right, holding Fragarach in my hand and using the wall for support, giving it fist bumps as I hopped. It turned to a smooth plaster past the niche, interrupted at intervals by some works of art. The first door I came to led to an unused bedroom. Past it on the left, an open archway hinted at a parlor or library or some other sitting area full of books, and, through that, another room promised a much larger living space that might lead to a kitchen. I hoped I’d make it there and find something to eat. But there was one more door I wanted to check before I crossed the hall and moved on. It wouldn’t do to leave it at my back without knowing what was in there.

It was another bedroom—the master suite, in fact. It was tastefully appointed with a sod floor fed by regular waterings and sun angling through a long glass panel on the far side of the very high ceiling. On the near side of the ceiling, a wrought-iron chandelier with those ingenious motion-sensing candles flared to life as I opened the door. Midhir—it was definitely him, for I recognized the Druidic tattoos on his biceps—hung upside down from it, wrapped in iron chains to nullify his magic. His throat had been cut, and the blood had sheeted down his face and turned the grass below a dark red. Unable to cast a healing spell and cut off from all earthly aid by his suspension, he’d bled out.

“Gods below,” I breathed, “I’m in deep shit now.”

Whoever had done this to Midhir could easily do the same thing to me. I could cast spells past my iron amulet and aura, of course, but wrap me up in that much iron and cut me off from the earth and I was as vulnerable as a tadpole.

I cast a wild-eyed glance back down the hall, expecting a trap of some sort to be sprung. I immediately assumed I’d either suffer the same fate as Midhir or else be framed for his murder. But seconds ticked by and no cries of alarm sounded. No one snuck up in camouflage and punched me in the junk. The phrase deathly silent came to mind.

My panic gradually faded as minutes passed and it became clear that the world was unaware that I’d just found the body of an ancient being. Eventually, though, they’d figure it out; if nothing else, once Midhir’s body was discovered, Brighid’s hounds would be brought in and they’d pick up my scent.

I toyed briefly with the idea of shifting to a hound myself to pick up some scent clues but discarded the idea as unwise when I was so messed up. Hounds can’t hop on one side very well. And, besides, once this got out, Brighid’s hounds would pick up the scent of whoever had really done this.

Though it was unwise to approach any farther and place myself in the same room as the murder, I spied another tangle of chains, resting on the feather bed. This demanded a closer look, for there were clothes underneath the chains—clothes I thought I recognized. And as a couple of hops improved my angle of vision, I saw that there wasn’t actually a body there—just ashes and foppish clothing that could only belong to Lord Grundlebeard.

I had no way of knowing if those were really the ashes of Lord Grundlebeard or if he—or someone—was clever enough to fake his death this way. But Midhir’s death certainly wasn’t faked. And a powerful magician like him couldn’t have been so thoroughly dominated this way except by another member of the Tuatha Dé Danann.

Though I knew it was all conjecture, the deaths of Midhir and Grundlebeard suggested that they had indeed been involved in the hunt for us. They’d kept an eye on Granuaile through divination or else had spoken to someone who did, and then they’d communicated with vampires and dark elves and Fae assassins and shuttled them around the Old World where they’d be most likely to run into us. They’d even told the Olympians where to ambush us back in Romania. And maybe they’d told Ukko where to find Loki, thus setting him free and possibly accelerating the beginning of the end. In that sense, this ending for them felt like justice.

But they hadn’t been the true bosses. They’d been something akin to executive assistants, a layer of insulation from where the real orders originated, and once Granuaile and I had escaped their net, these two, who could point fingers and name a name, had to be eliminated. Something else clicked into place: It had always bothered me that Faunus began to spread pandemonium throughout Europe at the same time that Perun’s plane was destroyed by Loki. But Grundlebeard could have easily sent a message to Faunus to begin as soon as I arrived at the Fae Court and then made up a cover story to match. He’d probably been the one to send that pod of yewmen after us as well—at someone else’s orders, of course. But now that someone had drunk his milkshake, and Midhir’s too.

Thinking of milkshakes reminded me of the kitchen and my dire need for protein. There was no good I could do by lingering in the bedroom, but I could do myself all kinds of good if I found something to eat. My stomach clenched and rumbled at the thought—genuine hunger pangs. If I fed it, perhaps I’d be able to think more clearly.

The parlor-cum-library, when I hopped through it, turned out to be one of my favorite rooms ever. A tree grew in the far corner to my right, its trunk allowed to stretch up through a hole in the ceiling and spread its canopy there. The floor was a lovely trimmed lawn. Starting on either side of the tree, walnut bookshelves lined the walls, oddly but fabulously filled with nothing but graphic novels and manga. Centered in the room, a copy of Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta was set precisely in the middle of a matching walnut coffee table set low to the ground, Japanese style. The room invited you to pick a graphic novel and read on the grass, perhaps leaning against the trunk of the tree. But the placement of V for Vendetta bothered me. It hadn’t been casually laid near one of the edges, which would indicate that it had been left by a reader. It was aligned squarely in the center, so that the table edges acted like a frame, directing one’s attention to the cover. Perhaps it was a message of some kind? If so, intended for whom? For whomever found Midhir’s body? If Midhir had been killed to conceal the identity of the real person behind my hunting, was this message intended for me? Or maybe Midhir’s death had nothing to do with me at all. The vendetta might have been against him rather than me, and this timing was entirely coincidental. Regardless, it only increased my suspicion that there was a trap here somewhere and I had yet to spring it.

I hopped forward to take a peek around the corner into the next room. It must be special in some way, for, unlike the rest of the floors I had seen, this one was covered with marble. The ceiling was high and frescoed with lots of naked flesh, but my view of the room—clearly a large one—was blocked by square marble pillars around the perimeter. It suggested an entertainment room of some sort; the middle would be entirely open and servants would circulate in the space behind the pillars, darting between them to refill plates and glasses and take away empties. It was much longer than it was wide. Looking straight across from my vantage point, I could see a wooden door directly opposite me; across and to my left, on what I would call the north wall, were double swinging doors with portholes in them, the kind that one sees in restaurants to allow servers to open them with elbows and shoulders as they’re carrying trays of food. That’s what I needed. A refrigerator full of protein. Or a safe way out of here. So far I had seen no friendly red exit signs, but the sight of the kitchen doors made my mouth water. I made sure to top off the reserves in my bear charm before stepping onto the dead marble floor.

Hopping with a purpose, I made for the first pillar to help me keep my balance. My bare foot sounded like a sad trout flapping against the marble floor. I paused at the pillar and peered through the space between it and the next one at the center of the room. As best as I could tell, it was a room for hosting large orgies—the sort of room a realtor might diplomatically label as a “pleasure garden” or a “hedonist’s salon.”

Couches and divans and overstuffed pillows lined the edges of the room and encouraged lounging, shall we say, as broad marble stairs led down to a sunken area in the middle that had been quartered, the sections separated by catwalks that met in the middle at a circular stage equipped with a stripper pole. One quarter was a deep koi pond intended for swimming au naturel, another was a sumptuous spa, and another was a shallow tub filled with thin red liquid that I guessed was melted gelatin; it was probably meant for Jell-O wrestling but had with neglect dissolved into a wretched little fuckpuddle. The final quarter, roughly catercorner from me, was of a similarly exploitative nature; it was a mud-wrestling pit, and it was occupied. Not by wrestlers or anything human or Fae but rather by the manticore we’d seen guarding the Old Way at Dubringer Moor. He was chained with thick steel cables to three different pillars on the far side of the room. I froze and watched him; his eyes were closed, head resting on his front paws. Perhaps I’d surprised him in a nap? Or perhaps he was dead. The outline of his ribs was showing underneath his red pelt, and while it was unlikely that he had died of starvation in the three days since we’d seen him in Germany, it was possible. Dying of thirst would be more likely if he had been chained here all that time. Something had to be wrong with him; I couldn’t believe he wouldn’t have heard or smelled me long ago if he were hale.

I looked at him through my faerie specs and saw that he still had an aura; he wouldn’t have one if he were dead. So he was sleeping or pretending to sleep—or truly unconscious.

If nothing else, he represented proof that Midhir and Grundlebeard had been involved in our hunting.

And the proof that he represented a mortal threat was also plain: Small piles of ashes dotted the room, mute markers testifying to the death of numerous faeries.

Prudence and a profound disability to move quickly dictated that I should simply try to find another way out rather than hop across in front of him, chained or not, so I turned around and spent ten minutes discovering that the path through Midhir’s sex room was the only practical exit. Past the selkie alcove, the architecture afforded nothing but another couple of unoccupied bedrooms. I toyed with the idea of laboriously unbinding the substance of a wall so that I could squeeze through the hole into the proverbial sunset, but there was some bad juju about it in the magical spectrum—either a ward or a trap, I wasn’t sure which. It was advanced binding of the sort the Tuatha Dé Danann were capable of, but I didn’t know if it was Midhir’s work or the work of whoever killed him. The bindings were tightly coiled, like the ones Aenghus Óg had placed on the mind of the late Tempe police detective Darren Fagles; if I tried to unbind them, it would set off an alarm at the very least, though I wouldn’t be surprised if something more violent happened. Insane as it sounded, I thought it best to risk the sleeping manticore. I might be able to sneak by him, but there was no way I could fight off anyone summoned by an alarm.

Returning the way I had come, I nervously filled my bear charm once more before stepping onto the marble and then employed my lopsided pogo dance to reach the first pillar. The manticore hadn’t moved. It still lay motionless in the mud.

Lacking the luxury of time—my magic was steadily draining now due to the camouflage spell—I hopped to the next pillar in three bounds and paused to check on the manticore. Motionless still.

I had a much larger space to cross now. Though I was tackling the short width of the room rather than the length, it was still a damn big room and the pillars were clustered at the corners of it. A matching pair to the two on my end awaited me perhaps thirty feet away, and it was behind those pillars—or, rather, to the left of those pillars on the north wall—that the kitchen doors waited; beyond them, straight ahead on the east wall, was the door to a mystery room. It was a long way for a one-legged, one-armed dude to go without any support, but I didn’t have much choice. Taking a deep breath and praying to the gods below, I pushed off from the pillar and lunged forward, hoping I didn’t wipe out.

The manticore woke when I was halfway across. The eyes snapped open, wide and alert, and searched for me. Though I was camouflaged, it wasn’t perfect invisibility, and he was able to spot my movement if not my clear outlines. No doubt he heard me moving as well. The black spiked tail rose up into the air behind him like some unholy cobra and fired venomous barbs in my direction. Some of them sank into the upholstery of a long red leather sofa facing the koi pond and blessedly shielded my lower body, and others missed to either side. But one struck me high on the right arm, and the pain that exploded there was unlike anything I’ve ever felt.

Worse than the tooth faeries eating my left side. Worse than the Hammers of God throwing a knife in my kidney. Worse than dark elves setting me on fire in Greece. It was nerve-searing, caustic agony that shut my motor function down, and I spilled forward onto the unforgiving marble, screaming. Fragarach flew from my grasp and skittered across the floor.

I triggered my healing charm but feared it was already too late. I began to convulse with involuntary muscle spasms, helpless to stop them and unable to pluck out the thorn with either hand—my left was useless and my right hand couldn’t reach the side of my own right shoulder. I managed to glimpse the thorn before a convulsion jerked my head away; the skin and flesh around it were dissolving and blackening—not like they would in acid but more like in a base, as if the toxin would do double service as a drain cleaner. It was ruining the topmost band of my shape-shifting tattoos—the one that let me return to my human form. So if I somehow managed to survive long enough to shift to an animal—not a bad idea, since as an otter or a hound I might be able to reach around and rip out the thorn with my teeth—I would never be able to shift back. I’d be stuck.

And I was stuck anyway. No one knew where I was. No one would arrive in time to help me with a convenient vial of manticore antivenin, because no such thing existed. I had to figure something out before I died an ignominious death, cut off from the earth in Midhir’s seedy sex hall. The venom was a vicious cocktail of biological agents—nothing against which my cold iron aura would be any use. A searing alkali to burn and dissolve my skin, an inflammatory akin to concentrated capsaicin to keep all the nerves alight and to swell soft tissue, and a fast-acting tetanus analog to lock up my muscles. It wasn’t actually tetanus or I would have been able to fight that off easily; it was a different molecule causing all the trouble. It paralyzed the manticore’s victims in the most painful manner possible—imagine an epic charley horse in every single muscle—and then he would eat them whole and alive as they screamed their way down his gullet.

The leather couch provided cover from further missiles, but the manticore hadn’t bothered to fire any more or even to rise up out of the mud. He knew by the noise I was making that he’d scored a hit, and that was all he needed to do. And he’d played me very well, very patiently; at no point had he ever been asleep. He had simply waited until I made myself an easy target.

I had to escape to another headspace if I was going to manage anything, and I thought Dante would serve me well. Though Druids have to learn different languages to manage their magic and communication with elementals, we also have to memorize large bodies of literature as a method of dividing our consciousness; it allows us to take others with us when we shift planes, for example. The body of work is a template for thoughts and a world unto itself, and we can slip ourselves or someone else into it. Granuaile had absorbed Whitman so far, so she could take one other person with her when she shifted. I had The Odyssey in the original Greek on tap, The Iliad in Latin, the complete works of Shakespeare, Dante’s Divine Comedy, and Dostoyevsky’s Brothers Karamazov in Russian, along with a bunch of bardic tales in Old Irish, which was my first project when I was a wee lad. I was maxed out now; active human memory can’t handle much more than seven things at a time without significant risk of loss. But headspaces also have other uses—especially in situations like this one. They can be the happy place you need to find when your mind or body is decidedly unhappy. Dealing with the virulence and pain of the manticore’s venom, therefore, could be left to my primary headspace. Removing the thorn would require cool thoughts in another, and getting access to more power before my magic ran out would have to follow directly after.

The thorn was not a straight spine but rather held small sacs of poison along its length, and these were pulsing and delivering more of the manticore’s evil shit into my flesh. I had to remove it before the poison overwhelmed my ability to break it down; I was barely keeping pace as it was, fighting to keep the muscles of my right side unlocked and my diaphragm from freezing up. I slipped into Canto V of Purgatorio, and the rhythm of it existed outside the pain and the contractions and the havoc being wrought on my system:

Là ’ve ’l vocabol suo diventa vano,

arriva’ io forato ne la gola,

fuggendo a piede e sanguinando il piano.

Yes. In purgatory, souls burn away that which afflicts them and, passing through the crucible, become whole again. Bind the thorn to the back of the sofa and ignore the fact that you can’t blink or move your eyes and your throat is closing and your organs are edging toward failure.

Quivi perdei la vista e la parola

nel nome di Maria fini’, e quivi

caddi, e rimase la mia carne sola.

And as the poetry flowed through that part of my mind, calm waters next to burning shores of my agony, I could concentrate on my goal and craft the proper binding, croak it past the swelling tissues of my throat, and feel the thorn retreat from my arm, flying a few yards to sink into the back of the sofa. The pain dipped for a brief moment, as a burn will when ice is first applied, but it returned soon enough, as the already savaged muscles on my left side tore and contracted and my tissues continued to swell. I could conceivably fight off the toxin now and break it down if I had enough magic to fuel the healing, but I was running low and had to access the earth’s energy buried underneath the marble floor. Sticking with Dante but skipping to Canto IX, I recalled a passage that spoke of marble and sundered stone, an appropriate backdrop for what I wished to do.

The marble floor did not have the same security bindings I had seen on the walls of the back bedrooms; it was plain marble, malleable to sufficient force, and that was probably because Midhir couldn’t imagine anyone trying to escape his pleasure dome. I spread out my hand, fighting its desire to curl into a fist, and focused my mind on the swirled-milk pattern underneath it. The marble was dolomite rock with very low silica content—primarily calcium-magnesium carbonate that I unbound in a microscopic area and then strived to reapply as a macro to a larger area the size of my hand. My voice gave out, however, and I coughed in the middle of the unbinding and had to start over. I gasped for breath and the pain nearly intruded into my calm headspace, but the poetry kept flowing.

Trembling and wincing, I carefully tried again, and this time the macro took hold. The marble underneath my hand became brittle as it broke down into its component minerals, and I could pull it apart, chunks of calcium and carbon and magnesium. I had to reapply the macro binding one more time because the first hadn’t gone deep enough, and that drained my bear charm completely. Without magic to fuel my body’s war against the venom, the poison raged through my veins and I could feel it destroying me, burning and at once paralyzing. My muscles spasmed involuntarily and my giblets howled to me of their torture; I imagined I could hear my liver and spleen screaming a duet, taxed far beyond their ability to filter the blood. I clutched another handful of crumbling marble out of what was now a shallow hole, tossed it away, and managed to scoop one final handful before my fingers seized up completely and wouldn’t let go. At the same time my diaphragm locked in place, which meant I had already drawn my last breath.

The bare earth was there, underneath my hand; all I had to do was supinate my forearm, twist my wrist so that the back of my hand could make contact and draw energy through my tattoos. But my biceps wanted to flex and curl my hand away. Shaking and twitching from the effort, I attempted to roll my wrist clockwise. The pull of my biceps actually kept my hand down in the hole, the meat of the palm braced against the edge.

I strained but couldn’t do it—a simple rotation of the wrist I typically performed without thinking was now impossible for me with all my will put into it. But there was some give in a few of my longer muscles along the uninjured side of my back. I threw my left shoulder as best as I could to flip and roll over faceup, and at first I thought it wasn’t enough. I was on my side, my hand trapped in that hole, and my vision started to darken at the edges. But the inexorable tug of gravity pulled me down past the point of no return, and physics was able to turn my wrist in that hole where my will could not. Once the fine filigree of knots that formed the border of my tattoos touched the earth, the magic rushed in, all I needed and more, balm for my pain and energy to fight the pestilence and unlock my muscles. I began with my diaphragm and took a glorious, heaving gasp of air. After a couple more breaths I lay there quivering and slowly relaxing my body, laughing softly with relief. I’d be worthless for much else until I got the infection completely neutralized, but at least I knew that I’d continue to breathe, until something else killed me.

A voice pressed into my consciousness; it didn’t merely bang on my eardrums, it probed into my brain with unwelcome fingers.

~Hrrr. How is it that you still live?

I craned my neck around but saw no one nearby. I managed to rasp, “Who’s there?”

When the voice answered, I realized that the sound my ears heard and the words my brain decoded were not the same thing at all. What my ears heard was like one of those YouTube videos where cats try to make human noises—in this case, a very big cat. But in my head I heard the words in English, except with a disturbing vibrato to them, a low, thrumming, malevolent purr.

~There is no one here but us, you fool. You may surmise that through process of elimination.

“Is this the manticore?”

~I knew you would figure it out. Now please explain why you have not died.

“How about you explain what you’re doing here?”

~You persist in asking the obvious. I am here to kill whatever enters the room.

“Volunteered, did you?”

~Hrrr. I detect sarcasm in reference to my chains. Vexing and counterproductive.

“Well, it’s vexing to be shot with poisonous barbs too, so suck it, uh … manticore.”

~ I am called Ahriman. Who are you?

Ever since Odysseus told Polyphemus his name was Nobody, it’s been a rule that you should never give a predator your real name. So I replied, “I am Werner Drasche.” Neither of us might ever escape this place, but if we both did and he went searching for the arcane lifeleech, the result would work out for me regardless of who died. I certainly was in no shape to finish off Ahriman the manticore myself.

~There are very few who can survive my sting. How did you accomplish this?

“I heal fast. Obviously.” Not as fast as I might wish. And the danger wasn’t behind me; I was simply behind a couch. I estimated there was at least ten feet of space between the edge of the couch and the nearest pillar. That was ten feet I wouldn’t be covering quickly, and Ahriman would easily perforate me when I tried—perhaps more than once. Fragarach lay in plain sight in the midst of that span, so I’d need to pause to pick it up. Or I’d have to crawl the whole way. If I moved slowly enough, the camouflage might keep me invisible. I doubted it.

And it wasn’t as if I had the strength to make any kind of move yet. If I tried to do anything but lie there and break down the toxins in my bloodstream, my liver would lead a mutiny. I was still desperately hungry and now in dire need of a drink as well, but the kitchen might as well be on another plane.

~Why are you here?

“Shall we trade questions and answers?”

~Hrrr. Very well. But one at a time, and I go first. “Why are you here?”

“I came to visit Midhir, the owner of this estate, and found him dead. Who imprisoned you here?”

An angry roar preceded his answer. ~One of the Irish gods, but I do not know which one. He or she wore a shapeless covering and had an odd voice.

My jaw dropped with the implications of that. As the goddess of poetry, Brighid could speak with three voices at once. Ahriman asked his next question before I could follow up.

~I am supposed to kill whoever comes to visit Midhir. I can reasonably conclude that this Irish god wishes you dead. What have you done, Werner Drasche, to inspire the wrath of the Tuatha Dé Danann?

“I wish I knew. I suppose I must threaten them somehow, but I cannot imagine why. I have no designs against them and wish only to be left alone. Tell me, if the person who imprisoned you was covered completely and the voice was strange, how did you know it was an Irish god?”

~Hrrr. The god told me as much. “You now serve me and the Tuatha Dé Danann,” the god said. But I did not accept the mere words. The truth of it was supported by the method of my capture. They used earth magic to render me immobile and to encase my tail in a wooden box, a hardwood not easily splintered. Then a squad of giants—I heard them called Fir Bolgs—shackled and muzzled me. I killed two of them despite my handicaps, yet here I am.

Interesting. Granuaile and I had thought the manticore was acting willingly as a mercenary, but obviously this mysterious god had chosen to make him an unwilling conscript.

~For a time, Ahriman continued, ~I was stranded on this plane and left to guard a certain tree; I was to kill whoever appeared. Someone did: A man, a woman, and a dog almost stepped through. That man had a sword and a scabbard—a scabbard that looked identical to the one I now see near the red sofa behind which you cower. I wonder—were you that man?

Telling him the truth would do me no harm; he still thought I was Werner Drasche. And confirming the truth would perhaps earn a measure of his trust, which might allow me to deceive him with something else. “Yes, that was me. So under what conditions might you be set free?”

~Killing you is the condition of my freedom. I do wish you would come out from behind that couch so we can get it over with, but you are probably determined to make me wait. Where are your companions?

“They are elsewhere. Listen, Ahriman, this god is being extremely careful to cover his or her tracks. You are wise enough to see that someone so careful would hardly let you live to speak of your role in this. If you kill me, you cannot hope to live much longer—you will be killed once you do this god’s dirty work. So why do we not agree to set each other free instead?”

Something between a laugh and a purr rumbled out of the manticore’s throat. ~I thought you would propose such a scheme. You may as well beg for mercy. You would have the same chance of securing my agreement. No, Werner Drasche. You are prey, and that is the end of it. There will be no escape for you. Remain behind your couch and die like a coward, or attempt to flee and I will shoot you with many more of my tail spikes. How many of them hit you the first time?

“Only one.”

~I thought as much. And you barely survived, judging by the squalling I heard. Two will suffice.

I couldn’t argue with that. “Who’s feeding you while you lie in wait?”

~The same Irish god who captured me returns every so often to minister to my needs.

That was a ticking clock. If the person who killed Midhir found me like this, I’d be toast for sure. At the moment, my future toast status was only highly likely.

Ahriman continued. ~But I do not require daily food and drink, so if a day or two passes, I will not suffer much beyond boredom. The suffering of others, however, is capable of invigorating me. Hence the properties of my venom. Your pain was delicious, by the way, and it lasted for far longer than that of most humans. I am pleased that you have survived to feel that pain again.

He finished by making a couple of juicy smacking noises. He was licking his chops, and somehow he sounded smug while doing it.

“Have you heard of Wheaton’s Law, Ahriman? It goes like this: Don’t be a dick. I know it’s a tough one, and I have broken that law myself more times than I would care to admit, but I think it’s a law that every being should try to observe, regardless of faith or position on the food chain.”

Ahriman made no comment except to chuckle deep in his chest. ~Hrr-hrr-hrrr! Silence fell after that. Apparently he had no more questions, and he was content to wait for me to make a move.

I was a physical wreck, so I wouldn’t escape through acrobatics of any kind. I had to come up with a magical solution.

That red couch deserved my eternal gratitude. I loved that couch and promised it in a fit of sentimentality that, if I survived, I would buy one just like it and build a memorial. Perhaps I could move it along with me through a series of bindings, screening my slow crawl?

It was risky. There was no such thing as a kinda-sorta binding. Either you bound something or you didn’t. So if I bound the leather on the end of the couch to the far wall to make it move, there was no telling how fast it would travel—or how far it would continue to move on after I broke the binding. If I didn’t break the binding at precisely the right time, it could wind up leaving me exposed to more fire from the manticore.

I looked down at my right hand, still resting in the hole and clutching a handful of crumbled stone, and it occurred to me that a wall of marble would protect me far better than a floor. If we were back on earth on bare ground, I could ask an elemental to create a wall for me, but elementals always remain on earth even though their magic can be tapped, and they wouldn’t be able to help me with dead, quarried stone anyway. Despite the time it would take me, the wall was a much safer option than gambling with the couch. And it would give me something to do while my body continued to purge the manticore’s toxins. I rolled myself over so that I was facedown again, in the original position of my fall.

Beginning with the hole in front of me, I modified the unbinding spell so that the affected area would be a thin sliver of stone, only as wide as the thickness of a fingernail; the length was about six inches, starting from the ragged, crumbled edge of my hole and extending toward the pillar. I repeated it twice more, at ninety-degree angles, so that when I was finished I had “cut” a rough square of marble, with the hole side looking chewed up. Those three cuts I bundled together in a macro and then proceeded to the second operation.

Looking at the flat surface of what was now a marble tile, I mentally selected the right third of it and then bound it to the inside edge of the cut floor facing the manticore. The effect, when I completed it, was that the tile wiggled up off the ground and then flipped so that it stood facing the center of the room, but the newly bottom portion of it was bound to the rest of the floor. It left a small crater of exposed earth—they pour no cement foundations in Tír na nÓg, since it’s tectonically stable, lacking actual tectonics. As more marble left the floor and became my shield wall, I would be left with an easy source of magic to tap.

I tacked the tile binding onto the end of the slicing macro and then cast the whole thing as a new macro. It executed much faster, and I grinned when the next tile cut itself and clacked into place. I repeated it again and again, creating a trough of earth and the tiniest of walls, only four inches high above the surface of the floor.

Once this self-erecting wall appeared beyond the edge of the couch, however, toxic thorns fired into the upper lip of the wall—Ahriman’s reflexive response to movement, perhaps. The barbs bounced off in a wholly satisfying manner. A few more sailed high, presumably in case I was trying to get across using camouflage. The manticore waited for me to scream, but when I didn’t and the marble squares kept rising and clicking into place all the way to the pillar, his voice pressed into my brain as his growls filled the room.

~Hrrr. What nonsense is this?

“It’s a modified Cask of Amontillado. Treat your foe like Poe.”

~Explain, Werner Drasche.

“Call me Montresor if you like. Explanation won’t be necessary if you will be patient.”

In response, several thorns thunked into the ceiling above. Ahriman had tried to ricochet them down on top of me, but they were too sharp and plunged deep into the sexy fresco, pumping their venom into hapless plaster fornicators. Ahriman roared his frustration—impotent rage in the Hall-O-Love.

My base completed to the first pillar, it was time to practice masonry without mortar. First I unbound some more of the marble around my hand so that I would have a squared edge near me, adjacent to the side that had just been sheared off. I began on a new set of macros for what I supposed must be thought of as skinny bricks, or perhaps really beefy tiles. Since I now had two sides of the squares exposed, I needed only two cuts for squares in this row, and then I had to bind the bottom of each square to the top of the foundation. When that binding executed, the tiles flew off the ground to land on top of the wall, adding six inches of height. As the row passed the couch and proceeded to the pillar, Ahriman divined my purpose and moved. Cables stretched and slithered across fur, and squelching noises from the mud reminded me of gastrointestinal discomfort. He did not bother announcing his intention; he merely fired more of his poison barbs over the couch at as steep an angle as he could manage. He had raised himself to improve his chances—and they weren’t bad. The thorns landed mere inches beyond my mangled left side. There was no need to inform him how close he had come. Continuing to build the wall and simply not screaming in agony would let him know that he failed.

He gave up after a short while and I could hear him pacing, wet splortches mixed with the clank and rattle of his confinement. I continued to cannibalize the floor to build the wall, a bit higher than I had originally intended to cut off the manticore’s field of fire. I didn’t want him to be able to nail me from afar once I started moving toward the kitchen door.

Gods below, I hoped there was something edible in there.

The last of the poison had been broken down and a modest skin covering had closed the wound on my shoulder, but my tattoo wouldn’t heal up all on its own, and I was running on fumes. Once the wall was completed to my satisfaction, I began to drag myself along the ground, using my right arm and leg. Ahriman heard me moving and he lost it. He didn’t speak; instead, he roared and attempted to pull free of his chains, though he had doubtless tested their strength long before and found them sufficient to restrain him. He made quite a ruckus back there, but it didn’t stop my long slog to the kitchen. After picking up Fragarach and realizing how profoundly unable I was to use it right then, I had occasion to reflect that crawling away was not my most heroic moment.

Ahriman spoke one last time, as I pushed open the kitchen door and hauled my body out of the sex hall. That half-human voice slithered into my head, menace in every syllable.

~I may die here, Werner Drasche. But if I am freed, I will hunt you.

“Okay!” I called back, and let the door close behind my feet. I hoped that, if he did escape somehow and found me instead of the arcane lifeleech, it would be far enough in the future that I would be in better condition to fight him.

An important step to improving my condition would be to eat something. Magic could boost my base strength, which was barely keeping me moving, but it couldn’t boost low blood sugar or stop the growling in my belly, and since the kitchen had been tiled, I was now subsisting on my bear charm until I could find some other source of energy.

The kitchen appeared to be well stocked, and should it prove to be the case, I silently swore to give Brighid a fruit basket and no explanation whatsoever.

Since Tír na nÓg lacked electricity, food was kept safe in iceboxes—the enchanted sort one could find at the goblin market. Midhir had three huge ones and a prep area made entirely of wood; his faery servants wouldn’t have appreciated the modernity of stainless steel. The cutlery and cookware were bronze, copper, and glass.

In the first icebox, I found a cold roasted chicken with only a single drumstick missing, so I counted it as a major score. I pulled it off the shelf, laid it out on the tile floor, and tore into it.

Finally able to think of the future, now that I had something on which to chew, I tried to salvage some useful information from my debacle of a shortcut. Whoever had rolled through here was an utter boss. Judging by the bodies and ash piles and by the fact that I still hadn’t heard a sound beyond those made by Ahriman or myself, it was quite likely that we were the only living creatures in the compound. If that was true, then I could have walked in the front gate and avoided becoming a chew toy for the pieholes. I would have had to face Ahriman no matter what, though, if I wanted to learn what happened to Midhir.

I knew how the Tuatha Dé Danann tended to think, and this slaughterhouse probably didn’t even count as a massacre to my adversary’s way of thinking. No, this was self-preservation. A strategic retreat, even. Bagging the Druids hadn’t worked out, so it was time to withdraw and tie up loose ends like Midhir and Lord Grundlebeard. Now that we had the help of the Olympians, Granuaile and I couldn’t be confined to earth anymore through pandemonium. So far as I knew, no other pantheons possessed that particular power. Whoever was behind all this would plot something else, for sure, and we’d have to remain paranoid, but at least the vampires were getting some payback, the dark elves had much to fear from the Ljósálfar, and our freedom of movement was restored. Or would be, once I healed.

A slow smile spread across my face, past a cheek full of chicken. As messed up as I was, it felt good to be alive. I didn’t want to stop living anytime soon.

I wolfed down the entire chicken and most of a leftover ham before my stomach issued a cease-and-desist order. Bloated but already feeling a bit better, I thought it was time to try standing again. Wedging Fragarach into the handle of an icebox, I hauled myself to an upright position and hoped that no other mortal surprises awaited me as I searched for an exit.

Midhir’s palace sprawled extensively, but I didn’t bother to explore it all. My errand had already been completed and I didn’t have the strength, so it was time to take my leave. I spied more ash piles as I moved through rooms; someone had made sure there would be no Fae witnesses to Midhir’s demise. There was a lush courtyard in the center of the estate, with a tall ash tree casting much of it in shadow. It was tethered to the network but only outward bound; no one could shift directly into the center of Midhir’s world. I didn’t want to shift anywhere in Tír na nÓg, because I didn’t want to appear crippled in front of all Faerie and because whoever was behind it all might be encouraged to finish me off. I needed a few days of food and healing—and some new clothes—before anyone laid eyes on me. So I shifted to my cabin above Ouray, Colorado, which had a stash of food and extra duds, in addition to a very strong elemental. Granuaile and Oberon would be worried about me being gone so long—especially since I’d promised them I’d be right back—but I wasn’t anxious to see them while I was so messed up.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have any choice in the matter. They weren’t waiting for me back at Goibhniu’s place but rather pelting out of the cabin toward me.

“Gods, Atticus, where have you been?” Granuaile cried.

“Why are you here?” I asked.

“You said you were going to the cabin and you’d be right back. Where did you go?” She ducked underneath my right arm and draped it over her shoulders so that I could lean on her for support. Her hair smelled like honey and vanilla, and she was wearing strawberry lip gloss. I probably smelled unspeakably bad and felt acutely embarrassed. She was wearing a pale-blue blouse and some jeans that looked new—definitely different clothes since I’d last seen her stretched out and healing from an arrow wound.

“Wait. How long has it been?”

Her jaw dropped in shock and she searched my face to see if I was joking. My question worried her more than the sight of my injuries.

“Atticus, it’s been two freaking days. Freaking as in I was freaking out.”

“That explains why I was so hungry.” And no wonder that they’d left Goibhniu’s taproom. He would have told them to bugger off eventually and promised to let them know if I showed up.

“I want to know where you went,” Granuaile said, helping me hop through the cabin door, “but first tell me what you need.”

My eyes welled a bit, a harbinger of impending schmaltz. I did my best to control it and said, “Actually, I think I’m all right. Or I will be. I’m glad you’re here. We’re safe now.”

“We are?”

“Well, for a little while, yeah. Still up for Japan?”

“Are you?”

“It’s as good a place to heal as any.”