I didn’t doubt her for a moment. Rían’s lifeless body was the only proof I needed. The dagger at his feet. The blood leaking from his mangled leg. If she wanted me dead, there’d be no escape.
“Return to your world tonight,human,” she spat, “for my mercy will not extend to daylight.”
The doors burst open. Tadhg and Ruairi fell into the room. The Phantom Queen and her guards vanished.
Rían gasped, bolting upright in his chair, his face ashen. He scanned the empty room through black eyes as if he’d never seen the place before.
“Rían?” His name wobbled on my lips.
His head swung toward me and tilted at a sickening angle. His smile didn’t reach his hollow eyes. He shot to his feet, knocking the chair to the ground.
Tadhg raced to his brother, catching him by the shoulders. “Look at me.Look at me. You have to fight her.”
Ruairi positioned himself between us. I peered around him to glimpse Rían shaking his head, black eyes melting to blue.
“I release you from our bargain,” he rasped.
And then the black returned.
Something in my chest loosened, like someone had pulled an invisible cord.
Our bargain.
Stay in this castle until your sister returns from the underworld.
Rían was letting me go.
He threw out a hand. Tadhg and Ruairi flew across the room. Wood cracked. Curses echoed. But all I could focus on were Rían’s black eyes as he slowly stalked toward me, sending me back and back and back until my heels collided with the wall.
Nowhere to run.
Nowhere to hide.
“Rían . . . No . . . Please.”
Rían traced a finger down my throat, ever so gently. “Run.”
Tadhg evanesced, dagger in hand, and drew a blade across his brother’s throat. Blood spurted from the deep red gash, spraying my face and dress.
My knees gave out, and I landed in tandem with Rían’s body. I heaved and heaved, swallowing back the bile scalding my throat.
“Eava!” Tadhg bellowed. “Oscar!”
The witch and grogoch appeared.
“He’s spinning out,” Tadhg rushed. “Get him to the dungeons before he kills us all.”
Eava took one of Rían’s hands, Oscar took the other, and they all disappeared.
Tadhg flicked his wrist, conjuring his own tost. To Ruairi he said, “Bring her straight through the Forest to the portal. Get her to Gaul. None of the usual haunts. They won’t be safe.”
Ruairi nodded.
Before I could protest, Tadhg had me in a clean dress, and I was being dragged into the courtyard, blinded by a flashing white light, and thrown on top of a mammoth black horse. Tadhg said he was sorry, refusing to meet my gaze. Then he gave Ruairi’s hindquarters a smack, and the pooka shot toward the gates.
The night blurred into tears and darkness.
Ruairi ran faster than I’d ever seen anything move, like a demon escaped from the underworld. He slowed when he hit the forest, but only a fraction. I screwed my eyes shut when we reached the river. Held my breath, desperate to keep the rot of death from entering my lungs. The relentless thundering of Ruairi’s hooves numbed the sounds of my breaking heart and the hollow howls of whatever beasts prowled the Black Forest.