the power that has you in such a state, am I right? Her power?” She kept her voice soft. Caring. And fed him a lie. “You were doing better until she came back. Until Thia brought it back.”
He was breathing hard, pouring sweat. She could feel him not wanting to accept her suggestion, but he nodded.
She leaned in, compassion in her tone. Malice in her words. “Wouldn’t you like to do better again? Look at yourself. A near mindless, sniveling mess. Taking charity scraps left at rubbish bins.”
He mumbled something.
“What’s that, wiel?”
“N-n-not scraps,” he whispered, eyes squeezed tight as he revealed a new, deeper weakness—one far better than any compulsion spell. “A gift. A kindness.”
Cassie’s voice was equally soft as she leaned in, brought his head up with a finger below his chin. “Like her, do you? Your little muffin girl?”
He went absolutely still. His eyes opened.
She laughed. “How delightful.”
He hated her, this smiling woman. But it also felt all mixed up in his head.
He knew that as if told to him from far away. He knew but could not sort it out. And she was in there now, pushing her will into him, confusing him with thoughts and emotions that he did not want to make his own. If she had tried this next year, he might have been able to fight her, but he had not yet recovered from his caethiwed. He should never have come into town.
Why had he? Ah, right—he had needed to stock up on supplies so he could avoid town till Gwanwyn. And look how that had turned out.
Had it been a lure, the sudden presence of that familiar, terrible power? Had this woman been behind it? And what about that other one, the one who gave him food and coffee and made him think that she cared…maybe not for him in particular but in general. Kind-hearted. A kind-hearted woman. Had that been a trick?
He felt a mental jab.
This one, the one with seductive smiles and cold amber eyes wanted him to pay attention (as if he could not think and listen at the same time). He was not stupid. He had heard her say she wanted his help to rid the town of the woman with the power he feared. Thia McDaniel, she had said.
The Cailleach’s power had not been a lure. And if this woman had not seen him behind the store and become curious, he would not be with her at this moment, fighting for control of his mind.
She had had him followed, she was telling him, taunting him with his carelessness. And rightly so. His gaze flicked up as far as her lips. Red and cruel. Smirking. He went back to staring at his boots. Splatters of different-colored paint made different patterns, depending on how he happened to see them. A falcon formed out of green and a streak of yellow. He blinked and saw instead a cartoonish dog in a pointed hat, the kind people wore to look silly at parties. Did they still do that? Wear those hats? He had not been to a party in a long time.
Sharp pain shot through his head, another bite of the beast.
It would be perfect, she said. It took him a moment to understand. (Maybe he had been wrong and he could not think and listen at the same time.)
Oh. His refuge. She had gone on to say how perfect it was, off the grid with high levels of protection already in place.
This wasn’t about him, but about the home he’d made for himself.
She had no idea who he was.
He wanted to laugh nearly as much as he wanted to rage at her insolence, her audacity. Wanted to tear her apart for her malice and paint the trees with her blood. But this was his own fault. He should never have come into town or taken so long to decide what to do about the woman with the Cailleach’s power.
Too slow. He had been too slow.
Slow to think, to decide. Slow to act.
Stupid. How many times had his half-brothers called him that? Yet he had always denied it, always fought back. But maybe they had been right after all.
Was that negative thought part of the compulsion? A side-effect of its beastly fangs digging deeper, ever deeper?
Or was it the godforsaken truth.
“Yes,” he heard himself say. She wanted to make him nod, but he resisted. It took nearly everything he had, but he resisted. He would not—
He nodded.
And wanted to die. Or kill her.
Both? Both could work. He searched his boot for the image of the dog in the birthday hat but couldn’t locate it. Had it been on the left or the right?
He cringed as the next words entered his mind and then burned his throat on their way out his mouth. “You and yours are welcome in my home,” he said. It was little comfort that the lie sounded as forced as it was.
Even so, the woman beamed, the white of her teeth nearly blinding. “Excellent,” she said, and smoothly crossed her long legs and stood. Her arm swept out, the manicured fingers of her hand unfolding like a fan as she directed him not back towards town but ahead, where the park trail ended at Elkhorn Road.
“Shall we?”
He was aware that he got to his feet, but it felt unreal. Consciousness had been pushed to a cramped, far away place. He had become trapped, imprisoned in his own mind. It was like before.
And also like before, his own carelessness—no, his own stupidity—was to blame.
CHAPTER 3
Eclectica, Granite Springs
18 December
Thia closed out the last register, put the day’s deposit in the pouch. As she stepped back from the counter she caught sight of the wrapped gift on the shelf beneath. The man hadn’t come back for it. She wasn’t sure why that was such a disappointment. Well, no, that wasn’t true. She knew but didn’t want to admit it. She’d wanted to find out if he was Cormac, wanted to see him again even if he wasn’t.
Maybe especially if he wasn’t. It would be nice to think that she could feel that sort of spark, that sort of attraction for someone else.
It would be nice to think that her heart wasn’t broken.
Bank deposit in hand, she turned out lights and went to double-check the front door locks.
Cormac had been so charming and she had been so damned attracted when they’d first met on that flight to London.
She frowned, considering. She’d had time to reflect on every event in that crazy, hectic time, and she had begun to wonder if they might have met the night before. There had been a man outside Lettie’s home, and Thia had felt a strange pull—she wouldn’t necessarily go so far as to call it attraction, but she had felt drawn to him. And, in the next moment, she had been literally drawn to him when he had grabbed hold and tried to pull her over the picket fence.
If that had been Cormac in disguise, then he had been entirely un-charming their first meeting. He had, in fact, assaulted her.
She thought that their eyes might have been similar—that man’s and Cormac’s—but lighting and memory made it difficult to say for sure, and she hadn’t had a chance to ask Cormac about it.
Not that she could trust him to tell the truth. He had misled (if not lied outright) to her more than a few times. For his benefit, mostly, but not always. It would be easier if she could think of him as entirely selfish. But one of his deceptions had led her to believe that she