Where A Witch Goeth

Chapter Sixty: Death Pact

My father and I heard the rustling in the bushes that heralded Nick's return but neither of us acknowledged him until he had transformed, clothed himself, and joined us by the fire. He slung down onto a log, meeting my eyes briefly with an assuring look before pulling a knife and beginning the work of gutting the two rabbitishes he had returned with.

"I assume she's filled you in?" he said gruffly, not looking at my father as he skinned the carcass with the skill of long practice.

I could see the words fill me in forming silently on Cillian's lips, and I laid a hand on his arm, patting him. "Yes, I've told my father how we came to be here and what we need to do before we leave."

My father's eyebrows raised in the same way they had when I had explained to him that we needed him to sponsor us at the Unseelie Court. It was a look I knew well well, the same look that he had made the many times I had begged him as a child to introduce me to other witches. A look that clearly said, You don't know what you're asking.

Nick's knife stopped and he met my father's eyes for the first time. "Can you do it?"

"Get you an audience with the Unseelie Court? Yes. Qualify in the eyes of the court as a diplomat from Tir Na Nog in order to negotiate for the release of..of my grandson?" he glanced at me and muttered, "time travel, gods," but then cleared his throat and said with decision, "Most certainly. But guaranteeing the outcome of those negotiations is much less certain."

"Right, Balor didn't seem like the most reasonable monster," I admitted.

My father shook his head. "Balor does not rule this place. His ability to escape this plane for brief moments when he steals magic is taunting him with dreams of power in other realms, but he has little true power here. That is why he would wish the spell guarding the planes to be broken, so that he be able to leave this plane permanently and find some place to set himself up as a god. He, like all here, submit to Queen Bé Chuille. But to say that she is a capricious ruler would be understating things most egregiously."

"Bay-who-whata?" I said, but Nick didn't care about the Gaelic pronunciation of some sorceress so evil the Tuatha De Danaan had banished her and her followers to this unholy plain. His face pinched. Reading him as well as I could, I gave him the floor to speak.

"I didn't ask about the politics of this place. I'm asking you, can you do whatever is necessary to get Celie and Tavish out of here?"

My father returned Nick's penetrating gaze. "Can you, faolan?"

Nick looked at me, not with the tender loving look I've come to know in the last few interminable months or years we've been here. There was nothing but ferocity in his gaze, like he would tear apart the world for me. His eyes slid from me and found my father with the same look.

The look was answer enough for Cillian, for he nodded and said, "Very well. We start for the Unseelie court tomorrow. Along the way, I will teach Celie the magic to open and hold the portals, because it is nearly too much magic for one witch. You must catch many of these, faolon," he reached for the second rabbitish and began to gut it. "Try not break their necks, we will need to bleed their last heartbeats for the magic."

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It took us twenty-eight sleeps to come within two day's walk to the castle, but this had included three lengthy detours to portals within Cillian's geographic knowledge of this plane. I had learned the spell to open them and practiced it more dutifully than any magical knowledge my father had ever passed to me. The problem was, though I could activate a portal, I could not hold it open long enough for passage. At least not on my own. Together, Cillian and I could accomplish the task with a single rabbitish sacrifice. But alone, not my even my own blood could accomplish the task. He made me try over and over—just in case, he said—but the portal would collapse in on itself as soon as I could make it swirl with potential.