Cathy caught her breath. “You mean she has to give Kevin back? Just like that?”
“As long as he also wishes to return,” Cuan said. “In some cases, fae would rescue a willing child from a cruel family, and under those circumstances the parents would have no claim.”
“Obviously, that doesn’t apply here,” Tamsin said. “Once Kevin remembers his real home, he’ll want to return. So, all we have to do is contact Maeve and she’ll be forced to hand him over?”
“In theory, yes.” Cuan’s mouth tightened. “Though she is vicious and subtle even for one of my kind. I have no doubt that she will have some scheme in mind to evade her obligation.”
“We’ll need backup.” Tamsin pulled out her phone. “I’ll call Betty and Hope. They’re Wild Hunt, it’s their job to handle stuff like this. They’ll know how to—Cathy?”
She was already halfway out of the room. She was dimly aware of Tamsin and Cuan following her to the kitchen, asking questions, but their words just seemed to go straight through her ears without stopping. Her head was full of nothing but a single, echoing thought.
The fae have my son.
The fae have my son.
She searched through drawers and cupboards with shaking hands. Spatulas, spoons, lemon squeezer. None of those would help. There had to be something in here that she could use—
“Mistress Cathy?” Cuan ventured. “May I ask what you are doing?”
She brandishing an egg whisk at him. “Can this hurt you?”
The fae warrior eyed the utensil cautiously. “Er, I believe that would depend upon how it was applied.”
That was a ‘no,’ Cathy decided. She tossed the whisk aside, bending to hunt through a cabinet.
“Cathy, stop,” Tamsin said firmly. “I know you must be frantic right now, but we have to try to stay calm. Let’s sit down and make a plan.”
Cathy’s hand closed over a handle.
“I have a plan.” She turned, and Cuan took a sharp step back from the cast iron frying pan. “I am going to go get my son.”
* * *
The last rays of sunset were fading from the sky by the time they reached Fair Hill. The round, stone-topped mound lay well outside the boundaries of the village, away from any houses or roads. They’d had to leave Tamsin’s car behind and walk the last couple of miles, through disused sheep fields and across overgrown scrubland.
Cuan led the way, poised and alert, moving soundlessly through knee-high weeds with the ease of a hunting wolf. Cathy followed rather less gracefully, trying to make out the narrow footpath in the evening dusk. At Tamsin’s insistence, she’d swapped her green dress for something more suited to a cross-country hike, though every cell in her body had chafed at the delay.
Out of pure habit, she’d grabbed her handbag too. It bumped at her hip, overstuffed and awkward. Even though the baby years were long gone, she’d never quite managed to kick the habit of always carrying around far too much stuff. Still, at least she’d be able to offer Kevin a snack before the walk back home.
I am going to get him back.She clung to the thought, as tightly as she gripped the handle of her iron pan. They were the only things stopping her from slipping into a spiral of madness and despair. Just a little longer, Kevin. Mommy’s nearly there.
Fair Hill lurked above them like a great, crouching beast; silent, motionless, and filled with menace. Even before Cathy had learned the truth about it, she’d avoided coming here. She’d never given any credence to the local legends about the place, but something about it just felt wrong. Even on the hottest days of summer, a strange chill always clung to the low, worn circle of stones that crowned the hill.
I should have told Kevin not to come up here.The fist around her heart clenched tighter. Of course, if Cuan’s timeline was correct, she hadn’t even known herself that there was a real reason to avoid Fair Hill—but that was no excuse. She should have known, with a mother’s innate instinct for danger. She should have protected her son.
“Still no luck getting hold of Betty?” Tamsin asked as they headed up the steep slope.
Cathy shook her head. “I called the police station, but they said she’s out on patrol, and wouldn’t pass on a personal message. I couldn’t exactly explain why I needed Betty, and not any other officer.”
Betty was secretly a hellhound shifter, as Cathy had learned when Tamsin had been taken by the unseelie. She and her wife Hope were members of the Wild Hunt, a secret society dedicated to protecting the human world from the fae. They’d come to the village to guard the stone circle, watching out for anyone attempting to use the portal to contact the fae realm.
Of course, that hadn’t gone so well. For all Betty’s supernatural abilities, she hadn’t managed to prevent the mysterious wizard from sacrificing Tamsin to the fae in exchange for power.
Hellhounds and fae and wizards… once, Cathy would have been thrilled by all of it. Now, all she wanted was to have her little boy home again, and go back to her dull, safe, everyday life.
Tamsin grimaced. “I’d feel a lot better with Betty here. She knows this fae stuff better than any of us, except possibly Cuan. Are you sure you want to go ahead without her, Cathy?”
All Cathy’s instincts cried out to save her little boy now, but Tamsin had a point. She bit her lip, trying to think rationally. “Cuan, what’s your opinion? Should we wait for Betty?”