Ah, thinks Moloch, the Unseelie fae, the sluagh. They are terrifying—but feckless. A bit dim. Okay, not very bright at all. But they admire Moloch. Moloch and the sluagh have come to a working arrangement.

Moloch believes that if he can find the Guardian, he’ll have a bargaining chip to regain his old life. The sluagh search for the Guardian for Moloch, and he looks away when they harvest human souls.

The window Moloch peers through closes, and the mirror reflects him as he is. He’s holding the mirror close and sees the white rib of scar that disappears beneath his black eye patch. He’s tempted to smash the mirror on the stone. Instead he clutches it so tight it bites into his hand.

He wants the mirror to find what he’s looking for, but the mirror, like Moloch, is flawed.

Moloch paces to the edge of his high tower and glares out over the distance to the bright, light Seelie fae world with its music and dance. He can hear laughter.

Moloch wants to be freed from the ruin of the Unseelie world and, yes, away from the loyal but rotting sluagh, and back to the bright lights and glamour. If he recovers the magic, he might be given leave to return to his former life.

He needs to find the Guardian.

Then Moloch will turn the Guardian over to the Seelie king, who will reward him. With this human war stretching the thin places between worlds to breaking—allowing his sluagh hunters to close in on the trail—Moloch feels he’s finally going to get what he wants.

From where Moloch’s dragon, Wyvern, is curled in the corner of the tower, he puffs in his sleep, and smoke rises above the beast in a small cloud.

Soon, my friend, Moloch thinks, we will fly.

Moloch looks in the cracked mirror again, and this time as it reflects his damaged face he narrows his remaining eye, the eye that glows as red as fire. He hears in the distance the scream of a returning hunter, and one corner of his mouth lifts in a smile.

CHAPTER 6

Isaac in the Orkney Islands

Circa 1750

Out of the moors in the middle of the night a barn rises like a gingerbread cottage, one pinprick of light coming from a small lantern. Made of stone, the barn sports gaps the size of Isaac’s fist between the boulders, gaps that let in the whistling wind. But Isaac is grateful for this bit of strange luck, finding shelter, and he tumbles almost at once into a peculiar sleep.

Peculiar because it isn’t a natural sleep. It’s as if he’s caught in a storm at sea. As if he was knocked senseless as soon as he fell into the hay.

As if Isaac Wolf has been enchanted.

*   *   *