“You’ll love this one, mate. An Irish priest is driving down the M1, and he gets stopped for speeding. The constable smells alcohol on the priest’s breath and then sees an empty wine bottle on the floor of the car. He asks the priest if he’s been drinking. ‘Just water,’ says the priest. ‘Then why do I smell wine?’ asks the constable. The priest looks down at the bottle and gives a start, ‘Good Lord! He’s done it again!’”

It was weird telling jokes to an audience that didn’t react. Arthur’s face should have been crumpling with resignation, not pointing flaccidly at the ceiling. Even Maeve couldn’t muster a reaction. From across the bed, her eyes stared right through me.

After Blake and Rowan went off, I’d stayed with Maeve and Arthur, racking my brain for every shite joke I knew to fill the gaping silence of the room. At least my voice drowned out the beeping machines, and there was always the chance Arthur would wake up and marmalade me.

I’d never looked forward to a beating so much in my life.

Someone knocked at the door. Maeve didn’t move, her eyes never leaving Arthur’s face. I opened it as Aline, Clara, and Smithers bustled in, declaring they’d come to relieve us and we should go back to the hall. Maeve refused to leave, as I knew she would, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to witness the moment when Ryan’s finished painting would be revealed to the world.

“Go, Flynn.” Maeve kissed my cheek. “I’ll be fine. I’ll call you if anything changes.”

When I entered the studio ballroom, Ryan and Simon had the finished painting mounted between two stone pillars on a bare white wall, surrounded by lights and filters. My breath hitched as I got the first glimpse at Ryan’s masterpiece.

He’d painted a woman who might’ve been a storybook witch, complete with black cloak and hood and pointed black shoes with buckles. She sat on a fallen log in a forest of twisted trees – a signature detail of Ryan’s work – tossing scraps of food to animals that scurried around her. Foxes, rabbits, and other critters leapt and scrabbled at her feet while bright-colored birds perched on her shoulders. The scene would be idyllic, if not for the witch’s stance. She paid no heed to the animals. Her body twisted as she peered over her shoulder to gaze longingly at a group of women walking through the trees behind her. They were dressed in bright, modern clothes, and their heads bent together, their hands over their mouths as though they were whispering secrets or stifling cruel laughter. The canvas dripped with loneliness and isolation – the witch who did good deeds but had to hide in the forest, her desire to be part of a community showing in the hunch of her shoulders. The gossiping girls who had no concept of the damage they did. In the trees, a pair of gleaming emerald eyes surveyed the scene. A fae hiding in the shadows, waiting to strike. Ryan had titled it, The Witch’s Lament.

It wasn’t the picture I’d expected to see – it was a gazillion times better. After everything the villagers had faced on the meadow, and how Maeve and Blake had planted the idea that witches were on their side, this poignant scene would remind them that they played a part in turning witches into the bad guys.

Simon snapped pictures from all angles, then spoke into Ryan’s phone as he made a quick YouTube video, zeroing in on details of the witch’s face and the playful animals. It was weird that even though Ryan was the artist, the face of his social media was the laconic old butler. Ryan told me that Simon even had his own Facebook fanpage, where he posted videos about etiquette and traditional British baking.

“It’s exquisite,” I breathed, unable to contain my excitement.

Simon frowned and dropped his phone. “Please refrain from speaking. Now I have to start the video again.”

“If you want to stay in the studio, go over there,” Ryan jabbed a finger at the easel he’d set up for me under the window. “And be quiet. We’re on a deadline. If I hear so much as a brush scratching the canvas from over here, you’re out.”

I mimed zipping my lips shut and settled into my stool. My painting looked like shite compared to Ryan’s masterpiece. I hadn’t lied when I told Candice that I was rubbish at two dimensions. My portrait of Corbin looked like a kid’s fingerpainting. But after hours hunched in that hard hospital chair, trying to fight back the darkness that threatened to consume our coven, my fingers itched to finish it. There was something calming about painting that sculpture lacked. My thoughts rolled off in a million directions, and I found I could think of Corbin without wanting to punch the sky. All I needed was a glass of whiskey to make it almost fun. If I believed in fruity woo-woo shite, I might’ve called it a meditation.

I’d used streaks of black and purple to form Corbin’s hair spilling across the canvas and right over the edge, as though the square wasn’t enough to contain him. Inside his tresses I painted galaxies and constellations, pulling up star charts on my phone to copy the patterns exactly. Just for a giggle, I added all our star signs. Maeve would say they were all wrong because of the earth’s wobbling shenanigans, and her nose would wrinkle and her voice would get that schoolteacher tone that was so fecking sexy—

“I like it,” a voice said behind me, startling me out of my thoughts.

I whipped my head around. Ryan leaned over my shoulder, staring at my canvas with a furrowed brow.

How could Ryan Raynard like it?

I squinted at my painting, trying to see it through his eyes. All I saw was a mess. Ryan’s paintings always looked like stuff. If you wanted to know his mind, you just had to study the different elements of the image. Mine didn’t even look like Corbin. Instead, it contained all the things that made him who he was – dark brown rectangles representing his books, splashes of color for his quick mind and dry humor and his love of drinking mead and talking shite with the rest of us. The runes he translated for Arthur followed the wavy lines of his hair, and a shaft of light that was meant to represent Maeve and the coven pierced through the center of the canvas. It was supposed to be a patchwork of Corbinness, but like all my paintings it looked so much better in my head.

Now Ryan fecking Raynard was standing in front of it and saying he liked it, like he considered me some kind of equal.

“You don’t have to pretend.” I rested the palette on my knee and raised the brush to add another layer of brown to the book rectangles. “I know it's shite.”

Ryan snorted. “I’m not in the habit of giving out unearned praise, Flynn. You’re competent. With more discipline, you could be good. No,” he pushed my hand down. “Don’t tweak any more. You’ll overthink it and ruin the rawness. It’s time to let it rest. When you come back to it, you’ll see if it needs anything else. We’re going to release my painting now, if you want to see.”

Did I want to see one of the most famous artists in the world release a painting to the world? You bet your Irish whiskey I did. I threw down the palette and practically skipped down the hall after Ryan and Simon. Ryan unlocked a door to a room I hadn’t seen before, and ushered me into an airy office.

I thought there’d be some kind of ceremony, with press and and a grand unveiling with the painting behind a velvet curtain. But I forgot momentarily that Ryan was a recluse. He seemed so normal – not like artist savants in films who couldn’t hold a normal conversation. He didn’t even have any of Rowan’s weird ticks. Apart from the whole being a fox shapeshifter thing, Ryan just didn’t seem to care what anyone else thought of him, which was why it was so weird he made all this effort to avoid being seen in public.

I liked that he didn’t give a shit. I wished I could be like that. But I cared a whole fecking lot what other people thought.

Simon had the auction house in London on speaker, and as soon as a clock on his desk counted down, he pushed PUBLISH on an image of the painting on Ryan’s website. There were gasps on the end of the line as the collectors got their first glimpse of Ryan’s genius.

My stomach fluttered with nervous energy as the bids rolled in. Eighty-five thousand… a hundred-and-five thousand… Two-hundred twenty thousand…

I reeled at the numbers. How in the world did anyone have two-hundred and twenty thousand pounds to spend on a painting? Ryan leaned against the wall, completely stone-faced, as if the money was of no consequence to him. Probably it wasn’t. I bet he blew his nose with hundred-quid notes.

After much fanfare, we reached a final number – £331,000. Simon switched to a private call to arrange payment and delivery with the buyer. I threw my arms around Ryan. “Congrats, mate. You’re richer than Croesus. Who is Croesus, anyway? You should bust him up and steal his money, too.”

A weird fluttery feeling arced across my chest. Corbin would know all about Croesus.

Ryan shoved me off. “Save the caresses for your girlfriend.”

I backed away, not wanting to annoy him. “What are you going to do with all the money? Indoor-climbing wall? Fill a swimming pool with one-pound notes? Lifetime supply of saffron and caviar-flavored ice cream?”

“I have some ideas, but I’m not rushing into anything.” Ryan gave me a laconic smile. “After all, if the world ends tomorrow, I’m not really going to get much use out of an indoor climbing wall.”

Ryan took over the computer while Simon fielded phone call after phone call from press and gallery directors. I watched in fascination as Ryan’s social media pages lit up with talk about the painting and the sale. Email notifications popped up so fast they blurred the corner of the screen.

“The crew will arrive within the hour,” Simon called to Ryan. A local gallery was going to display the painting for three days before it went to its new owner. This would draw an incredible amount of attention to Crookshollow and its witchy, haunted history – all fuel to stoke our belief magic stores.

“Flynn,” Ryan gestured for me to follow him. “Come help me move the painting down to the entrance hall. We need—”

A buzzer sounded on the wall. Ryan pulled up a computer screen with a camera trained on the main gate. I was shocked to see hundreds of people clamoring around the gates. Vans and other vehicles had blocked traffic on the avenue. The press had arrived. How had they got here so quickly?

“Ryan Raynard?” A voice crackled through the intercom. “Is this—”

“No comment,” Ryan barked into the speaker.

A police badge slammed against the camera. “This is a police matter. I want to speak to the tenants of Briarwood. Let me in or I’ll come back with a warrant.”

The badge pulled back, and Detective Wallace’s chin came into view. From over his shoulder I made out the round face of Officer Judge, which didn’t make any sense. After Wallace caught her participating in the lynch mob that attacked Briarwood, surely he’d have suspended her. What’s she doing here?

Ryan sighed. “I’m guessing they’re here for you,” he said.

“Tell them I’ve gone to the pub.”

“We can hear you, Mr O’Hagan,” Inspector Wallace said.

“Fine. You can come in. But don’t let any of those bloodsucking journalists follow you.”

Ryan buzzed them in, slamming the gates shut behind them to keep the surging press out. Reluctantly, I left Simon’s office and went down to the entrance hall to speak to them. Ryan came with me because I couldn’t remember where the entrance hall was, but he darted away before the coppers could get a look at him. I wished I could do the same.

Wallace and Judge stood on the stoop, looking all staunch and officious. Judge stared up at the ornately-carved ceiling, her mouth dropping open in awe. I shoved my hands in my pockets and grinned up at them, hoping to unnerve them. Growing up with my uncle in Dublin had given me an ingrained distrust of the police. We usually dealt with them in the Irish way – by being complete gobshites. “What can I do for you, officers?”

“Is Maeve Crawford here? What about your other friends who live at Briarwood?”

“Just me. Arthur had a wee accident, and the others are at the hospital with him.” I didn’t know where Blake and Rowan had gone after they’d had that fight with Maeve, but Inspector Wallace didn’t need to know that.

“That’s fine. We have to speak to you all at some point, but you can fill in the others when they return. Is there somewhere we can talk?”

I led them into the blue drawing room – the only room with sofas with a location I could remember. “I’d offer you coffee,” I shrugged. “But I don’t know where the kitchen is, and I haven't got the magical superpower that allows me to conjure the butler at will.”

“That’s fine.” Inspector Wallace sat down. Judge stood behind him, pacing the length of the couch as she inspected the singed bookshelf and stacks of damp books Simon had piled up ready for recycling. I flopped down on the sofa opposite, placing my boots on the table, all casual-like.

“What happened here?” Judge pointed to the charred edge of the bookshelf.

I ignored her, because she was partly responsible for Corbin’s death and I didn’t owe her an explanation. “What’s she doing here?” I asked Wallace, indicating Judge. “Why does she still have a badge after what she did?”

“She has a name,” Judge shot back.

“Sonia was working undercover for us,” he said. “We believed the villagers would be more likely to accept her presence since she’d been at the church.”

“But you yelled at her?”

“She’d taken too long to alert us about the danger. If we’d had an alert sooner we might’ve prevented the fire from spreading. I didn’t realize at the time she had a concussion.”

“A concussion?” I raised my eyebrow at Judge. More like a bout of fundamentalism.

“Someone knocked me over when the crowd surged into the castle. I think I hit my head. I was woozy, felt like my thoughts weren’t my own,” she said, her eyes boring into mine. My stomach squirmed. She remembered hearing the conflicting voices in her head. It was going to be hard to explain that away.

“You’re not in any trouble. We’re here to keep you updated on the case.” Inspector Wallace leaned forward and knitting his fingers together. “We’ve taken statements from several of the people at Briarwood last night. There’s a lot of chatter about you in the village, Flynn. Especially concerning a controversial piece of art that appeared overnight in the town square.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” I said.

“That incident at the pub suggests otherwise. That statue is an impressive piece of work. What’d you use to attach it to the plinth?” Wallace narrowed his eyes at me. “I saw Bill Riley out there the other day with his jackhammer and he didn’t even make a dent in the base.”

“The only thing that could hold it in place is magic,” I wiggled my fingers at him, grinning. It was the truth. My Ma always said you should tell coppers the truth.

“Fine,” Wallace sighed. “We’re still conducting investigations, you understand. But from what Officer Judge has told us, this statue of yours—”

“Not mine,” I grinned. “Although I bet the fella who did it was rakishly handsome.”

“—along with that scuffle in the pub inflamed some old tensions within the village. That, combined with a ludicrous rumor that a dead woman has been spotted at your castle, seemed to be the motivation behind this attack. Apparently this dead woman – one Aline Moore – used to live at the castle, and she had a reputation as a bit of a cult leader. She filled Briarwood with all sorts of derelicts and runaways and flower children. People thought they were up at the castle having orgies, taking drugs, conducting satanic rituals. Parents feared for their children. And then she disappeared.”

“Seems like a load of bollocks to me,” I uncrossed and crossed my legs.

“I thought so, too. But then I dug around in the council records and discovered that an Aline Moore was the last owner of Briarwood House, and that she had indeed disappeared in mysterious circumstances, as reported in the Crookshollow Courier, and that this very year the ownership of the castle would pass to her only surviving relative – her daughter, Maeve.”

“Aye. Maeve is the daughter of Aline. What of it? They look alike, but it takes a special kind of eejit to see Maeve through a window and assume she was a ghostie.”

“I believe all these events – the arrival of Maeve, the five of you – all good friends – all holed up here at the castle instead of participating in village life, the tragic geological event at the church, the appearance of the statue – has ignited some long-held superstitions about Briarwood and her inhabitants.”

“Motives are all fine and dandy, officer, but I want to know what’s been done about the crimes that were committed.”

“We’ve identified five of the main instigators, and will be pressing charges within the next few days. The others have been allowed their freedom, under the condition they stay off the Briarwood property and don’t bother you or your friends. Given the level of remorse about the act and the death of Corbin Harris, I have no reason to suspect they’ll be a further problem.”

I nodded. It was a good thing Arthur wasn’t here. He’d be raving about how jail wasn’t good enough, how they should be strung up by their bollix with rusty fishing wire for what they’d done.

Then I remembered Arthur’s lifeless body in that hospital bed, and I hated myself for thinking it. I’d rather have that big guy storming around setting fire to shit any day.

Wallace seemed to have Arthur on his mind, too. “I need to warn you, members of the public saw your friend Arthur swinging a sword around. Under normal circumstances I’d have to haul him in and confiscate the weapon. Since no one was hurt beyond a few minor burns and cuts and some hallucinations, and your home was burned down, I’m going to be lenient. But don’t let me hear about him doing that again.”

“I promise you won’t,” I said darkly. If Arthur survived the wound he’d given himself, Maeve and I were going to make sure we took every last sword and dagger out of the castle and throw them back to the Lady of the Lake. “What of Corbin Harris? Will anyone be charged with his murder?”

“It’s early days yet, mate. We haven’t even got the pathologist’s report from the coroner yet.” Wallace scratched his head. “Eyewitness accounts say they saw a guy in a strange black outfit stab Harris. Two men in green threw him on the fire and then slid him onto the spike. Any ideas who they might be?”

“Someone in the village, I presume. Isn’t that your job, sir?”

“No one we questioned that night matched their descriptions, but we’re still looking. It doesn’t help that all our eyewitnesses seem to be affected by the hallucinogenic vapors in the black cloud. We’ve been told all sorts of wild stories, let me tell you. I’ve got the geologists taking samples at the meadow and comparing them to those at the church. I’m convinced the two events are related.”

“If you say so, sir.” I jiggled my leg against the table, trying to keep my voice even. I didn’t want Judge to see how much the idea of Corbin’s body lying on a slab being dissected was getting to me. “When will you do the autopsy?”

“Within the next day or so. We’ll contact you when we’re finished, and you can arrange with your funeral home to collect his remains. In the meantime, if you have any problems with people in the village, let me know. We’ll be keeping you updated as the case progresses, and you may be asked to testify.” He glanced at the window toward the gates. Cameras flashed at the house, and people waved their arms through the bars in the gate, like the flesh-eating zombies in my favorite video game. I supposed, in a way, they were out for flesh. “In the meantime, keep a low profile. That means exactly the opposite of hanging out with Ryan Raynard after he releases a new painting that features witches as the subject matter and brings a media circus to Crookshollow.”

“Gotcha,” I snapped my fingers at him.

Wallace stood. “I suppose we should go out and move the media along. No chance of speaking with Mr. Raynard himself? I’ve heard some stories about this house, let me tell you—”

“I need to use the bathroom,” Judge announced, her eyes boring into mine.

“When we’re back at the station,” Wallace said.

“It’s urgent, sir.”

A pained expression crossed Wallace’s face, as if he knew this conversation all-too-well. I wondered if he had daughters.

“I’ll show you where it is.” I got to my feet and led Judge down the hall, in what I hoped was the direction of a bathroom.

As soon as we turned the corner, Judge grabbed my collar. “What’s going on?” she demanded. “Am I going crazy?”

I shrugged. “Are you?”

“Don’t pull that bullshit with me, O’Hagan. I’ve seen way too much weird stuff over the last couple of weeks. First those babies go missing and found on your property, then twenty-two people are swallowed by a weird black fog after fighting with three-foot-tall furry monsters with knives made of bones. Then a statue of a witch appears in the village and gets everyone scared and desperate.”

“Bit of a shite week, aye? I could do with a whiskey—”

She continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “I stood in the Briarwood courtyard while a battle raged in my mind – one voice in my head screaming at me to kill the witches, the other telling me to go home and crawl into bed with a cup of tea. Next thing I’m crouched in a field trying to call for backup on a phone that won’t work while creatures that weren’t human burned a guy and shoved him on a stake. Your friend Maeve touched my face and I saw my own worst fears as reality flashing before my eyes. It wasn’t a hallucination – for that moment it was real. I lived in my nightmares. People had thoughts planted inside their heads that weren’t their own. This can’t continue, you hear that? I need to know what’s going on and I don’t want any more fibbing or nonsense about geology.”

“What’s the point? You won’t believe me.”

Judge jabbed a finger in the direction of the drawing room. “He won’t believe you. His brain ain’t set up that way. But I’m no idiot. I’ve lived in Crookshollow my entire life. This village is superstitious with good reason. It is the most haunted village in England. My grandma’s house has a resident ghost, and if you’d seen some of the weird shit that went on down at the precinct… Point is, I’ve got an open mind and I know what I’ve seen can’t be explained by science. I’m right, aren’t I?”

I nodded. “I’m guessing we don’t have time for a long explanation. So here’s the Twitter version: Those guys you saw in the green and black, with the bows and arrows, the ones that killed Corbin? They’re fae. Fairyfolk.”

Judge’s eyes widened. “They didn’t have no wings.”

“There are lots of different types of fae. Some of them have wings. Some have claws. Some are three-foot tall and covered with fur. Those ones were court fae – think Tolkien elves, only more evil.”

“And these fae, what’ve they got against you and your friends? Why’d they kill Corbin Harris?”

“Hundreds of years ago they were banished from the human world into a separate realm. It’s like another dimension only it’s really, really tiny. Understandably, they’re still pissed at us for banishing them, and they want the earth for themselves. There’s a doorway to their realm behind the castle. It’s our job to guard it, to stop them coming into our world. We’re witches, as you’ve probably figured out. This one fae, Daigh, he found a way to get here without going through the portal.”

“Don’t tell me,” Judge smirked. “He made a deal with the devil on a crossroads at midnight.”

“Pretty much exactly that. Only it turns out he’s also Maeve’s father, and he wants her to rule the world with him. He’s the one who killed Corbin. We’ve got him with us, locked in a secret room so he can’t hurt anyone else. But he lost all his powers, so he’s not important now. As part of the deal these fae made with the underworld, in less than two days a host of restless souls called The Slaugh will ride across earth, killing everyone they encounter until there’s no human left to oppose the fae. That’s why Ryan—”

“I don’t know what you’re all playing at,” Judge hissed. “The whole village is a circus. People are pouring in from all over the country to see this painting before it goes into some private collection. Is this really a good idea with those bloody fae and restless souls around?”

“It’s how we’re going to stop them. There’s a kind of magic that’s created when people believe in something. Like how everyone in the village now believes in magic and witches, and that belief is spreading because of Ryan’s painting and the story of the statue appearing in the town square. We’ve figured out how to use objects like artwork to store that magic and then unleash it at the right time. It’s going to overwhelm the Slaugh before they do any damage.”

Judge glanced at her watch. “I’ve got to get back. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but if you need help with anything, you know where to find me.”

“Why?” I wasn’t used to people believing me so readily or jumping to my aid. Eloquent speeches that stirred hearts and changed minds were Corbin’s department.

“Corbin helped us out on a case a couple of years back,” Judge said. “It was the first dead body I’d ever seen. A professor committed suicide up at one of the old houses on Holly Avenue. He wrote the note in Latin. One of the other officers used to be in a medieval reenactment club with Arthur, and apparently he used to bitch about his brainiac housemate who knew all these old languages, so I called in at the castle to get Corbin to look at the note. He translated it in three minutes flat and discovered one of the verbs had been conjugated incorrectly. His evidence eventually convicted the professor’s brother of his murder. Corbin’s one smart kid, and he dropped everything to help us without demanding a reward. People always ask what’s in it for them, but Corbin Harris never did. I don’t want any other people to die on my watch.”

I vaguely remembered Corbin mentioning he’d helped the police out while I was over in Arizona. It sounded exactly like him, to do something just for the sheer joy of the intellectual challenge.

Officer Judge released my collar, and we walked back to the drawing room. Inspector Wallace bent over the singed bookshelf, running his fingers across the ruined surface. He straightened up when we entered. “All done, then?”

Judge nodded. “Ready to brave the crowds again, sir.”

“Thank you for your time, Mr O’Hagan. We’ll keep you updated. No more guerrilla art in my village, right?” He tipped his head at me.

“You got it, sir.” I winked at Judge. She nodded.