The Morrigan's Curse

To the teachers at the Avon Grove Intermediate School

who kept telling me, “You can do this.”

Sorry about all the snow days.

T
RANSITIONER
F
AMILIES WITH A
S
EAT AT THE
T
ABLE

Bedivere

Bors (vassal to Dulac)

Dulac

Kaye (vassal to Pendragon)

Lyonnesse

Morgan

Owens (recently deceased)

Pellinore

Pendragon

Sagramore

A
P
ARTIAL
L
IST OF
T
RANSITIONER
V
ASSALS

Ambrose (vassal to Dulac)

Aubrey (vassal to Emrys)

Balin (vassal to Wylit)

Crandall (vassal to Pendragon)

Ganner (vassal to Dulac)

Morder (half-Kin, vassal to Dulac)

A
P
ARTIAL
L
IST OF
I
NDEPENDENT
T
RANSITIONERS

Carroway

Donovan

K
IN
F
AMILIES
A
LLIED WITH
T
RANSITIONERS

Corra

Emrys
*

Taliesin

A
DVERSARY
K
IN
F
AMILIES

Aeron
**

Arawen (formerly confined to Oeth-Anoeth)

Llyr (formerly confined to Oeth-Anoeth)

Mathonwy

Wylit

NORMALLY, ADDIE EMRYS DIDN'T
like heights, but in this case, the view was worth it. Leaning on the wooden railing of a second-floor balcony, she watched waves crash against rocks on the shore below, blasting themselves into wild sprays of foam. Addie had never seen an ocean before today. Lakes, yes. Her Transitioner foster parents had taken her to lakes, but even Lake Champlain was a puddle compared to this.

She found herself mesmerized by the motion of the water. In Addie's experience, natural bodies of water were always caught in the moment between two Normal days. Trapped within a single second that stretched over twenty-four hours, lakes lapped listlessly like water in a bathtub, streams lay as still as ponds, and waterfalls dripped like leaky faucets.

The waves she was watching now were abnormal for the eighth day and roused by wind, which was also new to her. Addie raised her face, exulting in the cool air that brushed against her cheeks and rustled her ponytail. This was
weather
.

Only magic could create weather on the eighth day, and for the last fifteen hundred years, the weather-working Llyrs had been confined to the bowels of Oeth-Anoeth, an ancient Welsh fortress that suppressed magical talents. Two days ago, an armed military force had broken into that fortress, releasing the only surviving descendants of the half dozen Kin families originally imprisoned there.

Two Llyrs. One Arawen.

Now free of their physical and magical constraints, the Llyrs were creating the first eighth-day weather since their ancestors had been captured centuries ago. Addie was on her way to watch them work their magic in person, but she had stopped here for a moment to enjoy this panoramic view: the vast ocean, the thin line of land in the distance that marked the coast of Maine, and the endless sky where dark clouds now swelled.

Droplets of water struck her skin, but the sudden prickle of gooseflesh on her arms had nothing to do with the cold sea spray. Someone was trying to spy on her through a scrying spell again. Whoever it was, he was persistent. Turning around, Addie stared at the white stucco exterior of the house and imagined herself surrounded on all sides by walls like that one, hidden from view.

The scryer could have been someone from her foster home, but Addie doubted it. More likely, it was the Dulacs, a ruthless Transitioner clan who'd imprisoned Addie and from whom she'd escaped only yesterday. Unfortunately she'd left
plenty of herself behind that could be used for scrying: Hair. Bitten-off fingernail scraps. Blood.

I am invisible behind my wall.
Addie concentrated on her pulse, the rhythm of her blood rushing through her veins—the blood of an Emrys carrying the Eighth Day Spell through time. After a few seconds, her goose bumps subsided.

“Again?” asked a voice from behind her. She turned to find Kel Mathonwy watching her from inside the glass balcony doors. “I didn't want to break your concentration,” he said. The wind rustled his silvery hair, and he smoothed his side-swept bangs back into place, copying the famous style of a Normal pop star whose music neither Kel nor Addie had ever heard.

“They've given up. For now.” Addie smiled at her old friend. Well, really, her
new
friend, who she'd known briefly a long time ago, back when
his
father had worked with
her
father on a daring and rebellious plan to countermand the Eighth Day Spell. As children, she and Kel had played games in the woods behind her house, in spite of her sister trying to keep them apart.

Meeting Kel again a few days ago had been more than a coincidence. Addie thought it was a sign that she was destined to follow in her father's footsteps. Getting captured by Dulacs immediately afterward had interrupted that destiny, but only until Kel came for her with the most astounding rescue party imaginable.

“You should tell my father that someone's been scrying for
you,” Kel said, holding the glass door open for her. “And stay in the house, where you're warded.” Kel's father had a knack for protective wards, which were tricky to master.

“There's no reason to. I have a blocking spell.”

“You're going to exhaust yourself, casting a defensive spell over and over.”

“No,” Addie said confidently. “I won't.” She flashed Kel a grin.

“Come on. You don't want to miss the show, do you?” Kel led the way downstairs and through his house.
His mansion,
Addie corrected herself, admiring the spacious rooms with white carpets, suede furniture, and floor-to-ceiling windows facing the sea. Bookshelves were filled with classics as well as recent best sellers. Newspapers and magazines were stacked on end tables, and expensive artwork adorned the walls. During Addie's years at the way station run by her foster parents, she'd seen fugitive Kin pass through homeless and destitute. None of them had used their extended lives to amass such wealth by Normal means the way Kel's father, Madoc Mathonwy, had.

Of course, it helped that the Mathonwy magical talent was
prosperity.

She and Kel exited through the ground floor by way of patio doors and hurried along the path to the airplane hangar. On the tarmac, a group of people were watching three figures at the end of the runway. Kel's father stood among the larger group, calmly smoking a cigarette and looking smug.
It was Madoc's long-term planning and wealth that had brought this cabal of powerful Kin together. Addie supposed he had every right to be pleased with himself.

With him were members of the Aeron clan—the muscle behind Madoc's brain. The Aerons were gifted with a talent for invoking havoc and mayhem. The day prior to Addie's rescue from the Dulacs, the Aerons had manned military aircraft purchased by Kel's father to break the Llyrs out of Oeth-Anoeth in Wales. In the gloom of the gathering dark clouds, their faces seemed ghostly and devilish. The Aerons made a habit of adorning their faces with fearsome tattoos to celebrate their achievements, and all those present had earned new ones for their role in the triumphant assault on the medieval Welsh fortress.

At the end of the runway, Bran Llyr, leader of the most famous family imprisoned in Oeth-Anoeth, faced the sea and shouted ancient words into the wind. In one hand he held a staff, and his long, straight white hair flew behind his head like a flag. Beside him, his son, Griffyn, muttered his own spells, his brow compressed in concentration. Griffyn was eighteen or nineteen years old, and he, too, had long hair, although his was braided like a medieval warrior's. The final member of the trio was a girl, as tall as Griffyn and almost as broad across the shoulders. Ysabel Arawen wasn't a weather-worker—the Arawen talent was darker and more morbid—but she loaned her strength to Griffyn through their clasped hands.

They still wore the clothing they'd escaped in—coarse
cloth trousers and tunics. Griffyn and Ysabel also wore leather jerkins, with throwing daggers strapped to their arms and legs that made them look like they'd stepped out of the Middle Ages. From the little Addie knew, imprisonment at Oeth-Anoeth had been sort of like being trapped in medieval times. Ten generations of the Llyr and Arawen families, along with several others, had lived their lives in that fortress, dying out over the centuries until only these three individuals remained.

Freed from their prison, the survivors had flown from Wales to Greenland to this island—and then, at Kel's urgent summons, straight to New York City to rescue Addie.

Addie was, after all, the most important Kin girl on the planet, the sole remaining member of the Emrys family and the only person left to carry the Eighth Day Spell in her bloodline. If Addie died, the eighth day would cease to exist, along with thousands of members of the Kin race, all of whom existed solely within that day.

Addie's parents had been killed years ago, and she'd recently learned that her brother and sister were dead as well. In fact, according to her Dulac captors, her older sister, Evangeline—the smart one, the
good
one, their father's favorite—had died only five days ago while attempting to break the Eighth Day Spell in Mexico. Addie knew she should feel grief, pain—
something
—but it had been almost half her lifetime since she'd seen her sister. Addie didn't know how to grieve for her.

Instead she watched the growing storm.

Powerful magic came naturally to the Llyrs, even if Oeth-Anoeth had suppressed it all their lives. Addie had seen Bran wield lightning several times during their harrowing escape from New York in the early hours of this morning—at least during the parts when she wasn't covering her eyes in terror. But even that paled by comparison to what he was doing now. Thunderclouds grew into a city above the sea, with black skyscrapers towering heavenward and lightning arching like bridges between them. Rain plunged down in sheets. Addie's clothing clung to her skin.

Then Kel nudged her with an elbow and pointed at a rocky protrusion about a quarter mile offshore—a knobby twist of land not large enough to be called an island. In the rain and darkness, Addie barely made out the figure standing on rocks with black objects circling overhead. Addie's mouth fell open to exclaim that one of the Aeron girls must've gotten herself stranded offshore and needed rescuing—and then it dawned on her that the circling objects were crows. Her warning cry withered on her tongue.

Bran Llyr barked out a final command and thrust his staff into the air. The monstrous storm moved southward, away from the island. He laughed with satisfaction, then turned to look at the rocky outcropping.

Addie looked again too. The girl was gone.

“Did you see her, Madoc?” Bran demanded, in an accent Addie vaguely identified as “British,” but which she knew must be Welsh.

Madoc exhaled cigarette smoke. “I did. Closer this time than last.”

“You've seen her before?” Kel asked incredulously.

“She was on the hillside above Oeth-Anoeth two days ago,” said Condor Aeron, leader of his clan.

“And Ysabel saw her outside the Dulac building yesterday, while you were freeing Addie,” Madoc added. The Arawen girl nodded in agreement.

The Girl of Crows was one of the three incarnations of the Morrigan, a supernatural force of chaos and destruction. The Girl was known to nudge events in the direction of chaotic conflict, while her Woman form prophesied death and the Crone changed the fates of individuals.

Addie shivered in her wet clothes.
That makes two of them I've seen now.

“Where did you send the storm?” Kel asked Bran Llyr.

Bran waved a hand dismissively. “To that city—that nest of Transitioners. What was it called?”

“New York,” said Addie, marveling that these ex-prisoners were so ignorant of the modern world they didn't even know the name of New York City.

Just then, she felt the skin on her arms and neck prickle. The would-be spy was at it again, scrying for her mere minutes after the last time. Oh, very clever—trying to catch her off guard. Too bad he didn't know who he was dealing with!

Whirling around, Addie faced the hangar where Madoc kept his personal plane. She pictured herself surrounded on
all sides by featureless wooden planks like the painted white boards on this building, creating a fortress of them in her mind. Behind her, she heard Kel tell his father how she'd been repeatedly fighting off this scryer since midnight. Addie tried not to listen, focusing instead on her secret source of strength and her intent to block the spell.

Bran's voice, however, insisted on being heard. “Look at me, child.” Addie glanced up, and Bran placed a rough hand on her forehead.

Blinding-white heat shot through her head, ripping a scream from her. Everything went black and spotty, colors winking in the darkness. When sight returned, she found herself lying on the tarmac. She gasped, over and over, trying not to vomit, and looked up with shock at Bran.

“There,” the Llyr lord said with pride. “Let's see if the person on the other end of that spell appreciates my little gift.”