Shadows and Light

to stay near this village unless she was staying in Tir Alainn most of the time, and even then it wasn’t safe. Tears filled her eyes, and she told me that destroying the witches and the Old Place had also destroyed that piece of Tir Alainn. She told me she had to leave, it was too dangerous to stay, and when she left, the dream meadow would begin to fade.
    Some of us would be able to find it in our dreams for a few more nights, but she didn’t think we would be able to find it in a way that we would be together So I went back to the other women. We talked and talked and talked. The next night, we gathered again, but the edges of the meadow were soft, like a watercolor, instead of sharp like a painting done in oils. We made a choice that night, and we made a plan. Not all the women agreed because, they argued, we had a place to be together for a few hours. But the night after that, when only half of us were able to come together in the dream, we knew there weren‘t many nights left before we would be alone again, isolated again.
    We cannot fight against the baron and his magistrate or the guards at their command, and we cannot fight against the Inquisitors. Even if we did, we wouldn’t be able to take back our village and our lives. The other eastern barons would come in and crush us if we tried. There is only one way we can see to escape, and, at the same time, send out a warning to the rest of the women and men in Sylvalan. That is the choice we have made.
    On the night of the Summer Moon, a night when the women of Sylvalan have traditionally celebrated their sexuality, we will gather at the Old Place for the last time.
    The sky will begin to lighten soon. I must wake my guests and send them on their way before too many men are stirring.
    I don’t expect you to understand the choice I’ve made. I hope the day never comes when you have reason to understand. But I also hope that, after a time, you’ll be able to think of me again with kindness.
    Blessings of the day to you, Elinore.
    Your loving cousin, Moira
    Liam’s hand fell limply into his lap. The fingers holding the letter tightened on the paper as he stared at the ground just ahead of him.
    “They’ve gone mad,” he said softly. “That’s the only explanation. The barons in the east truly have gone mad. How could they expect us to do this? To give the orders for this?”
    “They courted ambition and other barons’ purses,” Padrick said. “During all their talk in the council chamber, they were very careful not to explain what the ‘procedure’ was. And I’m not sure it’s madness that has consumed them.”
    “What else could explain this?”
    “The Fae aren’t present here in the east, are they?” Padrick asked, as if seeking confirmation.
    Puzzled by the change of subject, Liam shook his head. “You hear things once in a while about them coming down the shining roads when they want to amuse themselves in the human world. I’ve certainly heard stories about people who have sworn they’ve seen one of the Fae. More often than not, it’s a young woman with a swollen belly claiming that she was seduced by a Fae Lord, but sometimes it’s someone who needed help and was answered by one of the Fair Folk.”
    “In the west, the Fae’s presence balances the power the barons have in the counties they rule. No human touches an Old Place, or the witches who live there, without answering to the Clans. If the Fae are nothing more than visitors here in the east, there are only the witches in control of large tracts of land that the baron and the gentry can’t touch. Prime timber, prime pastureland, prime hunting. If a man is greedy enough, wants that land enough, perhaps even fears that those women have power that could rival his own if they chose to use it, would he refuse the assistance of men who can promise to get rid of the witches in a way that no one will dare protest? If the Inquisitors have the means to force women to confess to things they’ve never done, then the baron conveniently eliminates the obstacles between himself and what he covets. Would such a man actually refuse to have a family of witches killed—
    especially when he doesn’t have to get blood on his hands? I think not.”
    Padrick looked up at the leaves over his head and sighed. “But the blood is on his hands because he brought the Black Coats to his county. I imagine the eastern barons who agreed to that bargain discovered soon after that they were...