The Edge of Skye
They had received another report, this time of a gate behaving erratically in Skye. The journey began before dawn, the world still blue and breathless with sleep. Grey packed quickly, her hands moving through the ritual of preparing for travel with a kind of reverent urgency. She double-checked the wards on her coat, tucked her worn journal into the inner pocket, and tried not to think too hard about why her fingers were trembling.
The Hall stirred quietly around them. Maerlowe had given his blessing with a murmured warning about the growing instability of the leylines. Wickham had supplied an abundance of oatcakes, a map annotated with profanity, and a solemn blessing in the form of "Don't die, darlings. It would be bloody inconvenient."
They took the northern route by train, crossing swathes of countryside veiled in early mist. Fields unfurled like bolts of green-gold cloth, occasionally sliced through with dark stone walls or hedgerows flaming with red berries. Sheep dozed against the wind. Old churches, crumbling and vine-wrapped, flashed past in silent vigil. It was the season of frost-touched mornings and steam curling from takeaway tea.
Alaric was silent for most of the ride. He watched the landscape with a soldier's stillness, jaw tight and eyes far away. Grey kept sneaking glances at him, her gaze flicking to his reflection in the train window, watching the thoughts he wouldn't share ripple beneath his eyes. The further north they travelled, the darker the clouds became, until the train itself seemed to carry them into the bruise of a storm.
They changed lines at Inverness, then again at Kyle of Lochalsh, catching a bus that smelled of diesel and seaweed. Grey leaned against the fogged-up window, tracing patterns in the condensation with absent fingers. She wondered what it would take for Alaric to speak. She wondered if she should ask.
She had learned by now that he went quiet whenever they passed a landscape that held long-lost memories. It wasn't silence born of coldness—it was silence filled with ghosts. Grey recognised the set of his jaw, the way he blinked less when the mist rolled in thick, like he was watching a different storm than the one outside. She said nothing. Not because she didn't want to, but because the quiet felt sacred. A remembering. A grief folded too neatly to disturb.
Skye greeted them with low sky and damp earth. The wind there had teeth, and the rain came sideways, soaking through coats and boots and conversation. They rented a weather-beaten Jeep from a garage that also sold fishing supplies and coffee so strong it could strip paint. Grey wrapped herself tighter in her scarf, heart thrumming beneath her ribs like wings in a jar.
The land unfolded in wild, craggy beauty. Heather and gorse clung to hillsides like stubborn fire, and the sea flashed in glimpses between the rises, silver and furious. Sheep paths wound through the rocks like veins, and every so often a standing stone loomed, forgotten by all but the wind.
By the time they reached the old track that would lead to the broken gate, the sky had deepened into a rolling bruise. Lightning stitched across the horizon, and the air was thick with the tang of salt and ozone. Grey stood at the cliff's edge, rain slicking her hair to her forehead, coat plastered to her frame. Alaric came to stand beside her, eyes fixed on the space where the glamour shimmered.
The gate pulsed faintly, a sickly mimicry of Seelie gold corrupted by something else—something hungry. Thunder cracked. They stepped forward together.
The glamour resisted.
It shimmered like a mirage, golden light bending in the storm winds, trying to disguise the decay beneath. But Grey could feel the flaw—a thread tugged loose, vibrating under her skin like a plucked string. She stepped closer, reaching out with the caution of someone who'd been burned before.
"Wait," Alaric warned, but Grey's fingers had already pierced the veil.
The glamour ruptured like silk under a blade. Light split the rain—a searing ripple through space. The illusion peeled back, not with the subtle fade of fading magic, but with a shuddering snap. The world blinked, and suddenly they stood not on a cliffside, but within a half-formed threshold where two realities overlapped.
The stones underfoot glowed faintly, veins of twisted deathlight running between them like molten threads. Around them rose the skeleton of what had once been a Seelie gate—a ring of monoliths twisted by time and something far more deliberate. They'd been carved with vines and stars once, but now those carvings bled into thorns and teeth. The glamour had hidden the worst of it—how it pulsed with a sickly imitation of life.
"By the Veil," Alaric muttered, voice low and reverent and furious all at once. He crouched, brushing his fingers across the wet stone. "This was never just a gate. This was a trap!"
The space between the stones was hazy, refracting light like a warped mirror. On the other side, Grey saw flashes—images that made no sense. A child's doll crumbling to ash. A woman's hand reaching upward through water. Threads, too many to count, suspended in that space like strands of memory held mid-snap.
She shivered. "What is it doing?"
Alaric rose. "Harvesting."
Grey turned sharply. "Harvesting what?"
"Energy. Memory. Death." Alaric looked ill. "Rebirth magic twisted into a siphon. They're stealing what should be resting—and pushing it back into the cycle before it's ready."
Lightning struck the sea beyond them, white fire crowning the waves. The gate's stones shimmered in answer, the deathlight flickering brighter for a heartbeat. They stared in silence. Then Grey, quiet as the storm's eye, whispered, "This shouldn't exist."
Alaric reached for her hand. For once, there was no flirtation in the gesture. Just grounding. Contact. Connection.
"You're right," he said softly. "But it does. And that means someone made it."
The air between them crackled. The sky tore open with another flash.
"Blasphemy," Alaric breathed.
Together, they stepped into the circle, hands still clasped. Alaric muttered in the Old Tongue, calling on runes of binding and stillness. Grey followed suit, her voice hesitant but gaining strength with each word. Threads of light spun between their fingers, wrapping around the deathlight like silk trying to suffocate fire.
The gate howled.
Power surged—unwieldy and angry. The magic fought back, pushing against the containment spell with teeth bared. Grey stumbled, clutching her chest as one thread snapped, searing her palm. The pain lanced through her like a branding iron, sharp and immediate, and she cried out—a raw, instinctive sound torn from her throat. Her knees buckled as the heat carved itself into her skin, magic flaring wild and uncontained in her pulse. For one disoriented second, she saw nothing but white light and heard her own heartbeat hammering like war drums in her ears. It felt like being split open—exposed, unravelled.
"Hold it!" Alaric shouted, stepping in front of her, casting again.
The spell reached critical tension.
A monolith split down the middle, keening like a wounded creature. The deathlight pulsed once, then shattered outward in a shockwave that blew them both off their feet.
Grey hit the ground hard, the breath knocked from her—
—and a second later, Alaric was over her, then rolling while shielding her with his body as another monolith crashed where her head had just been. The rain hammered them both, deafening. For a heartbeat, all was still. Grey could feel his heartbeat thudding against her back, rapid and real. His weight was warm despite the storm, anchoring her to the moment like a lifeline flung into chaos. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry or scream. All she could do was breathe—and even that felt borrowed.
Alaric lifted his head, hair streaming rain, eyes wild.
"You alright, pet?" he asked, voice hoarse.
Grey nodded numbly. "I think so."
Alaric exhaled sharply—relief and something raw crossing his face like a lightning-flash of emotion he hadn't meant to show. Without thinking, he cupped her cheek with a trembling hand, then leaned down and crushed his mouth to hers.
Her mind went blank, her thoughts instantly scattered like startled birds, unable to land.
It wasn't calculated. It wasn't flirtation. It was instinct—desperate, anchoring, a need to feel something real after the chaos.
Grey froze for a second, startled—but then her hands clutched Alaric's jacket like her life depended on it, returning the kiss with wide-eyed urgency. She wasn't sure what startled her more: the kiss, or how much she wanted it. Rain poured around them, the storm wrapping the world in sound and fury, but inside that moment there was only breath, warmth, and trembling mouths finding solace.
When they pulled apart, both were breathless, stunned.
Alaric opened his mouth to speak, but whatever words he had were lost in the quiet quake of what had just passed between them.
He looks so conflicted, Grey's chest ached. The storm outside was nothing compared to whatever war he seemed to be fighting behind his eyes—and she didn't know how to help him through it, only that she wanted to. He looked furious with himself.
Then the shattered gate let out a final groan and collapsed into smouldering ruin. Alaric scrambled upright, helping Grey to her feet with both hands. He ran his palms over her limbs, checking for injuries with brisk, practised care. "Are you alright?" he asked gently this time, the edge in his voice gone, replaced by something careful, almost afraid.
Grey winced but nodded slowly, her voice catching. "I think so." Her hand was still throbbing, the burn etched deep, but it wasn't the pain that lingered—it was the way he'd looked at her, like she was something fragile and irreplaceable.
Together, they scanned the cliffside. No hikers, no campers, no vehicles—not even a wandering dog walker. Only a handful of plodding little Highland sheep blinking lazily from a distant rise, unfazed by gods and storms alike.
"I'll set the wards," Alaric murmured.
Grey nodded, still catching her breath. She stepped into the circle to put some distance between them and began tracing sigils in the air, while Alaric moved around the perimeter, weaving glamours to shroud the ruin from mortal eyes. When they finally stepped back, the space shimmered faintly—and then disappeared entirely.
They stood in silence for a long while, the rain softening into mist.
Grey's thoughts churned beneath the hush, looping back over the gate, the kiss, the way Alaric's hand had trembled against her cheek. She didn't know what it meant—not yet—but she knew something had changed. He had kissed her without deliberation, he just looked as if he needed to do it. It was messing with her head in unexpected ways that she couldn't examine right now.
Alaric, beside her, was equally still, eyes fixed on the horizon, but his fingers twitched once, as though resisting the urge to reach out again. A quiet moment, drawn taut with the weight of what was unspoken. The mist curled around them like memory made manifest.
Then Alaric touched Grey's wrist lightly before pulling his hand back.
"Let's go home."
And this time, Grey didn't hesitate. They walked back to the Jeep side by side, wet to the bone, battered and shaken. And something shifted.