Eager to keep the school from having to lock down again, or worse, close, Rachel enlists Dread’s crew in hunting down the remaining fey on campus.
Using clever detective work, they locate the each uisge, the water horse from the northern marshes—a dangerous and wild kelpie like creature that, among its other powers, can make anything that touches it stick.
After several injuries and a wild chase scene—including a time when upperclassman Jenny Dare was stuck to the beast—Rachel suggests they try a different tack.
She enlists the help of an expert in the ways of phooka and kelpie—her sister Laurel.
Together, with help from Gaius Valient, they trap the creature using an age-old method that came to their family from the Wyllts—the descendants of Merlin.
Here we have the set-up scene for the trap of Lark, Lily, and Thorn:
“Tell me again why Daddy told you about this supposed school closing?” Laurel asked as they arrived in the snowy glade. “He didn’t say a word to Peter and me.”
“Because I went home to see him, as requested,” Rachel replied.
“Without us?”
“You said you didn’t want to go.”
“What? I never did!”
Rachel glanced up at the sun, which was practically touching the peak of the mountain. “Do we start when the sun falls behind Storm King or when it goes below the horizon?”
“Storm King. Magically, it is just as significant, and it gives us more light.” Laurel gazed up with her. “Not much time left! Brrrr! It’s cold here! Ready?”
“Okay,” Rachel walked to the middle of the glade and held up her supplies.
“Sugar cubes,” commanded Laurel.
“Sugar cubes,” Rachel echoed as she laid down a line of sugar cubes—she had found a few in her trunk—and horse feed she had fetched from the menagerie.
“Apple,” said Laurel.
Rachel put the apple down carefully parallel to where she had last seen Gaius.
Laurel glanced around. “Your Thorn is well hidden. Are you sure he’s here?”
There came a very faint sound of a throat being cleared from behind a leafless bush. Laurel stared into the bush but, of course, saw nothing.
“Wow. That’s well hidden.” Laurel leaned toward her sister, grinning, “Who is it, Sigfried Smith?”
“We’re running out of time,” Rachel said, primly.
“Okay, whatever. Keep your little secrets.” In a louder voice, she said, “Thorn, you do your stuff when the beastie is eating the apple. That’s what makes him vulnerable to the mortal world. When he eats the apple. Not before. Got that? Try it before and something bad happens. Probably to me. Okay,” she turned to Rachel, “Now, choose: Lark or Lily?”
“Lark,” Rachel said without hesitation. Despite her brave words, she still felt a tad wobbly. Well, okay, massively wobbly, but legs were not needed to play the Lark’s role.
“That’s wise, but, dongsaeng—” Laurel leaned over, hands on her thighs again, and gazed directly into her sister’s eyes. “You realize that if this goes wrong, I am going to die, right? Just want to make sure you are taking this seriously.”
Rachel’s head bobbed up and down, her heart suddenly beating unnaturally fast.
“Good, because I’m serious. A number of the women in our family have died this way down through the ages. There are ballads about two of them, and a third is still used as a cautionary tale to frighten children in the Lake Country.”
Then Laurel straightened and grinned, tossing her hair. “But it won’t go wrong. I could tell you a lot more stories about Griffin and Wyllt women who have pulled this off. Come on. Let’s do this!”
She turned and faced the west. Rachel stepped up beside her, so that the two of them stood side by side at the eastern side of the glade, facing west.
“Hair down,” Laurel instructed.
Reaching back, Rachel took the clips from her hair and stuck them in her coat pocket. Laurel, whose hair was significantly longer than Rachel’s shoulder-length locks, did the same.
“Combs out,” her sister called.
Both Griffin girls extended a hand holding identical tortoise-shell combs inset with mother of pearl. They paused, thus posed, watching the sun.
The sun began to disappear behind the mountain peak.
Laurel barked out. “Begin!”