Aline stood by the window, her long hair swept off her neck in a messy bun. Beside her, Robert Smithers slumped in the window seat, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. My mother met my eyes, and I fell into her icy-blue pools, mesmerized by the pain that reflected back at me. My arms itched to wrap around her and hold her close, but my grief kept my legs glued to the floor.
“Please,” Ryan indicated the empty sofa and chairs around the room. “Simon will pour you some tea.”
“Where’s Daigh?” Arthur growled, his hand rested on the hilt of his sword. His whole body stood rigid, every muscle poised for attack.
“He’s secure,” Ryan said. Clara nodded, reaching out to touch Arthur’s hand. His arm relaxed a fraction. But he didn’t let go of his weapon. “Smithers and Isadora dragged him off the battlefield before the fae could take him. Aline was able to extract the poison from the fae arrow, so he’ll live. More’s the pity. I figured we should get everyone up-to-date and strategize before we made any attempt to question him. Especially…” his eyes flicked to Smithers, “…given the present company.”
Smithers’ eyes rolled back in his head. “Robert is in a box. Robert-in-a-box. Turn the handle and he’ll pop up again.”
Rowan slipped his fingers in mine. His hand trembled as he pulled me toward the sofa. I sat stiffly, not even registering the fabric against my bare legs. Blake slid down on the other side of me. Flynn took a seat closest to the table where Simon was laying out some scones and cream. Arthur remained by the door, still gripping his sword and casting furtive glances over his shoulder as if he expected to be stabbed in the back at any moment.
Simon held out a teacup and I accepted it, bringing the hot drink to my lips. Usually I hated tea unless it was the raspberry and vanilla one Rowan made for me, but this one tasted like nothing and it gave me something to do with my hands, so I sipped and tried to pretend I wanted to be here, that every thought wasn’t about Corbin.
“Briarwood?” I asked, my voice tiny in the cavernous room.
“I spoke to the police this morning,” Clara said. “They’re going to allow you back in later today. That nice Inspector Wallace says he’s arrested several villagers in relation to the arson and Corbin’s death. There are others being treated for superficial wounds before they’re questioned. Simon’s already spoken to an engineer from Crooks Worthy who isn’t superstitious. He’s going to join you when you go back and give you an overview of the repair work to be done. If you’re not ready to deal with that, I’m sure Simon will be happy to go with you. He’s done enough work on this place for Ryan that he knows all the traps.”
“We’ll manage,” Arthur growled. I knew what he was thinking – he didn’t want anyone else there when we went back to Briarwood, especially not a bald butler we hardly knew. It was ours and we needed to mourn it together.
“I’ve also spoken to that lawyer of yours, Emily,” Clara said. “Apparently, the villagers tried to get information about your witchcraft from her. She was trying to warn you, but they locked her in her office, took her mobile, and cut the phone line. She says she doesn’t care if you’re a barbershop quartet of singing badgers as long as you pay her retainer. She’ll sort you out with any money you need for restoration work from the Briarwood Trust. You will have your home back before you know it.”
Rowan’s hand tightened around my wrist. We’ll never have our home back now.
“Thank you.” The words were wooden, devoid of meaning. The voice that spoke them didn’t sound like my own.
“Maeve, sweetheart, drink your tea,” Aline cooed, like I was a child with a scraped knee instead of a grown woman with a broken heart. “Let me explain what happened.”
“You used fae magic against Daigh,” Blake said. “I’m impressed.”
“It was you who gave me the idea,” Aline said. “When I learned you had the use of some fae powers from Daigh’s tutelage, I wondered if there were ways other than binding that fae powers could pass to witches. I realized that maybe when Smithers trapped me in the painting after I’d been using Daigh’s power as a glamour that somehow the power left in the necklace had been fused into me.“
Oh nope, she’s not getting away with that explanation. “If powers are genetic traits, then you’re talking about your DNA being changed, and that’s not possible.”
“That you know of.” Aline gave me this sweet smile, as if decades of genetic research could just be swept under the rug because she said so. “I was also trapped inside a painting for twenty-one years, which isn’t something science can explain.”
“If Daigh’s really just throwing around his powers like candy on Halloween, then how come I don’t have any?” I demanded. “Shouldn’t I be able to glamour and talk in mirrors and compel people and manipulate dreams?”
“You can do all those things, Princess,” Blake said quietly.
“No. I can’t.”
Blake held up his long, slender fingers and ticked off his points one by one. “You spoke to Daigh in the castle mirrors without Aline present. You can pull people into dreams at will and use dreams to travel into the fae realm.”
“Daigh spoke to me! And going to the fae realm was all witchcraft! I’m a dreamwalker. It’s my spirit power.”
“Or maybe it’s a power that manifests in witches with fae blood,” Clara mused. “Very little is known about spirit magic, even less about dreamwalkers. It would make sense that it was a fae power, as dreams are a form of glamour. Maybe there are more bindings between our people than we think.”
“I don’t have fae powers!” I yelled.
“You’ve compelled hundreds of fae simultaneously,” Blake flicked down another finger.
“You do that! I just give you more power!”
“Do you think if I could control the minds of the fae like that I’d have stayed in Tir Na Nog for so long?” Blake smirked. “Face it, Princess, you’ve got all the gifts. You were always so greedy.”
“This isn’t funny!”
“No, it’s not.” Aline’s voice rose. “I’m so sorry I did this to you, Maeve. These powers are my curse. It’s only fair that I find myself with them as well. I found out when we first spoke to Daigh through the mirror. Like calls to like. The clay steals the clay. I thought Blake might realize that I was using fae magic to call him, even though I told you all it was a witch’s spell.”
“Daigh never showed me that particular trick,” Blake replied.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I demanded.
“I wanted to.” Tears stung the corners of Aline’s eyes. “But you already didn’t trust me. What would you do when you found out I also had fae powers?”
She had a point. If she’d demonstrated fae powers, we never would have allowed her inside Briarwood’s walls. And she might never have saved us last night.
While I ate a cardboard scone Aline explained how she concocted her plan. After Daigh had spoken to me in the mirror at Briarwood, she’d realized that he was lying about everything. She’d used her powers to contact the other witches through their own mirrors and beg them to come to Crookshollow in secret. Andrew had cancelled a lecture, Gwen and Candice had shut up their gallery shop and broken Smithers out of the institution, and they’d arrived just in time.
“It’s not every day a dead witch appears in your bathroom mirror and begs for your help,” Gwen smiled, patting Candice’s knee. “Of course we came as quick as we could to help our Briarwood friends.”
“It was a shock to see Aline again,” Andrew said, rubbing his hollow eyes. “But I didn’t want Corbin to fight this battle alone. Not again. I just wish I hadn’t brought Bree along. She didn’t need to see…” His voice trailed off, and he gulped, holding in his grief.
Two sons dead. It was too much to ask a parent to endure. If I believed in a kind and benevolent God, then staring into Andrew’s broken eyes would’ve cured me of that nonsense.
Flynn glared at Isadora. “I thought you didn’t like to meddle in the affairs of other covens? Wasn’t tha
t what you told Maeve?”
Isadora patted her mouth with her hand, as though the whole conversation bored her. “When I discovered how much of a mess you lot made of things, I had to step in to protect the Soho coven.”
“Come now, Isadora,” Clara smiled sweetly. “We all know that’s not true.”
Isadora’s lips pursed, her eyes flashing. Something about the exchange tugged at me, some mystery to unravel. But the grief shadowed over it. I didn’t care about Isadora and her secrets. I didn’t care about anything.
But Clara clearly did. She stared at the intimidating witch with such a self-satisfied smirk on her face. She was bursting to tell whatever secret Isadora was protecting.
Isadora shot Clara a withering look. “You ungrateful little hussy. I took you and that wretched son of yours off the streets and gave you a home and a livelihood, and you repay me by stealing from me and now you try to undermine me. I am a High Priestess here, and you are just an ignorant rustic hedgewitch—”
“I wouldn’t speak to my mother like that in my home.” Ryan’s voice took on a weird, gravelly tone. As I watched in fascination, his face moved, the bones and skin rearranging itself into a very different shape. Reddish hair pushed through his skin, and his nose elongated into a muzzle. He rolled back his lips to reveal rows of sharp canine teeth.
Okay, I am not seeing this. Ryan’s face did not just transform into a fox.
But everyone else saw it, too. Flynn yelped. Rowan moaned under his breath. Arthur growled and crossed the room, drawing his sword from its scabbard and pointing it at the creature that had previously been Ryan. Clara tapped his leg.
“Don’t you wave that thing around in here, son. You’ll put someone’s eye out.”
“He’s using a glamour. That’s a fae trick,” Arthur shot back.
Ryan growled at Isadora. It didn’t seem to scare her, which was ridiculous, because my heart pounded a mile a minute. Isadora waved a manicured hand at Clara, wrinkling her face in disgust. “Can’t you control that beastly son of yours?”
Ryan’s fur retracted back into his skin, and his face rearranged itself back into human features. He shook his head, puffing out his cheeks and scratching his paint-flecked hair. My heart leapt into my throat. That… whatever it was… had woken me up from my grief-induced stupor.
“What the fuck just happened?” Arthur demanded.
“Oh dear.” Clara frowned. “I’m sorry. Ryan didn’t want you to know his secret, but sometimes when shifters feel their pack being threatened, their natural instincts take over.”
“Shifters?” Flynn squealed. “You mean, shapeshifters? They actually exist?”
Ryan nodded. “I’m a vulpine – a fox shifter. I am part human, part fox. It’s why I don’t leave the house. The shift can be difficult to control, especially when you’re excited. Or angry.” He said this last glaring at Isadora.
“There was a fox running around on the meadow,” I remembered. “It bit a fae in the ankle, and he fell back into the void. That was you?”
“I can still taste his blood.”
I remembered something else, too. Corbin showing me an image from Isadora’s book of an orgy that contained half-human, half-animal creatures. He’d called them shapeshifters. I hadn’t wanted to consider the possibilities at the time, and Corbin seemed to think it was a conversation for another day. He was more interested in that rusty ampulla on his library shelf. I was surprised to find myself accepting the evidence of my eyes, but there were so many unanswered questions. I had to know.
“How does shifting even work? Is your human skin an exoskeleton? How do you change your size? That matter and energy must go somewhere – it can’t just disappear and reappear when you transform back. What do you eat? Do you—”
Ryan laughed. “This is exactly why I don’t associate with other humans.”
“I’m sorry, but you can’t just drop a bomb like that and expect us to just accept it, no questions asked. I need to understand and—”
“Yes, yes, it’s all very interesting.” Clara leaned forward. “Shouldn’t we hear from Isadora now?”
It came back to me then, the strange thing Isadora had said when Corbin and I visited her in London. She knew a secret that would help us, but she refused to tell me. Ryan forgotten, I studied the witch as she glared at Clara from her chair, her blood-red nails tapping against the rim of her teacup. In London with her perfect outfit and brusque manner, she’d been terrifying. Now, even though she wore sharp tailored trousers and a silk shirt and her hair and makeup were perfect, the way she sat under Ryan’s fox painting all alone, she appeared different somehow. Almost… vulnerable. I wondered what my mother had done to convince her to come to Briarwood.
Isadora looked to Aline, her face pleading, but Aline merely nodded.
“Very well,” Isadora sighed. She set down her teacup and uncrossed and crossed her legs. “I’ve known about Daigh’s plans for some time, but I’ve been unable to work directly against him because of a pact we made many years ago.”
What? Anger gnawed at my gut. The way she treated us when we’d gone to speak to her… she met Corbin and she knew information that could save him and she kept it to herself and now he’s dead, dead, dead.
“A pact which his forfeiture of his powers has now freed you from,” Clara said, a little too gleefully. “Go on, Isadora. We’re all curious to hear about this pact you made with Daigh.”
Isadora sighed again. “Some years ago, he loaned his magic to assist me with a little problem. In return, I vowed that I would find out what really happened to his daughter.”
7
MAEVE
What?
My breath caught in my throat. Isadora had a pact with Daigh about me? She acted so cold in London and all this time she…
“Oh, Isadora,” Aline sighed, her eyes filled with pity.
Well, she could pity that nasty woman if she wanted. I needed answers. “What in Athena’s name would have possessed you to strike a deal like that with the king of the Unseelie Court?”
Isadora held her chin high, her gaze unrepentant. “Because he gave me something I couldn’t get from anyone else, and that’s all I’ll say on the matter. All you need to know is that Daigh did me a service many years ago, and he called in his favor.”
“And what was his favor?”
“Some months after the ritual where both Moore girls were supposed to have died,” Isadora glared at Aline. “Daigh’s face appeared in my bathroom mirror. He said he could not talk long, for he had only the power for a few minutes. He said that he wasn’t certain that Aline hadn’t tricked him, that his daughter might still yet live. He wanted me to find out what I could. I did a little investigating, but I’m not a police detective,” she wrinkled her nose as she said this, as though we’d all suggested she was a toad.
“Aline is tricksy,” Smithers sang out. “She tricked tricked tricked that nasty Robert, but then he stopped talking to me and I had no friends.”
Isadora frowned at Smithers, then continued. “I found nothing, and told him so. Daigh wasn’t satisfied but he had no power, so what could he do? He didn’t bother me again until a few months ago. He appeared in my bathroom mirror. He said his daughter’s twenty-first birthday was approaching. If she was still alive then she would come into her spirit magic and inherit Briarwood Castle. He wanted me to investigate again, and he threatened to come after my coven if I didn’t give him a real answer. He had power once more, and I was afraid for my girls. So I used the resources I had – an MI6 intelligence officer is my exclusive client. It took him less than fifteen minutes to hack into your solicitor's office and discover the presence of Maeve Crawford in Arizona. I gave this information to Daigh, and he declared my debt paid.”
Horror dawned on me as I realized what she was saying. I’d been safe in America as long as Daigh believed I’d died in the ritual. Everything that had happened in these last few months only came about because Daigh found out I was alive and wanted to bring me
back to Briarwood.
My hands balled into fists. Isadora was the reason my parents were dead.
White welts danced in front of my eyes as rage burned through me. My palms prickled with flaring magic. I imagined shoving my hands against Isadora’s temples and dragging out her nightmares, giving her a taste of the grief and guilt I’d felt at her hands. What was that cold bitch even afraid of? I’d find out and I’d give it all to her.
Beside me, Flynn’s hand clamped around my knee, grounding me and – judging by the pressure he applied – deliberately holding me down. I tried to slide out from under him, but he threw his other hand across my chest, yelping as he caught a flare of my spirit magic.
“Blake, a little help? She’s going to fry Isadora’s mind.”
Blake’s face remained impassive, but his eyes blazed with violence. “If Maeve wants to fry a few brains, she’s justified.”
I wrenched Flynn’s arm off me and stood up. Aline gasped when she saw my face, but no one stepped in to stop me. I stepped toward Isadora, and Corbin’s face flashed in my mind.
You can’t blame Isadora.
Damn him. The one imagined glimpse at Corbin’s smiling face was all it took for the fight to leave me. Corbin wouldn’t want me to use my magic to hurt Isadora, even though she deserved it for that defiant glare in her eyes as she stared me down.
It was Daigh’s orders that sent the prince Kalen to America to light that fire. Daigh killed my parents and revoked my scholarship. Daigh’s ridiculous plan forced me to move to England and start the chain of events that ended up with all of us in this room. Isadora was weak and selfish, but she’s not evil.
The Castle of Spirit and Sorrow Page 5