The Castle of Fire and Fable

by Steffanie Holmes

  “Okay, we get the point,” I fumed. This is Dora’s doing. Going after me and the guys was one thing – it must have been terrifying to have that fae inside her head, telling her to hurt people she cared about. But turning the whole town against Jane just because of her thoroughly legal (I looked it up) profession was pure evil.

  If Dora’s crusade stopped Connor’s baptism, then he wouldn’t be safe from Daigh when he came for his sacrifices, and no way in hell was that happening.

  “This is ridiculous,” Flynn cried. “I’ve spent my hard earned money in this place for years. My drinking put the landlord’s son through four years at Exeter. I’m not leaving this stool.”

  “It’s fine.” Rowan stood up and slid toward the door. “I’ll make us lunch at home.”

  “It’s not fine,” Blake pouted. “I didn’t come all the way from one Tir Na Nog only to be turned out of another.”

  I could see the manager in the kitchen. He turned at the sound of Flynn and Blake’s protests. I grabbed Flynn’s collar. “Don’t make trouble for Neale. This isn’t her fault. Come on, we’re not staying where we’re not wanted.”

  My eyes flicked to Jane, whose face was set in a scowl that would melt the sun. She yanked Connor’s stroller away from the bar and headed for the door. Flynn and I raced after her. As we passed a table by the door, I overheard one of the men at the table mutter, “That’s the hoor I told ye about. The one who sucked my cock like a vacuum cleaner.”

  Jane’s body stiffened. Flynn swung around, his face twisted. “Which of you bastards said that?” His hands balled into fists.

  Rage sliced through my body, cutting me to pieces. I lost contact with my brain. All that existed were the sneering faces of those men, superimposed over Dora’s screeching face as she yelled that Jane had damned her soul.

  And I’d had enough. Enough of people with small minds using their gods to justify cruelty, enough of the people I cared about being pushed down, enough of judgements and small towns pulling others down to their level. An enemy capable of wiping out half the population of the earth was baying at our gates, but instead of working together, people were hellbent on bringing others down.

  What’s next, burning us at the stake?

  All that rage welled up inside me, forcing its way up through my torso, sparking on the ends of my fingers. My head swelled and heat surged in my veins, exploding out of me like a supernova.

  And then I wasn’t just inside my own head. I was also across the room, looking back at myself – an angry girl with a pink streak in her hair staring daggers into me. I slammed my pint glass on the table and elbowed my mate.

  We laughed and snorted and then I didn’t feel like laughing anymore. I felt like going for a walk.

  I stood up. The man stood up, and he, and I, turned around and jumped through the pub window.

  29

  BLAKE

  “You got to admit, that was spectacular. Truly next level enemy torture.“

  “Shut up, Blake,” Corbin growled.

  “You know, in the fae realm, I’ve never once seen anyone throw themselves through a window. We hadn’t even considered it. And Maeve says she has no imagination—”

  “Shut up, Blake.” Maeve rested her head in her hands. Corbin and Flynn sat on either side of her, their arms around her, making cooing noises at her like she was a bloody sparrow with a broken wing.

  I didn’t get what all the fuss was about. That guy was being a wanker. Maeve put him in his place. Or rather, put him through a window. The only injuries he had was a few cuts (okay, a lot of cuts) and the marks of her spirit magic across his face, which would fade in a few days.

  Maeve Moore was no bloody broken sparrow. Even if she had been upset about the window incident since mid-afternoon and it was now well past dinnertime.

  “I jumped through that window,” Maeve whispered, her whole body shaking. “I was right there inside his head when he did it. I was drinking and then the next moment, I was lying on the cobbles with glass shards sticking out of my cheeks. It was horrible. I can’t believe I did that to a person.”

  “The guy didn’t die,” I shrugged. “He might need a little reconstructive surgery, but that could only be described as an improvement.”

  Reconstructive surgery. I’d learned all about this human magic from a fascinating show called Grey’s Anatomy. I’d learned all kinds of important things from watching the giant television in the Great Hall – namely that humans found crime scenes and home redecorating endlessly fascinating.

  “But it’s compulsion. It’s messing with people’s heads. It’s wrong, and I can’t do that!”

  “You can’t be this upset, Princess. You compelled someone before,” I reminded her. “What about all those fae you drove out with the power of your mind?”

  “That was different,” she snapped. “You did that. Tell me, Blake. Tell me you didn’t force me to hurt that man.”

  I shook my head. “Much as I’d love to claim the credit, this was all you, Princess.”

  “But I can’t compel people! That’s a fae power, and I—” she snapped her mouth shut.

  “You’re half fae,” Corbin said, redundantly.

  “Oh fuck,” Maeve swore, the curse word like a delicious warm curry on her lips.

  This didn’t seem like it was going to end up with Maeve accepting who she was and deciding to re-enact last night’s dream, so I stood up. “I’m going to sleep.”

  Maeve looked at me with those big deep eyes of hers, but she didn’t ask me to stay.

  I left them in the library and went up to my room, which was right next to Rowan’s. I pushed my door open with my foot and pulled it shut again, listening to the loud creak and click as it shut again. There, that should satisfy Corbin the suspicious.

  I crept back down the hall and opened the secret door leading to the narrow kitchen staircase. I swung the door shut behind me and muffled the click with my hand. The soft soles of my leather boots made my descent completely silent.

  In the kitchen, I pushed aside the bottles and jars on Rowan’s potion shelves. Luckily, he labelled everything in neat, square lettering, and in no time at all I had exactly what I needed in my hand.

  There was only enough sleeping draught left for one more dream. I had to make it count.

  Tucking the bottle under my arm, I headed out the kitchen door and across the vast garden overlooking the Briarwood estate. How amazing it was that these five lived in the midst of all these open fields and sprawling woods that were nearly as large as the entire fae realm?

  I sprinted through the forest and came out near the low stone wall marking the boundary of Briarwood. In the field beyond, the three sidhe rose up out of the swaying grass, lit by the glowing green lights on Maeve’s monitoring equipment that we’d set up yesterday. I had no idea what any of it did, except that every few seconds one of the machines let out an annoying BEEP.

  I gripped the sleeping draught tight in my fist. At least with this, I’d be able to sleep right through that sound.

  I lay down in one of the charred patches of earth where Arthur’s fireballs had burned the grass away. Staring up at the stars that fascinated Maeve so, the stars that were so different from the ones I watched for twenty-one years in Tir Na Nog, I tapped my head back and poured the contents of the jar down my throat.

  A few minutes later the stars blurred together and disappeared into inky blackness. I opened my eyes and found myself standing in a dark corner. My back pressed against a packed earth wall, and a faint square of light from an opening high above my head illuminated a crumpled body lying on the ground. Two golden braids peeked from the lump of limbs and tattered green clothing.

  “Liah?” I whispered.

  The shape moved. A head slowly, painfully, rose out of the crumpled clothes. The flickering light above illuminated shallow cuts crosshatching its cheeks and multi colored bruises marring once-perfect skin. The eyes flew open. Anger twisted her face as she recognized me. She leapt forward with
surprising speed and grabbed me, pinning me against the wall with her body and wrapping a hand around my throat.

  “I’d choke the life out of you,” she growled. “Only you took my other hand.”

  “Stop,” I choked out. She was doing a pretty damn good job with only one hand. “I’ve come to take you back with me. And I promise this time you won’t lose any body parts.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you. I’d rather stay here and be tortured by Daigh. At least he hasn’t chopped any of my limbs off. He even repaired the arm he broke. But you haven’t brought me a new hand, have you?”

  “No, but I can help with that. Humans have this amazing thing called a television. It shows stories from all over the world in moving pictures. Some of them are myth – like this movie I saw about this man who got left behind on another planet that didn’t even have any trees – but some of them are true. There was this girl who lost her hand in a machine – she worked in this thing called a factory that spits out poison into the air—”

  “Blake, get to the point.”

  “Anyway, instead of healers, they have these nifty people called doctors who use human science to make body parts. And they made this girl a prosthetic hand. It wasn’t quite the same as a real one, but she could move her fingers and pick things up, and it was bright purple and she thought it was so cool. So I was thinking that if I took you with me to the human realm, we could get you fixed up with one of those.”

  “That’s very nice of you.” Liah’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “What do you want in return?”

  “Nothing. Well, for you to join us in the fight against Daigh, of course, but you’re kind of doing that already—”

  “Do your witch friends know a fae is about to join their team?” Liah asked.

  “Who cares? Once they see what you can do—”

  “So that’s a no, then.” Liah released my throat to fold her arms across her chest. As I gasped for air I caught sight of her stump, the skin already healed over with fae magic. It looked so… wrong on her. My body squirmed. I’d done that. “Let me get this straight – you want me to jump with you into a black void – even though last time I did that I lost my hand – and then hide in the forest like some common outlaw? How is that improving my situation?”

  I made a weak gesture at the size of her dark prison. “The forest on the other side is a lot bigger.”

  She sighed. “Fine.”

  “Really?”

  Liah grinned. “They’re going to put iron shards under my toenails tomorrow. Besides, I have always wanted to see the human realm. I bet it’s beautiful.”

  I thought of the pub and the curry shop and the weird metal shells called cars humans drove around in. “It’s… interesting.”

  “So how do we do this?”

  “I just have to call up the void again with one of my nightmares. Are any of your Seelie fae nearby?” I asked. “I don’t know how many fae we can have in the human realm, but we could try to take a couple with us.”

  “Bugger them,” she said. “They’re useless. Most of them are dead or joined with Daigh. I presume the others have iron shards up their backsides.”

  I grinned. Liah was fae, through and through. I grabbed her good arm above the elbow and closed my eyes, searching my mind for another nightmare. It didn’t take long to find one. Her talk of metal shards reminded me of a time when Daigh pinned my hand to a table with metal pins through the webs between my fingers so I’d pay attention to a lecture he was giving on compulsion magic. The memory of the pain flared in my body as I slipped myself back into the mind of nine-year-old Blake, frantically trying not to cry out while searing pain traveled up his arm.

  The floor beneath me gave way. I pulled Liah against me, wrapping my body around hers, keeping her close. We tumbled through space and slammed into something hard. My eyes flew open, and I stared up at the stars.

  The earth-bound stars. I was back.

  “Liah?” I unwrapped my arms and leaned back, checking her body for injuries or more missing parts. Everything looking intact, even her swinging blonde braids. Her eyes fluttered open, and she took in the meadow and the sidhe and the glittering sky with a sharp intake of breath.

  “I’m fine…” she croaked. “There’s just a lot to take in.”

  “Come look at the wood.” I helped her to her feet and led her up the hill and into the wood that stretched across the neighboring property. “Don’t go up the slope, because that’s Briarwood and the wards will throw you back. But you can hide in here while I figure out what to do next.”

  “It’s beautiful,” she whispered, her eyes widening as she took in the towering trees, the cool moonlight peering down through the leaves, the myriad scurryings of nocturnal animals.

  “You’ll like it here,” I said, kissing her forehead the way I used to do when we were young. “Just don’t leave the wood, okay? We can’t risk anyone seeing you. I’ll bring you some human food as soon as I can. Wait until you try a curry. You’re going to go insane.”

  “Okay.” Liah nodded, sinking down against a mossy tree, her good hand behind her head, her horrifying stump resting on her thigh. “Thanks, Blake.”

  Don’t thank me. I’m a bastard. I’m sorry, Liah. I never meant for you to lose your arm. I’m sorry.

  I shrugged. “Yeah, well.”

  I took off in a jog before she could say anything else that made my chest constrict tighter. As it was I struggled to breathe through my guilt. Where had that come from? I’d never felt guilty before in my whole damn life. Guilt was a human emotion.

  Just seeing her arm like that, knowing she’ll never be the same…

  Stop thinking about it. She’s here now and you’re going to fix it. I pushed open the gate to the orchard and darted across the castle grounds. Lights were still on in the library and the Great hall, but the kitchen appeared dark.

  I swung the kitchen door open and stumbled inside. Made it. Now I just have to hide the empty jar and—

  “Blake?”

  Shite. Maeve stood in the middle of the kitchen, still wearing that same figure-hugging dress she’d been in all day. A light from a machine illuminated her face. The machine emitted loud popping sounds and shook so violently I thought it might fly off the counter.

  “Hey, Princess,” I tried to keep my voice calm, hoping she couldn’t see my heart pounding against my ribcage. “You finally over your window guilt?”

  “Not really, but I could do with a distraction. We decided to watch a movie together,” she said. “I was just getting some popcorn. Rowan doesn’t make it the way I like it. He’s far too stingy with the salt. Why were you outside? I thought you’d gone to bed.”

  “I did, but then I couldn’t sleep and I went for a wee walk around the garden,” I said. “I’m still getting used to the whole concept of sleeping in a bed. A pile of leaves is more my style.”

  “Do you have something in your hand?”

  “What?” I jammed the jar into the waistband of my pants, and showed her both my hands. “Nope, nothing. So if you were hoping for my cock, you must be bitterly disappointed.”

  Maeve laughed. “Are you going to come watch with us?”

  “Of course. I can’t resist a chance to learn more about my human heroes and their weird fascination with serial killers and loud explosions.”

  “Cool, see you in there!” She grabbed the bowl and padded away.

  Letting out a breath I didn't realize I’d been holding, I yanked the jar out of my pants and tossed it into the recycling bin, burying it under three empty HP sauce bottles so no one would notice it.

  All in all, a successful night. I dusted off my hands, ignoring the weird churning in my gut. Liah was here in the human realm where Daigh couldn’t hurt her. All I had to do now was keep her safe from the wrath of the witches until I could convince them to trust us both and I’d be golden.

  30

  FLYNN

  Everything was buggered up.

  Maeve was still shaking fr
om what happened at the pub. Jane stewed silently, worried that Dora’s moral crusade would somehow stop Connor’s baptism. Something weird was going on between Rowan and Corbin – probably from their visit to Corbin’s parents, who I was guessing weren’t any bigger fans of Rowan than they’d been last time they’d seen him – and Arthur was even surlier than usual.

  It wouldn’t do. I was letting the team down, allowing so much despair and depression to take root in this house. It was gloomier than a pub after the bartender called closing time.

  When it came to life skills contributed to the coven, I was basically useless. I couldn’t beat up monsters like Arthur, or create a potion to soothe or forget like Rowan, or find answers in books like Corbin. I was an artist, and not a very successful one at that. But the one thing I could do, the one thing I did better than anything else, the thing that had seen me through every shitty thing that had happened in my life, was the ability to make people laugh. And when someone is laughing, they’re not frightened or angry or sad. They’re not going to beat you up or hurt themselves. For a tiny fraction of a moment they remembered that life was worth living.

  That was my skill, and I needed to employ it, stat.

  I decided that we needed a night off from all the witching. I forced everyone down to the Great Hall and shoved a Monty Python DVD into the machine. Rowan rustled around in the kitchen and returned with a tray of piping hot homemade pizza, a platter of biscuits, and a huge lemon meringue pie he’d somehow found the time to make this morning. Maeve made some popcorn that was so salty you could float across it into Israel and came back with Blake, who looked a bit sheepish as he sat down on a beanbag. Arthur popped open some cherry mead and apple cider, and we all settled in with our drinks and snacks.

  Maeve slumped down in the middle of the couch. I fell over Arthur to sit beside her. Corbin slid down on the other side. He winked at me from across Maeve’s lap, bringing my mind back to what we’d done with Maeve on the couch before the ritual.