Niall lied to me.
She couldn’t reconcile the Niall she’d got to know over the last few weeks – the Niall who taught her how to shoot, who made her breakfast in bed, who did those amazing things to her body – with this lying, conniving fae.
She could almost hear her mother’s voice pounding in her ears. I told you this would happen if you fell in love with a fairy. I told you not to get involved.
“Shut up.” Aisling rolled over, shoving her head underneath her pillow, trying to block out the voice pounding against her skull. All this did was muffle the sound of the lightning cracking against the house from the outside. Every facet of her life was being attacked.
She stayed in her room for hours, the idea of moving from the bed sending fresh waves of pain through her body. Somewhere in the house, Niall was out there, reading her magical books and aiming his special weapon at the walls, draining away the magic she’d fought for her whole life to protect.
Why did he do it all, if all he wanted was the magic? Why did he teach me to fight and make me breakfast and and and …
Because he’s fae. Because he likes to conquer, and he wanted to conquer you.
Anger bubbled through her veins. Her stomach rumbled. She hadn’t eaten in hours. The thought of going to the kitchen and seeing Niall there made her feel ill. Maybe I’ll just wait here until he gets tired of stripping my house of resources, and goes to sleep …
Resolve hardened her. Screw him. It’s my house. He invaded it. I can go to the kitchen and eat whatever I want.
Pretending she was braver than she felt, Aisling swung her body out of bed, flung on a dirty sweatshirt, and trudged down to the kitchen. She kept her eyes trained on the floor in front of her, and her ears focused on listening out for Niall. If she could avoid looking at or talking to him, it would be a small blessing.
She reached the kitchen door with no sighting. Aisling pushed the door open with her foot, standing in the threshold and listening. The only sound in the room was the steady drip drip drip of the sink faucet.
“Thank the gods for small miracles,” she said, and went to the pantry. She grabbed the last two Twinkies, tore open the wrappers, and shoved both sugary treats into her mouth. She found an empty bowl and filled it up with an entire packet of M&Ms. Taking her food to the table, she reached for a bottle of Scotch above the sink along the way. Bethany always said there’s nothing like a little whisky to wash down a heartbreak-induced sugar binge.
Knock knock knock.
Aisling dropped the bowl. It smashed on the floor, scattering candy across the kitchen floor. That sounded like …
Knock knock knock
… like someone knocking on the front door.
That was how it had started with Niall. The knocking on the door. Why had the door opened that day? If the house had never let Niall inside, then she wouldn’t be feeling this pain. Perhaps that was why the house was trying to get Niall to kill himself, because it knew it had made a mistake.
Aisling stared at the kitchen wall, her mind reeling. Has the house been trying to tell me all along that I’m better off without him? Niall had said the voice talking to him was telling him to throw himself into the void. The house was trying to correct its error.
So what was this new knocking? Was it the house, finally figuring out how to correct its mistake? Or was it the fae, here to strip every last shred of magic, before enslaving her?
Only one way to find out. Aisling swung off the chair, and raced into the hall.
As her feet pounded across the marble, Niall emerged from the top of the staircase. Aisling dared a glance up at him. He looked terrible, his face blotchy, his eyes ringed with dark circles. He walked hunched over, not standing tall and proud the way he usually did. He looked in every way the defeated man as he padded downstairs.
I don’t care, she told herself, turning back to the door. He deserves to suffer.
Knock knock knock
Niall reached the bottom of the staircase, coming to stand beside her, his eyes glued to the door, which rattled on its hinges from the force of the knocking. The space in between them felt like a chasm, the energy that usually bound them acting more like charged magnets, forcing them apart. Niall’s fingers brushed hers, but she yanked her hand away, shuffling a few extra inches away from him.
“The knocking?” he whispered to her. Aisling flashed him a filthy look. This wasn’t about him. It was between her and the Hollow. She was about to tell him to go away, when through the frosted glass, she noticed a shadow pass the window. Someone was out there.
Fear closed her throat. More than anything, she longed for the comfort of Niall’s embrace, the way being in his arms made her feel safe. But he’d wrecked it all, and she could never feel safe again.
Niall stepped forward, his arm outstretched for the door handle. “Don’t do that,” she snapped. “We don’t know who it is, and I don’t trust the house to know best anymore.”
Before Niall could reply, Aisling turned on her heel and ran for the drawing room. She heard Niall’s footsteps on the marble behind her. She longed to turn around and run toward him, to feel his warmth ease her pounding heart. Again, she reminded herself that it wasn’t possible. She would never again feel comfort from Niall.
In the drawing room, AIsling lit the lantern and yanked aside the curtain. She squinted out into the gray gloom. There on the porch was a fairy, banging on the door like she was desperate to break it down.
The women slammed her hands against the glass, yelling something into the dark room. She was older, her white hair streaming over her shoulders in loose waves, and her ice-blue eyes were ringed with lines and dark circles. She was the most beautiful woman Aisling had ever seen, and as she tossed her head back and her perfect lips opened to yell something at the house, Aisling realized tears streamed down her cheeks.
Aisling strained to listen to the fae’s words, but of course she could not hear her words through the deep magic of the house. Whatever she was yelling, the fae woman looked frantic, as though it were a matter of life and death.
Aisling grabbed a paper from the desk and scribbled a message. She pressed the paper up to the glass and banged on the window. But the fae was so occupied with the door, she didn’t even notice. Aisling glanced back at Niall, who had wandered in behind her. She didn’t want to refer to him, but she felt helpless, unsure of what she should do. To her surprise, she saw that Niall’s face had gone bone white.
“Niall?” she whispered. He didn’t reply. Aisling waved her hand in front of his eyes, but he didn’t even blink. He just kept staring, wide-eyed at the woman, his face stricken with some deep-rooted pain.
“Odiana?” he whispered.
That one single word drove all the air from Aisling’s lungs. She looked back at the woman, her tiny fists pounding against the front door, her face twisted with fear and desperation.
Niall had spoken often of his friend Odiana, a brilliant scientist who had stood by him even when his family had fallen in status. But how could it be her? Niall had lied about everything, so surely he’d made up this girl, as well.
Besides, the girl Niall had described had been a year older than he. This woman was at least forty. Lines crinkled at the corners of her eyes, and her white hair was streaked with gray above her ears.
“Niall.” Aisling shook his shoulder, her skin crawling from the contact. “That can’t be Odiana. She’s too old. Niall, can you even hear me?”
“It’s her.” Niall shook his head. He grabbed Aisling’s hand from his shoulder and squeezed it, so hard that he cracked her knuckles. “I don’t know what has happened, but I’m telling you, that’s my friend out there. Aisling, we have to talk to her.”
“It could be a trap.” She yanked her hand away. How dare he touch her, here, now?
“It’s not. It’s not a trap. It’s Odiana!” Before she could stop him, Niall ran from the drawing room. Aisling took off after him. He’s going to do something stupid.
“Nia
ll, wait, we have to think about this!”
She skidded around the corner, her feet sliding on the smooth marble. Niall was already at the door, his hand grabbing the door handle.
Aisling sucked in her breath, her fear rooting her in place. The house will stop him. The house wants to keep me safe.
The door handle twisted in Niall’s hand. It clicked. Niall flung it open.
Aisling held her breath. She expected the woman to whip out some kind of weapon and blast them both away. She inched toward the wall where her sword hung, ready to defend herself. But the woman took a painfully slow step forward, her foot landing on the marble with a resounding clap. She stood frozen, her eyes fixed on Niall with a haunted expression.
Aisling expected Niall to fling his arms around the woman, but he didn’t. Of course he wouldn’t show emotion unless it was in some way of benefit to himself. Once a fae, always a fae.
“Odiana, is that really you? What happened?”
“Niall?” she gasped, holding her hand to her mouth. “What’s happened to you? You’re still … you don’t look a day older than when you left.”
“I don’t understand. Of course I look the same. I’ve only been gone a few weeks.”
Odiana shook her head. Tears sprang in the corners of her eyes. “No, Niall. You’ve been gone twenty-one years.”
22
Niall
Niall sprung back from the door, yanking his hand from the door handle as though the metal stung him. Behind him, he heard Aisling gasp.
Twenty-one years. He rolled the number around in his head, unable to comprehend.
Odiana wouldn’t lie. Not about this. And he could believe the evidence of his eyes. It was Odiana standing in front of him, but not the same young woman he’d left behind. Now her beautiful face was pinched and stretched.
That meant the house … it had slowed time down inside, even more than it had for Aisling. The few precious weeks he’d had with her had taken twenty-one years from his life.
This is my punishment for the lies I told. This is what the house was trying to tell me. Maybe it wasn’t trying to get me to kill myself, but to step back into time and have my life again. But it would’ve been a life without Aisling …
Niall’s stomach churned as the full weight of the revelation crushed down upon him. His brother … the Quaesitor’s research … what had happened while he was gone? While he’d been inside the house doing … what he’d been doing with Aisling, his whole life had been flashing forward around him. He’d missed it all. He’d missed everything.
He leapt forward, and grabbed Odiana’s hand, trying to pull her further inside. Her skin felt different to how he remembered, not as smooth or supple. “Odiana, please. You must tell me, what became of my brother?”
Odiana yanked her hand away. “I’m not coming inside there,” she declared, wrinkling her nose in a way that was pure Odiana.
“Just tell me, please. What about Eamon?”
She screwed her eyes up, as though it was painful to speak of. “He’s fine now, Niall. Laneth let him go a couple of years ago.”
“He did? That doesn’t sound like something Laneth would do.”
“He would if I gave him something even more valuable in return.”
Niall’s heart sank. “What?”
“I took your note to Laneth. I gave him the secret to capturing atern.” Odiana rubbed her eyes. “I thought … I thought if I could save Eamon for you, then you’d find a way to leave the house. I thought with all my experience, my team would be able to beat Laneth to creating the weapon. But I was wrong on both counts.”
“What do you mean? What’s happened? Where’s Eamon?”
“Safe. He’s living with me. He’s not the problem. Laneth must have been much closer to a breakthrough than I thought, for he finished his device mere hours after I gave him your note. And he … he …” She gulped. “He trained the device on the university. He drained all the Quaesitors of their atern, every last one of us. We’re walking ghosts now, just one magical spell away from death.”
“That’s not possible.”
Odiana held up her wristband. Niall’s eyes widened as he saw the blinking number. 10. Odiana had only ten units of magic left, enough for only a single tiny spell.
Behind Niall, Aisling gasped.
“I’m lucky,” she said. “I still have a little left, enough to keep me alive. So many died—”
“He can’t do this to you.” Rage burned in Niall’s chest. How had this happened? Laneth was a Aedifex, a builder. His job was to make cabinets and mend fences. He should never have been able to assemble so much power. With enough atern to power an entire university, Laneth could perform any spell he wanted. He was the most powerful man in the whole of the fae realm, and he had a machine that could strip that atern from anything.
If you’d been there, instead of inside the Hollow, this never would have happened. Guilt crashed against Niall. He was so selfish, thinking only of his own needs when he thrust that note through the door. He should have been more careful. In the wrong hands, that information …
“I’m going to find a way to stop this,” he insisted.
Tears sprung in Odiana's eyes. “It’s too late. He wants inside the Hollow, Niall. He’s assembled an army of followers – desperate fae who he tempts with the promise of unlimited atern. They’re building an enormous ray, big enough to suck all the atern not just from the Hollow, but from the void itself.”
“That’s insane.”
“I know, but he’s insane, so it makes sense. I don’t have much time. He has guards all around the house, so none of us can get to you to warn you. I managed to take out one, but I don’t have long before he’s discovered.”
“Odiana, you have to listen to me. Go get all the Quaesitors you can, as well as any Venators who used to be in my unit, anyone who might stand up to Laneth. Bring them here and I’ll find a way to let you in. It’s safe, I promise. Once you’re inside the house, you’ll be able to figure out how to channel the atern to stop him. Our only chance is to use the atern before Laneth gets his hands on it.”
“Niall, I have to—” Odiana’s mouth hung open. Her whole body stiffened. She stared down in surprise.
Niall’s eyes followed her gaze. An arrow pierced Odiana’s chest, the bright-red tip poking through the front of her robes, the shaft ringed with blood. She made a gagging sound as she gripped the shaft with both hands, her eyes wide. Pain flooded her face.
“No!” Niall reached for her, meaning to sweep her into the house. Odiana toppled over, hitting the porch with a horrible crack. She didn’t move, her piercing eyes staring up at the gray sky.
Rage boiled inside Niall. This was senseless. Odiana was probably the greatest mind the fae had produced in decades, and now she was dead because she’d tried to warn him. He was a curse, a poison to anyone who cared about him.
From the gate at the front of the path, Niall caught sight of a figure. Wearing the coat of a Venator, the fae’s long fingers gripped an empty bow, his eyes burning with triumph as he regarded the crumpled body of Odiana. He nodded at Niall, and nocked another arrow. He raised the bow, and drew the string back to his ear, a sadistic smile spreading across his face.
Niall slammed the door shut, just as the fae loosed the arrow. The door shuddered as the arrow buried itself in the wood, splintering the door directly in front of Aisling’s face. Aisling cried out, leaping back.
Without thinking, Niall grabbed her, wrapped his arms around her, and knocked her to the ground. He heard the glass shatter, shards skidding across the marble floor.
Aisling lifted her head, her eyes resting on the arrow quivering from the foot of the balustrade. Relief flooded Niall. If he hadn’t pushed her down, that arrow probably would have hit her.
Aisling’s eyes flooded with tears. “You saved my life,” she whispered.
“Of course.” Niall’s eyes glazed over. “I love you, Aisling. Your life is my life.”
Light flooded
his body as the words left his mouth. He’d never meant anything as much as he meant those words. And even if she never forgave him for his lies, even if she refused to talk to him or touch him ever again, it was okay. For he had stripped himself of all the bullshit and avarice, and right here, right now, he was just Niall. And he was a better person for having known her, and that could never be undone.
His arms around her grew heavy, weighed down by the hope that surged through his body as she stared up at him with those huge brown eyes. He could see her weighing up his sins against … against what she felt for him. Would it be enough? He wanted it to be, so so bad.
Aisling pursed her lips, and leaned forward. For one terrified moment, Niall was certain she would spit in his face. But she pressed her lips to his, her tongue seeking out his own. Niall deepened the kiss, pouring all his emotion into it, giving her back all the good that she had given to him. The magic surged around them, wrapping them in heat.
Aisling broke the kiss. “I love you too, and I’m sorry,” she whispered against Niall’s skin.
“You have nothing to be sorry about. I am the one who is sorry. I’ve done a horrible thing, Aisling. I lied to you about why I was here, but I swear to you I didn’t come here to hurt you. I just wanted to save my brother. I’ve been sending notes to Odiana, just telling her that I’m okay, that she shouldn’t worry, and that the ray she gave me didn’t work. I wanted it to work so my brother could be free, so I’ve been researching the house’s magic in your family books, as you probably guessed. The last note contained the notations for the spell that bound the magic to the house. I found it in your grandmother’s diary. I thought Odiana could use it to free us both, as well as pay off my brother’s debt, but I was such a fool. I forgot what a fae would do for power, because of you, because you’ve made me a different man, a better man. But I should have realized. Now, Laneth will come and destroy the Hollow and take all the magic for himself. I don’t deserve you.”
Hollow: Isa Fae paranormal romance (Fallen Sorcery Book 2) Page 17