She gazed down at her pack, took a breath to focus her thoughts, and concentrated on her father’s name. “The first cut will be what my father means to me, the second, my relationship with him, and the third, what I mean to him.” Rose made the cuts and stared down at the three stacks, suddenly hesitant to reveal the cards to Niall.
Looking up, she searched his face for any hint of censure. There was nothing but curiosity in his eyes. The tension in her neck eased. Of course he would accept the tarot. He’d just taught her to consult the spirit of a tree, for heaven’s sake. She was so used to hiding this aspect of herself, she couldn’t adjust to the fact that he thought it acceptable.
Rose turned over the first card that showed what her father meant to her, the Eight of Cups. A slender man with a cloud of ash blond hair walked alone down a track into a forest, leaving eight cups lying on the path behind him.
“What does this mean?” Niall asked softly.
Rose glanced up. For a moment she’d forgotten he was watching. “My mother said this means severing emotional ties. But I can’t sever ties with my father because I haven’t got any. Although I did have expectations for the future.” Rose chewed the side of her finger.
“Perhaps ’tis telling you to look for a new relationship to replace the one that never really existed?”
Rose glanced at him, surprised. “It could indicate that.” He seemed to understand the cards instinctively. Maybe divination came naturally to all fairies.
Turning over the top card from the second stack, she stared at the Moon. A little chip of her self-image, carefully shaped and crafted to present an acceptable face to the world, snapped away.
Everything she’d imagined about her father had been false. This card representing her relationship with him spoke of deception, trickery, and lies. The fantasy that had kept her going most of her life dissolved before her.
“’Tis a bad card, Rose?”
“There are no bad cards.”
“But the meaning for you is not good?”
She swallowed the knot in her throat before she could answer. “I’ve definitely been deceiving myself about my father. I don’t think he’ll want to meet me.”
A flash of concern crossed Niall’s face. “Is it possible you’re wrong? You said the cards could be interpreted in different ways.”
“Possible, but I’ve got a really bad feeling about him. This final card represents what I am to my father. Let’s see what it says.” Foreboding crawled through her as she turned the top card on the third pile and revealed the Five of Swords. To win by deceit.
Rose closed her eyes and tried to banish the image of the taunting face on the card. For some reason her father held something against her. At best, he would be indifferent. At worst, he’d blame her for some old hurt.
“I can’t go and visit my father.” Rose shook her head slowly. “This is a terrible reading.”
Niall rubbed his mouth and glanced up at her from beneath his lashes. “Were I you, lass, I’d want to face this before I moved on with me life.”
“I can’t.”
“’Tis up to you, but if you bury a problem, it spreads rot through your mind.” He spoke with conviction, as though he knew from experience.
She couldn’t deny that it made sense to meet her father and get closure on the issue. Rose gathered the cards together and thanked them inside her head. Before she made any decisions on her own future, she was curious to see what her cards told Niall.
“Let’s do the reading for you; then I’ll decide what I’m going to do.” Banishing all thoughts of her own reading, she concentrated on Niall as she shuffled. The sparkle of interest in his eyes made her feel the reading was something worthy, rather than a silly habit. “I al-ways work with three cards.” For the first time in her life, she wished she’d taken the trouble to learn some more complex spreads than the simple three cards her mother had taught her.
“I’ll cut the pack into three again. They represent body, mind, and spirit.”
Once he nodded his agreement, Rose cut the pack and revealed the top card on the first pile. “You’ve got the Four of Swords for body. This suggests you need to rest and recover from something. Or it could represent the calm before the storm.” She glanced up and caught him frowning. “You’re fairly isolated here; have you come to escape from something?”
He laced his fingers and then pressed them to his mouth.
“Does this mean anything to you?” she prompted, trying not to sound too eager.
“Aye.”
Obviously he wasn’t going to satisfy her curiosity, so she moved on to the next card.
“For mind you have the Three of Wands. This one suggests a new project or opportunity.”
He looked doubtful.
“Setting new goals?”
He shook his head.
The only way to help him discover the card’s meaning was to connect with the character. She touched her fingertips to the picture of a man standing on a rocky crag, staring out to sea. Words flowed into her mind and she repeated them for Niall. “You’re on the right path. Allow yourself to see the goal. Destiny awaits.” Withdrawing her hand, she watched for his reaction.
After a sharp shake of his head he said, “Naw. Not going anywhere. No goals. No destiny.”
“I’ll pull the card from the bottom. This shows what’s hidden or unconscious.”
She turned the bottom card faceup. “Ten of Pentacles.” The family card. This one was a surprise. “You want a family to bring you happiness. Maybe to pass on your experience and wealth?”
He laughed, the sound short and sharp in the silence of the room. “So you’re telling me I have a subconscious desire to play happy families?” He cringed. “You’re wrong entirely.” He jumped up from the chair, went to the small kitchen, and poured himself a glass of apple juice. Holding it up he asked, “Want one?”
“Yes.” She watched him fill another glass. What had happened to make Niall so antifamily? His reaction seemed strange, considering he lived with his brother.
“Either the cards are wrong,” he said as he dropped back into his seat, “or you’ve misinterpreted them. Families are nothing but trouble.”
Rose thought it sensible not to pursue the matter. But before she moved on to the next card, she brushed her fingertips across the jovial old man and child on the Ten of Pentacles and one word whispered into her mind.
Dynasty.
Niall wanted to be head of a dynasty? If he did, he was doing a damn good job of hiding his aspirations.
She turned her attention to the final pile and flipped over the top card. The Magician. This had always been her favorite card. The fact hadn’t occurred to her before, but the man depicted in the woodland glade resembled Niall. His hair was a little longer, but the eyes were the right color, and he had the same intense expression on his face that said both so much and so little. “Your spirit card says you are in de pen dent, master of your own fate. You have everything you need to achieve your goals. You’re adaptable, skillful, and in touch with nature.”
When he bent closer to examine the card, the autumn sun picked up chestnut highlights in his hair. His thick, dark lashes accentuated the blueness of his eyes. Need for him tightened around her heart, stole her breath. The feeling expanded and ran through her like a shock wave. For a moment, she wondered if he was using glamour on her.
He looked up, a smile on his face. “This card I like. It feels right.”
She fell into the endless blue of his eyes—not sea, but a cloudless sky where she could fly free. “Yes, right…Niall.” His name hung between them. It no longer felt sharp, but rolled off her tongue. Full of Irish mystery—like him.
“Will you show me the rest of the cards?”
Rose nodded, a burst of pleasure bringing a smile to her lips. “They’re my mother’s design. Reproduced from portraits she painted.”
She hadn’t known how good she’d feel, sharing this part of herself with someone else. She leafed thro
ugh the cards, giving him a few seconds to examine each one.
“Hold your horses.” He leaned forward when she laid the High Priestess on the table. “What’s the meaning of this one?”
“Spiritual enlightenment. When I draw this card, I interpret it to mean I should trust my feelings, look inside myself for guidance. Maybe dig deep to find the talents I need to succeed.”
Niall tapped his hand against his thigh and stared at the card, apparently lost in thought.
“Why are you interested in this one?”
He shook his head. “Just a feeling.”
Rose pointed to the card. “The book she’s holding represents past life and the crystal ball the future. The gray cat curled on her lap represents wisdom and curiosity.”
“Hmm.” Niall drew in a deep breath and sat back. “Have you made a decision about visiting your father?”
Rose gathered up her cards and cradled them in her palm. She stared at the bare branches of a tree outside the window. The thought of visiting her father dragged through her like a spike through mud. Niall was right. She must clear away the dross of her illusions about her father if she were to move on. “Yes. Can you give me directions to where he lives?”
“I can do better than that.” He brushed a fingertip across the back of her hand. “I shall take you to Trevelion Manor meself.”
Rose blinked, amazed that the line of fire he’d traced on her skin wasn’t visible. If she must face the death of her dreams, it would help to have Niall there to give her moral support.
Nightshade stood in the doorway of the summer kitchen at Trevelion Manor. With his back to the sweeping lawn that ran down to the cliffs, he watched Tristan prepare to slice open the belly of a dead rabbit.
It was vital he discover what Tristan’s plans for Rosenwyn were before Niall brought her to the manor.
Sunlight glinted off the scalpel blade as the druid drew a scarlet line through the gray fur. The metallic tang of warm blood filled the room, making Nightshade’s gums sting.
With the methodical strokes of a skilled surgeon, Tristan widened the incision. The intense scarlet of fresh blood coated the druid’s yellow rubber gloves as he pulled the wound apart and eased the animal’s entrails out onto a plastic tray.
“What ever happened to traditional divination tools? Don’t the rubber gloves destroy the message in the entrails?”
“Shh, I’m concentrating.” Tristan held up a hand, and blood trickled down the glove and dripped onto the cracked brown linoleum. Humming tunelessly, he started to poke about in the guts.
Nightshade folded his arms and leaned a shoulder against the door frame, content to be patient, because he already knew what Tristan would discover from the reading.
“The portents are good.” Red flags of excitement blazed on Tristan’s cheeks. “I think Niall will bring the pisky here today.”
Nightshade examined his fingernails, contemplating how much of his nocturnal visit to the Elephant’s Nest he should reveal. He smiled in anticipation of the druid’s surprise. “I could have told you that.”
Tristan looked up, a length of small intestine dangling from his hand. “What’s that?”
Nightshade wandered across to the dirty window framed with rotten wood. He stared at the waves rolling across the English Channel toward France. Let the bastard wait.
“Tell me, stalker, or you’ll suffer.”
From the tone of Tristan’s voice, an empty threat— for now. Nightshade cocked a hip against the counter and examined Tristan’s frustrated expression with satisfaction. “I visited the Nest last night. She’s staying there.”
Tristan dumped the handful of entrails back on the plastic tray. “Bloody Niall. I should know better than to trust him.”
“He didn’t realize who she was.”
“How’s that possible? Niall would sense one of the Good People.”
“She is half human.” Nightshade watched carefully for Tristan’s reaction to the reminder that Rosenwyn was his daughter.
“So?” Tristan turned away, ripped off the gloves, and dumped them in the trash.
“She’s been living as a human for years. You’ never know she has mixed blood unless you were looking for it.”
“Sounds like you picked her out easily enough.”
“I remember her.”
“Ahh.” Tristan walked out to the terrace and stared at the sea.
Nightshade followed him, squinting in the sunlight. “Niall’s bringing her today. Will you ask her to stay?”
If Tristan persuaded Niall that Rosenwyn should stay, it would make Nightshade’s life easier. Then, with her under the same roof, it would be only a matter of time before he made her his own. He suppressed a growl at the thought of her warm blood flooding his mouth, and her sweet, healthy flesh beneath his teeth.
“She won’t be staying here,” Tristan announced.
Nightshade snapped back to reality with a jolt. “Why not? She’s your flesh and blood.”
“I know you want her. Forget the idea. You have me.”
Nightshade bit down on his retort. “Why do you want to see her then?”
“She has some things of mine. I intend to retrieve them.”
“What things?” Before the words faded, Nightshade answered his own question. “The Magic Knot paintings,” he whispered, queasy with horror at the thought of seeing the imprisoned bodies of the piskies.
Tristan faced him. In the brisk sea breeze, clumps of his hair flapped against his skull like bird’s wings. “You do have a brain in that magnificent head of yours after all.” He grasped Nightshade’s forearm, a glint of madness in his eyes. “I want to bring the pictures back here, let the piskies see I have their ancestral home. They’ll wish they’ been kinder to me when they had the chance.” Tristan’s fingernails bit into Nightshade’s arm. “If the girl was raised as human, she won’t realize the paintings are anything more than oil on canvas. I’ll persuade her to let me have them.”
He slapped Nightshade’s cheek, harder than an affectionate pat, but not hard enough to stir the need to retaliate. Nightshade curled his lip at the sting.
Tristan grinned darkly. “Revenge will at last be ours. I’ll force the troop to watch from their painted prisons while I sacrifice the last member of their royal line. Then they’ll know they’re trapped for all eternity.”
Tristan plans to kill Rosenwyn.
Only years of practice held Nightshade steady as the shock of Tristan’s words crashed through him, shattering his brittle new hopes. Thirty years ago he’d craved revenge on the piskies. He’d believed alliance with Tristan gave him a future. Instead, Tristan had destroyed everything that mattered to him. He wouldn’t let the druid kill Rosenwyn.
Rosenwyn is my queen.
The thought of watching Tristan slice open Rose’s belly as he had the rabbit’s weighed sickly in his gut.
Tristan gave him a searching look.
Nightshade smiled slowly, precisely, judging the exact stretch of lips and curve of mouth to indicate pleasure and acceptance. “Wonderful.”
“Come, let’s discuss our strategy for this meeting with my daughter.” Tristan ambled toward the house.
Nightshade stared after him. He already knew his strategy: bite Rosenwyn, bind her to him with blood-lust, then kill Tristan. And if the delicious Niall O’Connor got in the way, Nightshade would be only too happy to bite him as well.
Later that day, Rose drove her car along a narrow Cornish lane, following the arousing sight of Niall’s tight backside straddling his motorcycle.
He signaled and turned left between two massive granite pillars topped with statues of slender dancing figures. She slowed her car and glanced up at their frozen smiles with a hint of disquiet.
The drive ran for half a mile between rambling, unkempt banks of rhododendrons, crossed a bridge spanning a stream, and climbed a hill through stubby woodland buffeted by the sea winds.
As they emerged from the wood onto a drive circling a fountain, Tr
evelion Manor stood before her, a rambling old structure that looked as though it had grown out of the cliffs. The front of the building was wreathed in ropes of creeper bearing withered yellow leaves that fluttered in the sea breeze.
She shivered. Her father certainly liked his privacy. The Elephant’s Nest seemed isolated, but it was nothing compared to this place.
On climbing out of her car, she wrinkled her nose at the smelly, stagnant water and rotting leaves in the fountain. Clumps of yellow and gray lichen clung to the nymph dancing above the bowl, turning what must have once been a pretty statue into a monster.
The Magic Knot Page 9