“It was unnecessary,” I said.
“There’s nothing wrong with seeking improvement.”
“I know. But…within limits. I’ve sought my own improvement. It’s a hard thing to achieve.”
“What would you wish to improve?”
“Oh, everything,” I said with a smile. “My brains and conversation; my health, my face.”
“I like your conversation. And your face.”
“I would have scarcely believed it before you worked your magic on me. It’s a good thing I can enjoy my own company – I’ll never find a husband now.”
My words fell into a well of silence. He brought his hand to my cheek, and brushed his fingers against my skin, tracing the fresh scars. And then his touch was gone, his hand back by his side.
“I like yours too,” I whispered. “Although”—I reached out and swept his hair behind his ear—“sometimes it’s not easy to see.”
“Would you like me to cut my hair?”
“No. I like you as you are.” His eyes were brighter now his hair was out of the way. How could anyone look into those eyes and come away unsatisfied?
“Good night, Aideen. I’ll sleep well with you by my side.”
I stayed awake until his breath slowed and his eyelashes fluttered with dreams. Beyond the safety of Faol’s protection, the Night Mage screamed and howled and made itself known, reminding us of the little time we had left.
But I was not afraid.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I woke to a lonely bed. I rested my hand on his pillow, remembering the things we’d said, and imagining other conversations that might always remain in my head.
I found him in his study, writing into a diary, and brought him a fresh cup of coffee. Today he was dressed in forest green, with a grey and silver waistcoat. I was still getting used to the storm-blue hair.
“Have you stumbled upon anything new?” I asked, putting the cup down beside him. I leaned against the desk and gripped the edge, resting my already-weary limbs.
“Moranda killed my mother, but never told me. I’m having difficulty seeing past it.”
“Have you spoken to her?”
He leaned back in his chair, cup in his hands. Unusually, his shirt sleeves were rolled up to his elbow, revealing a smattering of freckles on his forearms.
“No,” he said. “She will not listen. I must do this myself.” He pulled a sheet of paper out from beneath the diary. “What do you think? Is it a likeness?”
He’d drawn the Night Mage. And it was a remarkable likeness, and almost too realistic.
“You never said you could draw,” I said.
“I’m average at best.”
“I could never do this,” I said, holding the paper against the light. The lines of ink were so fierce and seemingly haphazard, yet they all came together beautifully – if you could call a drawing of the Mage ‘beautiful’.
“Perhaps I should have been an artist instead.”
I handed it back to him, but he said, “Keep it. I’ve looked at it long enough.”
I folded up the drawing and slipped it into my pocket. “Have you eaten?”
“Yes I’ve eaten,” he said shortly. “I don’t know where to go from here. I’ve written it all out. I don’t know how this helps us. Can you remember anything else from the castle’s heart?”
I shook my head. “Only the Mage itself, and the woman screaming. And—”
“Soon you will see.” He slammed the cup on the desk. “See what? My eyes have been open for years and I’ve seen nothing!” He flounced from the study without further explanation. I closed my eyes until his footsteps disappeared into silence, then collected the cup and washed it in the kitchen. Cal was there, watching the dust motes in the sunshine. I sat on the floor beside her.
“Pretty,” I said.
“Some think it’s fairy dust.”
“That would be more interesting, I guess.”
“Really? How so?”
I shrugged. “Fairies are more interesting than dust.”
“Dust is bits of dirt and skin,” Cal informed me. “Think of the story attached to each speck of dust.”
“Yuck. I don’t want to think about bits of old skin.” I pictured the shrunken head of Faol’s mother, and shook the image from my mind. “I don’t know what to do about Faol. You know him better than me.”
“Is he off on a strop?”
“Yes, I’m afraid so.”
“He does that a lot,” said Cal.
“I wish he wouldn’t.”
“You can’t change him, so don’t go wishing.”
Again, I saw Faol’s mother; heard her plea to the demon.
“I don’t want to change him,” I said firmly. “But I can still express irritation at his volatile moods.”
“Expression is allowed. I don’t know how to help you, Aideen. I’m just a blue blob. But I don’t think you’ll work it out in separate wings of the castle.”
“I don’t know where he’s gone.”
“I imagine the castle will lead you to him. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this castle is enchanted.”
After my rest on the floor, I had enough stamina in my limbs to carry me through the castle. The first corridor I came across held many locked doors. It twisted into a staircase, and on the second floor was a dark archway. I stepped through, and found myself in the disused ballroom. The mirror was in its usual position. And this time, Faol stood in front of it.
My own reflection appeared behind him in the glass. The whorls on my face were faint, but still visible even from a distance. I doubted any make-up would ever cover them. But I didn’t care: they would be my souvenir of my time in the castle with Faol.
My focus moved from my reflection to his, and in the glass, our eyes met. In the glass, he turned away. In the ballroom, he blocked my view, he was standing so close.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I swore to myself I wouldn’t drag you down with me. And yet here we are. You have to prepare yourself, Aideen. I don’t have the books, the supplies, or the talent to defeat the Mage. I can’t do it… My mother was right. I am good, but not great. I’ll never be great.”
As he spoke, I shook my head. “You are a great man.”
“No, I’m not. You don’t know what it takes to be a mage. And if every other student has faced the same battles as me, then I doubt they were lumbered with such limited resources, or seven years of solitude, or daily reminders of their own ineptitude.”
“Faol. Stop, please stop. Moranda says you have all you need—”
“Moranda can’t be trusted. She killed my mother, Aideen. My mother might have shared her life with a demon, but she was still my mother. And because of Moranda, I never knew her. I worked with Moranda for years; she had ample opportunity to tell me the truth.”
My eyes fell upon the hollow between his collarbones. Your mother brought about her own destruction, I thought, but didn’t tell him. “You can’t give up,” I said instead.
“I won’t. But…you should still prepare yourself for the worst.”
“If the worst is being trapped in a magical castle with you and Cal forevermore, I will count myself lucky.”
“Don’t be a fool, Aideen. You’ll never see your friends or family again. Never set foot beyond the walls of this castle.”
“I’m well aware of what it will mean,” I said. “And I don’t want us to be prisoners. But, there are worse fates I could suffer. Believe me, I’ve spent many years pondering them all.”
“I wish that weren’t true.”
“And I wish I could undo moments in your past as well.”
He smiled wryly. “I wish so too.” His smile faded. “But…we need to focus on our future.”
I saw my future, and the different paths it might take, the futures I feared and wished for. And I placed a palm on Faol’s chest and looked into his eyes, and kissed him.
I drew back an inch, creating space between our lips, asking the question. And he answe
red, returning the kiss, wrapping me in his arms. I tasted the coffee on his tongue; feel each of his fingers as they squeezed my waist, pulling me in close. I pushed up onto my toes so I could wrap my arms around his neck without hurting him. My arms ached from the Mage’s fire, but I didn’t care. The pain was worth just one of Faol’s kisses.
I’d been kissed before, but never like this. Never like I was the only girl in the world worth kissing.
“I’d like a future with you in it,” I whispered, my lips brushing his cheek.
He ran his hand up into my hair, cupping my head. “Be careful what you wish for.”
I held his face in my palms and said, “I’d like to kiss you again, but I doubt it will help us beat the Mage.”
He smiled and kissed the top of my head. “Life is cruel.”
I wrapped my arms around him and rested my chin on his shoulder, watching myself in the mirror. Watching us. I played with the ends of his hair, wrapping the blue around my fingers.
“Soon you will see,” I recited. “See what?”
“Who knows,” he mumbled.
“But I heard it. And here it is on the mirror. Who gave you the mirror?”
“Moranda gave me the m—” He pulled out of my hold. His face turned ghastly pale. He stared at himself in the mirror, hollow-eyed. “Aideen… Do you have the drawing of the Mage?”
I unfolded the paper and handed it to him. “Here. Faol, tell me what you’re thinking.”
He stared at the drawing, and then at the mirror.
“I see,” he said. A tear painted a line down his cheek.
I shook his arm. “Don’t leave me in the dark. Tell me.”
“It’s me.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Night Mage. It’s me. It’s part of me.”
I remembered the black twin of his mother, standing in the cave.
“But, you’re not possessed by a demon!”
He crumpled the paper in his hand. “Clearly, I am.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Faol was not possessed by a demon.
That thing, that monster, that did not come from inside him.
I refused to believe it.
Faol marched through the castle, apparently forgetting that my legs were still sore and unable to move with speed. When I asked him where we were going, he said,
“To speak with Moranda.”
I had the horrible feeling that any conversation with Faol’s master would only make matters worse.
Moranda did not appear in her mirror when Faol summoned her, and I had to watch him pace the room, his anger building, while we waited on her arrival.
The mirror flashed with light.
“Faol? What is it now?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he lashed at the mirror.
“Tell you what?” Moranda asked in a bored voice.
“About my mother. About the true nature of the Mage.”
“So you’ve figured out a piece of the puzzle. Congratulations, Faol. I was beginning to lose all hope. Tell me what you know.”
“The Mage is my reflection,” he said. “My brother from the Otherworld.”
She smiled. “Well done. How did you open your eyes after so many years?” She looked to me. “Did you help him?”
“He did it all himself,” I said. “He needs no help from me.”
“I disagree,” said Moranda. “Well, Faol. Answer my question.”
“I saw the likeness.”
I scrunched up my face. There was no likeness between Faol and the Night Mage. None whatsoever.
“And now I know more of the nature of demons. I saw what happened. And I found your heads. It’s nice to see my mother’s face.”
Moranda’s mask fell away for a heartbeat, long enough to spot the remorse. “A mage’s work is not always easy.”
“Will Aideen shrivel my head and join it with the Mage’s? Is that how this will work?”
“Of course not. Do you see mages walking around with no heads?”
“Then…I don’t understand. The Mage is a demon of mine. How else do I destroy it?”
“Not all demons are the same, Faol. That is all I will tell you. I’ve already helped you enough.”
He snorted. “Help? You?”
“Yes,” she snapped. “I have helped you, Faol, again and again. Now get back to your study and keep working. The moon is growing, and you’re running out of time.”
Moranda vanished from the mirror.
“I think I hate her,” he said.
“Hate is a strong word,” I replied.
“I have strong emotions.”
“I think everyone does.”
He stuck his hands in his pockets and sighed. I wanted to go to him, to comfort him, but our kiss seemed like it belonged in someone else’s memory. Certainly, he showed no signs of needing the reassurance of my embrace.
“We should go to the library,” he said.
“I thought it was destroyed?”
“It is. Mostly. But we should be able to salvage books from the wreckage.”
I didn’t know what he expected to find in the ruins of the library, and didn’t ask to find out. Our route to the library was completely different from the well-trod path we’d used the previous week. I kept my eyes to the ground. Every time I caught a glimpse of Faol, I couldn’t help but see the Mage, and his mother in the cave, and the shrunken heads, and then his head, shrivelled and grotesque.
The door to the library had been blown away. And inside, it resembled a war-zone. All the tables had been smashed; the chairs too. There were huge bites in the wall, and worrying cracks in the ceiling.
“I’m not sure this is safe,” I said.
“You can stay outside.”
I rolled my eyes behind his back. “And leave you here? I don’t think so.”
“Help me search then. I’m looking for anything I can find on Moranda.”
“Faol, I don’t think that will help us.”
“Do you have any better ideas? No. So help me look.”
I picked my way through the debris, keeping a distance from Faol. I pulled out all the salvageable books and stacked them in piles. We could take them back to the study if necessary. I reached for a fat green book, and dropped it.
Something dark moved beneath the skin of my hand.
I blinked, and it was gone. Had I imagined it? The light was erratic in the library, and I was tired and still recovering from the Mage’s fire. I told myself it was nothing to worry about, and continued with my rescue mission.
But my head was light. I sat down amongst the rubble. Within moments, Faol was by my side. He put his palm against my forehead.
“You’re too hot,” he said.
“I don’t feel it.”
“You’re sick. You should be in bed.”
“I want to help. I want to stay with you.”
“I’ll work faster knowing you’re safe.” He scooped me into his arms. I gave in and rested my head against his chest.
“At least bring me a book to read,” I said.
“No. You need to sleep. Your body needs to heal.”
He carried me all the way up the turret and to his rooms, as I’d done after he’d overreached in the castle’s heart. He untied my boots and tucked me in, fussing over the pillows. He brought me water, and a heel of bread and jam.
He kissed my cheek before he left.
I fell asleep almost immediately, and didn’t wake until the sun was low in the sky. I propped myself up and ate the bread, drank the water.
Moranda.
I put myself in her shoes, working through all Faol had told me, but seeing it through Moranda’s eyes.
Faol returned in the late evening, on the cusp of darkness, with a book tucked under his arm. He checked my temperature and fawned over me, until I convinced him I was feeling a lot better. And then I remembered the black pulse beneath my skin. I surreptitiously eyed my hand; the skin was clear. If I saw it again, I’d tell Faol. But he had eno
ugh on his plate, and he needed to focus all his energy on solving the puzzle of the Mage.
He sat on the bed beside me, and I asked, “When can you tell if a child has magical abilities?”
He frowned, before replying, “Around age three, I think.”
“But not babies?”
“No.”
So Faol had been too young to show any talent when Moranda had defeated the demon.
“Don’t you think it’s strange,” I said, “that the same master who trained you also destroyed your mother’s demon?”
“Not really.”
“Well, I think it is. And Moranda said she’d helped you again and again. Do you think she helped your father?”
Faol pulled a face. “Moranda’s not the motherly kind. If it helped her career, then perhaps she’d have considered it. But my father was of little use to anyone.”
“That seems unfair. He must have lived a difficult life, looking after you on his own.”
“You know nothing about his life, Aideen.”
“I know… I’m sorry.” I still thought he was being harsh. “What’s in the book?”
“Poetry. Moranda wrote it.”
“She writes poetry?”
“So it would seem,” said Faol.
“And you haven’t read it before?”
“She’s written hundreds of books. I’ve read most of them. This”—he rapped the cover—“is hardly worthy reading for a trainee mage.”
“If you think so little of the book,” I said, “why have you brought it here?”
He tossed the book up to where I was sitting. “I thought you might like it.”
I smiled, in an attempt to elicit one from Faol. “Only if you read it to me.”
And to my amazement, he agreed. He lit the fire and dragged one of the chairs to my bedside. “I warn you, these won’t be good.”
“Just read.”
And he did. And no, Moranda’s talent for poetry was woeful compared to her prowess in magic, but I was happy to lie back and listen to Faol – even if the recital was peppered with scoffs and snorts. The heat from the fire helped soothe the pain in my arms and legs. My head began to clear, and soon I drifted into light dreams, carried away by the lull of his words, until silence tugged me back from the edge of sleep.
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