Cillian frowned. “What’s the wyrding?”
“A barrier between our world and the Fae’s. The lights only ever come out of it. They’re used to clear the way, to prepare the land for theFae to return by killing humans. Witches are the only ones who can stop them. With magic.”
Bran raised his right hand, palm up, fingers slightly curled. In the cage of his fingers, a soft, golden glow sparkled into existence. Cillian didn’t know he’d gasped until the sound rang in his ears. He closed the distance between them, eyes locked on the glittering brightness hovering above Bran’s palm. The light wasn’t like the cold, white flickers of illumination that had hunted them. Instead, it was warm, carrying a softness to it that reminded him of a cozy winter day, when the snow was high and the fire inside was warm.
Cillian let his hand hover over the golden glow held in Bran’s hand, unable to look away. “How?”
“We’re born with it, along with the duty to stand against the Fae.” Bran made a fist, snuffing out his magic, and let his arm drop back to his side. Cillian’s hand hovered over empty air for a moment before he finally dropped his arm as well. “The Fae aren’t anything like the stories you know. They’re powerful and cruel, and they would like nothing more than to return to the world us witches banished them from.”
“And you fight them?”
“No one else can.”
Cillian met Bran’s gaze, cognizant of the wariness in his eyes, the way he held himself so rigid in the wake of his confession. “The Fae killed your mother.”
Bran’s lips trembled for a second before he pressed them together so hard they went white at the seam of his mouth. When he finally spoke, all Cillian could hear in his voice was grief. “Yes. She died giving Aisling enough time for a head start to make it to the cabin near the house. But the Fae put a geas on Aisling so she can’t talk. I don’t know why, of all spells, they used that one.”
“What’s a geas?”
“A type of spell only the Fae use. There are different kinds, and the one on Aisling is for silence.”
“So she can’t talk or scream.” At Bran’s look, Cillian grimaced. “If she couldn’t scream, no one would come looking for her. You said the Fae tried to kill you, but they took her. Sounds like they wanted her.”
If anything, his words made Bran go gray in the face. “She’s not a witch. She doesn’t have any magic. I don’t know why they’d want her.”
“So the creatures can’t get through witchmarks on their own, but they can if the Fae are with them.”
Bran shook his head. “Not every Fae. The witchmarks at the home and Shoppe should have held. But I think the Fae last night was a lord. It would take so much power to rip through my coven’s magical defenses, and he tore through it all like wet paper.”
The idea that Cillian could have come upon the ruined Shoppe and Bran’s dead body yesterday was a nightmare he didn’t want to think about. “Do you think the Fae lord will come tonight?”
“I don’t know.”
Cillian blew out a breath. “All right. We can’t leave until dawn at the earliest, right? So we might as well get comfortable.”
“You want to sleep? Through this?”
One of the creatures outside snarled furiously, the sound deep and haunting. It made Cillian’s skin crawl. “I’d have better luck sleeping near a stack of speakers at a concert. No, I meant let’s sit down. I don’t think either of us will sleep tonight.”
The only place to sit was the bed. Cillian retrieved his rifle, then sat down, laying the long gun over his thighs. After a moment, Bran approached, joining him on the bed, both of them staring at the door that still hadn’t been battered down.
“You’re taking this awfully well,” Bran said however long later.
Cillian laughed, the sound cracking in his throat. “I’m not. But what’s out there is real, just like you, and I’ve always believed in you, even when you left me behind. Believing in the Fae isn’t that far-fetched.”
Bran didn’t need to know about the panicked spiral of his thoughts. He definitely didn’t need to know about all the caution Cillian’s mother had imparted to him over the years and how all of it meant nothing now that he knew what Bran was.
Cillian would never trust a witch, but he’d always trusted Bran, and seven years of silence wasn’t enough to change that for him.
The truth wasn’t enough either.
The night passed slowly, oh so slowly. Neither of them slept,remaining where they were on the bed, the wide space between them diminishing as they shifted position every now and then until their bodies finally touched, taking comfort in the closeness. When the world outside had been quiet for more than an hour and Cillian’s watch said it was getting close to six in the morning, Bran finally stood, grabbing his backpack. “They’re gone.”
Cillian grabbed his wrist, causing Bran to look at him. “How do you know?”
Bran licked his lips, the skin there chapped and bleeding a little from him biting at it all night. Cillian wanted to touch his thumb to those ruined lips and keep them from Bran’s teeth. “Jupiter told me.”
“She talks?” Cillian asked as he stood, hefting up his rifle.
