If she could get everyone out alive.
‘No, your wife is dead and gone, but her secrets live on. In Nicole.’ Aífe smiled thinly at her. ‘The girl who studies myth, and the myth that has been hidden from almost all art.’
Because the gods wanted to remain hidden,Nicole realised.
That was why there were practically no paintings of these Fomóiri or the Irish gods. Even in the height of the Celtic Revival, of Old Masters and mythological subjects, there was nothing reliable. Why had people looked away and abroad for divinity, to the hills and waters of Greece, or the ruins of Rome, when it was slumbering all this time on the Emerald Isle?
Because, despite this world being rife with different creatures, gods were a realm apart. They had always been something else, somethingmore.
So the Fomóiri let people forget the Irish divinities in favour of the Greek ones. Let them forget their immortal enemies the Túatha Dé.
In Ireland, those legends seemed to live on in place names and stories. But outside it? The Irish diaspora had been forced to forget them like they had their language.
The truth only slivered into the minds of the masses through scraps of folklore, as the unacknowledged inspiration to fantasy novels, or in the minds of mythological specialists and the songs of folk musicians …
‘I knew Freya had a piece of the puzzle,’ Aífe continued, ‘and that she’d squirrel it away like she did with all the other items and gifts the gods had given her. That she’d probably use code after code. Her mind was just soexhausting. I thought, who could figure it out instead?’ She grinned. ‘Her daughter. You picked up the pieces for us, and then Alexander was able to bring you in. Finally, we could all be together and this ridiculous epic mess could be fixed.
‘So tell me, Nicole. What’s the secret behind this painting?’
Nicole looked over to the expressionless hunter who stood behind her father.
‘Will that make you let us go?’ she asked.
She kept her expression earnest, even if she planned to give Aífe the smallest truth she could.
If she played this right, it would work.
‘Nicole,’ her father warned.
‘Shut up,’ Aífe ordered. ‘Your children are more useful than you’ll ever be. Your powers were stripped; this is all you can offer.’ She had the nerve to flatten her lips, as if she was disgusted. As if she was more than a god, even one whose powers were so drained.
‘Let’s hear it then,’ Aífe said. ‘What did dear Mummy tell you? Hm?’
Nicole glanced to her family, allowing a hint of concern through. This had to look real. From the feel of Aífe’s displeasure burning into Nicole’s cheek, it was working.
‘I—’
‘Spit it out.’
‘She told us who the Wake are.Whatthey are.’
A flicker of strange displeasure went through Aífe’s eyes and a primal alarm began in the back of Nicole’s brain.
‘And what might that be?’
‘They—’ Nicole swallowed. ‘They’re gods. Demon Gods.’
The woman waited a beat. ‘That’s it?’
‘… Yes. Isn’t that enough?’
Aífe’s eyes slid to Nicole’s father, as if assessing whether Nicole had known there was a god in her life the whole time. If that really was the information they had learned.
‘And what did you plan to do with that information?’ Aífe purred.
‘I—we didn’t know.’ That was the truth. The knowledge alone wouldn’t help them defeat the Wake unless they shared it and perhaps could turn supernatural society against them. Otherwise, they needed goddessblood to fight the Wake, and win.
‘I don’t believe you,’ Aífe said.
