But she was being pushed closer and closer to Finn, and Faye couldn’t fight against the tide.
Don’t look this way, she silently begged. A few more moments and Finn would see her; he’d know that she had broken through the labyrinth, despite his best efforts to keep her out.
Carefully, she reached into her pocket and took out one of the rose petals.
Faye caught another glimpse of Rav and shouted his name, but the music was too loud.Please see me,she willed him, but she feared that Rav was too far lost. She could see that a nixiewas laughing, pulling at Rav’s hair; on his other side, a bare-breasted faerie with beautiful blue wings and violet hair floated in front of him, laughing when Rav pulled away as she tried to kiss him. He was covered in blood, and his eyes were wild with fear and anger.
She could no longer see Finn at all.
Now, Faye said to herself. She thrust her hand up into the air and launched the petal as hard as she could, expecting it to float down to the floor. And as she let the petal go, she shouted the words Moddie had, just moments before in the labyrinth, hoping for the best. ‘Tar a thighearna…Tar a thi!’
The rose petal floated upwards, growing in size.
The music continued and the dance spun Faye around, but the petal spread wider and wider above them until it covered the whole dance, hanging above their heads like a silk barrage balloon. Some of the faeries stopped and looked up, but most were too lost in the dance, and the ones who had stopped were in danger of being trampled.
‘Tar a thighearna…Tar a thi!’Faye shouted again, and the petal split into a million pieces, falling onto the dancers like rain.
The dance stopped, and every single faerie was frozen to the spot. Only the humans left among them moved; some cried out, but most of them slumped to the ground in exhaustion, their faerie captors no longer whirling them around. One girl, trapped in the frozen arms of her toad-faerie suitor, screamed to be let go, but the toad’s legs grasped at her greedily even under the enchantment.
At the other side of the hall Faye saw Finn, rooted to the spot, his gaze trained on her. She halted in fear for a moment, heart beating wildly. Finn’s eyes watched her keenly, but he didn’t move.He can see. He knows I’m here. She had betrayed and disobeyed him, and his eyes burned with fury.
I have made my choice, she thought, and met his gaze. The fury in his eyes was far from the adoration he had shown her before, and it awoke her like a sharp slap. She didn’t love Finn; now that she could see him without being under his control, she knew it was not love. It had never been love, and he did not love her. Finn Beatha did not love anyone; he took who and what he wanted and used them until they had nothing left to give.
Faye pushed through the inert bodies, through the strange, gnarled limbs and the ripped wings, to Rav, who was still lashed to the pillar. Pain was written across his face; the skin on his knees was ripped to shreds from crawling on the jagged floors, and blood dripped from his many wounds.
‘Rav. Hang on,’ she cried.
His eyes widened in disbelief. ‘Faye? You’re here? How?’ he stammered. The sheen of faerie was in his eyes; his pupils were dilated and sweat was pouring off him. Faye could feel Finn’s stare burning her back.
‘Never mind. I’m going to get you home,’ she said, and began undoing his binds.
With Rav leaning on her, they staggered through the ballroom, edging past rigidly still yellow-skinned goblins, diminutive flower faeries and beast-like creatures for which Faye had no name. She turned her eyes away from the humans that lay here and there, bodies that had slowly had the life trampled from them.
They passed a girl who was still alive; her skin was sunken, barely even covering her bones. Too weak to raise an arm, she made a pleading noise as they stumbled past.
‘We can’t leave them like this.’ Faye stopped and held out a hand for the girl; the change in her stance tripped Rav, who stumbled and steadied himself on a pillar. Faye crouched close to the girl, cradling her head on her lap. Faye couldn’t carry heras well as support Rav, and the girl was so frail, so thin, that Faye felt she would break if she tried to move her.
‘What can I do?’ she asked the girl softly, her heart breaking. She felt a rush of anger at Finn.How could he do this?And then she was angry at herself, too. For not seeing. Her feet might have trampled this girl as she danced with Finn, heedless of the horrors that lined the great hall. She had been seduced. She had been stupid and powerless.No more, she vowed to herself angrily.
‘Kill me,’ the girl whispered, her voice a rasp of desperation. ‘Please.’
‘No! I can’t leave you here. I’ll find a way. Just stay with me, all right?’ The girl’s eyes fluttered closed; she was barely conscious. ‘Stay with me! Come on,’ Faye cried, but the girl whispered something; Faye had to put her ear to the girl’s lips to make it out.
‘It’s too late,’ she said. ‘This is…’ The girl coughed and Faye reached for her hand and held it, feeling powerless, hopeless. ‘I stayed longer than I should…’
The girl coughed again, and Faye knew she was already too far away.
‘I’ll stay with you, then,’ Faye said, but she could see some of the faeries beginning to break free of the magic she had cast. There were too many of them to be held off for long.
Faye remembered Grandmother telling her:The fae have their own ways, and it’s not for us to judge.The rules saidMorality does not exist in the faerie realms. Tread carefully there.
But it was impossible not to judge Murias as she looked around at the twisted and injured human bodies.I am part of this. I am half faerie, she thought, and she felt a terrifying guilt consume her. She hadn’t brought any of these men and women here, and she hadn’t tortured them. Yet, the faerie blood beat inher veins, and she knew what it felt like to revel in the seductive cloak of magic. That made her an accomplice to their suffering.
Rav coughed and Faye looked up; he was pale, and she knew he needed her.
‘Leave me,’ the girl repeated. ‘There’s nothing you can do.’
Faye still had the bag of herbs she had gathered at the coast slung across her body. She opened it and rummaged around, watching warily as the faeries started to move slowly.
