‘Why…a child?’ Faye stammered.
‘I have my reasons.’ Levantiana regarded Faye impassively. ‘Or, I can wave my hand, and they will take you. And they will put you and your lover in the darkest place in this castle and leave you to rot there. It is your choice.’ She smiled icily. ‘And believe me,sidhe-leth, the dungeons here are filled with horrors you cannot comprehend.’
‘That is no choice!’ Faye cried. ‘Please don’t ask this of me.’
‘Another plea. You humans are full of wants, and yet when your pleas are answered, you do not like the solutions,’ Levantiana snapped. ‘You are human. You can have other babies; as many as you wish. You will not miss one. And I assure you that it will be well taken care of. It will live as a prince or princess of Murias.’ There was no compassion in Levantiana’s eyes; no understanding that a baby was anything other than a possession or a pet. ‘Choose. Quickly.’
I managed to get Rav away from Finn, Faye reasoned.SoI can make this right, too. For now, I can agree to the pact. I don’t have to do it.
‘All right. I agree to your pact,’ she said. ‘Now. Get us out of here.’
Levantiana smiled. ‘You will have to leave a different way than you came in,’ she called over her shoulder as she hurried along, pulling her cloak around her. ‘He is watching the labyrinth.’ She stopped suddenly and opened a golden door in the wall where none had been before.
‘Through. Quickly,’ she chided. Faye helped Rav over the step of the golden door, and out onto the narrow crystal walkway to the Crystal Castle. He stumbled but managed to stay upright.
‘Are you going to be okay?’ Faye asked him in a low voice. He nodded.
‘I can do it. Let’s just go as fast as we can,’ he replied, his mouth set in a grim line of pain.
Levantiana raised her arms over her head and called out something in the language of faerie.
There was a ripple on top of the blue-black water, and the head of the black kelpie Faye had only half believed was real emerged from the water. Though she had ridden it successfully once before, now the creature terrified Faye. It had taken Rav from her; it had been Finn’s creature as easily as it had been hers.
‘Now. There is no time,’ Levantiana reprimanded. ‘Do not be afraid. It will do as I command.’ Full of misgiving, but knowing she had no other option, Faye climbed on the kelpie’s back and pulled Rav on with her.
‘Put the kelpie scale over the man’s nose and mouth,’ Levantiana called up to Faye. ‘It will enable him to breathe underwater.’
‘What about me?’ Faye shouted down from the kelpie’s back; it was rising up out of the water, readying to dive down into the blackness again.
‘Don’t worry,sidhe-leth,’ Levantiana replied, unsmiling. ‘You will breathe without it. You did before.’
39
The last of the midsummer sun caressed the stage, casting its twilight warmth onto the audience. Some in the crowd held up their palms to the shafts of twinkling softness that spread over their heads like a spell, stroking their fingers through its sparkle. They were chanting, waiting for the headlining band to come on stage:Dal Riada, Dal Riada…
Finn Beatha strode onto the stage, stripped to the waist; his swirling tattoos and the symbols on his warm honey skin were painted over with blue paint, like woad on Scottish warriors going into battle. The side of his face he wore his radio mic on was painted in the same blue, from forehead to chin; on the other side, the audience close to the stage could see a fierce twist to his mouth. Yet, as he bowed to them, the last rays of the setting sun landed on his dark blonde hair, giving him an almost angelic aura.
The first ten rows closest to the stage erupted in a kind of madness: screaming, crying, reaching out for him. Several women sat atop their friends’ shoulders. One tore off her T-shirt immediately and threw it at the stage, exposing her bare breasts. He took the shirt from the stage, straightened up, smiled at herand stroked the shirt over his chest, then threw it back. Two young men, probably in their early twenties, also sat on their friends’ shoulders;WE LOVE YOU FINNwas painted across from one’s chest to the other. Finn blew them kisses which they grabbed excitedly from the air.
‘Abercolme. Finally, we meet!’ Finn drawled as the rest of the band took their places alongside him. The crowd roared. ‘We’ve waited so long to be here. And what finer evening to watch the sun set over the sea than at Midsummer?’
He walked from one side of the stage to the other, cupping his hands in front of his face, blowing something from them into the crowd. You had to be very close to see the glitter on his hands; the front row reached out for it.
‘Blessings of faerie be upon you all!’ Finn cried out, and the crowd laughed and cheered as the first fast riff began, and the music of Dal Riada reached out for them.
Aisha stood in the wings of the stage, her heart in her eyes. This was what she’d been waiting for, what would make all the spreadsheets and phone calls and social media promotion worthwhile. This close, she could see the gold glitter and the braids in Finn Beatha’s hair. She could hear his sweet, rough voice in the second before the mic picked it up, sense the easy strength in his languid pose; this close, he was wild, raw, otherworldly.
As she watched Dal Riada spin, scream and weave their first song for the crowd, Aisha felt the same hypnotic pull she always did when listening to them. It was like finding the lull between sleep and dream. The familiar songs made images in her mind; of long, twisting paths through a forest, of gilded corridors, of a dance that went around and around without ever stopping. She closed her eyes and let the fast melody enchant her body. She was dancing now, spiralling deeper and deeper.
She felt her breasts swell, a strange sensation of them being full and aching for release; as she danced, she opened her eyes and watched Finn, imagining kissing him and touching his warm skin. Her body filled with a deeper sweetness; she remembered every moment of making love to him, taking him inside her. It had been unlike anything else she had ever known. She knew it was different than anything she could expect from a mortal man.
Aisha was impatient with the dreams where he came and spoke to her and filled her with unresolved desire, but also came with messages and requests; things he needed her to do for him in the ordinary world. He had promised and promised: a world beyond this one, where she could merge herself into the fabric of all being. He would show her life at the atomic level. He had spoken to her in the terms she understood, had taken the fascination of her scientific work and woven it into the seductive treasure of his faerie domain. If only she would help him, just a little, here and there…
At first, she had connected to Finn through his music. At the concert, before she had taken Faye outside, she too had been transported to a strange place: a room with a golden four-poster bed, a room hung with blue and green tapestries adorned with strange symbols. Finn Beatha had taken her hand and pulled her onto the bed without any preamble; she was naked, suddenly, and he was kissing her. He stroked her thigh, and she had wanted more, oh, so much more, when Faye had jolted her away from her reverie.
The next night, in a dream, he had told Aisha to take down the hagstone charm that Faye kept hanging by the shop door so that he could enter. He had not told her why. She hadn’t asked.
He had made love to Aisha a week later on the sheepskin rug in front of the hearth, inside the shop, in the middle of the day; she had locked the door behind him, but had not even thought ofbeing seen through the long windows of the shop. He filled her with an unruly, wild lust that made her not herself; she wasn’t Aisha when his fingertips grazed her nipples and she cried out for more; she wasn’t herself when he kissed her neck; when he made her strip naked and stand in front of him. She didn’t think twice about obeying him when he commanded her to touch herself as he watched and then, when she was almost at climax, her belly hot and sweet, made her kneel on all fours. It didn’t escape her that this was the same rug she had, not long ago, sat on while she, Faye and Annie had conjured their love spell. And when he entered her, kneeling behind her, she had welcomed the deep pressure of him bringing her pleasure closer and closer until she ground against him, crying out, and he held her waist and gripped her breasts as he climaxed.
