‘Sylvia! No!’ Faye stared, uncomprehending, at the High Priestess. She tried to move towards her, but a flick of Lyr’s handrendered her immobile. She tried to speak, but he’d taken her words.
‘I see that one of you has common sense. Perhaps this is not Faye’s choice after all.’ Lyr smiled, pleasurable intrigue on his features, and turned to Sylvia. Bathed in the golden luminescence that surrounded him, the High Priestess looked as if she’d been set on fire.
Faye stared wildly at Mallory, frozen like the rest, and watched, powerless, as Sylvia trod noiselessly across the circle and came to stand in front of her. Lyr had enchanted her so easily, and Faye was powerless to stop it.
Mallory’s kohl-rimmed eyes were half closed; her long black coat billowed from her tiny frame like a flag portending death.
‘I’m in charge here,’ Sylvia repeated. ‘This is my responsibility. A High Priestess summons the powers; she does what is right for her coven.’
Faye tried to shout, to say anything, to warn Sylvia, but she was mute.No, please, don’t. She willed Sylvia to resist Lyr. But the faerie king’s power was too great.
‘And this one?’ Lyr ran his fingers through Mallory’s blonde fringe. ‘She is not also one of your charges?’
‘She is not…’ Faye could see that it pained Sylvia to say it, but she continued. ‘She is not an initiate. I have not sworn to protect her, and she has not sworn to be a full member of the coven.’
Faye’s heart sank. Could Sylvia be so heartless? But no. This wasn’t malice. It never was. The faerie kings and queens could manipulate humans into doing whatever they wanted. They had done it to Faye before she’d gained some power to resist them.
‘She will be perfectly safe.’ Lyr stood behind Sylvia, reaching out to trace his finger over Mallory’s cheek. ‘Such a pretty one. She will bear a son.’
‘How do you know?’ Sylvia spoke as if she was in a trance. Faye’s heart sank deeper.
‘I know,’ Lyr replied, smiling.
‘Is there no other way?’ Sylvia’s voice was eerily calm.
‘There is not,’ he said quietly.
‘Take her. But I want Gabriel back. Now!’ Sylvia cried out.
‘As you wish, Priestess.’ Lyr smiled and touched Mallory’s forehead. She unfroze, but her expression was still vacant. Lyr took her by the hand. As he did so, a black pathway appeared through the forest where there hadn’t been one before. Faye knew instinctively it was the road to Falias.
‘Daughter, if you seek the wisdom of plants to rid yourself of your affliction – seek out my sister, the faerie queen Moronoe,’ he said over his shoulder as he took Mallory’s hand in his and led her down the black path that glittered with crystal.
As Lyr and Mallory disappeared, Faye felt herself able to move and talk again. The rest of the coven unfroze and looked around them in expressions of confusion. Some of them stumbled and fell.
Faye knelt at the centre of the circle as branches, twigs and leaves rained down from above her and hugged the inert body of Gabriel Black, who lay unconscious in her arms.
34
Faye sat on the side of Gabriel’s single bed and held the mug of herbal tea to his lips.
‘Drink up. It’s good for you,’ she instructed.
‘What is it?’ Gabriel sat bolstered by pillows, too weak to hold himself up.
‘Valerian for the pain. Turmeric, Yarrow, St John’s Wort.’ Faye tipped up the cup gently so he could drink without having to lean forward. ‘Penny gave it to me.’
The coven had carried Gabriel’s body out of the oak grove, and Manu had called for an ambulance on his mobile phone. Ruby had noticed Mallory was gone.Did she go home?Ruby had asked, like a child awoken from a dream. Sylvia had said,I’ll explain. But not now.Ruby and the others had exchanged glances, but no one had said anything.
Did they understand anything of what had happened? Had they seen it? Faye thought not. She wondered what the High Priestess would tell them. How she’d explain Mallory being taken.I had no choice. It was Gabriel for Mallory, and she isn’t one of us.How callous that sounded under the streetlights. How unreal.
No one said it, but Faye could hear it, nonetheless – all their thoughts were the same.You have caused nothing but chaos since you came. You’re not one of us.They feared her. They thought that she could banish and return people to faerie on a whim. Perhaps they were right.
Faye wanted to tell them there and then what had happened: that she’d screamed at Sylvia not to do it. That Sylvia was as much a pawn in the games that the faerie kings and queens played with humans as anyone else. But it was too much. There were too many of them, and she could hardly breathe from the grief over Aisha that still crushed her chest. Yet now, there was also a blinding relief that Gabriel was still alive.
Faye had taken him home; back to his flat above the shop. Sylvia had lain her hand on Faye’s arm after they had got him into the cab.I’ll make it right, she’d said, desperation in her eyes. Faye had nodded. What else could she do?
Gabriel lay back and closed his eyes.
