Page 56 of A Dance with the Fae (Mistress of Magic #1)

Faye ran down the steps of the stage into the crowd. The villagers who were left looked around them as if they were waking up from a dream.

She tried to push her way through the crowd, but they were confused and disoriented. Many were hurt: people sat on the ground, holding arms that might be broken and with cuts and grazes to their faces, legs, anywhere with exposed skin.

Faye looked around in desperation, torn between her instinct to help the wounded and a sense of duty to rescue those who’d been taken.

But then, Grandmother’s voice spoke in her ear, as if she was suddenly next to her.

Don’t judge them for the things they don’t understand, Faye , she said.

Faye felt that if she turned around, she’d see Grandmother there, short and round with her long grey hair twined up in a bun and the ghosts of a life of wisdom and kindness etched into her face.

It is your job to help the people, Faye.

Never forget that , Grandmother’s voice said.

‘But I am trying to help them. The ones who were taken by Finn,’ she protested.

Aye, and ye will . Grandmother’s voice seemed to come from all around her; she was in the wind, in the night, in the moonlight that bathed the chaos around her. But first things first.

Grandmother was always right; Faye had known better than to question her when she was alive, and she certainly wasn’t going to argue with Grandmother in spirit.

For a moment, she closed her eyes and breathed in; in a half-second she felt Grandmother’s hand in hers, like Annie’s that first day at school.

Faye cast one last desperate gaze at the beach below and turned back to the people who needed her.