Page 24 of A Kiss from the Fae (Mistress of Magic #2)

I’m here for Aisha , she reminded herself.

This isn’t my home. Looking at the luxury of Lyr’s dwelling though, she felt a pang of sadness.

She could have had this. The comfortable opulence, the status of being the king’s daughter.

She and Moddie could have lived here. They could have been happy; Faye could have had a father.

Faeries don’t make good fathers , her instinct whispered. It’s just a fantasy. You had a family. You were happy.

But Faye felt the old, clutched-at longings of the fatherless child resurfacing; the hunger for a father, to be like the rest of the children.

To have family holidays and in-jokes and memories, afternoons playing board games and catch at the beach.

Not to feel that loss, that sadness, that sense that Moddie and Grandmother were doing their best to replace a shadow, a father that wasn’t there, but was noticeable by his absence. Being all the more jolly to compensate.

Perhaps Moddie wouldn’t have died if we had been here.

If he hadn’t left us . The thought rose up, unexpected and hurtful, from that same bruised childhood memory, but she pushed it away.

There was no way she could know that, and it wasn’t true, anyway.

Moddie had had a stroke; sudden, unusual at her young age, but not unheard of.

Like being struck by lightning. Yet, that same voice nagged at Faye.

She died of a broken heart. How many more years could she have had if it had never been broken in the first place?

She felt tears threatening and pinched herself again, hard.

In her childhood stories, characters had often pinched themselves to see if the wondrous places they visited in their adventures were real.

But Faye dug her nails into her own skin for the pain that would eat her sadness.

She remembered doing it as a child, with other habits that she now recognised as self-harming: pulling and biting the skin around her fingers until it was sore and bled; scratching her legs until she created sores; biting the insides of her mouth.

There was a satisfaction in all these things. Wounds were distractions.

At the back of the lodge, she could see an ornate glass-walled room, like an orangery or a summerhouse.

In it, plants and herbs were garlanded from the roof, and a low circle of hedge was arranged in the middle, with what looked like an altar at the centre.

On it, Faye could see three large pillars of smoky quartz, each easily a foot high, surrounded by smaller tiger’s eye, clear quartz and what could have been black obsidian crystals.

She’d seen crystal grids like this before, though never with crystals that big; she could feel the power coming from them like a huge battery, even from the next room.

In her shop, she sold books that told people how to set up crystal grids – laying small, pocket-sized crystals in patterns and energising them with a particular aim in mind.

She wondered if this was the same thing but on a much grander scale.

A hammered bronze table with a large copper bowl filled with unfamiliar fruits on top of it was placed in the middle of the room within Faye’s reach. Lyr clapped his hands and a small, bearded faerie man wearing a brown apron knotted around his waist appeared.

‘Wine for my guest,’ Lyr ordered, and the faerie – was he a gnome, Faye wondered?

– chose a tall, black glass decanter, from which he poured a rich red liquid into an elegant copper goblet and offered it to her.

Faye hesitated – she wanted to keep a clear head here.

But she needed to manage Lyr; to hide her feelings from him to get what she wanted from him: a favour, an intercession into another faerie realm perhaps.

If being in Falias was bringing back some powerful and confusing childhood emotions, they were nothing compared to the pain Aisha was suffering now.

So, she took it with good grace and raised the cup to her lips.

‘To you.’ Lyr raised his goblet and drank deeply; Faye followed suit. The wine was rich and sweet, like berries bursting in her mouth. It was powerful, but drinking it made her feel more focused: the opposite to the faerie food and drink in Murias.

‘Thank you. Why is it that the wine here – and the place itself –doesn’t make me giddy and confused as in Murias?’ She took another sip, more daringly now.

‘This is your home. Earth is your natural element, both as my daughter and as a human woman. If you were not half fae, this place would still enchant you, like it does our other human visitors. But this place represents everything you are. Murias is the realm of water, and its power is strong; for humans, it is near impossible to withstand the current and the weight of water. The depths that crush a human body are no place to swim, even though you may splash safely enough in the shallows. You survived, as I would. But it is not my realm, and it is not yours.’

‘So, of all the faerie kingdoms, Falias is the…the least dangerous for humans?’ Faye asked, setting her goblet down on the table. A perfumed smoke wafted the smell of orange and something else – was it geranium? – through the lodge.

‘In a sense.’ Lyr smiled. ‘They find a welcome here. Some choose to stay, but as in all of the faerie kingdoms, there is a price. The sacrifice is different in Murias than it is here, but there is always a price.’

‘What is it, then? Here?’ Faye asked.

Lyr set his goblet down and stretched. ‘The question is, Faye Morgan, what would you offer in return for the help you ask of me?’ He stared at her keenly.

‘You ask something very dangerous from me. We are at war with Murias. Even if we were not, I cannot defy the judgement of another faerie king or queen in their own realm. If Finn Beatha has banished you from Murias, I cannot go against his wishes…without very good motivation.’