Page 33 of A Kiss from the Fae (Mistress of Magic #2)
The door opened and closed, and their voices trailed away, leaving Faye alone. Carefully, she opened the cubicle door, stepped into the communal space and stared at herself in the mirror.
A few weeks ago. About the same time that she’d come home to find Mallory in the flat. They’d likely kissed. Mallory and Rav. And he’d lied about it.
He’d had the nerve to make her feel guilty. And the even greater nerve to send her off for coffee with his…whatever Mallory was, to make nice. To make friends. Presumably so that he and Mallory could carry on their affair behind her back without her suspecting anything.
She couldn’t go back to the table and pretend everything was okay. She wouldn’t be able to keep up any pretence that she hadn’t heard what she’d heard.
Faye pushed the door to the ladies’ bathroom open and stepped out back into the main room, keeping to the wall.
While she’d been in the bathroom, a DJ had started a set, and a lot of people were dancing already.
She watched their drunk, jerky movements, looking for Rav.
He wasn’t much of a dancer, so she wasn’t surprised not to see him there, though Roni had joined the fray and was flailing around flamboyantly in his shirt and trousers, having taken his jacket off.
Faye kept to the wall and walked along it, scanning the crowd. She didn’t want to talk to Rav; she was too angry. But she needed her coat and bag. She was leaving, and she didn’t want him trying to persuade her to stay, or worse, to have a huge argument in front of everyone.
He wasn’t anywhere near the table, so she made her way quickly to where she’d left her bag and picked it up, avoiding the glances of the people standing around it talking.
Sumi waved at her from the bar, beckoning her over, but Faye only smiled and pointed off into the room as if she was needed elsewhere.
It was then that she saw them. Mallory had her hand in his, half-dragging him to the dance-floor; Rav was protesting, but the crowd of friends around them were pushing him towards the other bodies, laughing; he was laughing, too.
He wasn’t looking for Faye, and he wasn’t refusing Mallory; his hand stayed in her grip.
Faye watched as Rav and Mallory joined the writhing bodies, jumping and moving to the heavy beats that filled the warehouse like a pulse. Her own heart pounded along with it, but it was anger and sadness that fuelled it.
She couldn’t do this, couldn’t stay here and watch them, whatever was going on.
And if Rav truly wanted to forget the faerie kingdom, then he’d be better off with Mallory and not her.
Faye had tried so hard to iron down, reduce and minimise her faerie half for his benefit, but none of it had worked.
She’d always feel out of place with his friends, no matter how nice they might try to be.
That part of her, the velvety shadow that knew the faerie realms still wanted her; they were as much her home as the human world.
Like a mermaid, to restrict herself to this world would be like cutting out her tongue and walking on knives.
She couldn’t go on with someone who didn’t want all of her.
Without thinking, she picked up a white napkin from the table and wrote a note to Rav.
I’m going to stay at Annie’s for a while. I don’t know if anything’s going on with you and Mallory, but if it is, maybe it’s better for you than this. I can’t be what you want me to be. I need some space.
Faye
Blundering out of the door, she wiped tears from her eyes.
She needed to think clearly and sat down on the empty bench under a nearby bus stop. Thinking of the faerie reel had made her think of Aisha again.
She got out her phone and composed a message to Gabriel.
Hey. I need your help, are you around?
She pressed send and watched the screen as the message was delivered and then read. Almost immediately, Gabriel replied: Of course, silly question. Always available. What, where and when?
I’ll text a list of stuff. Can you bring it and meet me? I’ll meet you outside the Greenwich foot tunnel. Island Gardens side . Need you for impromptu ritual. I know what I have to do.
A car’s headlights washed over her as it drove up the empty street.
Faye pulled her coat around her. She still wasn’t that used to the city, and being out alone at night in this strangely quiet part of it was unnerving.
She took a deep breath, made sure she kept her phone in her hand in her pocket if she needed it and started walking to the meeting place.
She’d get there first, but there was a tube station nearby, and at least that was a better place for her to wait for Gabriel.
Okay. Be with you in half an hour , he replied.
Faye fired off a list in a separate text as she walked: lamps or candles – it would be dark out at the riverside at night, especially somewhere quiet, which was what she needed – incense in some kind of portable censer, a cup. The rest, they could make do with what there was when they got there.
She didn’t know for sure if something was going on between Rav and Mallory, but the fact that there was enough of a rumour going around that the girls in the toilets were discussing it openly made Faye’s stomach tense with anxious sadness.
She was angry, too – she hadn’t liked seeing Rav dance with Mallory, no matter how innocent it may have been.
If he’d kissed Mallory, could she forgive him?
She paced up and down, waiting for Gabriel. When he arrived twenty minutes later, wearing a black trench coat and fedora and carrying a Fortune’s tote bag, she gave him a fierce hug. He hugged her back, surprised.
‘What’s this all about, Faye? Are you okay?’ Gabriel untangled himself from the hug and peered concernedly into her eyes. ‘You’ve been crying.’
She felt the tears well up in her eyes again but wiped them away. A car’s headlights swept the street outside and disappeared again, leaving the orange-tinted streetlights to punctuate the dark.
‘I’m okay. Thanks for coming.’
‘I told you I’d help if you needed it. I’m your friend.’ Gabriel tipped his hat to Faye and handed her the tote bag. ‘All as requested. The lamps are battery-powered, small but surprisingly bright. Don’t worry, I put a lighter and some real candles in there as well.’
‘Thanks, Gabriel. I appreciate it,’ Faye replied quietly. ‘Come on. Let’s walk along a bit. There’s a sheltered part of the beach just around the corner. The wall means if anyone comes along, which I doubt, we won’t be seen.’
‘Right you are.’ He linked his arm in hers.
In the night, Faye thought she heard a refrain that sounded like Dal Riada, Finn Beatha’s band.
She shivered at the eerie noise: a flute playing a soft, sad song on the evening breeze.
She gathered her coat closer across her chest, feeling a sense of foreboding. They crossed the road into the shadows.