Page 38 of A Kiss from the Fae (Mistress of Magic #2)

Excerpt from Grainne Morgan’s diary

I love him, and he loves me. Despite the importance of maintaining the balance between the human and fae worlds, we have fallen in love.

The legends do not have anything good to say about this, but I cannot help it.

The sweet delight, the heady sensuality of being with Gwyn in the fae world is indescribable.

The witchfinders grow closer. Some wise women have gone into hiding. Gwyn has offered me protection in the fae realms, but if I go forever, I will die in this world.

I want to go, to be with him, but I need to stay to ensure the future of the Morgan women. I need to stay to be with my daughter and raise her correctly. I cannot go, though my heart longs to.

Faye fought the giddiness that summoned an acid sourness in her mouth as Finn twirled her around and around the ballroom.

As before, the dress that had been laid out for her by the unseen faerie hands fitted her perfectly, but was even more revealing than it had been at the last dance.

This gown was split into two: one side black and one side a coral pink, with gold stitching that held them together, breast to thigh.

The pink half of the dress had a long, flowing skirt and a loose, flowing top part that draped sensuously over the top of Faye’s arm.

The black side of the dress wasn’t even really a dress by any description, but a series of black bands of silk, no more than a few inches thick, that wrapped themselves around the apex of her right breast, waist and hip, and only vaguely covered the triangle between her legs.

One black shoulder strap held the entire right side up.

For jewels, Finn had presented her with a choker and tiara of black opals, with matching earrings that were so long, they trailed on her shoulders.

Faye was wary of any jewels given from the faerie king because of the way he’d used an opal ring in the past as a tool to summon her.

But Finn had insisted that she wear these. When he wasn’t looking, she’d reached for Lyr’s crystal in the slipper hidden under the bed and torn a hole in the narrow doubled-over band of pink silk that made up the waistband of one side of the dress, easing the crystal inside it.

The nausea hadn’t left Faye; in fact, it had grown worse, but she was holding on to her composure as best she could until she could reasonably insist that she sat down for a while and wait for Finn to disappear into the throng.

Faye thought that she knew where she would need to go and planned out her route in her mind as she danced with Finn.

The music was as wild as it had been before.

On stage, at the centre of the dance that revolved around them, three gnome-like faerie fiddlers played a fast reel along with two female ogre drummers and a delicate, reptilian flute player whose webbed blue fingers were almost a blur.

The crowd were as uproarious and extravagant as she remembered, too; bare-breasted nixies danced with fish-headed faeries, winged creatures twirled beautiful and courtly members of the royal house – Faye guessed they were minor royals – and radiant, ephemeral figures that were almost made of pure water or light dipped and wove through the crowd.

Faye didn’t know whether it was the enchantment she was under by being with Finn or whether the floor of the ballroom had changed its state, but the bones and bodies she remembered from before were gone, and she and the rest of the dancers pounded their rhythm on what looked to be a glass-topped water tank.

She’d only glimpsed flashes of it as she and Finn danced, but it looked as though the whole of the ballroom now sat on top of the sea somehow, and shapes and shadows moved under them: sea serpents, strange, gilled creatures, mermaids, the black shadow of a whale.

Faye craned her head to try and see it better, but it was no use; all she saw was the odd, intriguing flash of something, and then the legs and feet above.

‘Faye Morgan. How well you look this evening. You have such a glow about you.’

Levantiana’s voice snapped her back to attention.

The faerie queen was dancing next to her and Finn.

Finn nodded graciously to his sister. The comment was meant to imply Faye was pregnant, of course, but Faye didn’t think that had entered Finn’s mind…

and anyway, Levantiana was wrong about that.

Is she wrong? The voice in Faye’s mind questioned again as her gorge rose, and she fought the impulse to be sick. She ignored it.

‘I’m quite well, thank you,’ she lied, avoiding Levantiana’s gaze.

‘Indeed.’ The faerie queen raised an eyebrow in disbelief.

‘I believe you know my dance partner,’ she added and smiled radiantly at the human man with her whose eyes never left her face.

Faye hadn’t seen him until now – Levantiana’s body had concealed him – but now her eyes widened as she recognised Gabriel’s dark eyes and pale skin.

‘Gabriel!’ she cried, and reached out for him, but Levantiana laughed and danced him away before Faye could touch him.

Never stoutly built, Gabriel was already gaunt, and the clothes he’d been given hung off his frame.

Faye remembered the first time they’d met: remembered the smart dinner jacket and white shirt he’d worn underneath at the shop, slightly foppish, with a kind of magical beauty about him.

Now, he was a scarecrow. He would certainly die here if she didn’t help him.

‘Oh dear. I do feel a little bit weak, actually.’ Faye staged a stumble in Finn’s arms and affected a faint kind of look. The faerie king frowned, irritated. She’d learned that he’d little patience for weakness. ‘I think I need to sit out for a little while.’

Finn laughed and picked her up, twirling her around to the frantic beat of the music.

‘Nobody stops the dance, sidhe-leth ,’ he taunted.

‘Finn! I want to get out. Now!’ she cried helplessly, but he wouldn’t let her go and danced her around, faster and faster.

‘This was your request, Faye. A ball in your honour,’ he shouted above the din. ‘You are the king’s most lovely consort. The fae thrive on your beauty and our desire.’

She pushed him away, angry, but he held her to him.

‘You cannot stop dancing,’ he cried, holding onto her waist tightly. The dancers seemed to become even more frenzied around them. Faye had to duck a few times to avoid being struck by flailing limbs. ‘If you do, it is a great insult to my faerie court.’

‘They are not my faerie court,’ she shouted back, and with a great effort, wrenched herself away from his grip. The dance held him and flowed away from her like a wave. She fell and landed painfully on her hands and knees on the thick glass floor.

Through the glass, she could see corpses floating in the water. One of them was Aisha.