Page 39 of A Kiss from the Fae (Mistress of Magic #2)

THREE WEEKS LATER

Faye stood between Simon and Manu as Sylvia and Penny opened the circle.

It was December, and the secluded oak grove on Hampstead Heath smoked with incense made of pine and frankincense. Candlelight flickered on the rough bark of the sentinel trees that guarded their privacy.

Faye was deep in the shock of mourning. She felt blank, as if she was mummified in layers and layers of bandages.

When she spoke, she heard herself talking as if it was someone else.

Her thoughts were slow and cold, and her eyes were red with crying.

She felt dissociated from everything around her, floating, muffled, even with the kind, grounding influence of white-bearded Simon next to her in his worn leather waistcoat covered in motorcycle gang patches, or the firm grip of Manu’s hand in hers on the other.

The coven were going to call Gabriel back from Murias, and Faye had promised to help.

After all, it was Faye who Gabriel had followed into Murias despite her warning.

Perhaps he’d intended to go all along, or perhaps he’d been swept up with the wave that Finn used to draw her in to his faerie realm.

Either way, it was her fault, just as it had been her fault that Aisha had been ensnared by Finn Beatha. And Aisha was dead.

Faye was adding her presence and power to the coven’s calling Gabriel back, but she was the only one that knew Murias, and Faye knew that Gabriel was too deep in Levantiana’s enchantment to want to leave.

In any case, it was immaterial if he wanted to leave or not. Levantiana would never let him go.

When she’d woken up in Rav’s bed, returned from Murias, she had no idea how she’d got there.

A flu-like malaise laid her out for two weeks after that.

She knew it was her body rejecting Murias, like going cold turkey.

Each time she stayed too long, it was the same.

This time, it was worse; the sickness wouldn’t leave her.

When the fever had abated and she was left weak, Rav had carefully asked her where she’d been; she’d disappeared after the party and been gone for three days. To Faye, it had felt like weeks.

‘You came stumbling into the flat in the middle of the night.’ Rav’s voice maintained a careful line between accusation and concern.

‘I found that note you left me. I was out of my mind with worry. You were gone for three days. Three days , Faye. I thought you’d been at Annie’s, but she said she hadn’t seen you.

’ He clearly suspected that she’d been in the realms of faerie, but he needed to hear it from her.

She was too tired to lie and had told him all of it.

He had asked her to leave.

She’d wanted to ask him about Mallory – had there been something between them? – but it wasn’t the right time. Perhaps there would never be a right time now. It had been her choice to go to Murias, and it was the right one. But the idea that Rav might have betrayed her with Mallory still hurt.

Aisha and Gabriel’s faces were imprinted on her mind.

Wracked with pain, emaciated, dead. Faye stared at one of the oak trees in the grove, looking at the pattern of its bark.

How could trees still stand and the sun still rise every day when Aisha was dead, and Gabriel gone?

Her eyes sought a comfort in the pattern of the bark.

She thought if she concentrated on it hard enough, she could forget everything else.

‘We are here tonight on a mission of mercy,’ Sylvia intoned to the group as they stood in the cold night air. Faye, used to being out on Black Sands Beach in the winter, was still chilled to the bone, but she hardly felt it, muffled in her grief. She didn’t care if she froze. It was a penance.

Sylvia and Penny had visited Faye while she was convalescing at Annie’s, bringing her herbal remedies for regaining strength and giving her energy healing and aromatherapy massage. We look after our own. Penny had nodded briskly when Faye had thanked her.

Faye told them about her time in Murias, and how Gabriel must have been carried in with her when they summoned Finn Beatha at the edge of the Thames.

‘He was a seeker. Is a seeker.’ Sylvia had corrected herself as she massaged Faye’s feet with citrus-smelling oils. ‘He was fascinated with the fae worlds, but he’d never had an experience with faerie outside the circle. He must have been beside himself when you turned up.’

‘He was very enthusiastic, but that was nice.’ Faye coughed, and Penny slapped her on the back. ‘It was good to have someone like that in my life. Who believed me. Who…’ She trailed off, thinking of Rav. ‘Who understood who I was. Fae and human halves.’

Sylvia and Penny had told her that while Faye had been gone, Mallory had become part of the circle.

Not part of the full coven, she’d nonetheless apparently come to some pub meet-ups and a couple of workshops.

Now, she stood in the circle opposite Faye, cowled in a long, dark coat that could, to all intents and purposes, be a cloak.

Faye could feel the girl’s disruptive energy emanating across the air at her like a knife-edged cloud of resentment and superiority.

Faye hadn’t spoken to her at all since arriving.

What could she say? It didn’t matter now.

None of it mattered. Faye was too deep in her grief to be able to respond to Mallory.

If you wanted him, then he’s yours now , Faye thought, still staring at the tree.

‘One of our own, Gabriel Black, is lost in the realm of Murias. He has become enchanted by the faerie queen Levantiana, and we understand that his situation is perilous. Though he may not want to leave, he must be forcibly removed, and so we will entreat any powers willing to help us call him back to us,’ Sylvia intoned.

The coven members exchanged glances, and a murmur of disbelief went around the circle.

‘We need your undivided attention, friends,’ Penny continued.

‘Work with us now. After I call in the elements and draw the boundary, we will raise the power as greatly as we can. And we will ask for guidance from the gods and the faerie powers,’ she added, looking at Faye.

‘Faye already has experience in this regard.’

Faye blinked, struggling awake. She willed herself to be tethered to the earth, to take strength from something. She clutched at the obsidian crystal in her pocket. What had Penny just said? The faerie powers. Her instinct rose up, hot in the cold stone of her heart.

‘No.’ Faye’s voice wavered. ‘Don’t call on them.’

‘What?’ Penny’s voice cut through the lamplit circle.

‘The elementals. Don’t call on them. Other gods, spirits. Call them instead. Leave the fae alone.’

‘Why? Why on earth wouldn’t we ask for their help when that’s where Gabriel is? I think the shock’s affecting your judgement, dear. Don’t worry. Let us lead this.’ Sylvia was kind, but there was a thread of steel in her words.

‘No. You don’t understand. They’ll offer a bargain, but you can never take it.

It’ll sound like the only way. They’re persuasive.

Please. I…I feel it.’ Faye knew she sounded foggy, wavering; she wasn’t herself.

But at the same time, she knew in her bones that calling on the fae would lead to more loss, more heartbreak. ‘Please listen. I…’

Next to her, Manu squeezed her hand.

‘It’s going to be all right, Faye. I promise. Okay? And Simon promises. Don’t you, Simon?’

The silver-bearded man next to her gave her a reassuring smile.

‘I promise I won’t let anything bad happen. To you or anyone else.’ He was jolly, but Faye wanted to hit him. She pulled her hands away from both of them.

‘You can’t control the fae. You have no power over them. You can’t protect me, or yourselves!’ she cried, going to Penny and grabbing her by the shoulders. ‘Penny! You can’t. You don’t understand.’

Faye was sweating, although the temperature was barely above freezing and her head pounded with the headache she hadn’t been able to shift since coming back from Murias.

The pain added to her overall sense of dissociation.

Perhaps this time, some part of her spirit or soul had become permanently stuck in the faerie realm.

Faye swayed on her feet, feeling like she was going to pass out.

‘Sit down, Faye. Calm down. Here. Take some water.’ Penny made her drink from a water bottle. ‘I didn’t think you should have come. It’s too soon for you.’

‘But I wanted to. For Gabriel.’ Faye felt the tears coming again and hugged her knees to her chest. ‘I want to help. Please…I just…’ She couldn’t explain it to them.

None of them could know the horrors of Murias.

Faye had finally seen them for herself, and they were more terrible than she could have dreamed.

‘I know. It’s all right.’ Penny soothed her.

Manu and Simon rejoined hands without her.

Now, Faye sat inside the circle. She couldn’t stop crying; her body was racked with sobs and her throat ached with remorse.

She was still nauseous; she couldn’t shift the feeling, and refused to think about what Levantiana had told her.

That she was pregnant. It was unthinkable.

Penny drew the circle around them in earth, air, fire and water and walked from one quarter of the circle to another, calling in the elemental powers from north, east, south and west. Despite being so upset, as soon as Penny called in the elements, Faye felt the power of earth rise strongly around her.