Page 46 of A Kiss from the Fae (Mistress of Magic #2)

Annie stood behind her on the steps that led up to Rav’s front door as she looked for the key in her bag. Passers-by and shoppers walked past, going about their business.

‘Are ye sure he isnae in?’ Annie whispered, though it was the middle of the day, a week after Faye had returned from Moronoe’s queendom.

As usual, she had taken a few days to recuperate, assuring Annie and Susie that it was normal, that the sickness was a part of her withdrawal from faerie, and that it would pass soon.

She hated lying to her best friend, but she had to.

She knew Annie, and she wouldn’t be able to resist the urge to berate Rav for splitting up with Faye when she was pregnant.

Annie’s protective instinct for Faye was as old as their friendship.

‘As sure as I can be. This is usually an office day,’ Faye replied, turning the key in the lock. ‘Anyway, I’m not going to be long.’

She didn’t have much to get which was, in a way, symptomatic of her and Rav’s communal uncertainty about the relationship. Annie followed her into the shared hallway carrying two large holdalls; Faye pulled an empty suitcase up the stairs to Rav’s flat behind her.

She opened the door to the flat, and her heart lurched.

Rav was sitting on the sofa with his back to her working on his laptop.

‘That was quick, I thought you were—’ The words died on his lips as he turned around and saw Faye. ‘Oh. It’s you.’ A shadow crossed his features.

‘I came to get my stuff.’ Faye concentrated on keeping the tremor out of her voice. ‘I won’t be long.’

Without waiting for a reply, she went into the bedroom with Annie following and started pulling clothes out of the wardrobe and the drawers.

‘Ye all right, sweetheart?’ Annie whispered. ‘I’ll do this for ye. Go an’ sit in the car. I’ll be ten minutes.’

‘No, it’s okay.’ Faye opened the drawer she’d kept her T-shirts and tops in.

‘It won’t take…’ She trailed off. None of her clothes were in the drawer.

Instead, expensively distressed black and grey vests and T-shirts, the kind that she’d seen Mallory wear, were folded neatly under each other. Annie looked over her shoulder.

‘They’re not yours,’ she confirmed, and stormed into the living room, where Faye heard her shout, Where the fuck’s all her stuff ?

Faye sat on the bed, fighting the tears that were too insistent to be kept away. What had happened to her? Her whole life felt completely out of control.

How long had Mallory’s clothes been here? And was she here, or was she still in Falias somewhere with Lyr?

Annie thundered back into the bedroom carrying two full black bin bags.

‘I found yer stuff, sweetheart. Bagged up like trash. Fuckin’ mean-spirited bastid. Come on, sweetheart. We’re outta here. Ye dinnae need to be around him one minute longer, aye.’

Faye shook her head, feeling the tears leaking down her cheeks. The knot that was in her chest felt like it would choke her.

‘Annie, I can’t,’ she sobbed, plunging her head into her hands as she cried. ‘I…I…’ but she couldn’t tell Annie that Rav’s child was inside her. She knew that if she did, Annie would storm back into the living room and tell him, and she couldn’t. He couldn’t know.

‘Aw, come on, darlin’. He’s no’ worth one of your tears.’ Annie held her tightly and stroked her hair. ‘Let’s go home, eh?’

Faye nodded, trying to pull herself together.

She’d already booked her train ticket to Edinburgh, though she hadn’t told her friend yet.

In a couple of days, she’d be back in Abercolme where she’d reopen the shop for a few months.

She’d find a way to keep the baby. If she could just go back home, be in her rightful place, then the magic of the Morgans would help her. She knew it in her bones.

Faye followed Annie back out to the living room where Rav was still sitting on the sofa. He hasn’t even moved. Not got up to see me, talk to me. Nothing , she thought, anger replacing her tears. That’s how much he ever cared about me.

‘Don’t worry, I’m out of your hair now,’ Faye said, Annie’s arm around her shoulders. ‘You can get on with things with Mallory.’

‘For fuck’s sake, Faye. I’m not with Mallory,’ Rav muttered. ‘You’re obsessed with her. You need help.’

‘Don’t lie!’ Annie yelled.

He stood up, putting his computer to one side.

‘It was you that cheated on me, Faye. With your faerie king, or one of your witch friends. Oh, don’t worry. Mallory told me all about him. The one with the shop? I guess it’s nice for you to find someone who speaks the same weird language as you,’ he spat angrily.

‘What? Gabriel? We never…’ Faye argued, but Rav spoke over her.

‘You don’t see it, do you? You’re so lost in your…

magic, your shop, all that stuff your mum and your grandmother taught you, you can’t see what’s real.

I was real, Faye. I loved you. We could have had a future together, but I could never get to you.

It’s like you’re behind this wall of water.

I can’t see you clearly, everything’s…It’s all an illusion.

And no matter how hard I shout, you can’t hear me. ’

Despair overwhelmed Faye. She wanted to tell him so badly that she was carrying his child. The words sat in her throat like a frog, but she couldn’t say them. They would cost her too much.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘You have no idea how sorry.’ She wiped a tear from the side of her eye and felt the strength of Annie’s arm; felt the love of their long friendship filling her. She was sad, but she was also worth more than this.

‘I was born a witch, Rav. I was raised a witch. My family, the Morgans, are a family of witches. We’ve always had this power.

My great-grandmothers, my ancestors: some of them were killed for who they were.

Some of them were tortured. So, if you don’t like who I am, that’s tough.

You liked it well enough when you were kneeling at my feet. ’

‘Faye. We need to talk. Please…’ Rav held his hand out to her, but she turned away, her heart breaking.

‘Come on, darlin’. Let’s go.’ Annie opened the front door.

In the moment before she walked out of the flat, Faye’s eyes alighted on a picture frame.

In it, there was a photo of her and Rav; he’d taken it while they lay in her bed back in Abercolme.

Before they had come to London, in that bubble of sweetness, when they had holed up in her flat above the shop and done nothing but slept and ate and made love.

They had known very little of each other then.

Though it was months ago, it felt like an age had passed.

In front of the framed photo, a new one had been wedged into the gap where the frame met the glass. The small black and white picture was blurry, but the outline of the foetus was obvious.

Faye’s eyes met Rav’s, and the tears at what she couldn’t say came roaring out of her – the sorrow that she couldn’t contain.

Annie pulled her through the door and down the stairs.

She heard Rav shouting after her, It’s not mine, it’s not mine.

I’m just looking after her. She had nowhere else to go.

But she couldn’t focus, couldn’t respond.

If that was Mallory’s baby, then she must already have been pregnant before going to Falias with Lyr.

Or, Lyr had kept Mallory there for as long as he needed her, and sent her back pregnant – time did move differently in the faerie realms. Could it be that she was back, pregnant by Lyr, already?

It was possible. But it was also possible that Mallory’s baby wasn’t a half-faerie baby at all and someone else’s. Someone much closer to home.

As Annie gunned the engine, Faye closed her eyes and reached for the necklace that Moronoe had given her. The cube-shaped jet and citrine beads were cold in her hand.