He let out a strangled sob, his head lolling to the side.
Maeve grabbed his knee, her nails digging in. “Rob, did you do something to Robert so you could have Aline all to yourself?”
“I can’t hurt Robert,” he whispered. “If I hurt Robert, I hurt. If he dies, I die. So we both must live.”
“But you did something to punish him that night, didn’t you? You made sure he’d never be able to have Aline.” Maeve shook his leg, her shrill cry echoing off the painted walls. “What did you do, Rob? Tell me.Tell me!”
Robert’s eyes rolled back in his head. His mouth flapped open and a moment later, a loud snore shook the room.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
MAEVE
Iwalked out of the institution in a daze.
It’s true. It’s all true.
Robert Smithers hadn’t given us much, and not even Corbin’s vigorous shaking could wake him up again, but I justknew…everything Blake, Corbin, and I had figured out was true.
I sat on the bus, staring out the window at the rolling fields and munching sheep. My mind reeled. Ifinallyhad answers. I glanced down at the Smithers’ book in my lap, running my fingers over the edge of my mother’s portrait.
I never got to meet you, but now I feel like I know you just a little bit. You were clever. And when I figure out exactly what Robert and Daigh did to you, I’m going to make him pay.
But it didn’t mean anything. We were still no closer to figuring out how to stop the fae. I stared out at the green meadows. Somewhere under the grass, in the depths of the earth, Daigh waited. The souls of the dead clamoured to be free, the restless spirits begged for their chance to feast on the living.
I didn’t even believe in souls, and the whole thing had me scared shitless.
I jumped as a hand landed on my knee.
“Hey.” It was Corbin. Of course it was, staring at me with those kind, concerned eyes. “We’ve got this.”
I shook my head.
“We do, Maeve. We made so much progress today. Your hunch paid off. We know what happened that night.”
“It doesn’t help us. The past never does.” The words stuck in my throat.
“Spoken like a true scientist.” Corbin grinned. “Luckily, you’ve got a historian, a warrior, a baker, an artist, a lady of the night, a sister, and a whatever the hell Blake is, on your side.”
“Hey, I heard that, Mussolini,” Blake called.
A bitter laugh escaped my throat. “I don’t have Kelly or Jane, not anymore. What are we going to do now?”
“Come here, Priestess.” Corbin raised his arm. I collapsed against his shoulder, letting his warm strength envelop me, falling into his kind eyes. He patted my arm, and kissed the top of my head.
It was only later, as my eyes fluttered shut and I fell into an uneasy sleep, that I realised he hadn’t answered my question.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
FLYNN
Iwant to make art like you do,” I told Candice over a pint.
We’d taken a break from the studio to head down to the pub. I’d been so engrossed in the painting I was creating that I hadn’t even noticed my stomach growling or the tickle at the back of my throat. Now that we were at the pub I’d already downed one pint and was working my way through a plate of fish and chips drowned in vinegar.
I hadn’t painted in a long time. It felt too dainty to me, too controlled. I liked big sculptures, scrap metal with jagged edges that looked like they’d exploded out of a junkyard. Stuff that was once useful clamped together like a post-apocalyptic Frankenstein. But since my talk with Maeve the other night, a whole bunch of weird emotions sloshed around inside me like so much fine Irish whiskey, and pigment and a brush and a square 30cm canvas seemed the only logical way to expel them.
“You already do, you idiot.” Candice grinned, spooning a mouthful of sticky date pudding into her mouth. “Your painting is beautiful.”
