“Omigod, Flynn.” She hugged me. “Omigod!”
“Iamgodlike, so?—”
“No, you beautiful Irish fool.” Maeve kissed me ferociously. “I love it. I’d have loved it even if you hadn’t shoved some of your magic inside it. But you’ve actually done it. You’ve shown meexactlyhow we can stop the fae.”
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
BLAKE
“We’re really, truly, going back to the castle?” I tossed my small parcel of clothes into the rack above my seat on the bus and slid in ahead of Arthur to nab the window seat. I was wearing a new t-shirt Flynn painted for me – it bore a runic quote from theHávamálthat I’d translated for him and the faint shimmer of his imbued magic. Ever since Candice had shown him how to channel his magic into objects, he’d been going nuts with the gifts. I was surprised he had any magic left.
“The boss says it’s time to fly,” Flynn grinned, stuffing his hands into his new sweatshirt, which bore some ugly scrawled picture of a girl with a bunch of balloons that he kept telling me was some famous artist. The guy had no clue about art. There weren't even any naked cherubs. If Daigh had taught me anything, it was that you couldn’t make real art without naked cherubs.
“Good. Because the curry here is rubbish.”
“We’ve got one stop to make first.” Corbin flicked a glance in my direction as he slumped down in a seat beside Rowan.
“We do?” Maeve asked.
He grinned. “Blake’s not the only one around here who can keep secrets.”
“Bite me, Mussolini.”
Corbin laughed. He didn’t volunteer any more information about this unplanned stop.
Hmmmm. Mysterious.
We rode in contented silence for twenty minutes. Kelly and Jane were the only two people talking. Those two never seemed to shut up about anything. They had a seat at the front of the bus and bounced Connor between them while they bent their heads together. Every time I looked over at them, Kelly had turned around in her seat to glare at Maeve, who was staring at an astronomy book and trying to pretend she didn’t notice. Her hunched shoulders gave her away.
Interesting.
Flynn sat beside me and listened to that weird pounding music on his headphones, nodding his head like he had some kind of twitch. I stared out the window at the landscape, marvelling how humans could idolise the rolling hills and wild woods of England at the same time they built towering metal shrines to their own egos in the scrawling, ugly cities.
For not the first time, I allowed myself to wonder what would happen if we did defeat Daigh. Would Maeve rule over the fae in place of him? Would the human race go right on paving over the whole earth with concrete? I remembered Liah’s words about the weeping tree ghosts. I hoped I could convince Maeve to maybe do something about that.
Not that she’d listen to me. Or care about me at all. Maeve had told the others that she loved them. I overheard her saying it to Corbin, Rowan, and Flynn during the private moments they didn’t realise I observed. It made sense she hadn’t said it to me. The fae did not value love in the same way that humans did. Fae did sometimes fall in love, but it was seen as a weakness, something to be mocked and ridiculed. Another being could not love you in return in the same way nature could.
I didn’t understand human love. At least, I thought I didn’t understand. But the moment I’d first came to Maeve in her dreams, my heart had been entwined with hers. The idea of losing her made my chest ache and my fingers curl into a fists, ready to lash out at this invisible threat. Was that love? Was it weakness?
The idea of saying the words to her – and meaning them – made a chorus sing in my veins. But what if she didn’t say them back? What if she didn’t see me as part of the coven’s future – then where would I go?
Not the city,I decided immediately. It was tempting to stay there just to spite Daigh, because I would never risk encountering another fae amongst all that metal. But the cities with their traffic jams and buildings like towering cairns were horrible – not even the superior curries would make me want to live in London.
I could return to Avebury. It did have a special charm about it – the hum of all that ancient magic still waiting to be unleashed – but I hadn’t been lying when I said the curry there blew.
No place had sung to me like Briarwood. No other place felt like home. I hoped it would be my home for many years to come. But that all depended on Maeve. And right now I wasn’t sure of my chances.
Ten minutes later the bus pulled into a small town station. Corbin stood up. “We’re here.”
“Where’s here?” Maeve glanced out the window. “Corbin, this isn’t Swindon. Why are we stopping here?”
“Will you relax? We don’t need to change in Swindon. We can catch the train from the centre of town directly back to Briarwood. It leaves every fifteen minutes. There’s just one last thing we need to see first.”
Everyone else stood up and gathered their bags. Arthur carried Connor’s stroller off the bus. As I waited in the aisle for the line to move off, Jane slid out of her seat behind me.
“What’s got your goat, cutie?” I asked her as she folded her arms and huffed.
She glared at me. “As if you don’t know.”
