“No. Dream magic is human magic. Faeries don’t dream. Daigh used to ask me about my dreams. Sometimes he would paint what I described – vicious landscapes, tortured souls, weird creatures that didn’t exist in the fae realm. He took great interest in this dream when I first had it. He painted the stakes, and the briar, and the castle in the background, exactly as I described.”
“When did you first have it?”
“It was recent, maybe ninety days ago?—”
“But those are fae days. How long was your solar day?”
“Huh?”
“The time it takes the planet the fae realm exists on to make one full rotation so the sun appears in the same position in the sky. Or the sidereal day, that’s how long it takes for—” Maeve shook her head. “No, ignore that. It’s too complicated. Here on Earth, our solar day is 24 hours, as you might have noticed. But since the fae realm is in another entire part of the multiverse, your day could be longer or shorter.”
“It was longer, I think. We didn’t measure it in hours and seconds, so I don’t really know.”
“Could you draw some of the constellations you saw at night? Maybe we could figure out where it’s located, if it’s even in this galaxy or—” Maeve smiled. “Sorry, I got distracted. What happened when you told Daigh about the dream?”
“Daigh was super interested in it, as I knew he would be. It was what made him start all the preparations to come to earth. It was why he sent Kalen to spy on the coven and follow Corbin to America, where he found out you were still alive.”
Maeve paled. “Have the others been dreaming it, too?”
“I doubt it, otherwise they’d have mentioned it. Unlike your sexy dreams, I think this one is just for you and me.”
“And Daigh.”
“Hey, don’t hate me – it was all in aid of getting to you,” I stroked her cheek. “I had a cunning plan – I give the dream to Daigh, he decides now is the perfect time to launch an attack on the human realm. He starts testing the limits of the gateway so he can get his hands on the sacrifice. I prove myself in battle and seize my chance to escape.”
“Great plan,” Maeve said sarcastically. “Considering you’d basically be escaping into a land about to be overtaken by the Slaugh.”
“I figured if the Briarwood coven had defeated him once, they’d be able to do is again,” I shrugged. “I didn’t count on the remarkable incompetence of its current ranks, present company excepted.”
She punched me in the arm. “What about Daigh’s plans for us?”
My heart stuttered. She was referring to Daigh’s belief that I would wed her, and we’d produce strong spirit children he could mould to his will.
“I wasn’t keen on it, but that was before I saw you in person,” I said, one of the few honest things I’d ever spoken. “When you leapt over that wall to protect Flynn, I knew I dealing with a truly exceptional witch.”
Maeve wrapped her arms around me. “Tell me a story.”
“A story?”
“About the fae realm. I want to know what it’s like.”
“You saw it.”
“I mean, what it’s like to live there.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Tell me about Daigh. Tell me something that might make me not hate him.”
I cast my mind back, searching for a memory that fit her criteria. It was hard, not least because Daigh could be easy tohate. Fae have different ethics to humans, and I knew many of the stories I found hilarious would disturb her.
Finally, something came back to me. I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten it. “Daigh had a celebration every year, on the day he took me from my parents. He called it my ‘fae-day’, because it was the day I became a fae in his eyes. As soon as the sun rose he placed a crown of rowan on my head, and I didn’t have to remove it until sunrise the following day. It meant?—”
“How long was your sunrise?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Is this your way of dragging me into a conversation about time in the fae realm? Because I can see through such an easy trick.”
She laughed and threw up her arms. The blanket tugged down, revealing the swell of her naked breasts, and it was everything I could do not to grab her and devour her. “You got me.”
