Rowan bent down and touched her cheek. “This isn’t something a hospital can fix. I think I can help her, but I need my herbs.”
I glanced between the two of them – Rowan’s wide, frightened eyes, and Corbin’s steady, intelligent gaze. I marvelled at how they’d managed to steamroll right through my protests. The two of them together are trouble. “You definitely think this is the right thing to do?”
“I think it’s theonlything.” Corbin squeezed her wrist. “We’d better hurry. Her pulse is getting fainter.”
I nodded and stepped back. Arthur rushed forward and reached under her body, draping her arm over his shoulders. My heart lurched as her head flopped against his chest. Her skin was so pale, it looked translucent, the veins standing out like dark webs. Corbin moved in to help, but Arthur shrugged him away. “I’ve got her. She’s as light as a feather. Pity that artist lover of hers didn’t think to paint her a nice sandwich.”
The fire sizzled as Flynn doused it in water. Corbin picked up the grimoire and slammed it shut, and Rowan and Blake collected the rest of the equipment. We traipsed across the field and stepped over the stone wall that marked the boundary of Briarwood Castle, moving back into the protection of our wards. The figure of my mother flopped lifelessly in Arthur’s arms.
Corbin and Blake flanked me as we ascended the slope and cut through the orchard, wrapping their arms around my waist. With every step, the jewels of the High Priestess of Briarwood weighed heavier against my skin. Lights glowed through the Great Hall windows, and I could see the TV blaring on the wall and Connor bouncing in his swing.Good, Kelly and Jane are occupied.
We rushed through the wooden gate leading to the high-walled kitchen garden. Flynn held the kitchen door open for Arthur. Rowan rushed around, grabbing bottles and jars from the shelves. “Lay her down on the island,” he said.
Arthur laid the ghost/spectre/wraith/zombie/figment of our imagination out across the table, knocking the pepper shaker on the floor. Under the LED lights, her skin glowed with ethereal translucency. Her lips moved slightly, and I caught the faintest whisper. I leaned in close without touching her, trying to catch what she was saying, but it was too quiet.
Rowan dumped herbs and oils into his mortar and crushed them into a paste. “Open her mouth,” he said, his voice taking on the quiet authority I only ever heard when he was treating someone who’d been hurt. Corbin tipped her head back, holding her jaw open. Rowan dumped a spoonful of paste on her tongue.
“We need water,” he said.
Flynn rushed to the sink and returned with a glass of water. Rowan dribbled some into her mouth so the paste would slide down her throat.
“Incline her head, so she doesn’t choke,” he said. After another dribble of water, she’d swallowed all the paste.
“What happens now?” Arthur glanced at me and then back at the sleeping figure. My stomach flipped and churned like mad. I didn’t know whether I was excited or hopeful or terrified or all of the above.
“We wait,” Rowan said. “We’ve no idea what she’s been through. Her body will take a while to deal with the trauma. We should take her somewhere more comfortable, get her blankets and?—”
“Maeve?”
I whirled around at the sound of the voice. Kelly stood in the doorway, dressed in jeans and Arthur’s Blood Lust sweatshirt, her hands disappearing inside the enormous sleeves. She folded her arms across her chest and peered around me at the kitchen island. “Why is Rowan forcing herbs into a strange woman in a white dress? What happened to her face? What’sreallygoing on?”
CHAPTER THREE
THREE: MAEVE
Shit, shit, shit.
“Um, it’s kind of a long story.”
Kelly glared at me. “I’ve got time.”
“Right.”So here it is; I’m really a witch, and my coven of hot guys – all of whom I’m sleeping with – have just completed a releasing ritual that seems to have brought my mother back from the dead. We’re hoping if Rowan can revive her then she’ll be able to tell us exactly how to stop the fae who are threatening to raise the souls of the restless dead to lay waste to the earth.
Yeah, that’s not going to fly. It sounded like the plot of some stupid teen witch TV show. The trouble was, I was frantically trying to think of another explanation that Kelly would believe, and I had nothing. I was never good at creative writing at school.
“Maeve?” Kelly prompted me.
“Yes. Right. So…” I glanced at Arthur with his hair wild around his face and his sword still hanging at his side, and a lie fumbled its way to my lips. “This woman is a friend of Arthur’s from… from his medieval reenactment club. They were going to have a training weekend here but Arthur cancelled it because we were travelling, only she didn’t get the message. She’s a biteccentric and old school, and doesn’t have a mobile, you see. So… yeah. She came and the castle was all locked up and she didn’t have any money and it looks like she was just sleeping in the woods and she must’ve stumbled into the briar and cut herself. We just found her and she’s a bit messed up so Rowan’s giving her medicine…” I trailed off.
Kelly isn’t going to believe this absurd story. Maybe you should just tell her the truth, or at least part of it. It would be easier than lying, especially if this woman wakes up?—
“Is that true?” Kelly narrowed her eyes.
I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t push the words out. Kelly tapped her nails against the cuff of Arthur’s hoodie.
“Kelly, I?—”
CRASH.
