No one rushed at us. The banging and shouting continued outside, but the house was as still and silent as the night.
“Come on.” I hissed, beckoning the others forward. Maeve and Blake guarded the door to the kitchen as I yanked open the secret door and ushered Rowan upstairs. From outside the window, torches flickered over the top of the garden wall. Theywere out there, trying to break down the kitchen gate. Wood splintered with a sickening crack.
“Hurry!” Aline ducked through the door. At the rear, Rowan struggled up the steps with a yowling Obelix in his arms. He was a bloody fool, his arms had been cut to ribbons, but he wouldn’t put that cat down. I dropped the cellar door in place and pulled and locked the secret passage behind me just as the kitchen gate crashed open and villagers poured into the kitchen garden.
At the top of the passage, I slid the door back into place. Bending low, I crept through to the covered walkway, where the others all huddled at the base of the parapet, their backs against the stone crenulations. Arthur had his sword in his hand, pointing the blade to the roof, as if drawing power from the sky.
I slid down beside Rowan. Voices rose from the courtyard below, yelling horrible things, jeering about what they would do to our bodies once they caught us. They screeched in high-pitched crackles and warbled incoherent nonsense. Someone screamed, joined by another. Something heavy pounded against wood, again and again and again.
I leaned close to the edge of the crenulation and dared a peek over the edge.
I couldn’t believe what I saw.
The tractor lay in pieces beneath the mangled portcullis, completely useless now. But that hadn’t dissuaded the villages. People threwthemselvesat the inner door, using their bodies as battering rams. Halfway through their flight, their bodies wrenched around as they tore themselves away and slammed into the pavement without touching the door at all. They’d drag themselves to their feet and do it again, and again.
They moaned, they screamed, they howled. A woman clutched her bleeding head. Another man raked at his eyes. What was going on? Why were they acting like this? As if theywould sacrifice themselves one minute, and wanted no part of it the next?
Compulsion, I realised. Terror welled inside me. A battle of wills was going on below us. In all the scenarios I’d imagined for tonight, I’d never considered this. The fae were in the underworld. They couldn’t compel shit.
This can’t be happening.
I crawled over to where Blake was sitting. He too was watching the scene below with horror. “It’s compulsion, isn’t it?” I whispered.
He touched his temple and nodded. “It’s Liah. I can touch her mind, but I can’t stop it. This was their plan all along. They all think we’re in that tunnel. They knew we’d be trapped. All they have to do was go in and drag us out.”
“But how would Liah know we’d be in the tunnel? She couldn’t know it existed. We didn’t even know under tonight when—” My blood ran cold.
Aline.
She was the one who told us about the tunnel. And she was the one who kept trying to get us to trust Daigh. Maeve was suspicious of her but I didn’t listen because I thought it was all about her coming to terms with her mother being alive, but all this time…
I glanced around the porch for her, but couldn’t see her anywhere. Come to think of it, I didn’t remember seeing her on the staircase.Where is she? What has she done?
“Shit,” I whispered.
Blake nodded. “You came to the same conclusion I did. But there’s something else – I readtwominds out there. Someone else is compelling the villagers, telling them that they don’t want to be here, that they want to go back to bed and forget tonight even happened.”
“What?”This is insane.
“That’s what makes them so violent. Their minds are being tugged two different ways. What I don’t know is who that other mind is and why they’re trying to help us.” He rubbed his temple. “It’s hard to tell anything, there’s so much horror in there.”
Warm fingers brushed mine. I whirled around. Rowan had crawled beside me, his eyes wide. “What do we do?” he mouthed.
Good question. This compulsion changed everything. We weren’t just fighting humans anymore. Did we reveal ourselves and hit them with the full force of our magic? Or did we let them think we were in the tunnel for a bit longer?
“Can we break compulsion spells?”
Blake nodded. “With two spirit users, probably.”
“We need to try it.”
Blake crawled behind me to where Maeve cowered with Flynn. As quietly as I could, I explained what we thought was happening. Maeve’s face grew even more pale when I told her about the compulsion. “Where’s my mother?”
“She’s gone, Maeve. My guess is she had some way of sneaking out and meeting the fae. I’m sorry. But she was the one who led us to that tunnel, which turned out to be a trap.”
Maeve shook her head. Tears rolled down her cheeks. “No. That’s not it. She didn’t betray us. There’s something else. She?—”
I wiped a strand of pink hair out of her eyes. “We can’t worry about her now. I need you and Blake to break the compulsion spells that are holding them. Blake knows how to do it. Just lend him your power.”
