‘I should do nothing other than send you back where you came from and let him use you as he wants,’ Levantiana snapped. ‘But your offer is interesting; the war goes badly forus, and we need whatever help we can get. If the prophecy is true…and my brother believes it more than I do, but…if it holds some grain of truth, then I can see the logic that it is better to have you on our side. However, the teaching of magic to living mortals is forbidden, so no one can know of our bargain. I will teach you here in my quarters; call me at the tideline and I will come for you. Is that agreed?’
‘I agree,’ Faye said, steeling herself. She had come too far now to go back, whatever the cost. ‘Will Finn know I am here?’ She decided to be honest with the faerie queen. ‘If he knows I am here, he will take me, and I will not be able to be your student. That would have implications.’
‘What implications?’ the faerie queen asked, though Faye thought that she knew very well.
‘You know what would happen. He would take me to be his…slut…and never allow me any power. Hence, I would never be able to rule the Crystal Castle. You know what I need to learn, to take it.’
Levantiana regarded her for a long moment.
‘No,’ she replied finally. ‘I will not tell him you are here. It would endanger our future as a realm for my brother to know. He is…’ She broke off for a moment. ‘My brother is too in thrall to his desires to be an effective ruler. He is not a strategist.’
Faye nodded. ‘What must I do?’ she asked, fear gripping her heart. Entering into a bargain with the fae was perilous. She knew that.Be sure, Grandmother’s voice sounded in her mind.
‘We seal our agreement with a kiss,’ Levantiana said. ‘Repeat after me:Tha mi a’ gealltainn mo ùmhlachd do rìoghachd Murias agus Levantiana a banrigh.’
Faye repeated the promise. She knew that the words were Scots Gaelic, but she did not know what they meant.
‘It meansI pledge my obedience to the realm of Murias and Levantiana, its queen,’ the faerie queen said, and Faye wondered if she could read her mind.
‘Now, you kiss me,’ Levantiana instructed.
As Faye’s lips touched her right cheek, Levantiana said in a low voice, ‘Finn will not know. While you are with me, you must not leave this room unless I show you where to go or I am with you. He will not know you are here; my quarters are protected with my magic. But go anywhere else in the kingdom, and he will know. And, outside these rooms, you will feel the effects of his enchantment upon you. You know how that feels by now.’ Levantiana’s blue-black gaze was penetrating. ‘Do you understand?’ she said quietly. ‘And, when you come back to be his lover,’ she said, raising her eyebrows at Faye when she opened her mouth to disagree. ‘When that happens, you must not lose your head and tell him the magic I have taught you.’
Faye nodded. ‘I understand.’
‘Then we will begin,’ said the faerie queen, and the flames in the lamps around the walls glowed bright, filling the chamber with blinding incandescence.
29
‘This is where you will learn our magic.’ Levantiana gestured to the altar table. ‘Whether or not you can wield the power is another thing.’
‘I’m a quick learner,’ Faye said. ‘You’ll only have to tell me something once.’
‘We will see.’
Levantiana took Faye’s hand and led her to the golden table and the ice sphere. As well as the sphere which hung untethered above the table, the table held a large, gilded chalice. The bowl of the cup was easily a foot wide, and engraved with the familiar spirals that were everywhere in the castle. Faye recognised the alchemical symbol for water, the triangle with its point facing downwards. The cup was half-full with water which glinted silver in the odd light, and Faye saw a seven-pointed star engraved on its front. Alongside the large chalice, seaweed and shells were strewn on the table, as well as a crystal ball – bigger than the one in the shop, and completely flawless – and a wand. Faye gasped, recognising it: it looked exactly the same as Grandmother’s wand, down to the writing inscribed on its shaft.
‘You have a matching wand.’ Levantiana nodded at the wand. ‘It was given to Grainne Morgan, and has remained in the possession of the Morgan women since then.’
‘What does this say? My Gaelic isn’t great,’ Faye asked. ‘May I touch it?’
‘You may.’ Levantiana watched her as she picked up the wand and turned it over in her hand.
‘A rèir an tròcair mhòir, Glòir agus cumhachd do Rìgh agus do Bhanrigh Mhurias, mar a bha e aig an toiseach, agus a-nis, agus gu bràth,’ Faye read aloud haltingly; she recognised the words from the wand in the shop, but couldn’t translate them. ‘What does it mean?’
‘According to their great mercy, Glory and Power to the King and Queen of Murias, as it was at the beginning, and is now, and forever,’ Levantiana recited. ‘It is a wand of great power, made by me from the finest faerie glass and from the wood of our sacred willow grove. I made this one, and the one belonging to your family as a gift. To symbolise our bond and our interconnectedness. The witches honour the fae and the elemental powers, and the fae keep the balance and peace of natural energies in the human world.’
‘I had no idea.’ Faye felt the same thrumming energy in this wand as she had in the one at home.
‘You should. This has been part of the problem; your recent ancestors were too lax when it came to passing on the knowledge they had.’ Levantiana looked grave. ‘I doubt you even know the power of the wand. What it can do.’
‘No,’ Faye confessed. ‘What can it do?’
‘It is from Murias. It has the power to summon water, to cleanse and consecrate, to channel the elemental power of water and, if the power has already been summoned, to send it back. Reverse it, or divert it. It also has the power to protect the user from fae creatures of this realm,’ Levantiana explained.
‘How would I do that?’ Faye asked.
‘Hold the wand in your left hand. Ideally, you will be near some source of water, then you need to bring the water into contact with the wand –even a sprinkle will be enough. Then, trace the appropriate sigil in the air in front of you. Here’ – Levantiana held up a sigil engraved onto a copper disc. Faye realised that there was one exactly the same in the cabinet in the shop – ‘you have one of these, too.’
