Sumi looked away and Faye felt the warm rapport that had extended between them loosen and cool.
‘Well, maybe we’ll have to agree to disagree,’ Sumi said carefully. ‘Most importantly, we need to make sure Rav’s getting the help he needs. To be honest, with all the stress of the business, I’m not surprised this happened. He had some kind of nervous breakdown. Maybe the both of you did. It happens.’ Sumi’s expression was neutral; her previous friendliness was muted.
‘But…’ Faye trailed off, not knowing what to say.
‘I’m sure you believe you’re telling the truth.’ Sumi was trying to be kind, but she couldn’t look Faye in the eye. ‘But, please. For Rav’s sake, don’t encourage this fantasy. And we’d really appreciate it if you could help us talk him into seeing someone. You might need to, as well.’
Faye looked away. ‘I care about him, you know.’ Her voice was small; Sumi had prodded the guilt that lay close under Faye’s surface. It was her fault, all of it: Rav was suffering because of her.But you saved him, too. Don’t forget that, she reminded herself, and stood a little taller.Sumi doesn’t understand.
‘Of course I’ll talk to him. About therapy. But you should know him well enough that you understand you can’t make him do anything he doesn’t want to do,’ Faye added, meeting Sumi’s eyes defiantly. Sumi was being a concerned friend, but Faye wouldn’t lie just to smooth things over between them or to assuage Sumi’s ignorance on the matter.
‘I know.’ Sumi nodded. There was an uncomfortable silence. ‘Well, we better get back. They’ll wonder what happened to us.’ Sumi fluffed her hair briefly in the long mirror and pushed open the mirrored door. Faye followed her out of the bathroom with unease uncurling in her belly.
When she got back to the table, Mallory was sitting in her seat, talking animatedly to Rav and Roni. Rav smiled affectionately at Faye when he saw her and stood up to give her his seat.
‘Faye, have you met Mallory?’ Rav stood behind them both, like a matchmaker determined they would be friends.
‘Oh, yes, Faye was just telling us all about her shop. It sounds amazing!’ Mallory smiled a dazzling smile at Faye. Perhaps she’d read Mallory all wrong initially; there were all kinds of reasons why someone could be frosty on a first introduction.
So, Faye returned the warm smile, which belied the tension that remained after her conversation with Sumi.
‘You should come and visit sometime when I go back to Scotland. I’d love to show you around,’ she offered, and Mallory smiled glossily, running a black-fingernailed hand through her fringe.
‘How lovely that would be,’ she replied, though Faye noted that Mallory was looking up at Rav and not her when she replied. Still, Rav was the person Mallory knew best; people did that kind of thing when they weren’t sure of others. Faye had trained herself to talk to strangers because of the shop, but everyone was different.
Rav topped up Mallory’s wine glass and peered into the empty bottle.
‘I’ll get a new one when I go past the bar. Got to pop out for a minute and make a call.’ He placed a kiss on Faye’s forehead. ‘Back in a minute.’
‘Okay.’ Faye didn’t want him to go – he was her one island of safety. At least she and Mallory had broken the ice. Yet, as soon as Rav was out of sight, Mallory gave Faye that same thin-lipped smile and turned her back again, leaving Faye with no one to talk to.
The anxiety Faye had been fighting off since she had followed Rav into the restaurant flooded back. She was worried about what Sumi and the rest thought of her, but there was an added environmental pressure: London sat outside the bar like a malign dog, growling at the door. Tonight, the clamour of the city felt oppressive.
This was the first night she’d come into the busier part of the city. It was a Friday night; the pavements teemed with people, and Faye found that in places, she had to step into the road to get around them. The traffic was heavy and the air was full of food smells, underlying which was a grittier, smokier presenceshe was unused to. It put her on edge. She jumped when people nudged her, brushed past her or hurtled by unexpectedly.
Since being in the realm of faerie, she’d noticed something different about the way she related to the human world around her. She’d always felt connected to the natural world and felt dissonant and lost if she didn’t go outside every day, feel the earth under her feet and the air on her skin. But, after those first few times being in Murias, Faye felt more deeply connected to the trees, the grass and the sky, as if threads made of each element brushed her skin and tangled in her hair, held her, whispering their magic.
Faye felt turned upside down, as if all her usual compass points were missing. She was adrift. And being inside the bar, being ignored, made it worse. She felt panic rise up in her throat like acid and knew she had to get out of there.
She was angry now, too – furious that these trendy intellectuals dismissed her magic so quickly. To them, her witch shop and talk of tarot was an entertaining novelty, but they weren’t able to understand anything deeper. They didn’t have the language, the frame of reference, so they rejected her.
Faye got up, grabbed her coat from the back of the chair and made her way towards the exit, pushing past people queueing to be served by the glamorous bar staff. Outside, she gulped in the air, desperate for peace, but the air was grey and full of the heavy smell of fatty food.
‘Hey, Faye! What’s wrong?’ Rav was standing outside on his phone, but held out his hand for her. She knew she must look wild, like a cornered animal, because that was how she felt.
‘Nothing. I…didn’t feel well. Inside. I needed some air.’ She tried breathing it in again and coughed.
‘Not much air to be had out here. It’s no Abercolme.’ A haunted look flitted across Rav’s face momentarily, then wasgone; Sumi and the rest of them had seen this same look. Had seen the dark circles under his eyes. He ended the call.
‘It isn’t.’ She wondered whether to tell him what Sumi had asked her. Whether to ask him if he wanted her to lie; to say that Murias had been a dream, a fantasy, a mutual high. Would that make it easier for him to recover?
Her instinct was to tell the truth. In that moment, she also wanted to tell Rav about the promise she’d made to give a human baby – her future child, perhaps their future child together – to Levantiana, the faerie queen.
She wanted to go back into the bar with him, hand in hand, and tell his friends exactly what had happened in Abercolme. About Murias – tell them categorically, explain in detail once and for all what was real and what wasn’t. Faye yearned for the release of that pressure; she didn’t want to be the only one that knew what she knew any more. But she’d told the truth to Sumi, and Sumi hadn’t believed her.
And Ravwouldbelieve her about the baby, because he had been in the faerie realm and he knew the bargains they demanded; but he wouldn’t want to hear it. And she was afraid he’d hate her for the choice she’d had to make to save him.
‘Sorry it’s so loud in there. Is it too much?’ Rav was solicitous as always. He frowned at her expression, which must have belied her anger and frustration. ‘We can go somewhere else, or go home if you’re not having a good time.’
