‘Aye, all right,’ Annie agreed, but Faye still avoided her eyes.
11
After they had eaten, Annie cleared a space in the front room, and she and Faye cast a circle.
‘Thanks for helping me with this,’ Faye said, after Annie called in the quarters. They both sat facing each other across Faye’s crystal ball and the Morgan wand that Faye had brought to London from Abercolme.
‘Of course, hen. Ye never have tae thank me.’ Annie reached for Faye’s hand and squeezed it briefly. ‘What’s the plan, then?’
‘With each day that goes past, Aisha is stuck longer and longer in Murias,’ Faye said, frowning. ‘Every day she’s there, the more danger she’s in. If she ever comes back to this world, she’ll be weak and sick. The longer she stays there and eats and drinks the faerie food, the worse it will be. And, there’s the faerie reel. I saw bodies there, Annie. They had been danced to death, or worse. Raped. Used. And the humans that weren’t dead, some of them were emaciated. Close to it.’
Annie swore. ‘Poor Aisha. She didn’t know what she was gettin’ herself intae.’
‘I know. Finn might say that she’s his companion, his love, his courtesan. But even if it starts off that way, Aisha is in gravedanger. All it takes is for Finn to get bored of her, and he’ll throw her to the fae in the reel like a piece of meat. He has no remorse. The fae don’t have feelings like we do.’
‘So, how are we going to get her back?’ Annie frowned. ‘Finn has barred you from Murias, right?’
‘He did, but then he appeared to me in a vision and wanted me back. So, I think I might be able to get in. The problem when I’m there would be getting Aisha out. She won’t want to go, and I’d have to face Finn.’
‘Okay. It’s dangerous, then.’ Annie’s face darkened. ‘But we can’t leave her there.’
‘I know. The faerie queen Levantiana has taught me some magic using the wand. If I can get into Murias, maybe I can use the elemental power to give me what I need.’ Faye picked up the narrow wooden wand, engraved with Gaelic: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 knew now that it meant:According to their great mercy, Glory and Power to the King and Queen of Murias, as it was at the beginning, and now, and forever. It was a spell, a blessing, an activation of power. ‘But I thought we could try and find Aisha with the crystal first. See where she is and if she’s okay.’
‘Yeah. Definitely. Let’s do that first.’ Annie reached for her hands over the crystal ball. ‘Can you teach me the faerie magic, too? I’d like to know it.’
‘I guess I could, with the wand. But there was other stuff Levantiana showed me in Murias. I don’t know if you have to do that first, you know?’
‘Worth trying.’ Annie shrugged.
‘For sure. Let’s see if we can find her first, though.’ Faye held Annie’s hands and relaxed her arms, letting their hands meetand lay on the floor between them. She sat cross-legged and relaxed her eyes, staring into the sphere of clear quartz crystal between them. She had placed it on a black velvet cloth atop its fabric donut which held it steady and stopped it rolling away.
To help them focus, Faye pressed play on her phone and some gentle Celtic music filled the air: Dal Riada, Finn Beatha’s band. Now, Faye knew that every member of the band was a faerie, and their band existed to lure humans, to be seduced by the music and taken into faerie to dance in the reel, pleasure the fae as sex slaves or even conceive half-fae babies. She didn’t want to listen to the music, but she thought that if she and Annie listened to it as they searched for Aisha using the crystal ball, it might help them connect to Murias.
It was worth a try.
‘Show us Aisha. Show us as she is now, where she is now,’ Faye commanded.
As the music played, Faye defocused her eyes and relaxed, letting herself have the sensation of falling into the crystal. The ball had been in the Morgan family for generations; Faye didn’t know when the Morgans had come by it, and Grandmother had been hazy on the details. It had one very fine fissure through its middle, like a dim lightning bolt, but otherwise the crystal was without any flaw, which made it incredibly rare and valuable.
As she experienced the feeling of falling, Faye kept her breathing steady. It was a strange feeling, but she knew that visions would follow.
First, she saw just blackness, and then a spot of light. She watched as the light grew bigger, and inside the light, she saw movement.
It was the faerie reel.
Faye took in a breath. When she had first entered Murias, Finn had taken her to dance in the faerie reel, an ongoing, whirling dance in the central ballroom of the castle of Murias.She had loved it; it was intoxicating, wild, beautiful. She had loved being twirled around in Finn’s arms.
And then later, she had seen the bodies. Understood what the faerie reel really was.
For many humans, it meant death.
Please, please, don’t let Aisha be there, Faye wished, but she knew that wishes didn’t alter visions. She focused her attention on the picture of the faerie reel, watching passively, waiting to be shown what it wanted her to see.
At first, Faye watched as the dance revolved around the ballroom. She noted the glowing lights, the elaborate costumes, the fae with tails, scales, animal faces, wings. Some were terrifying, some beautiful. But she couldn’t see Aisha.
Then she saw her, and Faye gasped. She heard Annie gasp, too – they had both seen her at the same time.
