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I held my hand back, resisting the urge to light the candle and greet the statue. The sorrow in the Bandrui’s face pulled at me like it was my own. I waited for her to go on.

“She was one of my greatest friends.” The Bandrui took the candle from me and lit it herself, then set it down in front of the bare foot of the statue. “Wherever you are, my friend, come back to us. You are deeply missed. If you wish to return to magic, let me be greedy and hold your hand one last time and kiss your cheek as you descend to your beloved. It would be the greatest of boons.”

I held my tongue as a single glittering tear slid down the Bandrui’s face and plopped heavily into the wax of a candle. She sniffed and pushed aside the tear’s friends before turning on me. “She has been missing since the War of Thorns. And I miss her laughter every day. I have even grown to miss her cheating at cards. Rude as it was.”

I followed her gaze up into the face of the Fae above me. “I didn’t know a god could go missing?”

“All of those you have met today are living, breathing Fae, Cricket. Every last one of them walks Magh Meall somewhere. Connected to this place by infusing their statue with a small shard of their magical essence when they ascended. All of them were once a Fae, like I am, chosen to ascend to godhood by their predecessor. They are just as alive as we are. And as such they can go missing, and even be killed. Like Airgetlám’s husband, Túathal.”

She turned to the last statue, the only one that stood alone, this one in the center of the back wall. Unlike the others, this one had both of its wrists bound by the glowing rope. I followed the line of each as they draped delicately off of the other statues wrists and then connected with one of this one’s. It looked like the others were bound to him, and he to them. It was also the only one that was draped in a massive sheet of sheer black cloth.

Candles littered its feet in great mountains of sleeping potential. None of them had ever been lit. Their wicks were as pale as they had been when they were first poured.

“Túathal. Dead Patron of the dead House of Magic. God of Magic.” With her delicate hand, she reached across the mountain of candles and brushed away specks of dust that had dared to gather on the carved, booted foot of the statue.

“How . . .” I let my question trail off to be swallowed by the solemnity of the scene before me.

I felt like I was intruding on her quiet mourning for this friend of hers who had gone missing and her dead husband. It was awkward to be witnessing such bald grief, as it haunted the temple and gathered in a spectral pool around us for a pair of complete strangers.

“Murdered,” she whispered and leaned back to stare upwards into the darkness that wreathed the head of the statue. “He has that in common with your human god, you know. His house turned on him. We never found out who, exactly, but someone turned on him and pierced his heart with a shard of salt crystal. Drove it straight through him while he napped before his journey into the heart of magic. They found him, stripped bare of all his finery, pinned to his bed like a bug. His face frozen in shock. Every single bit of the heirlooms of his house were stolen from his chamber. It was Airgetlám that found him. I remember going to her, holding her hand, but it was like every bit of her spirit had fled. Her eyes were dull except for the glass of a fountain of tears that never stopped falling.”

She sighed heavily, her pain radiating from her in palpable waves. “I should have stayed with her. I thought it was just grief, everyday grief, like any other, and that she would heal in time. I was the Bandrui of the Temple of the Ascended, though, and the God of Magic had returned to it, even if he had not done so by choice. It was my duty to ready the temple for the ritual of ascension. So, I left her. I left my oldest friend in her time of need and attended to my duty.”

The regret pooled between us, threatening to drown the Bandrui. No one had ever trusted me to show me the unmasked truth of their heart before, and I felt a painful lump gathering in the back of my throat as I shared in her sorrow.

I let my hand reach out to lace into hers and gave it a reassuring squeeze. We were no longer a daoire and her de facto captor but two women standing in a single space, sharing the burden of anguish.

Chapter 18

Every morning since I’d returned to the warrens, I woke to a wooden charger of rich, thick, honeyed cream, a milúll, sliced and bleeding its burgundy juice into the wood, and a loaf of crusty bread.

Hidden in my alcove, I would find another brass star bead to add to the rope that the Bandrui had given me. As quickly as possible, I would slip the small bead onto the strand and hide it on my person. It was difficult at first, having only a shift to wear, as there weren’t many hiding places.

It was Violet who strode into my alcove that first morning and laid the dress on my bed. I had never had fine things in my life before Magh Meall, so I was not expecting or needing much, but the dress I wore and its associated pieces had made me sit down on my cot and stare.

There were so many layers. First, like the Bandrui wore, was a creamy white cotton chemise with billowy gathered sleeves that boasted matching embroidery around the bib of the neckline and all along the hem. Even the lace holes were delicately embroidered to give the ties at the wrists and neck added strength. Then came the warm orange under kirtle that reminded me of autumn leaves and had acorns stitched along the decorative, heavy hem. Over that was a shorter green tunic of fresh spring grass. This piece had no adornments to mar its beautiful color, and it took my breath away with the softness of the linen.

“They are no finery like the Fae wear, but they are comfortable. The linen is the softest I’ve seen in a long while,” Violet had chirped with the glee of a grandmother gifting her favored grandchild with a new bike for Christmas. “When you return from your duties today, I will teach you how to carve some buttons from bone and stitch them on. You know how to sew, right, Cricket?”

I chuckled. “Not even a little.”

“How did you make your clothes, then, girl?”

The scandal in her child’s voice was a never-ending bounty of ironic hilarity.

“I bought them, Violet. No one sews anymore.”

“Psh. Women have gone soft and lazy in Human. Better I stay here, then. They’d string me up by my toes for hollering about their poor rearing. Well, either way, you have no buttons for the day. Be sure to roll up the sleeves if you need to. I’d wager I’ll need to teach you how to wash your chemise, too?”

“Sadly, yes. We have machines for all of that.”

“Machines.” She harrumphed.

We joined the small wave of humans going up the staircases to flow into the palace at the break of dawn, off to serve the Fae as they were assigned. When we parted ways, I saw the worry in her porcelain face that etched deep fissures into the cracks. They were chased away when she noticed me watching, though.

Taking a deep breath, I steeled my spine and readied myself, joining the small group of humans bound for the royal wing of the palace. Ten of us made our way under escort of the guards, but I felt as if I were a dinghy adrift at sea, bouncing around in a lonely blackness with no hope of ever finding moorings. My eyes lost focus as I struggled to stay above the rising anxiety and panic churning in my stomach.

The brush of leather against my palm brought me skittering back to the stone hallway lit by warm sunlight peeking through lead glass windows. My gaze darted down to the black leather glove that brushed me with every other step and then up to its owner.