by Lila Dubois
The kitchens of Tara were easily four times as large as those at the Hill of Allen and far busier.
Aos sí servants of all shapes and sizes, wearing a rainbow of colors, moved about. There were six massive hearths, each with a fire burning in it. Gleaming metal appliances, clearly human-made, occupied one wall. Racks hung from the ceilings with bundles of herbs and bushels of fruit piled on and dangling from them.
“These kitchens serve the whole castle?” Isabel asked.
“No. The high houses have their own smaller kitchens as part of their apartments within Tara, but large meals are made here, and those houses which do not have large residences use this kitchen.”
“The House of Munster…”
“Has their own—which would include the chamber where the body was.”
A few servants looked at them curiously as they started across the kitchen. Fairies darted through the air, stealing berries from baskets or lifting down pots and pans from high shelves.
One fairy zoomed past his head, so close Aed heard the buzz of the wings.
“Jeimtin?” Isabel peered at the fairy, then clapped in delight. “I’m so glad to see you.”
Jeimtin sat on the hand Isabel held out, only to dart to her shoulder, kneeling there while whispering in her ear. Aed spotted servants muttering to each other when they saw the familiar way Isabel let the fairy touch her. Aed scanned the room for anyone in the brown uniform of the House of Munster.
Isabel was frowning, and he was about to offer to translate when she spoke, softly enough that he couldn’t hear. The little fairy’s wing buzzed in what Aed recognized as agitation.
A crash drew his attention to the far corner of the kitchen. A servant in drab brown clothing stumbled away from the mess created by the pot she’d just dropped. Other servants were yelling at her, but the female seemed not to notice, her gaze instead fixed on Isabel. She must have felt Aed watching her, because her large glittering eyes flickered to him and then she took off running.
“Isabel,” he barked.
Quick as a snake, her head whipped around, just in time to see the long legs of the brown-clad servant disappear down a hall.
Aed bellowed for everyone to clear a path and started running.
Isabel jumped onto one of the long worktables and followed suit, leaping from one surface to another. She beat him to the far side of the room by a matter of seconds. A gaggle of fairies appeared, the purple-haired Jeimtin in the lead, zooming ahead of them. Aed and Isabel raced after the servant, and it was a good thing they had the help of the little aos sí, because the clean, well-structured hall soon gave way to a rabbit warren of stone corridors and narrow, rock-lined tunnels. The fairies guided them, pointing the direction the servant had gone at each fork or impasse. Just when Aed through they’d be lost forever in the sídhe, the tunnels started to widen, the floor leveling out.
The fairies were hovering in a clump of color at a set of double doors.
Aed examined the crest that decorated the wood. “The seal of Munster.”
Isabel shooed the fairies away. “Get out of here. I don’t want you to get in trouble.” Her Gaelic was garbled, but they seemed to understand.
Aed checked his urge to pound through the doors and instead put his ear to the panel, quieting all his other senses to focus on his hearing. He could make out the sound of running feet, muffled voices and, ever so faintly, the sound of someone screaming.
“Draw your weapons.” Aed spoke to Isabel the way he would to a fellow warrior. He loved her, he wanted to protect her, but he would not deny her deadly fighting ability.
There was the soft snick of metal and when he looked back her red lips framed her fangs and she held a blade in each hand.
Aed threw himself against the doors. Wood groaned and cracked. He pounded his shoulder against them again and this time one gave, wood splintering. Isabel darted through, taking the lead while he recovered. Aed rolled his shoulder to ease the ache and drew his sword.
On the other side of the doors was a simple round chamber with three corridors branching off it. Cloaks hung from hooks between the arches, there were stacked boxes of food against one wall and a basket of shoes was tipped over, the polish and brush kicked to the side as if the person who’d been working on them had jumped up and run.
Their arrival was not subtle, and the sounds of shouting and pounding feet increased. Aed ignored that, listening for the scream, which came again, stronger than before but still faint.
“This way.” He took the right-hand hall, moving quickly but cautiously.
“Hurry,” Isabel urged.
Aed paused periodically to listen, using the screams as a guide. They encountered no one as they inched deeper into Munster’s realm. This hallway was not often used. Boxes were stacked along the walls and dust had built up along the edges of the floor. Eventually they reached a gate that closed off a set of steep downward-leading stairs.
“Help me!” This time the scream was clearly audible, rising up from the darkness.
Aed yanked the gate free of the wall, tossing the metal aside.
“Hello?” The voice was hoarse but clearly feminine.
Isabel leaned into the dark stairwell and breathed deep. “Human,” she said. “I smell human blood.”
Aed was scanning the corridor. They’d passed at least three branching halls, meaning an attack could be coming from anywhere.
“Edith. Edith Jameson?” Isabel called down.
There was a pause, then the voice replied, shaky with sobs. “I’m Edith.”
“Is there anyone down there with you?”
“I…I don’t know. They’re going to kill me.”
Isabel snarled, then started down the stairs. Aed reached out to stop her, but she was already gone, disappearing into the darkness. He debated staying here to guard the stairs, but there was no guarantee that there wasn’t another way of reaching whatever was at the bottom of the steps. He wouldn’t risk letting Isabel go into the unknown alone. Not because it was his duty to guard her, not because he didn’t think she could protect herself, but because he loved her.
Turning sideways, he followed Isabel into the dark.
Isabel forced her heartbeat to slow and stopped breathing. Keeping one hand on the wall, she cautiously placed one foot in front of the other. Little light filtered down from above, and the only sound was the labored breathing and soft sobs of the human changeling.
When she reached the bottom of the stairs, Isabel fished a thin square of plastic out from the lining of her corset and pressed the tab. The tiny beam of light from the credit-card-sized emergency flashlight was feeble in the oppressive darkness, but it was enough that Isabel got a good look around. Her night vision was far better than a human’s, but even she couldn’t see in the total absence of light.
She was in a small dungeon with four cells, two on each side. There was a solid wood door opposite the bottom of the stairs.
Aed’s armor clanked as he joined her. She cast the light around one more time so he could see, then flicked it off. Aed touched her cheek as he passed her. She knew without saying that he was headed for the solid wood door.
“Edith, talk to me.” Isabel needed to know which cell she was in.
“How…how do you know my name?”
“There was a record of your disappearance in the London newspapers and in the Bromton Oratory bulletin.”
“London is still there, the war is over?”
“Yes, London survived the war. Both of them.”
“Both?”
“You missed a rather grim period of human history.”
Edith’s laugh held a note of hysteria. “Sometimes I thought it had all been a dream. That I’d just imagined my life there.”
“You were a nurse?” Isabel found the door to Edith’s cell, running her hands over the surface.
> “I was a good nurse. I was going to help—they said we’d have lots of men and boys to care for, once the battles began.” Edith was mumbling slightly.
“What happened? How did you get here?” Isabel was desperate to keep her talking, keep her awake…and alive.
“I was at evening Mass. I started to walk home and then there was this light. I…saw things. Things that don’t make sense.”
Isabel inserted the thin blades of her daggers into the lock. “What did you see?”
“A woman sleeping in a tower, a painting of swans, big stars that grew and grew.”
“Then what?” Isabel heard a faint click. She was painfully aware of how much time had passed and doubted they’d be alone much longer.
“Then I was here. I was so confused. I kept asking where I was and saying I wanted to go home. Creatures that I knew could not be real were telling me that I was a servant in Tara. They kept explaining my duties. I knew I’d gone mad, but I felt sane.”
“You never gave up on the truth, on finding your way out of here.” The lock clicked, the cell door swung in. Sheathing her knives, Isabel took out the tiny flashlight and flicked it on.
Edith hung naked in the middle of the cell, but it was not chains that held her up—vines as thick as Isabel’s thigh stretched down from the ceiling and up from the floor. Long thorns were embedded in Edith’s arms and legs, and blood dripped sluggishly from each wound. More vines were wrapped around her breasts and curled between her spread legs.
Edith blinked and recoiled from the light. As soon as she moved, the vines tightened around her, wringing another scream from her.
Isabel shut off the light. “Aed, I need your help.”
“We don’t have much time.” The clanking of armor pinpointed his movements in the dark
“I know, but we need to get her down before the party starts.”
“No, please.” Edith’s breath was ragged. “If you touch them, or if I move, they grow.”
Aed felt his way over, feet shuffling on the ground, and laid his hand on Isabel’s shoulder. She flicked on the light so he could see what they were up against. He cursed.
“Can we free her?” Isabel asked under the breath.
“Not without hurting her.”
“I will not leave her here.”
“Nor will I.” He squeezed her hand. “Edith, I am Aed mac Goll.”
“The Fenian?”
“Yes. I am going to cut the vines.”
“No, please…if you touch one, the others will grow.”
“I am going to cut them all at once. There will be only a second before I’ve severed each.”
Edith whimpered, then took a shuddering breath. “I understand.”
“Isabel, I need light.”
Isabel stepped back and flicked on the flashlight. Aed traced a large “C” in the air with his sword and Isabel realized that he really was going to try and cut all of them with one stroke, starting with the vines at the ceiling. It would take a huge amount of both strength and skill to be successful.
“If I…If I die, take my body home.” Edith had her eyes closed, as if the feeble little light was too much.
“I’ll take you back to London.” Isabel hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
“No, not London. Ireland. I was born in Ireland on the Aran Islands—Inishmore. Take me there.”
Aran. Isabel looked at Aed, who shook his head. She understood his meaning—they would deal with that disturbing coincidence later.
“I will take you to Aran, but you will not die. You are stronger than that, Edith Jameson.”
Isabel spoke with all the force and conviction she could muster and saw Edith’s resolve harden. It was a good thing, because Aed raised his sword. He sliced through the upper vines with one mighty stroke, the sword now curving through the air, arching down toward the floor. Edith’s eyes rolled back as the lower vines reacted, bulging as if they were flexed muscles.
Aed’s blade tore through the lower vines just as they reacted to the severing of the upper three by digging their thorns deeper into the human. Edith’s body dropped. Isabel abandoned the flashlight and raced forward. Grabbing the vines, she jerked the thorns from Edith’s flesh, unwinding the stiff vegetation. The scent of blood was thick and coppery in the air. Isabel felt for the major arteries, lowering her head and licking the wounds that posed a risk of causing Edith to bleed out.
Aed was working on her legs, whispering a small prayer as he did. Though they worked in total darkness, Isabel knew what he was doing, what he felt.
Dipping her head, she forced saliva against a puncture dangerously close to the femoral artery of Edith’s right leg.
“Can you stop the bleeding?” Aed asked.
Isabel spat out a mouthful of blood. “I’m trying.”
“Is she truly human?”
Isabel let Edith’s blood sit on her tongue. The taste was human, but it sparkled like the finest champagne. She spat again, the urge to swallow almost too much. “Mostly. There’s something in her blood I’ve never tasted before.”
The rhythmic thump of footsteps echoed in the dark. Aed leapt to his feet. “Keep quiet.”
She caught his hand. “Be careful.”
Aed squeezed her fingers, then was gone.
Isabel lifted Edith, wincing as she brushed against the dagger-like thorns of the scattered vines. With the human in her arms, she retreated to a corner.
Footsteps pounded down the stairs and the light of a torch pushed back the blackness. Isabel squeezed her eyes closed, then blinked so her vision would adjust. Aed had closed the cell door almost all the way, but she could see him through a barred window in the top third of the iron portal. Enough light filtered in to show that the cut vines were brown and shriveled. New growth was already showing along the stumps.
Edith was a bloody mess, but the worst of her wounds were no longer bleeding due to the enzymes in Isabel’s saliva. Crouching down in the darkest corner, Isabel pressed her mouth over the other punctures she could easily reach, knowing the opportunity to help this human changeling was quickly fading.
“Aed? Is that you?”
“Prince Oisin.” Aed’s reply held no hint of surprise or accusation.
Isabel cursed herself for not remembering to tell Aed what Jeimtin had said—that one of the princes had been looking for a human servant and had asked other fairies about Isabel’s movements last time she’d been in the castle.
Isabel considered shouting a warning to Aed but doubted he needed it.
There was the sound of a key in a lock.
Oisin cursed, the light shifting as he put his torch in a bracket. “Do not tell them I’m here.”
A door opened and the corridor outside the cell was filled with even more light. Footsteps pounded over stone.
“Aed, how dare you trespass in the private rooms of my house?” Fionnin’s voice was tight with anger—or was it fear?
“I am here to protect the Tuatha de Danaan, as is the duty of the Fianna.”
“Nothing here concerns the Fianna.”
“Your servant is a changeling human.” Aed’s accusation hung in the air, the weight of his words causing the tension to thicken like mist turned to dense fog.
“Do not be foolish.” Fionnin’s words were flat. “There are no changelings.”
Isabel carefully laid Edith down and crept toward the door so she could peek out the window. Aed’s back was to her, his sword drawn. Fionnin stood in the open doorway to the left. Four solders wearing armor stamped with the seal of Munster faced Aed. Their helmets rendered them anonymous. Oisin was nowhere in sight.
Fionnin gestured with the orb of light he held in his palm. “Leave here, Aed mac Goll. It is only in memory of your father, a great warrior, that I do not kill you for trespassing.”
“I will not leave withou
t the changeling.”
Fionnin laughed. “There is no changeling.”
“The servant you have locked up in this cell is not Tuath, she is not aos sí. She is human, a changeling taken when she was already grown. The humans even have a record of her disappearance.”
Fionnin eyes narrowed, but he did not reply.
Aed raised his sword just enough to make the threat clear. “But the true crime is that you cast out one of our people. One goes, another comes. That is the way of the changeling. Who did you send to suffer and die among the humans?”
Fionnin dropped his gaze, and for a moment he looked old. “You are too young, you are all too young, to know what we suffered.”
Isabel had the feeling that she was seeing the real Fionnin for the first time—a man who seemed old and weary, but still strong. Aed sensed the change too, his sword dipping.
“Enough, Fionnin.”
All heads swiveled to the stairs and the new speaker. Prince Cairbe seemed to glow with power. Aed had said he was not strong enough to lead the Tuatha de Danaan as High King, but seeing him now Isabel couldn’t believe that. He wore simple dark trousers and a pale green tunic. A gold cloak hung from his shoulders. He had no weapons, and his only adornment was a circlet of gold that sat low on his brow.
“Prince Cairbe.” Aed nodded. “I am here to free the changeling human woman who has been kept as a servant by the High House of Munster.”
Cairbe’s shoulders dropped. “It is true then, Fionnin?”
The old man shook his head. “You think you’ve learned your parents’ secrets, but you know nothing, boy.”
Isabel inched the cell door open and slipped out to stand at Aed’s side. Cairbe stiffened and Fionnin’s lip curled.
“Prince Cairbe.” Isabel made a show of sheathing her dagger between her breasts.
“Lady Isabel.”
“I still demand that that thing pay for killing my servant.” Fionnin was back to being petulant.
