by Megan Chance
“Hugh told me about it. He said they come here sometimes to avoid police. Or to have a party.” Derry kicked at an empty whiskey bottle, which rolled sloppily across the floor before it plopped through a hole into the water. “A good place to be away from prying eyes.”
It was too silent. Eerie. Now that we were here, I wished I hadn’t come.
Derry said, “There’s still time to go if you want. If you’ve changed your mind, just say the word.”
I shook my head. “No. I want to do this.”
Half the loading door on the river side had sagged away, and I walked over to it. He came up beside me, pushing the rotting timbers so they fell onto what was left of the dock below. I looked out over the water, at the full sails of one or two schooners, thin gray plumes of smoke from the steamers, and beyond them Governors Island, the high round walls of the fortress called Castle Williams.
My dread grew by the moment. “When will they come?”
Derry pressed his hand to the small of my back. I went tingly and hot, as if waves of light had rushed into me all at once. “Before you’ll want them to,” he said quietly. “Before you’re ready.”
“But I am ready.”
“No, you’re not. Grace, listen well. Their words have more than one meaning—always trust the worse one.”
“All right.”
“Let them do what they want to me. Don’t ask them to do you a favor. Don’t be in their debt.”
“They won’t be turning you into a stag if I have anything to say about it,” I said firmly, surprising myself at the strength of my protectiveness.
Derry seemed surprised as well, and I waited for him to tease, but he only said, “There are ways to turn me back. Or there were. Ossian will know, and Finn. They’ll know who to look for to help anyway. They did it once before, with Ossian’s mother. And if that’s what the sidhe want, you won’t be able to stop it, not without trading too much. Remember what I said? The more you want something, the more it will cost, and they already know you don’t wish me changed. Bargain with them for the archdruid. That’s what matters.”
Those cunning faces. Deirdre’s beautiful but expressionless eyes. That terrible, terrible draw, as if they meant to suck away my soul. What made me think I was ready for them? I couldn’t ever be ready for them. “I should have left you back there. I should have done this alone. I didn’t think; I forgot about the stag,” I said.
“At least there’s no hunting allowed in the city.”
“Don’t joke. Please.”
He laughed softly in my ear. “I’m happy to know you care—truly I am—but don’t care too much, lass. Don’t let them know it.”
I heard a sound. A rasping behind us. Derry stepped away, whispering, “The archdruid. Don’t let them distract you from it.”
I felt the loss of his warmth and his reassurance, but he was right: I had to stand alone. I heard voices, whispers and giggles and singing, and then I felt their longing for my power, as strong and compelling as it had been in the alley. I was drowning in their song. Come to us. Let us touch you. Let us have you . . . My blood prickled with the call of magic. I swayed toward them.
“You can do this, Grace,” Derry reminded me.
I gathered my strength and my will and turned to face them.
They emerged through the dimness in a solid mass. Ten, perhaps more, all glowing faintly silver. The children of the sidhe, beautiful and lithe. “Monsters don’t always look like monsters,” Derry had said, and though he’d been talking about the Fomori, he could just as well have been referring to the sidhe.
I said to them, “Come closer. I wish to speak with you.”
They stopped, parted like the Red Sea, and Deirdre came from their center—my opposite in every way, everything I was not. She moved so smoothly that I felt clumsy and awkward in comparison, an embarrassment to the name Grace. Straight blond hair rippled to her waist. Her blue eyes were an exceptionally clear color.
The others followed closely as she approached me. She stopped only a foot away, and then she glanced at Derry and said, “Ah, sweet Diarmid. Handsome as always. You would still make a good stag.”
The archdruid, I told myself. “I’m the one who has business with you today.”
“You wish a gift from the sidhe?”
“Not a gift. A trade.”
“What have you to trade?” Another glance at Derry. “Your beautiful boy, perhaps? I would like that.” She stepped up to him, pressing herself against him while he held himself rigid. She laid her hand upon his chest as she’d done in the alleyway. “Ah, the things I could do to him.”
Their longing for me shifted. Now it was him they wanted. She wanted. Her thoughts whispered in my head. And he wants me, too, don’t you see it? You see how he must clench his fists to keep from touching me?
And I did. I saw it. Fingers clenching.
Give him to me. He knew one of my sisters, did he tell you that? They lived in a house on a hill and he loved her for a time. He has always loved the sidhe. He wants to love me too. Can you feel it?
I could. I did. I saw how his eyes darkened. Deirdre played with the buttons on his shirt, and he let her and he wanted her. She was so perfect that I felt a sinking despair. How could I begin to compete with such a creature? Jealousy flooded me. He’d told me to let them do what they would to him—because this was what he wanted? He wanted her?
He was mine. He belonged to me. “The more you want something, the more it will cost.” Suddenly, I didn’t care if I gave them everything. She could not have him.
“Grace,” Derry rasped, and it was as if I woke from a dream. This was a glamour. That wasn’t desire in his eyes but wariness. His fists were clenched in anger.
Don’t let them know how badly you want it.
I was startled at how easily the fairies had read me. But no, these feelings weren’t real. Not my desire, and not my jealousy. Deirdre had only met one enchantment with another.
I said, “He’s free to do as he likes. He doesn’t belong to me and I can’t bargain for him. There’s something else I need from you.”
Deirdre turned from him. Her blue eyes glittered. “What is that?”
“What do you know about the archdruid?”
Deirdre dropped her hand from Derry’s chest and backed away. I tried to hide my relief. The others murmured. Their silver glow pulsed. “Come with us. Let us touch you.” I shut my ears to the song and kept my eyes on Deirdre.
She flicked her hand and their song faded to a hush. “We will do you this favor and tell you what we know.”
I felt Derry’s alarm. “No favor,” I said. “A bargain. We each get what we want, or there will be no trade.”
“What have you to give us?”
The murmur again. “Let us touch you. Come with us.”
Again, the prickle in my blood, my fingers itching with it. “What do you want? Besides my power—that I cannot give you.”
“We could simply take it.”
Derry said, “You could try.”
“Are you so dishonorable that you would take from me what I’ve no wish to give you?” I asked. I looked at Derry. “Perhaps we should search out another group. One more . . . accommodating.”
“Wait,” Deirdre said. “We can bargain, veleda.”
“Another story,” said one of the fairies, drawing out the word in a wicked hiss. He stepped forward, his dark eyes flashing. “We wish a story, Deirdre.”
She cocked her head at me. “Hmm. Perhaps. We liked the story you told the other day.”
“The story I told?”
“Though perhaps you made Diarmid too good.”
I understood then which story she meant. The Pursuit of Diarmid and Grainne. If the sidhe had heard it, that meant they had been close to the tenement. Derry hadn’t wanted them near where we’re staying, and neither di
d I. Too late.
Deirdre said, “You have made of him something he is not. He’s like every other boy, clumsy and selfish. You are fated to be with him, but perhaps not in the way you wish. Do you feel how bound you are? Has he compelled you as he did the other one?”
“There was power in the tale,” whispered the boy, licking his lips. “I would drink another.”
“Yes, we feasted well on it,” Deirdre said. “Though we’d heard it before.”
“Another one,” said the boy, and the others took up the call. Another one, another one, unspoken words in my mind, a rush of noise like flapping wings or wind through branches, growing louder until I wanted to put my hands to my ears.
Deirdre said, “We’ll trade for another story, but this time it must be one we have not heard.”
The noise died. A story they hadn’t heard. It seemed easy enough, but I made myself parse her words the way Derry had advised. What other meaning could I read in them?
I felt their desire for my power and the burn of the response in my blood. This could be another trick. But through their song I heard something else, whispers of notes, so soft I had to concentrate to hear it, and even then it was distant and disjointed. Another song, one that didn’t belong to them, one that said, Trust . . . She will . . . not fail you.
It told me to believe her, and I did. I could not have said why. “I agree.”
As if ruled by one mind, the fairies sat in a circle on the planked floor of the warehouse, lifting their faces to me like children. I racked my brain, trying to think of a story they might not know. Then it came to me.
“This story is about a lady under a curse,” I began, and their halos shimmered brightly with approval. “She was a fairy herself, and she lived on the island of Shalott, in a tower that overlooked Camelot, where King Arthur lived with all his knights. She was told she could never look directly down on Camelot or she would be cursed forever. She was only to look in a mirror that showed her what was happening in the castle and about its lands.”
I went on, telling them every detail of the Tennyson poem I loved. How the lady watched the fishermen and farmers, pretty girls picking flowers and young pages with crimson cloaks, couples courting and knights whose armor shone in the sun. As I spoke, the glow that surrounded the sidhe grew brighter.
“But the mirror showed only a reflection of life, not life itself, and the Lady of Shalott grew weary of watching shadows. She was alone, and lonely.”
The halo shimmered so that it was hard to see the fairies within it. I felt as if the air were pulling me, touching, tasting, licking, sucking. My skin stung.
“Then one day, she saw a handsome knight in her mirror. He had coal-black hair and rode a horse with a saddle covered in jewels. It was Lancelot, the most loyal of King Arthur’s knights, riding out from Camelot. The Lady of Shalott fell in love with him so suddenly and completely that she left the mirror and went to the window to look at him, and the mirror cracked. The curse fell hard upon her.”
The glow was so bright now I could not see them. I realized that they were feasting on the words, as Deirdre had said, drawing the power I put into them. My power. But this was the bargain I’d made, and so I let them do it, and while I was afraid of what Derry had told me about the way the sidhe could suck a Druid dry, I felt in control of how much of me they took, and it was bearable.
“She left the tower and climbed into a boat, letting the river carry her from the island. The Lady of Shalott looked upon the Camelot she had only ever seen in the mirror. She smelled the clean, fresh air and watched the farmers and the girls playing along the riverbank. Her heart grew so full and sad at the thought that she had never truly lived, she sang her last song, and in singing it, she died. Her curse was that she must only view life from afar, but she chose to follow her love instead, and to die rather than live a life of shadows.”
I let the last words fade. There was silence. Birds gathered again on the beams. The halo around the sidhe pulsed and turned soft at the edges, sated.
Deirdre sighed. “’Twas a good tale. Do you think she regretted her choice?”
“No,” I said.
Deirdre glanced at Derry, and then back to me as she rose in one fluid, impossibly lovely motion. She gestured to the others. They began to leave.
“I would have your part, Deirdre,” I said. “The trade. Or do you not keep your promises?”
She said, “I know nothing of an archdruid. Nor do any of us. But I know of one who might.”
“Who?”
“He lives by the sea. Not far from here. There are powerful spells there—or there were. They have diminished. We do not go there anymore.”
“Where? By what sea?”
“We do not pay attention to names.” Deirdre’s smile was coy. “Those are for mortal folk.”
“That’s not good enough.” I tried not to sound desperate. “I gave you a good story. You owe me more.”
“I can tell you what I remember of it. There were many people. Mortals bathing. Smoke. A roaring—’twas like angry kelpies—from cars on silver ribbons. And . . . there was a sign.” She furrowed her beautiful, smooth brow. “A sun and a moon. A shadowed sickle. Ah . . . ’tis all I remember.”
It had been a bad bargain after all. “It’s not enough!”
“’Tis all I have to give you, but for my advice: Do not trust in love. ’Twill prove your undoing.”
Her words sank into me, a warning and a curse. When she turned again to leave, I said, “There’s something else, Deirdre. Something I would ask a favor for.”
She stopped. “A favor?”
“Grace, no,” Derry protested.
“Can you take back a gift that another has bestowed?” I looked at him.
“You’re asking me to remove the ball seirce?” Deirdre asked.
I heard Derry’s gasp.
My fierce hope died the very next moment, when Deirdre shook her head.
“I fear not, milady. I did not give it, and I cannot undo it.”
“I see.” I did not dare look at him now. “Thank you, then. There’s nothing else.”
I stood there wordlessly as the sidhe melted back into the shadows and vanished, and I was alone with him again.
Moments later
Diarmid
It was done.
It had been all he could do to stand there, to say nothing, to do nothing. Grace had been calm and clever, and in the end there had been a confidence in her that reminded him again of Neasa. He hadn’t been sure what would happen when Deirdre had pressed herself against him and he’d felt Grace’s fear and anger. He’d expected to find himself a stag. Yet Grace had made a decent bargain, and he was proud of her.
Grace’s request to take away the lovespot unsettled him, though. It bothered him that he didn’t know why she’d asked. And his fear that Deirdre might do it surprised him. He’d had the ball seirce most of his life. He’d used it—sometimes without thought or question—and he had spent the last years regretting it, hating it. Yet . . . who would he be without it? Himself? Or someone else entirely?
Grace said, “That wasn’t at all helpful.”
“You didn’t ask me if I wanted it gone.” The words came out before he could stop them.
“I don’t care if you want it gone. It’s a mean-spirited gift. Did the fairy who gave it to you dislike women so much?”
“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “I think ’twas only that she liked me.”
“It’s unfair. Has any girl withstood it? Ever?”
He wanted to say yes. He wished he could say yes. It was unfair; he had always known it. “No.”
Grace looked away. “Deirdre couldn’t do it anyway. So I suppose it doesn’t matter.”
He didn’t want to tell her that it did. That it would have given him a reason not to keep his promise to Finn. “You did perfectly.
I was proud of you.”
She seemed troubled. “Perfectly? Hardly.”
“We’ve some clues. More than we did.”
“Yes.”
Something was wrong. “What did she show you? What was the glamour she tried?”
“You mean you don’t know?”
He shook his head. “Only that she was doing it. I was too busy imagining what it would be like as a stag. You looked angry, that’s all I know.”
“It’s odd, isn’t it? The way they can look right into you.”
“They see what you most want,” he agreed.
She looked even more troubled. “Do you think so?”
“I know it.”
He led her silently from the warehouse, back into a day that was growing hotter and brighter by the moment.
She said, “I thought they would know where the archdruid was. But the things she said . . . she didn’t know anything at all.”
He pulled the huge, squealing door shut, and left the broken padlock dangling. “I think she told us what she knew, and it’s a start.”
“A start? Somewhere by the sea? People bathing? A sign with a sun and a moon and a sickle?”
He went to the edge of the loading dock and jumped down, then turned to help her. Distractedly, she let him lift her. Diarmid took advantage, holding her closer than he had to, letting her slide down his body. He heard the catch of her breath. She stepped back quickly.
It made him think of last night. How she’d let him touch her. He was afraid of how powerful his longing was, despite his best intentions. The fairy had said that he and Grace were bound. He knew it was true—his fate was tied to hers just as it had been to the first Grainne—and the irony over their shared name wasn’t lost on him. But this felt different, the way Grace eased his loneliness, the force of his desire. For the first time he wondered if the geis that Manannan had laid was meant to be a lesson. Diarmid of the lovespot, ruined by love—there was a grim sort of justice in that.
“A sun and a moon and a sickle.” Grace’s voice broke into his thoughts as they walked. “A place by the sea.”
