The Castle of Wind and Whispers

by Steffanie Holmes

  “Go on,” she waved at me. “I bet that’s not the last of your questions.”

  I sighed. Not even close. “What do you know about how you got inside the painting?”

  Aline’s eyes darkened. “Ever since I gained the ability to hear and understand again, I’ve been trying to figure it out. I’d figured out that Robert was being compelled by Daigh, so I knew that if I wanted a chance at catching the fae off-guard, I’d need to keep the ritual secret. You were squirming around in my belly, poking your tiny limbs into my bladder. I was determined that no one would hurt a hair on your head. I also knew that the ritual would take me from you, leaving you without either of your parents.” She reached out to me.

  This time, I let her take my hand. Her skin felt warm and soft, her fingers long and delicate. Across her palm was a raised bump – a strange imperfection on her perfect porcelain skin. A lump rose in my throat, and my body trembled as though I was cold. But it wasn’t cold. Was this the visceral reaction I was hoping for? Because now that I had it, it totally freaked me out.

  This doesn’t make any sense. Even if this woman is my mother, she’s a stranger to me. A weird stranger who flirts with my guys. Why does her touch give me this shiver?

  All the emotions swirling around in my head were reflected back at me in Aline’s eyes. Tears flowed down her cheeks as she rubbed a finger over my knuckles. “Oh, Maeve. I’m so sorry I never got to be there when you grew up. I missed so much, but I don’t want to miss any more. Please, tell me about your life. I want to know everything. Have you been happy? Have you been loved?”

  I glanced around at my guys – from Rowan’s kind, open face to Blake’s dark smirk. The Crawfords’ faces flashed in my mind, but I pushed them aside. If I thought of them now, I’d completely break down. “Yes, I have been loved. But we can’t get distracted by sentiment now. We need to stop the fae, and having you here may be the biggest advantage we have. Tell us about the ritual – everything you remember.”

  Aline’s smile froze for a moment. I drew my hand back. The ghost of her touch lingered on my skin. More tears toppled down her cheeks.

  “You’re protecting your coven. It just… it’s so beautiful to see you all together. I remember you all as children and I… I loved your parents very much.”

  “Most of our parents are dead,” Flynn blurted out.

  Aline buried her face in her hands. “No.”

  I glared at Flynn. “Aline, the ritual.”

  “You have to excuse Maeve,” Flynn said. “She likes everything to be logical.”

  She shook her head. “Yes, sorry. It’s hard to be logical after what I’ve been through. I’ll try to remember everything that might be useful. Back then, I had this idea that maybe the belief in magic would be just as powerful as actually performing magic. Belief, after all, is one of the most powerful forces on earth. Belief makes gods of men. It topples nations. It changes hearts. I wondered if drawing on belief instead of our elemental magic in a ritual would enable us to collect belief from the people around us and weaponize it. The fae have fallen out of knowledge – so belief is not a force they can wield – but thanks to Christian dogma and modern pop culture, witches are still very much part of the human psyche, and very much tied to Crookshollow’s mythology in particular. I didn’t think it would be too hard to stoke the fires of belief in the village.

  “I couldn’t find much in the books about the power of belief, but I did a little experiment. I used Daigh’s belief that he had pulled his deception over on me to capture some of his magic.” She reached over and touched the pendant on my throat. It flared with heat under her fingers. “I stored it in there, because I knew I’d need it during the ritual to perform a glamour that even Daigh would believe. I tested it first, giving myself the appearance of my friend Bree and eating a meal with the coven. They were completely fooled. Even Andrew chatted away to me without realizing I wasn’t his wife.”

  “You’re very scientific about your magic,” I said. Rowan took my hand and squeezed it, his wide eyes signaling he understand what I was thinking. Aline’s experiment was exactly what I’d have done, testing a theory before jumping in. Needles stabbed at my heart, and I had to gulp down another lump in my throat.

  Forget coffee. I needed a glass of Arthur’s strongest mead.

  “Magic and science were one and the same for many centuries,” Aline said in a haughty voice I wondered might sound similar to what Flynn referred to as Corbin’s ‘Boring Professor’ voice. “Alchemists made many scientific breakthroughs while searching for their philosopher’s stone.”

  “We could have done with your help when we first told Maeve about her powers,” Flynn said. “This stubborn wench took ages to believe what we all knew was true.”

  “How I wish I could have been there,” Aline said. “I wish you’d been able to grow up knowing what you would be capable of. You could have prepared for it. But…” I yanked my hand out of Rowan’s and folded my arms across my chest. Aline straightened up. “But… as I was saying, once I knew that my glamour would work, and it would work on Daigh, I knew what I had to do. I made plans with Andrew and Bree, and prepared myself to die.”

  “How would you know you would die?” Corbin asked. I glared at him, knowing what Aline was going to say. I’m not dealing with the predestination issue today on top of everything else.

  “Because I saw it. I see the future in visions that leave my mind open and my body bleeding. The last vision I saw was my own death. I knew I would die to protect Maeve, so I made sure that I stopped the fae on the way out.” She lifted her hands, indicating the room and all of us. “It turns out, even Fate can play tricks on her most ardent servants.”

  That’s because fate doesn’t exist and premonitions are completely impossible, I thought, but didn’t say. Flynn looked at me like he expected me to bite at the Fate comment.

  “The ritual,” Corbin took her back to the story.

  “Yes, yes. Witches started arriving at Briarwood from miles around – the new age hippies from Avebury and Glastonbury, the German coven in their black goth gear, the eastern Europeans with their dark skin and darker auras. The presence of so many strange people converging on Briarwood fueled the town’s simmering distrust of us. Belief in witchcraft soared. I could feel the power pulsing in the streets, exuding from the church steeple. If this worked we would have more than enough.

  “We had to wait for your birth before we could perform the ritual. It was dangerous to wait, because Daigh was assembling a fae army. He’d killed many Seelie and taken their power for himself. His warriors moved up and down the countryside, stealing unbaptized children to grow his power still further. The night you came, the wind howled outside, but the castle was warm and filled with love. Robert was by my side the entire time, but I was too far gone to know when it was him or Daigh whose hand I crushed with my grip. You were born in the early hours of the evening, a slithering alien of a thing, covered in blood and mucus – and yet, you were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Monet’s Water Lilies didn’t come close to the sublime wonder of holding my child in my arms. I cradled you to my breast and wept. All I wanted to do was curl up with you and sleep. But instead I called the witches for the ritual, and wrote you the letter. Did you get my letter?”

  I nodded, digging my shaking fingers into the pocket of my jeans. I drew the letter out and handed it to Aline. She brushed her hand over the broken seal, inhaling sharply.

  “I remember every word I wrote,” she whispered. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  “The ritual,” I whispered, struggling to hold back tears of my own.

  “Yes. You must know the truth of it.” She gripped the edge of the letter, where her tears from all those years ago had thinned the paper. “We gathered in two circles in the field – an inner circle of the High Priestesses, and an outer circle of the other witches. They called up their powers, and I drew that power into myself, becoming the conduit for their belief in me. I’d made sure to spread gossip
in the village that something interesting would be going on at the castle that night, so a bunch of local kids were hiding in the bushes. One ran back to the pub to report of women dancing and chanting under the moonlight, creating a chain of belief that funneled into our ritual, extending me more power than I’d ever known possible.

  “It was time. I touched my fingers to the amulet, and I was able to use Daigh’s power to cast a glamour. I picked up the knife. I held it above your head. Twelve High Priestesses and Bree and Andrew and Robert and Daigh inside Robert’s head saw me plunge that knife into your heart.”

  She held up her hand, and I noticed a long scar across her palm, the tiny imperfection I’d felt on her skin. “Instead, I plunged the knife into my hand. I knew I could not hold the glamour for long, and for it to be believed, Daigh would expect to see blood. Unfortunately, I cut too deep. Weakened by the birth, my body shuddered under this new trauma as Daigh tried to rip your body from me. The witches – knowing that I had committed this horrific act to save the world form the Slaugh – held him back, and Andrew bundled you away. Robert escaped from their grasp and fell on me, clawing at me, torn between the twin minds sharing the same body, both wallowing in the horror of what I’d done to them.” She rubbed the cuts on her cheeks. “I think that’s where I got these cuts. Robert’s magic must’ve prevented them from healing.”

  “I have a balm for them,” Rowan said.

  “Thank you, beautiful.” That flirtatious tone was back. “Fae poured out of the sidhe, answering Daigh’s anguished call. They rushed the circle, breaking the outer ring. But they were too late. Daigh’s belief in my breaking his pact with the underworld by killing his daughter had, in fact, broken his pact with the underworld and robbed him of all his power. And he thought I’d killed his child. Robert thought I’d killed his child.” Darkness passed over her face. “It was twice the amount of pain one soul was able to hold. The grief in his eyes, in their eyes – it broke me to see it. I could feel myself losing my grip on life.

  “Robert wrapped his hands around my throat, tightening, loosening, as the great internal struggle tore apart his mind. Which one of them wanted me to live and which wanted me to die, I did not know. I have no clue into whose eyes I stared as my life drained from my body. I was too weak to fight back, even if I’d wanted to. But I had to die. I had to go to the underworld, it was the only way to be sure we’d won.

  “The cut in my hand bled profusely, and soon my vision swam and the carnage of the ritual fell silent. The world went dark. I thought he’d choked the life from me, and that I’d awake in the underworld. But instead, I slumbered in the nightmare of darkness inside that painting until you lot woke me again.”

  “Robert was the one who placed you inside the painting.” I explained to her what we learned from our visit to Robert Smithers, how we believed he’d traded his mind with Daigh in exchange for the fae king’s artistic talent, and how he said they were both in love with her. Aline looked distressed as I described the institution he lived in and the precarious state of his mind. “We couldn’t get it out of him when we visited him – he’s not exactly coherent. But the painting bore traces of water magic, not fae magic, and we recently found out that witches can store energy inside objects.” I touched the pendant on my throat. “The same way you stored that piece of Daigh’s magic inside here.”

  Aline’s eyes lit up. “I’m impressed, Maeve.”

  “Don’t be. Just help us figure out how to stop the fae a second time.” And tell me who my father is. I didn’t say it. I wasn’t ready to hear the answer, not from her. I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like what she said.

  “What’s happened with the fae now?” Aline leaned forward.

  “They have moved into the underworld and taken a sacrifice of twenty-two unbaptized humans and twenty-two high-ranking fae,” Corbin said. A collective shudder passed through the group at the memory of those lives burned away.

  “How many days until the full moon?” Aline asked.

  “Eight days.”

  Aline tipped her head to the side. To me, it didn’t look as though she was considering the problem nearly hard enough. “Daigh must know I tricked him all those years ago, because you are alive, and he found you. I do not think we can fool him again.”

  “Then what can we do?”

  “Even if we destroy Daigh and strip his power, we’re still screwed,” Blake said. “The Slaugh will still ride, and Liah will simply rise up to become queen in his place. And if you ask me, we should be more afraid of meeting her in battle than Daigh.”

  “Who’s Liah?” Aline frowned. “And while we’re on the subject, what happened to you, Blake Beckett? I heard in the painting that you came from the fae realm, but you were born a human and fae—”

  “—can’t be inside the castle walls. I know.” Blake smirked. “I’m just amazing.” Blake explained what happened to his parents and how Daigh adopted him and he’d escaped the fae realm to join us. At the mention of his parents grisly death and the tortures he’d endured under Daigh’s control, Aline winced. I wondered if she was thinking what might’ve happened to me if Daigh had known I was still alive.

  “Thank you, Blake, and you’re right. Destroying Daigh won’t stop the Slaugh riding. We’d literally have to overthrow the demons of hell in order to call this off now. There’s only one other solution that I can see.”

  “We let the Slaugh wipe out the human race, retire to a desert island, and rejoice in the fact we now have a lifetime supply of free whiskey?” Flynn asked hopefully.

  Aline shook her head. “We have to get the fae to change their mind and call off the deal they’ve made. Which means I have to speak with Daigh.”

  5

  MAEVE

  She wants to what?

  “No.” I shook my head, my pink bangs flapping against my temples. “No way.”

  “It’s our only choice. Even if we had every witch in the world lending their power to us, we could not reach into the underworld. But Daigh can call off the deal – he could stop the Slaugh, if I gave him a compelling reason.”

  “He’s never going to do that.”

  “Agreed,” Blake folded his arms. “Daigh’s been building up for the Slaugh his entire life. He won’t give it up for anything, especially not the woman who stopped him last time.”

  “He will if we give him what he really wants – his family restored.”

  I snorted. “Daigh doesn’t care about us. He hates you, and I’m not even really his daughter. He has to know that.”

  “You didn’t see what I saw that night,” she insisted. “When he thought I had killed you, his face… I’ve never seen anything more terrifying. He loved me, and he loved you, and for all his talk of reclaiming the earth for the fae, he really just wanted us to be together. When he thought I’d destroyed that, it broke him completely. That was what really robbed him of his power – a broken heart.”

  “You said you didn’t even know which face was Daigh’s and which was Robert’s.”

  “I did, didn’t I?” Aline flipped her hair over her shoulder. “But I’m positive this was Daigh in anguish over losing you.”

  “Why, though? I’m not Daigh’s daughter. He may have been inside Robert’s head when I was conceived, but that doesn’t mean he contributed any genetic material. That’s not how biology works.”

  Aline shook her head. “It’s more complicated than that. There’s a type of fae magic—”

  “The binding.” Blake picked up the last scone from the plate and took an enormous bite. “Compelling a human during sex causes some kind of magical bond. It’s forbidden for a reason, and I’m guessing you know something about it we don’t.”

  Aline nodded. “The day I found out I was pregnant, the coven had a huge celebration. We all went down to the sidhe and danced and ate and drank and howled at the moon. I believe you boys were there with your parents – although you’d all be too young to remember much. Robert was in one of his savage moods that night, and he
’d had a lot to drink, and he told this story about a fae woman who fathered a child through a binding. Everyone thought he was just repeating some fae legend he’d heard, but something about the tale unsettled me. It was a couple of months later I figured out he was really Daigh, and I realized the significance of the story.”

  “What was the story, then?” Corbin leaned forward. This was his area of interest.

  “Many centuries ago, a fae princess was gathering food in the forest on a cold winter’s day when she came upon a young woman huddled inside a hollow tree. The woman was traveling to visit her betrothed, who lived on the other side of the forest. She strayed from the path and become lost, and not knowing what to do, she’d taken shelter in the tree.

  “As soon as the fae laid eyes upon this woman, she fell into madness, which is how Robert always described love. She desired to possess the woman. ‘I will lead you back to the safety of the path,’ the fae said. ‘But in exchange, you must grant me a kiss.’ This particular fae princess was famed for her sensual beauty, and she knew the woman wouldn’t be able to resist her as soon as their lips touched.

  “The girl was frightened. Night was falling, and carnivorous creatures stalked her scent. She agreed to the fae’s bargain. The fae princess took her hand and led her back to the safety of the path.

  “‘I’ve kept my part of the bargain. I shall have my kiss,’ the fae demanded. Out of the corner of her eye, the girl saw her lover in the distance, running along the path and calling out to her. She became terrified he would stumble upon her just as she kissed the fae princess, and know that she had betrayed him.

  “Knowing fae folk have the ability to slip unnoticed into a person’s mind, she begged the fae to become one with her lover and so have her kiss as they reunited. ‘You will feel his lips against mine as though they were your own, and I will not lose him. Please?’