The Castle of Wind and Whispers

by Steffanie Holmes

  “Hello, Daigh,” Aline flipped her wavy hair over her shoulder and smiled that kind smile of hers and gave him a little wave.

  “This is a trick,” he said to me.

  “I am no trick.” Aline slid her hands over her hips in a suggestive way. “I am flesh and blood again.”

  Daigh laughed. “Nice try. You’re Blake, standing there wearing a glamour. You can’t fool me.”

  Blake stepped forward so he stood between Aline and I. He wrapped his fingers around my hand. With his other hand, he gave Daigh the finger. Flynn must’ve taught him that.

  I grinned. “No glamour. Here’s Blake, and this is Aline.”

  “You can’t be real.”

  “I am.”

  “You told me that you and my mother had a single…” I searched for the right word. “Dalliance, down by the sidhe. But that’s not true. You were compelling Robert Smithers for months and months. You tricked her into sleeping with you, into creating a binding. Why didn’t you say that before?”

  “Fae lie,” he smiled, but the smile was thin. I wondered, did he not tell me because he wanted me to think well of him? That was… interesting.

  “They do lie,” I grinned. “You were in love with Aline here. You just can’t admit it to yourself.”

  “How is this possible?”

  Aline stepped forward. “During the ritual all those years ago, Robert Smithers sensed that you were trying to take me away with you, away from him, and so he used his own magic to trap me inside your portrait. I’ve lived there as pigment and spirit for twenty-one years, until our daughter freed me.”

  Daigh’s eyes darted to mine. “But… how did you know of this?”

  “I figured it out. It wasn’t hard, given the evidence.” I folded my arms. “The same way you figured out I was alive from the fae realm and sent your prince Kalen to kill my family and rob me of my scholarship.”

  “That was necessary to reunite us. I’m your father. We are blood.” His eyes flicked to Aline again. “And now that Aline’s returned, it’s all perfect. We can be together in the new world we build.”

  “You killed my parents,” I spat back at him. “If you think inhabiting someone else’s head while his sperm impregnates an egg makes you my father, than you don’t know anything about human genetics, either.”

  “We are bound magically. Our stories tell of a binding where our magic—”

  “I know what the stories say, but human science has moved beyond your simple fairy tales. Genetic traits are passed on through chromosomes from the sperm and egg. You being inside Robert’s head has nothing to do with that process. According to the science, you’re not my father at all.”

  “Your science is flawed.”

  “There’s an easy way to find out. There’s a test we can do to determine whether you and I share any genetic material. All I’d need was a sample of your blood and I could have an answer in a couple of days from a certified lab. No cheating. No lies. I’m betting it’s going to give a false result, because there’s just no way we’re related. But if it comes back true…”

  Aline squeezed my arm. “Our daughter has every right to be angry. I remember what you said to me once – anger is just the other side of love.”

  I glared at her. Daigh told her that line she fed me? She wasn’t trying to suggest I loved Daigh, because that was not a thing.

  Aline threw her arm around me. “Our daughter’s very clever. When it comes to anything science-related, I believe her. I can’t see how you can possibly be her real father.”

  Daigh drew a blade from his belt. His smile never left his face as he dragged the knife over his skin. My stomach turned as I imagined Arthur doing the same thing. A thin line of green blood spilled from the wound.

  Daigh tossed the knife at the mirror. The glass broke into five shards as the blade drove through it and flew through the air. I froze as it sailed for my head. Arthur reached out and grabbed the handle.

  “Keep that safe,” I told him. “Don’t let the blade touch anything else. Corbin’s got a Ziploc bag.” Corbin stepped forward with a bag held open and Arthur dropped the blade inside.

  “Was that all you wanted?” Daigh asked, his expression smug. His face multiplied as it appeared in the five shards, like I was a fly looking down at a spider that was about to eat me.

  Aline glanced at me for permission. I nodded. We might as well give it a shot.

  “We propose an alliance,” she said.

  “An alliance with humans? How intriguing, especially considering your pathetic race is only days away from extinction at the hands of your own dead.”

  “We’re not worried about the Slaugh,” I said. “Aline stopped you once before, and this time we have a powerful weapon on our side – one you couldn’t even conceive of.”

  “I think you’re talking out of your arse, daughter,” Daigh said. His eyes flicked over mine. I knew I had to hold his gaze at all costs. If I looked away, if I blinked, he’d never believe me.

  “I know it’s hard for you fae, but look at this logically. You’ve seen me dreamwalk into your realm. You now know I can bring the dead back to life. You tried to hurt my coven in the church, but I saved them all. I’m more powerful than you can imagine, and I haven’t even started yet. If you hurt any more people I care about, you will find out what I’m really capable of.”

  “This is all empty threats,” Daigh waved his hand as if he was flicking away a bug. Blake squeezed my hand. His dark eyes burned into mine.

  You’ve got him, Princess. Blake’s voice landed in my head. He’s worried. I can see it.

  “It’s your prerogative to believe that. You can come at me with the Slaugh and be beaten back and have the fae turn on you and tear you limb from limb and devour your bones while they praise Liah’s name.” I shrugged. “It’s all the same to me. You’re not my father. I’m just offering you an alternative.”

  “Which is?”

  “You call off the Slaugh and return the fae to Tir Na Nog. We will direct our weapon to destroying Liah and her faction of dissidents. You will rule the fae unopposed.”

  “Apart from my life, what’s in this for me?” Daigh narrowed his eyes. “What good is a kingdom inside an iron box?”

  “In return, we will give you back the wild places of the earth,” Aline said. “We will throw open the gateway so the fae can return to dwell in the forests and on the glades and in the caves and upon the meadows. You will have dominion in these places, the only rule imposed on you that you may not harm a human.”

  “That doesn’t sound like any fun.”

  “Fun is where you find it,” Aline smiled at Daigh.

  I glanced up at Aline. Could we really make an agreement like that, one that concerned the whole world, without consulting anyone?

  Daigh threw his head back. “Why would I take this sorry deal, when in a few days I will have the entire world at my mercy?”

  “Because this way you get exactly what you want – what you claimed this battle was all about.” An idea popped into my head. I couldn’t believe I never thought of this before. I pressed on. “I know Blake told you about the rest of the vision – the burned and cracked earth, the sky on fire, the air poison in your lungs. Do you know what that is? It’s a nuclear weapon – it will turn the earth into an uninhabitable wasteland for at least five thousand years. It’s what the humans will hit you with once they see the Slaugh coming. I know fae live a long time, but can you really wait five thousand years before you ever hope to see a forest again?”

  Nice one, Princess.

  I know. I cast my mind back to the dream that had haunted me for so many nights. I’d been focusing on the stakes, I hadn’t even considered the ruined landscape. Now that the idea had occurred to me, I knew I’d guessed correctly. The fae didn’t have the power to do that kind of damage – and even if they did, they couldn’t turn it against the natural world. I highly doubted it was the hand of a witch. No, it was the kind of destruction only humans were capable of. />
  “As dramatic as your tale is, I think I’ll take my chances.” Daigh swiveled his gaze to Blake. “You shouldn’t have left, Prince. You chose the losing side.”

  “I think you did, old man.”

  “You will join me before this is over, daughter,” Daigh flashed me that cold smile of his. “We will be a family. You will see.”

  A black cloud rose from the shard, tendrils swirling around us. Aline shoved me back just as one reached for my ankle.

  Daigh’s face disappeared into the black mist. The mirror shattered to pieces. I fell to my knees, my stomach lurching as his cold, cruel laugh rose from the mirror and echoed through the wood.

  18

  BLAKE

  Only when Daigh’s face disappeared from the mirror did I drop Maeve’s hand. His evil laugh reverberated in my head, reminding me how important it was we beat that bastard in this battle. Because if he won… we’d all be buggered.

  Maeve bent down and picked up a long shard of the cracked mirror, pinching it between her fingers. “It’s hot.”

  “We did just hit it with a ton of magic,” Aline pointed out.

  Maeve tossed the shard on top of the broken frame. “That was a waste of a perfectly good mirror.”

  Aline flopped down on the grass, wrapping the long sleeves of her cloak around her body. “Wasn’t that exhilarating!”

  “It wasn’t. It was awful. And it was a waste of time – he didn’t take our deal.”

  ““Did you really expect him to?” Arthur frowned.

  “I thought that was the plan.”

  Aline grinned. “Have faith, daughter. We’re much more subtle than that.”

  “You did what you came to do, Princess.” I kicked a mirror shard with the edge of my boot, sliding it on top of the rest of the glass. “You unnerved him.”

  Seeing Daigh again sure unnerved me. I hated the way he directed that smile of his at Maeve. I’d seen that smile too many times before, and it usually led to someone getting spikes under their fingernails or losing their head.

  “We did,” Aline grinned, twirling a strand of her hair around her long fingers. “I hoped we would also learn something valuable, and we did.”

  “We did?” Maeve raised an eyebrow.

  I nodded. Aline and I were the only people who knew Daigh well enough to read between the lines. “He denied practically everything else, but he never denied he was in love with Aline.”

  Maeve looked thoughtful as we trudged back to the house. Something rustled in the bushes as we made our way up the hill. “I think it’s just a fox,” Arthur said from further up the path. “Too small to be a human.”

  “I hope he’s right,” Maeve mumbled under her breath. I squeezed her hand.

  “You’re thinking something, Princess. You’ve got that constipated look on your face.”

  Maeve snorted. “Where did you learn that word?”

  “Three guesses,” I grinned, jabbing a finger at Flynn.

  “He’s a bad influence on you, or you’re a bad influence on him. I haven’t decided which.” Maeve’s hazel eyes bore into mine. “You’re right, though. I’m thinking that I need to find out what’s going on with Kelly and Jane. It’s killing me that they’re not here in the castle where they have some protection.”

  “I could visit Jane. One of us should go into the village anyway and see how much belief the statue’s collected, and what the villagers make of it. It should probably be me, since no one there really knows who I am.” I shrugged. “I’ll stop by the cottage. I know where it is.”

  “You definitely do.” Maeve grinned, remembering the day I snuck up on her when she was using the outhouse behind Jane’s cottage. If looks could have killed, the one she’d given me that day would’ve had me dead and buried. She was lucky she was so hot when she was pissed off. “Thank you. She won’t speak to me, but maybe you can make her see reason. Take Flynn with you – Connor loves Flynn. That might get you through the front door. But don’t either of you dare do anything stupid.”

  “Your wish is my command.” I wanted to speak to Clara at her witchcraft shop, anyway. I wanted to know what she made of the dream and of the conversation we’d just had with Daigh. Flynn agreed to go into town with me on the condition we had lunch at the pub. I didn’t think that was the cleverest of his ideas, but he was insisting. I felt certain that fell under Maeve’s definition of ‘stupid.’ As we headed out the door, I noticed Flynn slide a knife into his sock.

  Thick grey clouds hung low in the sky, and rain pelted us as we walked down the road into the village. We didn’t encounter anyone else on the road, but as soon as we set foot on the high street it was clear we were even less welcome than we’d been a few days ago.

  As soon as they saw us, people ducked into nearby shops, or slammed their car doors and drove away. A woman lifted an enormous crucifix necklace and thrust it angrily toward us as she skirted around.

  “Maeve isn’t going to like this,” I said as a young mother nearly drove her stroller under a car trying to avoid us.

  “Don’t be daft. This is exactly what we want.” Flynn pointed across the green. “Look.”

  I didn’t even have to turn toward it to know what he was talking about. The statue hummed with magic – it rattled my bones and grated against my teeth. When I did lay eyes on the witch, I found it difficult to focus my vision. Something about the shape of it wouldn’t hold my eye – it kept slipping off at the edges. Tendrils of pale blue light emanated from the witch’s clawed fingers, snaking through the air as they reached toward the village.

  Two blokes in orange vests stood behind the statue, watching a third man attack one of the legs with some sort of handheld torch that shot a jet of brilliant blue flame. From the way they yelled and cursed, I assumed the flame was meant to be doing more than just tickling the witch’s feet.

  The blue tendrils wrapped around the men, sliding over their skin, forcing their way into ears and nostrils. As they scratched their heads and muttered words about witchcraft and trickery, the statue pulsed brighter. Even as they tried to tear it down, they were feeding it with their belief, making it strong enough to resist their machines.

  “What did I tell you?” Flynn patted my shoulder. “I’m a genius.”

  “Can we get away from the green, Mr. Genius – I don’t want to be nearby when they realize we’re watching them.”

  “Right you are. We should find Clara.”

  “I hope this hasn’t been affecting her too much,” I said as we rounded the side of the bank that marked the halfway point of the high street. The old stone building hid the rest of the street from view. “They might be targeting anyone they suspect is a witch—”

  I stopped short, my breath catching. We’d come around the front of the bank. The footpath glittered with broken glass. My boot kicked a bent tarot deck that had scattered over the road. A broken dream catcher hung from the edge of the trash bin.

  Someone had gone down the street and broken the window of every vaguely magical shop in Crookshollow. Lady Cordelia paced outside her tarot booth, railing down her mobile phone at some poor clot at her insurance company. The owner of the esoteric bookshop mournfully threw soaked volumes into a rubbish bag. Not even the Bewitching Bites bakery with its cartoon witch on a broomstick in the front window had been spared. Trays of pastries and cakes had been flung out the window and smeared across the footpath. The Asian woman who owned it knelt outside, weeping into her hands.

  When we reached Astarte, we found Clara sweeping the broken glass off the pavement. She’d already taped a large black sheet over the broken window. It wouldn’t do a thing to deter the weather or vandals. DIE WITCH had been scrawled across her shop door in bright orange paint.

  “Don’t fuss,” she snapped when Flynn grabbed the broom out of her hands. “I’m fine. I was up at home when this happened.”

  “Go on up to the castle,” Flynn said. “You’re staying with us.”

  “I have a perfectly good home of my own, youn
g man.”

  “Yeah? If they’re capable of this, then you’re not safe there.” Flynn shrugged. “At least Briarwood is a fortress. It’s designed to keep out invading hordes and low-level vandals. Or go to your son’s house. Either way, you need to stay away from Crookshollow.”

  Clara patted his arm. “It’s nice to hear your concern, as this is because of your little stunt.”

  “You saw my statue, then?”

  “A creepy metal witch appearing from thin air in the middle of the green? No, I completely missed it.” Clara shoved his arm away. “You have moxie, I’ll give you that, boy. It’s been all anyone in the village can talk about.”

  “That was the idea.”

  Clara lowered her voice. “Turning belief into magic – it’s clever. I wouldn’t have thought of that.”

  “Oh, don’t be modest now.” Flynn teased her. “A clever broad like you – the idea would have come to you eventually. Luckily, I thought of it first. It goes without saying that an Irishman knows his magical conduits.”

  “Indeed. It’s becoming quite heavy with magic, if you don’t mind my saying so.” Clara’s tone suggested she thought it might be too heavy. “I do hope you’ve carefully considered this plan of yours.”

  “Not in the slightest,” Flynn grinned happily. “Do you think it will be enough to hold back the Slaugh?”

  “I don’t rightly know, son. I guess we’ll find out in seven days.”

  We helped Clara sweep up the glass. Flynn offered to go to the garden center and pick up some MDF to fit over the window to keep more of the rain out, but Clara shook her head. “Gregory Stone owns the ironmongers and he’s head of the church choir. They won’t sell to any of us. You’d have to go all the way to the DIY store in Crooks Worthy, but I’ve already called my son and he’s sending his driver over to fix it up. Luckily, my insurance company isn’t local or superstitious.”

  “So you’ll stay with your son?” I demanded.

  “I will. And don’t you boys worry. He knows how to keep an old woman safe.” A shiny black car pulled up and a man wearing a black suit waved at Clara through the window. She climbed in. “Any time you need me, holler over the fence. Ryan and I want to help any way we can.”