23. Twenty-Four Maeve

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-FOUR: MAEVE

" Y ou're not going with us." I folded my arms, spreading my feet wide to block Aline from the kitchen doorway.

"Daigh said he didn't want any of the other guys ," Aline insisted, her voice rising into what was rapidly approaching an irritating whine. "But he didn't say anything about me. "

"He said it had to be only me and Blake or the whole thing was off. I'm not going to risk this deal just so you can ogle your old sweetheart."

Aline's face fell. Guilt panged in my stomach, but I pushed it aside. She was acting irrational, and a bit childish. She reminded me of Kelly chasing after her latest crush.

Kelly. The pangs in my stomach intensified. I hadn't seen or heard from her since our horrible fight. Will she ever talk to me again?

Aline wasn't going to let me forget that she existed. "I know Daigh better than any of you." She grabbed my arm. "I may be able to read some treachery you can't."

"I think I know his treachery when I see it," Blake murmured behind me.

"You're not coming, and that's my final word as High Priestess of this coven. Stay in the castle. We need someone to watch out for any of the villagers approaching. Call on Corbin's mobile if there are any problems."

"But—"

I turned on my heel and headed toward the orchard, not waiting for her to finish.

"You don't seem happy to have your mother back," Blake said as he caught up with me.

"She's only my mother in the biological sense. Another woman raised me, wiped my tears, put Bandaids on my skinned knees, and bought me astronomy books for Christmas. Right now she's a whiny houseguest with a penchant for trying to fix everything with woo-woo hippie stuff."

Blake grinned, like he didn't believe me. "If you're sure, Princess."

"What?" I growled. Behind us, I heard the creek of the kitchen garden gate as the boys snuck out behind us and headed toward the topiary maze, where they could cut through to the wood and hide without Daigh's fae seeing them.

"Nothing. Nothing at all." Blake's grin infuriated me.

"If you think she's so awesome, how come you haven't asked her about your parents?" I demanded.

Blake shrugged. "Never thought about it."

"Bullshit. I saw your face after all those things she said on the night we freed her from the painting. Rowan needed to know. Why don't you?"

Blake shrugged again. "It's not going to bring them back."

"But you never knew them at all. Don't you at least?—"

"Do you want to know anything about Aline?" Blake shot back.

"I've asked her lots of things." I thought back to our private conversation in the library the first day she was here with us. I'd been wary of her presence, but I caught glimpses of her life before through the things she said and left unsaid. I didn't like thinking about Aline too much because if she'd been my mother – really my mother, the way Louise Crawford was – my life would have been different. I didn't like to think about the person I might've become – and the fact that Kelly wouldn't be part of my life – if Aline hadn't been trapped in that painting. "It's my job to be suspicious of her, especially now that she's trying to talk to Daigh and making charms that confine our magic to the castle. But I guess…I really do believe she's who she says she is. I just don't know how I feel about that yet. Hearing about the past is nice, it makes me feel weird, but good, you know? I just can't let it distract me from the present."

"Hm." Blake wrapped his arm around my shoulder. I leaned in, letting his bright, spicy scent strengthen me for what was about to happen. "You and I feel much the same, only I don't want to know anything. I never had loving adoptive parents like you did, Princess. If I go digging into my real parents' pasts and start finding out how kind and wonderful and amazing they were, then I might go postal."

I snorted at his terminology. Blake grinned. "I heard that on Flynn's video game. And you said those things rot your brain."

"They do."

Blake ran his fingers through my hair, messing it up. He kissed my cheek, his lips so deliciously soft and warm. "You keep being suspicious and asking your questions, Princess. That's who you are. But don't expect me to keep focusing on the past. I'm trying to enjoy my time at Briarwood while I have it. I don't want to think about the past or I might end up hating you or the others because of what you had that I didn't. No way do I want that to happen, okay?" He kicked a loose stone on the path. "Can we forget about Aline and focus on Daigh and that pox-ridden dream?"

I remembered Blake's face from a few days ago, when Corbin took us to visit the home where his parents lived. Or where that home had been, since Daigh compelled Blake's dad to burn it down after he killed her mother and before he killed himself. I thought Corbin was nuts taking Blake to a place tainted by such vicious, insidious crimes, but Blake seemed to appreciate it.

Now I wondered if that house was all Blake needed to know about his past. Maybe it was too much.

On our right, Corbin shushed the other guys as they fanned out through the forest, moving into their hiding places around the sidhe. Blake pushed open the orchard gate and we jogged down the hill to the stone wall that marked the barrier of Briarwood with the field and sidhe beyond.

My head darted down the length of the wall. We hadn't bothered with a flashlight since the moon shone cold and clear, uninhibited by clouds. It cast a blue haze over the dry grass covering the sidhe, highlighting the charred patches where Arthur's fireballs had wasted the fae. Was that only a week ago? It felt like another lifetime.

My cell phone beeped. Corbin:

The forest and meadow are clear. Good luck. We're all watching out for you.

Blake took my hand. Together, we clambered over the low wall – passing through the protective wards and charms that surrounded Briarwood – and made our way down to the sidhe.

At least now we can use our magic freely to defend ourselves, if we need it.

Please, Athena, don't let us need it.

The entrance to the largest mound loomed like a black mouth into the earth. Blake squeezed my hand. Tendrils of black smoke curled through the grass, lifting into the still air and forming narrow smoky shapes.

From the smoke emerged four figures, their bodies wrapped in a black film that melted from their skin like hot wax. Daigh's face appeared – his pale skin luminescent in the moonlight, his mouth set in that characteristic carefree smirk that Blake emulated too well. However, the glittering eyes that set their sights on me were a mirror image of my own.

Three stony faces materialised behind him, each one with the glassy eyes and smooth, alabaster skin that marked the high-born fae. They regarded us warily, scanning the hills, their hands darting to their weapons.

"I sense other witches nearby," one said, raising his bone blade and pointing it at my chest. "We've been betrayed."

"She was hardly going to come here unprotected," Daigh said. "I wouldn't expect anything less from my daughter. They will not hear our conversation from here. Or do you not wish to proceed?"

He delivered the words casually, as if it mattered not to him whatever happened. But the fae's skin got even more pale, and he stepped back, shaking his head. He didn't take his hand off the hilt of his sword.

Daigh beamed at Blake. "We meet again, my Prince. You're looking well-fed."

Blake's smirk twitched a little at the edges. "The curry is good here."

"I'm glad." Daigh swivelled his gaze back to me. "You have the potion?"

I dug my hand into my jeans pocket and pulled out a small vial of the same sleeping draught Rowan had made for our journey to the underworld. "Here's how this will work. I will pull you into the dream, and Blake's magic will amplify mine and ensure we're all able to come back again. To do this, I'll need a lock of your hair. Each of you."

The fae grumbled. Daigh glowered at them until the first fae raised his knife to his hair and sawed off a lock. He handed it to Blake, who plaited it into a strand that he wound around my wrist. I followed with plaits of the others, holding my wrist up to the light to admire the gossamer threads of fae hair that glimmered in the moonlight.

"We don't have much time," Daigh said.

I uncapped the vial, tilted my head back and swallowed the draught in one go. I leaned back into Blake's arms. "Maybe this time I'll see who's on the sixth stake," I murmured.

He kissed my cheek. Spirit magic fluttered from his lips, piercing my skin. "Sleep well, Princess."

My eyes fluttered shut and the world faded into darkness.