“Of course not. One of us will work a spell of invisibility,” I said.
That was when Maeve told me she’d given up her magick. I couldn’t believe it. Ever since she left Ireland, she’s led a half life, her senses shut down, a prisoner of her own terror. “You never have to fear again,” I told her. Bit by bit I coaxed her open. Oh, the joy that was in her eyes as she let herself sense the seeds in the earth beneath us, the tender green shoots waiting to break the surface. Then she opened herself to the skies, the stars, the pull of the incandescent spring moon, and we gave ourselves to pleasure and to each other.
Goddess, I have finally known true joy. All the pain I have gone through, it was all worth it for this.
— Neimhidh
“You’re the one we’re going to drain.” The words echoed in my ears, and I suddenly saw it all with sick clarity.
My dreams and visions—they had all been premonitions of what was to be my own ordeal in this house. Not Killian’s. Somehow the council got that one key detail wrong when they interpreted the dream. The wolf cub on the table wasn’t Killian. It was me.
Some rational part of my mind wondered why I’d appeared as a wolf cub, but before I could make sense of it, the jackal said, “You will come with us.”
I stared up defiantly. “No.”
The figure waved a hand over me, and I was suddenly on my feet, the bindings loosened just enough to allow me to follow like an automaton. Fury at my own traitorous body swept through me, but I could no more resist the spell to follow than I could break the binding spell.
I followed through a parlor and a dining room, through a kitchen to another staircase, this one leading down.
We descended the stairs into a cellar. How could I possibly escape? The cellar door would close, and terrible things would be done to me.
The cellar was lit by a few black candles set in wall sconces. The owl held out a robe made of a thin, shiny brown fabric. “Take off your clothes and put this on,” she said.
The robe spooked me. I flashed on an old movie where they burned witches at the stake and made them wear robes like this for their execution. “What’s it for?” I asked.
The witch in the hawk mask drew a sign in the air, and I doubled over again in agony.
“Do as you’re told,” the jackal said.
They watched me change, and I felt the dull burn of shame over my terror as I took off my clothes and put on the robe. Then I was forced down into a chair, and two more masked figures—a weasel and a jaguar—came into the cellar with a steaming cup. They forced me to drink its contents. It was some sort of hideous herb tea—I recognized henbane, valerian, belladonna, foxglove. The smell was so revolting, I gagged with every sip.
When I’d drained the last sickening drop, they left me. I felt the liquid moving through me, slowing my thoughts, deadening my reflexes. Then my body started to tremble uncontrollably, and I was hit by a wave of dizziness. If I’d been able to move from the chair, I’m sure I would have fallen to the floor. The floor itself seemed to be swaying, the walls spinning. Menacing shadows crawled in the corners of my field of vision.
I took a deep breath, trying to center myself. I whispered a quick spell drawn from my Alyce memory, and after a few moments the hallucinatory shadows receded a little. The dizziness and sluggishness remained, though.
At last I heard footsteps on the stairs. The owl and weasel returned. “He’s ready for you now,” the owl said.
I had no doubt of who was waiting for me. Ciaran. My mother’s mùirn beatha dàn, the one she’d loved. The one who had killed her.
The owl waved a hand over me and muttered an incantation. Again I stood and followed with jerky motions. The dizziness didn’t pass, but I found I could walk through it.
We walked up to the first floor, through the kitchen, and then up the main staircase to the second floor. I was led into a wood-paneled room lit by candles. A fire glowed in the fireplace. I was shoved into another chair. The two masked witches left and shut the door.
Ciaran stood in front of the fireplace, his back to me. He wore a robe of deep purple silk with black bands on the arms. I fought down a wave of nausea. My mother’s murderer.
He turned to face me, and for a disorienting moment the trembling and the nausea vanished. In their place I felt surprise and a massive sense of relief. This wasn’t Ciaran. This was the man from the courtyard and the bookstore, the man with whom I’d had such an affinity, the man in whom I’d placed such an immediate trust.
The nausea returned an instant later as I realized just how badly I’d misplaced that trust. Now I could feel the darkness of his power, like a cyclone of roiling blackness.
Ciaran watched me.
“I never asked your name,” I said, my voice once again my own.
“But you know it now, don’t you?” he asked. His face was harsh in the firelight, his eyes unreadable dark slashes.
“Ciaran,” I said quietly.
“And you are Morgan Rowlands,” he replied courteously.
Oh, Goddess, how could I have been so blind? “You’ve been playing with me all along,” I said. “You knew who I was even before we met.”
“On the contrary,” he said. “I only realized you were the one Selene destroyed herself over when we talked in the bookstore.”
“H-how—”
“I became curious when I sensed how powerful you were. So when we got to talking about scrying, I decided to find out more about you. My scrying stone is bound to me. Even though you were the one holding it and I was on another floor altogether, it showed me what it showed you. I saw—was it your sister? — coming out of the Widow’s Vale Cineplex. The name Widow’s Vale rang a bell, and then when you gave me your name, that clinched it. Truthfully,” he went on, “I hadn’t planned on taking care of you quite so soon, but when you just put yourself in my hands like that, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity, could I?”
“The owl at the window last night—?”
“Was spying on you,” he confirmed. “But then, we were already on the alert. We’ve been watching the Seeker ever since he came to the city. It was easy to discover what his mission was, and after that it was child’s play to set the trap, feeding you the clues that would bring you to us. I gave you the vision of Killian in the candle’s flame and the vision you had today. I even helped you break the warding spells on this house. My dear, you should have known you don’t have that kind of ability. Not at your level.” Ciaran regarded me with a rueful smile.
I’d been such a fool. Time and again he’d manipulated me. And I’d never even suspected.
“Tell me.” His tone sharpened with the command. “Where’s the Seeker now?”
“I don’t know.”
His dark eyes raked me. How, I wondered, had I ever thought him distinguished and trustworthy? All I saw in him now was the predator, waiting to devour his prey.
Ciaran steepled his fingers. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have blocked the messages you tried to send,” he murmured, as if thinking aloud. “Perhaps I should have made it easier for him to find you.” Then he shook his head. “No, he’s clever enough that he’ll find you anyway.”
I sagged, despairing, as I understood what Ciaran meant. If Hunter did find me, then he would be destroyed along with me.
There was a knock on the door, and the hawk witch entered the room. I watched in disbelief as she handed Maeve’s pocket watch to Ciaran. “We found this in the girl’s jacket.”
Ciaran’s face went totally blank for a moment. Then it grew pale and distorted. “Leave!” he snapped at the hawk. Then he whirled on me. “Where did you get this?” he demanded.
“You should know!” I lashed back, glad for the chance to tell the truth. “You gave it to my mother before you murdered her!”