By the Light of the Moon (25 page)

After a long time on the pier, she walked back to her room and started to pack. She didn’t own a lot; the few human trinkets and money she’d collected she put in a leather satchel and sent it up to Iris at the castle. She knew Maeve would neither accept it nor need it; but she figured at the end of all this, Niamh’s granddaughter might. It was better than to leave it behind for the greedy, slimy innkeeper.

She would make her way down the lakeshore, find her row-boat again and make her way
Across
, however much the idea of returning empty-handed frightened and saddened her.

“Why do you think I have brought you along, Crone?” Deagan Fairester asked coldly, standing in his room that had finally been purged of mold and wet smells. He’d had maids cleaning it over and over with fragrant water and finally, it was quite pleasant with the aromas of fire and lavender. The young nobleman’s handsome face had nothing of the calm that the flower was meant to induce in people. Deagan was angry and he wanted to make the old witch cower away from the force of his voice.

“Sir,” she said quietly, obviously trying to sound reasonable and kind. Deagan couldn’t help but think that she looked weaker that day, or really the past few days. She was just a shadow anymore, shuffling from room to room, always on the lookout. “Sir, are you sure you still want her anyway? They say she has hardly left her room for days.”

“She’s just ill,” he said with an impatient shrug. “And anyway, I have thought about it. I have pretty much won her over already,” he shrugged his shoulder impressively and then ran his hand through his now slightly too-long blond hair. “I am just getting so terribly bored of this place and this girl and these country people. It’s quite simple, crone, I took you in my services to perform a single task; make her mine. And I want this task to be performed right now so that I can leave this wretched fief and send someone here to plan this wretched wedding.”

“But … ” Iris uttered suddenly, worry in her eyes. “You will leave her here?”

“Of course I will, stupid woman,” he all but shouted but then his emotions were under control and he snorted instead. “Can you imagine showing her around as my bride?” He gave a hollow laugh and then shuddered ostensibly. “Besides, she doesn’t want to leave. She loves this drab little place, and that’s all the better for me. I can set her up with a small household and someone to run the estate, and she can stay here and bear my children while I spend my time in better company.”

For a long moment, he withstood Iris’s sad, hopeless eyes but he finally had to look away, turning to the fire to give it a good poke. It created a beautiful array of sparks and distracted him enough to turn back.

“Now, brew the drink you promised me, witch.” His voice cold again, she shuddered a little at the sight of his blue eyes and took a deep breath. About to try to talk him out of it one more time, he interrupted just when she took a deep breath. “Or … were you overselling your talents?” There was a warning in his tone, quiet and sly. She often saw the arrogant and supercilious side of Deagan Fairester, but she suddenly had no doubt that there was a highly dangerous and cruel side to him as well.

How could a plan have so many holes? She knew he had Fae blood in him, somewhere far in the past. But while he seemed to maintain some of the superficial beauty and the arrogance, she didn’t feel a drop of magical energy in him. Had they been deceiving themselves from the start, grasping at straws? Had she ever really wanted to help her sister? Iris didn’t want to think of it anymore, her failings and her hidden motives. She hadn’t seen her mother since Brock’s threats, didn’t know if she was alive or dead, safe or caught.

She didn’t even know about Moira; they said she hadn’t left her room. She had gone past the closed door once, and had been sure she’d felt life in there, but who or of what kind she didn’t know. For all she knew, Brock had already taken her to the Fae to let her undergo the torturous rituals that had broken her own spirit and body. Absentmindedly, she rubbed her thumb over the faded white scar that ran in a thin line from wrist up her arm. It stung that day.

“Crone! Answer me!” Deagan Fairester shouted, shaking her out of her thoughts. She blinked, swallowed and then weakly, she shook her head.

“I did not lie to you,” she said weakly. “But … ”

“No. Hold your tongue. I did not ask for your opinion, is that understood?” This time, he did sound dangerous and Iris did cower. He was no Brock, but he, too, was dangerous. This was her life; between Fae and Men, she had never, not once really been free.

“You will brew the drink because I said so. Because I pay you and feed you for it. Because if you don’t, I’ll say I found evidence to believe it was you who jinxed the girl’s horse during the hunt. You know how much country courts like to catch an evil witch … don’t you?”

Shuddering, Iris took a step back. She had nowhere to turn, no one to protect her anymore. Brock would kill her if she got in his way again, but if she didn’t, Deagan Fairester would cause her the same fate. Her jaw tightened and she nodded. She did know. And in the end, she’d rather be killed for something she’d done than for something she hadn’t. Fairester would make a terrible husband, but what did that matter anymore now?

“Yes, sir … ” she finally mouthed, hardly a sound escaping her pale and wrinkly lips.

“Get to it, then,” the young man said, in his mind already moving on to the next thought. “Rochmond promised me she’d appear for dinner today. Wouldn’t want to waste an opportunity.”

Iris barely managed a nod before she turned around and walked toward her small chamber and her ingredients. She stoked the fire and hung a kettle into the chimney. Her movements were slow and labored, as though the simplest tasks from walking or just lifting an arm were terrifyingly harder than they had been a week ago; as though the world had doubled in size and doubled its gravity and the effort it took to resist it. And Iris, Iris was simply tired of resisting. She wanted to lie down and give into gravity and the world and all the forces working against her.

• • •

Moira and Bess looked hard at her reflection in the mirror. Moira with a general sense of resignation and Bess, standing behind her and eyeing the reflection over her lady’s shoulder. She was pale, the rings under her eyes were bluish smudges that made her skin look like it was hardly there at all. Even her lips were pale and most of the color in her face came from her red-rimmed eyes and the red smudge of a popped blood vessel in the white of her left eye.

“You need to eat something, milady,” Bess said softly, worry wrinkles on her forehead. “And sleep. At least a little bit. I’m sure Ruth can whip you up a draft that will help?”

Moira sighed. Their cook was knowledgeable but Moira didn’t think there was a valerian root strong enough to stop her from sitting in bed every night, staring at her skin, making sure it stayed good and normal and cast in nightly shadows. She didn’t answer, simply considered to look at herself in the mirror, face unmoving. Owain had called her beautiful once; before he had looked upon her with disgust so clearly visible in his eyes. But Moira couldn’t see it, not now and not before.

“I can do something about it now … I brought the powder and I am sure if we mix it with a bit of oil it will do wonders to those eyes,” Bess had picked up the brush and was gently running it through her hair, starting at the very bottom and slowly working herself up through the knots of many sleepless nights. Even Moira could tell that her maid was worried this time, but she couldn’t quite bring up enough energy to care. Her father had made it clear to her that she was to attend dinner. He had broken the door open and sent Bess in to get her ready. Owain hadn’t come. He hadn’t knocked or sent word or written. She wondered if he was gone already but didn’t dare to ask about him.

“I’m sorry, miss,” Bess mumbled again when she pulled at a particularly large knot even though Moira didn’t give any indication that she had felt a thing. She did feel it, but it was like something far away and alien. Something unimportant and outside of her real experience. She thought of Owain because that pain was simple — it hurt enough to never want to leave her room again, but it had a clear cause to mourn. The rest was sticky and painful and utterly unbelievable; too much to ponder.

• • •

Bess steadied her by the arm all the way down the stairs, but from there, Moira had to walk alone past Owain’s little room through the lobby and into main dining hall. She tried to carry herself upright, swayed a little and kept going. She could just as well have been a prisoner led to her execution for all Bess saw, watching her lady with concern and confusion written across her face.

Bess, only a few short years older than her mistress, had been her maid for many years. She prided herself in knowing her better than anyone, in being the one person she would see even if she denied entrance to anybody else at times. In some ways, they were not unlike sisters, if a strange pair. Moira abuzz with tutors and maids and yet quiet, withdrawn and somehow, somewhere, queer in the mind. And Bess, healthy, red-cheeked, plain but of a vibrant prettiness that shone with her open and frequent smile. Bess, who spent her life making someone’s fire and bathing them, and putting jewels in their hair, more valuable than many years of her service. Moira, who had everything a girl should dream of and yet disregarded most of it and Bess, who owned next to nothing herself and was happy anyway.

Watching her mistress walk away, she suddenly wondered if that strange affliction of her mind would kill her one day. It wasn’t a thought she had ever entertained before, but she knew people could starve and they could die of exhaustion. She had looked in Moira’s eyes in the mirror that day and it hadn’t been the eyes of a living person, of a young woman at the cusp of the life. It hurt, and the girl quickly shook her head, as though to rid it of the idea.

• • •

When Moira entered the dining hall, all eyes turned to her and she immediately wanted to run. Instead, she gave a tiny bow and shuffled to her seat. It was only then that she became aware of the familiar wolfish energy all too close. Her eyes scanned the row of guards who stood to attention at either side of the hall. She almost choked on the diluted and honeyed wine she had been handed when her eyes landed on Owain’s familiar and handsome features. He was wearing the guards’ fine uniform, one she hadn’t seen him in before, and he was staring right ahead without a single glance at her.

Her hand shook and she put the glass down. She wondered suddenly what would happen to her if he told anyone; if he told her father. He couldn’t prove it, she thought, for three nights now she hadn’t glowed at all and she didn’t know of any other way to test if someone was human or not. If she had, she’d have tested herself over and over for the last few days. But if it ever happened again, would she be cast out? Where would she go? And why, if her mother was Fae, did she give her away?

The story she had been told all her life was that her mother had been a young noblewoman of a minor family. Country nobility, nothing more, who’d given birth to her. Unmarried and still young, her father had made her give Moira up to her settled and married father. The story was hushed up completely and her mother married a man of her standing a few years later.

If she was Fae, though, Moira couldn’t stop thinking, what reason could she have had to leave her there in Rochmond among people who didn’t understand her and didn’t know how to speak to her.

Hardly listening to the conversation going on around her, Moira curled in on herself, her shoulders hunched forward as though trying to present as small a target as possible. She didn’t even twitch anymore the way she usually tended to. Unresponsive and blinking from time to time, she didn’t really hear when she was offered food and just realized what had happened when her father had quietly ordered a servant to fill up her plate. It seemed to have magically appeared while she had found herself staring at Owain’s face, willing him to look back at her until she lost the concentration and just marveled desperately at the line of his brow, and the broad curve of his jaw. His lips, warm and soft and light peachy pink were of particular attraction to her sleep-deprived mind.

“Moira, darling,” a voice said next to her, a hand squeezing her lower arm. Like under water, her head reeled around in slow motion and she had to blink until the face of her stepmother came into focus. “You seemed utterly lost in thought,” she said with a polite laugh, smiling at the people around the table.

Moira tried to smile back and nodded. “I apologize, Mother.” she whispered in the raw rasp of someone who truly had been sick. Moira, of course, just hadn’t slept or drunken enough and was simply tired.

“Oh, nonsense, child,” Lady Cecile said and again it was too loud. Moira couldn’t be sure whether that was just her own impression or a general truth, however. “Why don’t you eat a few bites, it’s getting cold. And you need good, hot food now to recuperate your strength after you’ve been struck down for days, hmmm?”

It was theater; Moira understood. They were performing a little play for the young man seated at her other side — blond and handsome, but so far away from any of the matters racing around in her dizzy head, she found it difficult to care. She did try to eat something though. Lady Cecile, a little more gently than Lord Rochmond, handed her full plate back to a servant and had them ladle her some clear chicken soup, broth with vegetables and herbs. It smelled good, sustaining somehow and Moira managed a weak smile as she forced herself to ladle some broth into her mouth.

It couldn’t get stuck in her throat and ran down like drink, warm and good. She couldn’t completely smell it but even she realized that her body needed it badly. And while she still wasn’t sure it was a body worth sustaining, she gave into that natural urge and one spoon became two and three and she could see Lady Cecile’s slight relief at the sight of her strange step daughter eating something.

She could also feel Deagan Fairester’s eyes on her profile from time to time and when she could manage it somehow, she tried to move up the corners of her lips weakly. If he wanted to marry her, she would do it. He wasn’t worse than any of the other candidates and her life, the slim, tiny dream of a different life was broken anyway. What did it matter whose children she was forced to bear or whose household she shared? It might as well be the one who seemed to want her enough to spend so much time at the keep.