Page 102 of Laird of Twilight
She turned.
* * *
“Elspeth!” James had circled both inner and outer caves and had looked in the narrow passageway. “Where are you?”
Dropping to his knees at the entrance to the pocket mine, he peered inside. It was utterly dark and silent. Afraid she could have fallen in there if she had tried to fetch another crystal, he crawled through the threshold. “Elspeth!”
Then he heard her voice, strange and faraway.James.
“Where are you?” he called.
Here.
Alarmed, wondering if she had found some unseen crevice or new pocket, he crouched and made his way down the natural ramp. He groped in the darkness, feeling the walls sharp with crystal points, rough with basalt and granite. “Elspeth!” Again he heard her voice from somewhere.
Behind him in the little mine, a light flared. He whirled.
Elspeth was there, standing with three people. They were strangely clothed, as if out of some medieval play. Their eyes caught his attention first—great, large, radiant eyes in narrow faces, glittering like jewels. Elspeth’s eyes had a strange silvery sheen, as if reflecting a glowing light that was not there. In fact, all was darkness inside, and yet light emanated from the three strangers.
“Elspeth—” he moved toward her, reaching out. What had happened to the low ceiling, he wondered vaguely, for he was standing to his full height. Lifting his arms, she ran to him, tucked her head against his chest as they turned to look at the others. He held her protectively, looking past her at the three, eerie and quiet, who watched them calmly. His heart was pounding.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“James,” Elspeth said. “This is—the queen, and this is my mother. And this is Niall MacArthur.”
Astonished—had he hit his head, or had the little bit of whisky been far stronger than he thought?—he nodded. Niall extended his hand, and James grasped it, finding it strong, firm, very human, despite the unearthly light in the man’s eyes.
The dark-haired woman—Elspeth’s mother—reached out to take his hand next, her fingers slim, cool. He was holding the hand of a fairy, James thought.
Surely he had fallen and broken his head. This could not be real.
“Elspeth,” he said cautiously, stepping back with her. “We must go. Our friends will be looking for us. Donal MacArthur will be worried,” he added, gazing at Niall.
“Donal,” his son said. “We will see him soon, when he visits next, for the seven years are nearly up again.”
“But the fairy spell is undone now,” Elspeth said. “Love dissolves it. Grandda told me what you said to him. Love’s magic is strong enough to break any spell.” She faced them, keeping an arm around James, while he kept her close. “I love this man. Your hold over me is no more, if it ever was.”
“Very well,” the queen said imperiously. “We do not have the power to take you with us now unless you agree. You have discovered that. But we will call Donal back to us again, and he may decide to stay.”
“He can stay with us,” Elspeth said. “He has that right now.”
“True.” Her father was handsome, regal, James noticed, and he saw a resemblance to Donal in features and in sheer pride. “Eilidh, we owe you a great deal. Both of you.”
“Owe us?” she asked.
“The treasure has been found. This treasure room.” He lifted a hand. “Now we can enter this place again. Long ago the Fey mined the riches and magic here. You found what our kind could no longer see, after the treachery of the old thief who hid it away. We thank you both for that.”
James inclined his head politely, although logic still insisted that this could not be real. He stretched out a hand, touched Niall MacArthur on the shoulder, felt solid muscle there.
Niall smiled. “I am here. I am human. It is magic that maintains me.”
“How are you here, how am I seeing you?” James asked.
Niall gathered his fairy-wife under his arm, the same way that James held Elspeth close. “When you allow your thinking to open, when you accept what seemed impossible, then everything becomes possible. Magic exists.”
“This must be an illusion—the whisky we drank, Elspeth—it must have been the fairy brew.”
“It is not that, James MacCarran,” the queen said then. “You have fairy blood.”
