Page 26 of Savage Blooms
“Clever,” Eileen said, giving Nicola one of those hot, sharp glances that felt like a piercer’s needle puncturing skin. “You’ve known from the start what you were dealing with.”
“I thought you two believed in it,” Nicola said, swabbing Adam’s palm with alcohol no matter how he hissed. “But that’s not the same as believing in it myself. Although now I’m not so sure.”
“What are you all talking about?” Adam demanded.
“Faeries,” Eileen said, like it was the simplest thing in the world. Nicola’s heart fluttered at the word, the word she had been turning over in her overexcitable brain.
“Be serious, Eileen,” Adam groaned.
“I’m being dead serious,” Eileen replied. “You wanted to know Craigmar’s secrets? We can start with this one: this place is lousy with faeries.”
“I’ve been willing to put up with a lot from you,” Adam said, and now he was angry, genuinely angry. He tried to clench his hand in Nicola’s grasp but she pried it back open. The wound wept afresh. “This is too much. Don’t insult my intelligence, please.”
“Any other explanation you have, I’ll be happy to hear it.”
Adam fell silent at that, glowering down at his bleeding hand. Finley, who had looked like a dam ready to break from the moment he set foot in the house, finally crumbled.
“Tell him, Eileen. The whole of it. Or I will.”
Even steadfast Finley, it appeared, had his limits. Eileen glared at him, mean enough to shame the sun for shining, and he stared right back, unbothered.
There was something very sexy about him when he looked at her like that, like she had no power over him whatsoever. It was so compelling that Nicola still noticed how beautiful it made him look, even through the hazeof fear and the air of confusion in the room and the fact that she was waterlogged and cold.
“You mean little nude people with butterfly wings?” Adam cut in. “That’s what you’re asking me to believe grabbed me, a fully grown man, and bit me hard enough to draw blood?”
“That isn’t what a faery is,” Nicola said, tossing the dirty alcohol wipe aside as she carefully peeled open a band-aid. “That image in your head is a Victorian invention.”
Now every eye in the room was on Nicola. Adam was looking at her like she was speaking Greek, Eileen was looking at her like she was Christmas Day come early, and Finley was looking at her with frightened awe. Nicola blushed, turning back to her work patching up Adam.
“Go on, sparrow,” Eileen said, “you know the stories. Tell him.”
“In the oldest stories the faeries are ancient, powerful beings, the size of humans,” Nicola said carefully. She wasn’t sure how her mental Rolodex of folklore could help right now, but if there was ever a situation that called for it, it was this one. “They have their own society and culture, and they play by their own rules. Humans are entertainment to them, or a nuisance. They enjoy playing tricks on us. But humans can keep themselves safe from faery interference through certain rituals, like turning clothes inside out or wearing iron jewelry.”
“Very good,” Eileen said. She took a deep breath, as though bracing herself. “Nicola knows part of this story, so I suppose I ought to tell you the rest, shouldn’t I?”
Eileen plucked up the steaming kettle and poured four mugs of chamomile tea to steady their nerves. Then she sat down at the fourth seat at the round kitchen table, creating a perfect unbroken circle, and began her tale.
“Before this land belonged to the Kirkfoyles, before it belonged to any man, it belonged to the fae. Human expansion and industrialization drove them underground, into the secret chambers of the earth, but they didn’t die. They’re still out there, waiting for their chance to reclaim the land. They emerge occasionally, for reasons only they know. Nicola saw one when she was out hiking with Finley. Adam, you just met another one out at the cave. Sorry for the pageantry. I’ll admit I like my dramatics, but I didn’t know how else to get you to understand. I’m of the mind that magic is something you can only know in the biblical sense, through experience. No one can make you believe in it with words. You have to feel it pull at your bones.”
Adam opened his mouth to protest, but something about that last sentence made words die on his lips. For a moment, at least. Then he blinked and shook his head.
“That’s a bedtime story,” he pushed back. “It has to be.”
“Then what do you think took a bite out of you?” Eileen asked, eyes flashing. “What do you think drowned my parents, all those years ago?”
“Isla,” Finley said gently. Eileen took another deep breath, then quieted. She was gripping her mug so tight her knuckles were white.
“The Kirkfoyles have lived on this land since the fifteenth century,” she said, staring at the table. It sounded like every word pained her, like she wasn’t used to saying any of this out loud. “We outlasted rebellions and invasions and transfers of power, and we managed to keep our holdings in the process mostly through canny marriage, and keeping to ourselves. But there was another foe out there in the hills, besides the English.”
“The fae,” Nicola supplied, urging Eileen on. Eileen’s knee brushed hers under the table as she leaned a little closer, as though borrowing some of Nicola’s nerve.
“A long time ago, before the Kirkfoyles were even a formalized clan, they lived in peace with the fae. They bartered with them and carried out the proper rituals to show respect, and intermarried from time to time. But with time something… soured. Both parties wanted more power, more land, and war broke out. The only thing that put a stop to the bloodshed was the treaty. The fae went underground, and my family ceded the realm beneath the hills to them. In return, the fae would let my family live aboveground unbothered.”
“So what happened?” Adam asked. He was trying to sound cynical, but Nicola knew he was intrigued. She could feel it in the way his pulse pounded in his wrist.She hadn’t let go of him after carefully affixing his bandages. And he hadn’t pulled away either.
“The fae would only honor the agreement if there was a living Kirkfoyle ruling from Craigmar. If my line dies out or moves away, the treaty is null and void, and the fae reclaim the land.”
“They’ll take over the house and the grounds?” Nicola asked, running the calculations in her head. If Eileen wasn’t taking them for a ride, and if what she was saying was right, that was an awful lot of land.
