Bloodstone (30 page)

She made his flesh crawl. Having her strolling languidly at his back gave him a horrible sense of being stalked by a spider. For all her warmth and delight
and her beauty, he didn’t like this place and he didn’t like her. The beauty left him cold, especially the wind chill from her fluttering eyelashes.

The passageway seemed interminable, but ahead of him Laszlo stopped quite suddenly and smiled. Jed became aware of a fast, itching beat of music; with a flourish Laszlo
ushered him into a room where maybe a dozen women clustered round something on the floor. In the centre sat Rory, focus of all their attention, his barleycorn hair catching the light as he slapped
at a hide bodhran. Losing the rhythm entirely he giggled and fell over, ending the music and sending the women into gales of laughter.

The laughter hesitated and died as Jed shoved forward to Rory and hoisted him into his arms. Some of the women glared at the intrusion, but Kate was behind him, smiling and
stepping forward. As if catching their cue from her, the women relaxed and sighed indulgently. Jed shut his eyes, hugging Rory, afraid to let him go again.

A woman leaned over Jed’s shoulder to tickle Rory’s chin. ‘He’s a darling,’ she cooed.

‘But not your darling.’ Jed jerked him away from her hand, but his frown slackened in puzzlement. ‘I’ve seen you before.’

‘I don’t think so.’ Her smile was coy but wary.

‘Black jumper.’ He looked her up and down. ‘Cheap red blazer.’

Kate stepped between them, dismissing the woman with a warning glance. ‘Come, Jed. I’m sorry it had to be this way but you’d never have brought him to me
otherwise. Your brother is where he belongs now, and so are you.’

‘Don’t use my name. You don’t know me.’

‘Ah! Too long with bandits.’ Kate laughed softly. ‘Oh Cuilean, not all the Sithe are psychotic. If Conal wants to ride around the wilds with his gang,
looting my farms and taking his sword to my men, let him. Let him see where it gets him. Cù Chaorach is a sorrow to me, but I wish him no harm, despite all he’s done.’

‘That’s not what—’

‘Ah, you’ve heard a different story? My dear, Conal may seem old to you but believe me, he has some growing up to do.’ Closing her eyes, Kate sighed.
‘I’d so like to see him get the chance.’

‘Is that a
threat
?’

‘Oh, come, don’t be like that. I love that man with all my heart, but Cù Chaorach is a bomb with a very short fuse. Even Finn agrees.’

‘I doubt that,’ muttered Jed.

‘Then she can tell you herself. Can’t you, my dear?’

In the silence and stillness, there was movement. Out of the shadows further back, one of the women slowly stood up: the youngest of all of them. Only by blinking and
squinting into the dimness did Jed recognise her, and his gut turned over.

‘
Finn
?’

She reddened as she came forward, but she didn’t avert her gaze. ‘Hello, Jed.’

‘There.’ Kate clapped her hands. ‘I think we’ll let you two catch up. Hmm? You must have
such
a lot to talk about.’

‘Don’t take this the wrong way,’ he told her, searching Rory fruitlessly for signs of mistreatment: bruises, nits, unscrubbed fingernails,
anything. ‘But I kind of expected to find you in a dungeon.’

She twisted a strand of hair manically between her fingers. ‘Well. That’s what I’d have thought too. Before. You know. Now.’

‘Conal’s so worried about you.’

She laughed. ‘I was worried about me too. But only till they brought me here. Jed, she hasn’t hurt me, she hasn’t threatened me; she hasn’t even tried
to scare me.’

‘Yeah, she’s lovely. The lights are on full-blast. But nobody’s home. There’s nothing behind her eyes.’

‘Are you seriously calling her
stupid
?’

‘I’m not talking about her brain.’

Finn opened her mouth. Shut it again, and frowned. ‘Watch yourself. Remember she can see in your head.’

‘It’s all friendly little threats in this place, isn’t it? If I can keep Seth out of my head – and I can, now – I can keep her
out.’

She looked at him then as if seeing him for the first time. ‘Jed.’ She took a breath. ‘What happened to your face?’

He’d forgotten all about it. Absently he touched it, felt the throb of pain in his flesh. It was like the ache of a very old, scabbed-over cut.

‘Seth,’ he said shortly.

‘Yes, I thought so.’ Slowly Finn nodded. ‘He didn’t understand.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘Didn’t?’

‘You can imagine... when he brought Rory. When he found me here. He didn’t understand that I... wanted to stay.’

‘Jesus. I bet he didn’t.’

Silently Finn picked at her nails. ‘There was a time... listen. Him and Conal, they both used to be her men. They believed in her. I don’t know what’s gone
wrong but it’s politics, that’s all. Stupid politics.’

He rubbed his eyes, exhausted. ‘Finn...’

‘Seth’s come back to her. It doesn’t matter what I think of him or...’ Gently she stroked his bruised face. ‘Or even what you think. He’d
never do anything to hurt Conal.’

He studied her face sadly. ‘And neither would you.’

‘Of course neither would I! I don’t want anyone to get hurt. Be better if they talked to one another, wouldn’t it?’

Jed rolled his eyes and went back to hunting Rory’s scalp for nonexistent lice, but then something struck him, and he narrowed his eyes at her throat. ‘What
happened to your other necklace?’

Absently she touched the pendant, and glanced down. The crude raven’s-talon was sharp and hollow, the chunk of emerald gone. Perhaps to stop the claw pricking her skin,
it lay against a slender toothed leaf, delicately carved out of polished wood and strung on a woven thong.

‘Oh, the stone. It fell out. The setting was loose, remember?’ She grinned. ‘Rush job.’

‘Yes...’

‘Kate’s got the emerald. She’s going to get Gealach to set it properly.’

‘Nothing could be easier,’ said Kate’s laughing voice. ‘I can fix a lot of things now.’ She sat down and put an arm round Finn’s
shoulders.

Jed’s disbelief must have shown on his face, because Kate wagged a finger at him.

‘I adore Cù Chaorach, but he is
such
a one for giving one side of a story.’

‘I suppose most people are
such
ones for that.’

Her lips thinned disapprovingly as her arm tightened on Finn’s shoulders. ‘Conal loved Finn’s father; her father loved him. But Conal led Aonghas to his
death for his own obsessions. Cù Chaorach is a noble man, and a bonny fighter, and he means well. But he can be the most selfish of brutes.’

Finn seemed to start at that. ‘He’s not selfish—’

‘No, dear one.’ Kate tutted mischievously. ‘And he isn’t the violent type.’

Finn blushed and gave her an embarrassed grin. ‘I know, I know.’

Jed’s lip twisted in disbelief. ‘Finn?’

‘Oh honestly, young man. Finn isn’t stupid. I don’t know what Cù Chaorach’s told you, but I’m not on some mass suicide
mission.’

He pressed his cheek to Rory’s hair, unwilling to meet her alarmingly brilliant eyes.

‘Jed, my people love me. You think that’s because I ask it of them? Oh, please. My people love me because I indulge their whims. Why shouldn’t I?’ Kate
smirked with satisfaction. ‘I gave them their desires in the first place. Give your people what they want, Jed, and they’ll always want what you give them. And I can do the same for
your people. I’ve wanted to help them for so long, but how can I do that when they’re barely aware of me? The full-mortals, listen to me? They can’t even
see
me
.’

If he could have stuck his fingers in his ears he would have, but he had a feeling that would be a tactical error. ‘So why’d you have to come after my
brother?’ he muttered.

‘
Come after
him! Heavens, you have such a pejorative way of speaking.’ Kate sniffed disdainfully. ‘Would you have let me persuade you? Your bandit
friends would have had my throat cut before I could get a word out.’

‘So you just stole him.’

‘Oh, hardly. His father gave him to me. Which, as it happens, was precisely what was predicted. His parents were supposed to give him up voluntarily. And they both
did!’

‘My mother didn’t—’

‘Yes, dear, of course she did. She gave him up for a fix. What did she think would happen to him if anything became of her? For heaven’s sake! Thank goodness you
were there, Jed. Although Skinshanks would have looked after him well enough, if you hadn’t arrived.’

‘Hang on.’ Jed rubbed his temples. ‘You weren’t looking for him, or you’d just have taken him. You were looking for a
stone
.’

Kate fluttered an elegant hand. ‘Yes, yes, but I always had my suspicions. Which were confirmed by an oracle, ooh... two centuries ago? I had to wait for the blessed
creature, of course, and it took me a little time to trace the right child. But heavens, you could have knocked me down with a chicken feather when I found out who’d fathered
it.’

Jed couldn’t speak. His head was too full of Skinshanks, and the smile on its face when Jed had turned up at the last minute and rescued Rory. No wonder the Lammyr
hadn’t looked very bothered. They’d had a contingency plan, and Jed was it.

Kate draped an arm around each of them. ‘I was fond of Finn’s grandmother, and I miss the old dear, but I always had more imagination than she did. She
couldn’t see past magic rocks, that was Leonora’s trouble.’

Jed peered past her at Finn, waiting for her to leap to her grandmother’s defence, but all she did was smile a little sadly.
For God’s sake...

‘Well. Now that Rory’s in my keeping, he can help me remove that choking shroud of a Veil. We’ll work at it together, as he grows. Then the full-mortals will
see me as my own people do; I can make them as happy and secure as I’ve made my Sithe.’ Kate sighed. ‘Your people live in a prison of fear and doubt, Jed, but I can free them.
See?’ He felt Kate’s warm breath on his skin as she leaned over him. ‘I’ll protect you full-mortals from your enemies. I’ll let you see who your real enemies
are
.’

The gist of it seemed reasonable, logical even. He couldn’t imagine why it was wrong; so wrong, it was as if every word she spoke was misshapen, spelt and spoken
backwards. Shaking his head violently, he remembered something beyond Kate’s words, something of her that seemed more real: cruelty, and bright malice.

‘Finn,’ he said, craning past Kate once more. ‘Do you remember Cuthag?’

She frowned. ‘Who?’

Oh shit.

‘If the Veil goes,’ he said, turning sharply back to Kate, ‘we’ll see people like Finn properly. That what you mean by showing us who our enemies
are?’

Kate’s breath caught in her throat, as if she was mildly exasperated. Then she relaxed, and turned her focus only on Finn.

‘Finn knows the Veil has kept her hidden. It’s made her a nobody. Well, Finn, you’re
not
a nobody. You’re a
Sithe
! Think about it,
Finn! Those dull-wits who think they’re better than you, those girls who make your life a misery! Wouldn’t you like to get your own back?’ Kate trailed a finger along her jawline.
‘You’re a lovely girl. Why should you stay unseen while those cattle preen themselves? You can be top dog for a change. You can be queen of
your
circle.’