Page 76 of The Falconer

I meet Kiaran’s eyes. His head is tilted, amethyst gaze studying me intensely. My God, has he poisoned me?

All at once, the pain ebbs. It slides off my skin in waves and leaves behind a strange, soothing current that drifts from my head all the way down to my toes.

Still, I glare at Kiaran and say, ‘What did you do to me?’

‘I gave you a mild sedative.’ He studies me. ‘It’s supposed to calm you.’

‘I’m sure it would work better if I weren’t so annoyed with you,’ I say. ‘You could have told me it would hurt like the very devil.’

‘What difference would that have made? You’d still have had to drink it and you’d still be miserable.’ He shifts closer and motions for me to turn over onto my stomach. ‘I have to remove your . . . whatever this is.’

‘Nightdress,’ I say, my cheek against the pillow. ‘It’s from Paris. You’ve been alive how long and still can’t identify a woman’s clothing?’

Kiaran plucks at my nightdress, as if trying to figure out a way to get it off me. ‘Too many words over my lifetime for the same items. I really don’t care to learn them all.’

‘MacKay, stop fiddling around and just cut the blasted thing.’ When he simply stares at me, I say, ‘I have some dignity, however little you appreciate it. I refuse to let you remove my clothing.’

‘If you insist.’ Kiaran’s blade appears from somewhere and he slices through the back of my nightdress. ‘There. Your expensive French item is now ruined for the sake of some incomprehensible notion of propriety. I hope you’re pleased.’

A heavy lock of that shining black hair falls onto his face. As he pushes it back, I let my gaze linger on him for longer than usual. I study those strong, high cheekbones and his square jaw, how his hair curls up at the ends. He dabs a bluish-grey paste onto his fingers from one of the bottles. Spreading apart the torn edges of my nightdress, he smoothes the paste along my wounds. Unlike the concoction I drank, this comforts straight away.

I close my eyes and – just this once, in my ill state – I allow myself to briefly take comfort in his touch, the way his fingertips linger along my spine. I begin to understand why people seek intimacy, why they long for it. Why it compels them to forget every awful, destructive memory they’ve ever had.

‘What did you dream about?’ Kiaran asks.

I’m so surprised by the question, I don’t know how to respond. ‘What?’

Kiaran plucks a pair of forceps from his bag. ‘Your dream. The one you were having when I came in.’

Kiaran doesn’t realise there is onlyonedream – one nightmare. A perpetual reminder of my failure. My weakness. ‘I thought we weren’t going to make this personal,’ I say. ‘Dreams are personal.’

‘Kam, I’m picking barbs out of your naked back. It’s already personal.’

I remain silent. Numbness is beginning to spread through my body, and I’m losing the reassurance of Kiaran’s touch. If I close my eyes, I’ll fall asleep. I’ll have to relive the nightmare either way.

Before I change my mind, I whisper, ‘My mother. I dreamed of her murder.’

Despite being unable to feel his hands, I sense Kiaran stiffen next to me. ‘You saw it happen.’

‘Aye,’ I whisper. Now he knows my darkest secret, the memory that tears down every wall of carefully maintained control until all that’s left is the dark part of me that kills.

I can’t help but be drawn into the nightmare again. I spin in a white dress, in an assembly room filled with bright candelabras and lamps, surrounded by people in black coats and pastel skirts and puffed dresses. The fiddles play an upbeat schottische that I dance to until my feet ache.

Then I’m outside, breathing in the cool night air. I hear the sounds of a struggle, a muffled scream. I peer through the garden bushes that overlook the street. There’s a figure lying in the rain, her white dress spread around her on the cobblestones, now soaked crimson.

Another woman is crouched next to the still body, her eyes bright and glittering an unnatural green in the glow of the street lamps. I watch blood slide down the long, pale column of her throat. Her lips peel back in a fierce smile of pointed teeth that I’ll remember for as long as I live. Because I know immediately what this woman is, and that all the stories from my childhood are true: faeries are real, and they are monsters.

The faery uses her blade-sharp nails to cut into the dead woman’s chest and she rips out her heart.

My eyes shut hard as I repress that memory again, shoving it deep inside me where it belongs. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say.

I’m not certain what I’m apologising for. I haven’t told him anything, really. Not even how that night when he ripped out the redcap’s heart brought me back to the part of my nightmare where the faery looks down at my mother’s corpse and says something to her that I’ll never forget.

Crimson suits you best.

Kiaran leans down and presses his forehead against mine. I don’t pull away.Make the thoughts stop, I will him.Tell me you’re just as broken as I am.

‘Tha mi duilich air do shon,’ he breathes, his lips so close to mine. ‘Do you think we could exist without moments of vulnerability? Of regret?’ He brushes a hand over my bare shoulder blade. ‘Without them, you wouldn’t be Kam.’

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