Page 56 of The Vanishing Throne

She does. I notice in the way she shifts closer, as if to comfort me. Or, perhaps, to prepare me for what she says next. ‘The fae helped,’ she says tightly. ‘As part of the truce. We would never have been able to finish it so quickly – and they have increased powers here, of course. The city is built over aneimhead.’

‘Neimhead?’I’m not familiar with the word, not even from Kiaran’s lessons.

‘A sacred place of power. Forthem.’ She nods to the fae sparkling above us. ‘They say this is the most ancient one of all.’

I stare at the wisps again – the vile creatures dancing without a care in the world. ‘Can we go down there?’ I say, control breaking. I can’t handle it. Any longer up here, near to the fae, and I might end up killing them. I’d rather not start a war when I’ve only just arrived.

Catherine’s expression is one of understanding. ‘Of course we can.’

She pulls the lever next to her and the balcony begins to lower. I lean over my stone balcony to study it better. A mechanism along the bottom allows it to lift and lower tothe other floors, pausing at each one, until it finally sets down on the cobblestone road. Catherine pushes the lever back into place, unlatching a portion of the balcony – an iron gate – and leads me to the street.

The city reminds me of Edinburgh at night before they installed electricity, the way the streetlamps were lit, fire flickering in their glass orbs. The pools of light make the cobblestones – cut from the same cave rock as the outer walls of the city – shine in the firelight. It doesn’t seem constricting down here, not at all moist or dripping as if we were in a normal cave. The air is different, as crisp as an autumn day; the scent of fire and rain mixes with the taste of startlingly sweet fae power, from honeysuckle to ginger and then to stronger tastes like black powder and ash.

A crackling above us startles me. I look up to see clouds gathering along the top of the structure, lightning flickering from within them. Rain begins to fall onto the buildings and the streets. I watchas people pause their routine and tip their heads toward the sky to feel the rain on their faces.

‘What are they doing?’ I ask. This is Scotland, after all. Pausing to pay attention to a rainfall would be like stopping every time a tree branch shakes.

Catherine puts out her palm to catch the raindrops. ‘Most people here haven’t been outside in years. It’s easy to miss things we once took for granted.’

I try to hide my shock. No matter how beautiful the city is, I can’t imagine being trapped in here for that long. This weather is like the rooms, a perfect, overly sanitized replica. It’s missing something – that something I can’t name that makes you feelalivewhenever you walk outside. That makes you breathe deep and savor the air in your lungs.

‘And if they went outside?’ I ask. ‘What would happen?’

Catherine thrusts her hands into her trouser pockets. ‘They might not come back.’

So the fae would take them. They’d die or, worse, be taken to theSìth-bhrùthand kept until their captors finally tired of them and disposed of them.

As Catherine and I walk down the busy street, we draw more than a few curious stares. The road smells of fruits and flour and rain and mist, a combination that reminds of me of Edinburgh on market day when the streets bustled like this.

Aside from thesplendour of the city lights and how clean the streets are, the people here are different than in Edinburgh. They dress in the softest wool, dyed in earth tones, their trousers and coats so well made – perhaps by the fae – that there’s no outward distinction of class. There’s nothing to tell a commoner from those who grew up in the aristocracy, like me or Catherine. Some here have darker skin – a range of different shades from different places– and I catch whispers of languages I don’t recognise.

As if sensing my thoughts, Catherine leans in to murmur, ‘We don’t know much about what’s happened elsewhere, but the fae took people from all over. Derrick was able to save some before they became faestruck.’

Not just Scotland.

Lonnrach may have ripped Scotland apart in his quest to find the object that can save theSìth-bhrùth –but destroying everywhere else is for another purpose entirely: to rebuild the splendour of the fae empire once hehas saved his home. His soldiers are out conquering nations.

What was it Kiaran once told me?We did not gain dominion over every continent by being polite.

They did it by nearly wiping out every human in existence.

We pass another a stall with the most heavenly smelling bread and a few of the patrons stop chatting to stare as I pass.

‘Don’t let it intimidate you,’ Catherine tells me, flashing them a disarming smile. She always was better at socializingand making friends than I. ‘They’re just curious. We haven’t had an outsider here in a long time.’

‘I’m used to people staring at me,’ I say. ‘Remember?’

Every ball we attended the winter after my mother’s death was a disaster. I had been found sitting next to her body the night of her murder, and many of our peers believed I had something to do with it –or that I was directly responsible. Catherine spent so much time defending me against the gossip and suspicion.

‘Gavin told me what really happened to your mother,’ she says, edging around a group of chatting youths who stop to smile at me tentatively. ‘Aileana, I’m so sorry.’

‘Don’t,’I say, not wanting to speak of it further. ‘You remained steadfast even when everyone else didn’t. In any case, how could you have known?’

We stop next to a beautiful marble building, and I slide my palm down the column near the front door. No, it’s not marble. It’s smooth as glass, with colours in the rock that change depending on the way the light flickers from the gas lamp behind me. From ivory to pink to lavender … then back again.

Catherine doesn’t look away from me. She doesn’t seemnotice how the people around us greet her with wide smiles and me with apprehension. As if they aren’t sure why I’m here after so long on the outside, or if I’m really safe. I wonder how many others came in and proved they weren’t faestruck. Not many, I’d imagine – at least, not after three years. Humans nearby would never have survived this long without being killed or taken by the fae.

Finally, Catherine speaks. ‘I should have listened to the part of me that always knew you weren’t telling me the whole truth.’

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