Page 42 of The Vanishing Throne

I reach up to touch the scars. He flinches, but doesn’t pull back. I draw my fingers over the grooves they’ve left in his skin. ‘How did it happen?’ My voice catches without my meaning it to.

I slide my finger down the longest one and Gavin captures my hand in his. ‘The night you left, they tried to take my eyes.’ His voice is hollow. ‘Your pixie saved me.’

I swallow hard.I was supposed to save him. Not Derrick.‘I’m so sorry.’

Gavin steps back and regards me for the longest time. ‘I thought you were dead. We all did. After three years I assumed Aithinne was gone, too.’

‘They took me to theSìth-bhrùth,’ I say. ‘Didn’t Kiaran tell you?’

Gavin has always been easy for me to understand. I’ve known him so long that every part of him is so familiar: his face, his expressions, his feelings. I know his likes and dislikes. I know that when he lost his father, he buried his emotions deep, just like I did when I lost my mother.

This Gavin … three years later he’s almost unrecognizable. The way he holds himself is different, his body taut, as if he’s prepared for an attack at any moment. I don’t miss the way his eyes flicker in a careful assessment of our surroundings.

‘Aye, he told me.’

The trees around us rustle and Gavin’s gaze slides to my left, my right. The forest towers high above the cavern, leaving shadows on the snowy ground. The woodland is thick and dark, nothing visible except for the entrance to the cavern. I can sense the power around it, the press of it against my tongue, just like the portal Kiaran took me to once. This place must be hidden from Lonnrach’s soldiers.

The trees shudder again and a breeze rustles my hair. Gavin’s body tenses – as if he’s listening for something. After a moment, he speaks. ‘You were gone a long time, even in the fae realm. You don’t look any different.’ Now his gaze shifts to behind me. To see whether I was followed? ‘You don’t even have a mark on you.’

I step back. ‘What’s that meant to mean?’

Lonnrach’s marks are hidden beneath my clothes, but he never touched my face, never left an imprint there. And unlike Gavin, I haven’t aged. I was eighteen when Lonnrach took me to theSìth-bhrùth… and I’m still eighteen.

Gavin istwenty-four by now. He’s grown into his shoulders. His body is leaner, more muscular. I notice the small, puckered scars along his neck, just above the collar of his coat.

‘I’ve seen people taken bythemto theSìth-bhrùth,’ he says tightly. ‘They don’t come back the same. They pretend to be who they were, but their allegiance is to the fae. They’ve betrayed us before.’

I almost tell him that I’m not the same. That a part of me came back broken, too. That there’s a Lonnrach-shaped hole inside of me that I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to fill with the parts of me I lost.

My fingers itch to pull up my sleeve.To show him my scars.I’m not unmarked. I’m not whole. I’m still trying to put the pieces of myself together again.

But I don’t. I place my trembling palm against his cheek to force him to look at me. ‘You think I’m like that?’ When he doesn’t answer, I say, ‘I would never betray you.’

He sets his jaw. ‘I don’t know that.’

I have to convince him. Gavin is a product of this world I left behind when I was captured. Lonnrach showed me a mere glimpse of the ruined Edinburgh just after it happened and it’s burned into my memory. Gavin was there. He saw everything.

‘Aye, you do,’ I tell him. ‘You wanted me to make you a promise before the battle. Do you remember?’ He shakes his head. ‘You wanted me to promise you that I wouldn’t die.’

Gavin jerks from my touch. ‘And you never said the words. I remember.’

I couldn’t say the words. I don’t make promises that I can’t keep, and a part of me believed I wouldn’t live to see the following morning. If I did, it would be because I had saved them all. If I died, it would be because I had failed. There was no in-between, no other possibility.

I know better now.

Before I can respond, Gavin says, ‘Prove it to me. That you’re still Aileana.’ The way he says it gives me pause. He speaks softly, calculating.

‘Proveit?’ I step toward him but he backs away. ‘Gavin, I’m standing right here. I’m alive. What more proof do you need?’

‘They can control humans easily. Why should I believe you?’

I’m beginning to understand that whatever he’s been throughhas made it so he doesn’t trust anyone. Not even me. ‘Because I’m a Falconer,’ I say simply.

Gavin’s expression doesn’t waver. ‘Thatbaobhan sìthhas got into your head before. Being a Falconer didn’t stop her then.’

My lips close and my fingers curl into fists.Being a Falconer didn’t stop her then.

He’s not wrong. It didn’t stop Lonnrach, either. Not from getting in my head and stealing my memories as if it weren’t difficult at all. Kiaran once told me I hadn’t come into my full abilities as a Falconer; even though I could fight the faeand move just as fast, I couldn’t see them withoutsieglflur, and I still struggle to resist their mental influence.

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