Page 202 of A Winding Wave of Magic
“Rachel, not this again?—”
“Yes, this, Jon,” she said, that dulcimer tone sharpening. “If I’m to help with her quest, she must know mine. We can’t be at odds.”
Both Jonathan and Robbie remained quiet, though Robbie looked uneasy.
She turned back to me. “TheFomóiriwere a terrible race, so say the legends. ‘The undersea ones’ according to some linguists. ‘Underworld demons’ according to others. Monsters, all of them. ”
“Rachel…” Robbie tried again.
“She must know!” The siren’s explosion seemed to darken the sky itself for a split second before she turned to me. “Who do you think wrote these tales and told these stories,Cassandra? It wasyourpeople—the bards, the so-called ‘keepers of knowledge.’ But my people—your grandfather’s people—were here first. And then we were forgotten when the ‘histories’ were written.”
“Rachel, that’s a matter for debate, and you know it,” Robbie put in.
“Only because you sorcerers won’t admit the truth,” she snapped. “That it’s easier to keep sirens and shifters as minstrels and dogs rather than to acknowledge our very real contributions to fae history. The fact that there would be no magic if it weren’t for us. That we. Started.Everything.
I blinked, unsure if I was understanding her correctly. “What? How?” This wasn’t a myth I was aware of.
That penetrating gaze turned to me and suddenly seemed to contain galaxies. “Think.” She gestured around us. “Imagine arriving in this world at the end of an ice age. Living—no, thriving—at a time in which your very survival depends on congregating with the elements around you.”
She waved a hand behind her as if to set the scene with the ancient woods that once covered Ireland and Britain instead of endless moors and peat bogs. And to her credit, I could almost see it—our paleolithic and mesolithic ancestors, hunting and gathering, living in skin-covered tents or thatched huts that could be easily taken down as they moved from site to site with the seasons. Living with nature instead of trying to fight it.
“It would require intimate knowledge of the environment,” she continued. “And what came after that? Knowledge of the constellations, the seasons, other flora and fauna.” She cocked her head. “What are the first markers of human civilization?”
I swallowed, my Sight prickling with answers it wanted to find in the tomb we’d just left. “Art.”
“And what, pray tell, did our ancestors think was so important to illustrate?”
I closed my eyes. I wasn’t touching the paintings that still decorated caves in France, Spain, and England, but I could imagine them just the same. “People. Animals. Nature.” I tried and failed not to look at Jonathan when I said the last word. “Sex.”
“So, who do you think determined first that the natural world could be communicated with? Your lot? Theirs maybe? Or perhaps it was the fae who observe nature at its core. Its auras and its forms. And it was us who eventually learned to absorb that nature and tap into the magic.”
Jonathan and I glanced at each other. Whether or not what she was saying was true, it was more than interesting.
“We were here first,” she said, more sharply than I would have imagined possible from her. Her bell-tinged voice was tinged with a glass edge. “We were everywhere first. Sirens and shifters. Like theFormoiriin that book, which isn’t about the taking of Ireland, but the taking of the entire world. Our intuition, our instincts started the basis for entire species of fae to evolve. But are we thanked for it? No, we are the villains of this story. A people to be vanquished.”
Jonathan swallowed. “Please, Rachel. We need your help. My father. You know what he’s after. He thinks he’s looking for the cure for his mortality, but clearly, it’s tied up with this. Our origins. He killed Penny for it, and he will kill Cassandra and many others if he thinks it will help him get it. If he has the Council rallied with him, there’s no telling what they will do. We need to know what the parchment says. We need your intuition, Rachel. More than ever.”
Dr. Cardy looked between us for a long time. Under that intensity, Jonathan’s hand reached out for mine.
Wait, he bid me before closing his mind completely.
Her gaze settled on our linked hands as if she could See the connection flowing between us.
And maybe she could. Her Sight identified auras. She Saw the truth in people beyond just what their rational minds were thinking.
“Our magic is dying,” she said finally. “We all know it. What was possible even a hundred years ago is no longer. Seers are losing range. Sirens are going mad. Shifters can’t come back to human form. It took both of you to maintain light in a cave that a wizard should be able to manage with the snap of his fingers. Don’t think I didn’t see how hard you had to work.”
Robbie looked mildly ashamed but didn’t argue with her. Jonathan’s mouth settled into a thin line of admission.
She turned to me. “But you, darling, are a wonder. An oracle, after so long without. And with your mate…” Her glance moved back to Jonathan. “You manifested us all, Jon. Andshewill be able to channel that. Together, you can right the imbalance. Our world needs it. You know it does.”
Fear and obligation flickered through Jonathan’s grip on my fingers. But woven through that bicolored cord, I saw his mother—someone who was also born with multiple gifts, as was the man who had sired him. The siren who had stolen his father’s heart, back when he had one.
All four?I asked.Do you really have all four gifts?
He pondered the question for a long time before he answered.Yes.
“Faedom needs it,” Rachel said again, though the intensity of her gaze seemed to be pulling me into her without a single touch. I thought I had understood before how the appeal of sirens inspired great art, but now I was starting to see how their intensity could border on insanity. “Our very essence—magic plus humanity, which is exactly what you’re chasing, isn’t it? Hope for us all. The beginning and the end of it.”
