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  “Almost done?”

  I nodded.

  “You sure you want to do this?” Thomas asked, even though we’d been through it a million times.

  I sighed. “It’s the only way.” I took a sip of the blackthorn tea, relished its calming effects and opened myself to the feeling of the forest. Then, I absorbed the power of the trees and allowed them to replenish my energies. I wasn’t looking forward to the part that came next: talking to Mam and making her relive the past.

  “Right,” I said, downing my tea in one final gulp. “Let’s get this party started.”

  Thomas and I entered the cottage and called Mam downstairs. She glared at me, a look that would have sent me scuttling to my room ten years ago.

  “I told you already, this is a waste of time. I was with your father when he cast the curse. He shouted one word and that was it. You’re not going to find what you’re looking for.”

  “We won’t know that until we try.” I sighed, impatient at having to go through this with her again. “If he bound the curse to that one word, we will still be able to trace it back to its origins. Plus, it was a long time ago, and you’ve admitted yourself that you don’t entirely know what happened.”

  “I know what he said.”

  Thomas placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. “We understand this is difficult for you; memories of Summer’s father and what he did can’t be easy to face, but if there’s any chance this can help us break the curse, then we have to do it.”

  Mam looked at him for a while before taking a deep breath and resigning herself to cooperate. “Okay,” she said. “What do you need me to do?”

  I smiled at Mam, trying to reassure her. “Where were you when the curse fell?”

  “In the kitchen, next to the sink.”

  “Then that’s where we need to be.”

  We moved to the kitchen and stood next to the sink.

  I placed the coraniaid stone in a bowl and poured the mixture of tree oils, infused with my own magic, over the top.

  “Okay,” I said, taking Mam’s hand. “I need you to walk us through what happened. I’ll use my magic to establish a connection between you and the past. When I say, ignite the magic in your Ailm tattoo and draw the power of the fir tree to you.”

  “I don’t know if I can do this, Summer.”

  A wave of apprehension washed over me, but it was now or never.

  “It’s fine,” I said. “I’m going to be doing all the work. I just need you to open the doorway.”

  “It’s been too long since I used magic. I don’t know if I can.”

  “You can’t lose your connection to the trees. You feel them. I know you do.”

  “I can’t.”

  Thomas linked his arm with my mother’s. “Sure, you can. Like riding a bike. Scary when you first get back on, but it soon becomes second nature.”

  Mam smiled. “And how would you know, young man?”

  Thomas shrugged and beamed one of his self-deprecating grins at her. “I’m a fountain of wisdom,” he said, mocking his lack of knowledge where it came to magic.

  Mam shook her head and patted his arm, but she didn’t pull away, choosing instead to keep hold of him for support.

  “We were arguing,” she said, talking about my father. “Silly, really. He’d been so distracted of late. I was worried. I’d heard so many stories about the Tylwyth Teg, but he was never the way I expected them to be. He was kind, caring, and I honestly believed he loved us.”

  A tear came to her eye and she wiped it away.

  “It’s okay, Mam. You weren’t the first witch, or the last, to be tricked by the fair folk.”

  I looked at Thomas and remembered how close I’d come to losing him, when, through my own stupidity, he’d been forced to face a goblin in a supernatural underground fight. I wanted to grind my teeth at just the thought of Dureth and the tricks of the Tylwyth Teg.

  “What happened at the sink?” Thomas prompted.

  “Like I said, Dylan seemed distracted.”

  It was weird hearing her say his name. Until that point, she had always referred to him as one of the fair folk, or my father. As she did, I realised the time to act had come.

  “Okay. Open a connection to the fir.”

  Mam wavered for a second, but a smile lit her face when, for the first time in countless years, magic soared through her veins. I couldn’t imagine the willpower spent on resisting the call of the trees for so long. The steadfast determination required to deny something that was second nature to your being. Tears flooded her eyes in earnest now; but tears of happiness, not sorrow.

  She gasped. “It’s been so long,” she said. “I’d almost forgotten.”

  I smiled, knowing how good she must feel to hold the true essence of her faith within her once again.

  I need you to focus on the events of the past,” I said. “What happened next?”

  Mam closed her eyes. Her voice came stronger, more certain than before. “I was yelling at him, practically screaming. He turned away from me, so I reached out and turned him back. As I did, his face distorted into an expression I’d never seen on him before. He screamed, ‘NO—’”

  The word echoed in my head. I focused all my energy on the stone in the oil and pushed into the past. At first, I heard only the remainder of Mam’s story, muffled beneath the waves of power.

  “... tapped me on the shoulder,” she continued. “Then disappeared. I fell to the ground and lay there unconscious until Nana came inside. She soon found the aura of a curse laid upon my soul. Yours, too.”

  The more I listened, the more other words echoed behind hers. Words from a different time. I added the power of my Ailm tattoo into the mix, and heightened the clarity of the sound for all to hear.

  A voice came, as though from a great distance and echoed around the room.

  “... do swear to you, Rhys Roberts, of the druidic faith, Carys Daniels will forget the Tylwyth Teg known as Dylan. She will forget everything. Her lover will be confined to the land of my people forevermore. Their mixed-blood abomination will suffer the same fate as her mother when she embraces her one true love. In return, you will use your powers for me. Do you accept these binding terms of our arrangement?”

  The words cut off when Mam’s legs collapsed beneath her. Thomas steadied her, helping her to the table and into a chair. She was distraught, muttering over and over to herself.

  “This can’t be,” she said. “How can this be?”

  “What does this mean for our investigation?” Thomas asked me.

  I bent down next to Mam, reached out, and pulled her into a hug. She sobbed uncontrollably on my shoulder.

  “It means it wasn’t him,” I said. “My father didn’t curse us. He was as much a victim as my mother. We’ve been looking in the wrong direction.”

  Mam’s tears subsided and she pulled away. “All these years I’ve blamed him for everything. How could I have been so wrong?”

  “It was a confusing time.” The distraught look on her face belied the blame she laid on her shoulders. “You can’t dwell on that now. We have to move forward. See what we can do with this new information.”

  I stood and paced the room. “Right. What do we know?”

  “The wording was similar to the oath Dureth made you swear,” Thomas said. “So was the voice. Do you think it was him?”

  I almost growled at the suggestion. “It wouldn’t surprise me, but let’s not jump to any conclusions.”

  Mam composed herself, wiped the last of the tears from her cheeks and straightened her hair. “We know your father is trapped in the realm of the fair folk, and I’ve done nothing all these years to get him out.”

  “We’re going to fix that, Mam. Don’t you worry.”

  She stood and brushed the hair over my shoulder. “Damn right, we are.”

  Something inside her clicked back into place. I saw a glimmer of the woman she used to be before Nana died and my heart leapt. We would get through this.

&nbs
p; “The big question is, who on Earth is Rhys Roberts?”

  “That’s the part that makes no sense whatsoever. Rhys was a friend. Well, an old boyfriend before your father came along. He was a bit of a troublemaker, and not always on the right side of... well, right. But he had a good heart, and I could never imagine him wanting to hurt me.” Mam shook her head and moved to put the kettle on, but she turned the tap and froze, staring out the window.

  “Mam. You okay?”

  She sighed. “It’s just... all this time. Why did Dylan never try to reach me, send word in some way that it wasn’t him?”

  “I’m sure he had his reasons.”

  Mam filled the kettle and turned the tap off. “So, where do we go from here?”

  “We need to find Rhys. If he’s a druid, then Joe and the Council will have a location for him. Thomas and I will pop over to see Joe. He’s more likely to give us what we need if we see him in person.”

  Thomas nodded in agreement.

  “You stay here and rack your brain for anything about Rhys that may help us if we find him.”

  Chapter Four

  After we left Mam at the cottage, we decided to stop off in Newport and see Gwen before travelling on to Joe.

  It was a little after six when we arrived, so traffic was a nightmare, and finding a parking spot at the top of Stow Hill proved anything but easy. We eventually slotted in a space not far from St Woolos Cathedral and walked down the street to the magic shop that by all outward appearances resembled a hairdresser’s.

  The shop bell rang when we entered and Gwen called from the back room.

  “It’s only us, Gwen. Me and Thomas,” I called back.

  Gwen’s dandelion-fluff head peered around the corner. “In that case, lock the door, flip the sign, and come on through. I’ll make a brew and grab some biscuits.”

  Thomas smiled and rubbed his tummy. “Thank goodness; some food. I’m starving.”

  “You’re always starving.”

  “Can’t help that, I’m a growing man.”

  I laughed and rubbed his tummy myself. “I can see that,” I said, even though I doubted Thomas had gained an ounce of weight in the time I’d known him.

  After pottering around in the kitchen with Gwen for a while, we sat down to what felt like our twentieth cup of tea of the day and ate far too many biscuits — if there is such a thing.

  “I was actually wondering if you’d mind going over to ours and spending some time with Mam,” I said as soon as I’d finished.

  “I’d love to see Carys,” Gwen said, although the look in her eye told me she suspected something.

  “There’s nothing wrong, as such. I’d just rather she wasn’t alone. We performed the spell to try and hear the curse today.”

  Gwen sat forward in her chair. “Of course, how silly of me to forget. How did it go?” she asked. “And the coranaid? I assume they must have given you what you needed. Although, I still can’t believe you asked.”

  “Neither can I,” Thomas said, and shuddered.

  “That’s why I wanted you to pop over and see Mam. We discovered that the curse didn’t originate with my father, but with a Rhys Roberts.”

  “Rhys Roberts? Rhys Roberts? Why does that sound familiar? Oh, goodness me, yes. Now, there’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time.”

  “You knew him?”

  “Well, not so much knew him, but knew of him.” Gwen pursed her lips as though thinking. “Now,” she said. “If I remember correctly, your Mam used to step out with Mr Roberts.”

  “She said as much,” I agreed.

  I often forgot just how far Gwen went back in my life. As an old friend of Nana’s she probably knew more about my mother and father’s past than I could ever hope to.

  Gwen smiled. “But did she tell you of the arguments their relationship caused between her and your nana? They were at each other’s throats for months.”

  “Do you know why?” Thomas asked.

  “Mam said he was a bit of a troublemaker, but didn’t go into any details,” I added.

  “He was that. Used to keep Carys out all hours. Hafren suspected he was up to no good, but the real clincher came when the police came knocking. The officer was trying to establish the whereabouts of Mr Roberts on a certain night, something about a robbery. Carys confirmed that he was with her. Now, Hafren didn’t say anything with the officer around, but as soon as he left, she had a fit at your mam. She told me that Carys outright lied to the police, said she was with Roberts when she was actually at home with your nana.”

  I nodded, encouraging Gwen to go on, and sat forward with my ears pricked. It was hard to imagine Nana and Mam at each other’s throats, let alone Mam lying to the police.

  “I remember Hafren was on the phone to me for hours that night, worried sick about Carys. After the argument, she’d walked off into the woods. Disappeared for almost a full day.”

  Gwen sighed and a look of melancholy fell over her face. “We used to talk all the time, you know. Hardly a day went by when we didn’t call each other or meet up for some tea and biscuits, maybe a bit of cake. Hafren was always partial to a Welsh cake or two.”

  I smiled, remembering the fresh scent of baking that filled the cottage every Tuesday when Nana would pull out the cast-iron griddle and get to work making a batch of Welsh cakes. Like most witches, she was a brilliant cook — comes with mixing potions and spells — but there was always something special about Nana’s cooking that neither Mam nor I could ever replicate.

  I reached out and squeezed Gwen’s hand. “I miss her, too,” I said.

  Gwen smiled and squeezed back. “Of course you do, dear, but we’ll all see her again. Some of us sooner than others. Just you make sure you break this curse so that it’s me that greets her first.”

  Looking into Gwen’s kind face, I noted wrinkles set around eyes that sparkled with the energy of a woman half her age. I also noticed the slight weight loss and slump to her shoulders. Ever since Rachel Platt had tricked her into making a spell and wiped her memories, her age had become more and more apparent. I’d always looked at her as a rock I could lean on. Along with Thomas, she was the one constant in my life. There was Joe as well, but it wasn’t the same with him. Gwen... Gwen was family. I made a mental note to call in to see her more often and make sure she was okay. It would probably be as good for Gwen to go and check on Mam, as it was for Mam.

  Thomas rubbed his hands together and stood up. “Now,” he said. “I’m not having either of you dwelling on the past. I never met your nana, Hafren, but I’ve heard many a story, and by all accounts, she was a formidable woman who wouldn’t want the pair of you sitting around moping. Nobody is going to see her for some time yet. Well, unless she decides to pay another ghostly visit. So, Summer, we’ve got work to do.

  “Thank you for the tea and biscuits,” he said to Gwen, leaning in and giving her a cuddle and a quick peck on the cheek. “Hopefully, you’ll still be at the cottage when we get back.”

  “Yes,” I agreed. “You can always spend the night. That is, if you want. I know Mam would be grateful for the company.”

  “I might just do that,” Gwen said, looking at the clock. “Being as it’s near eight now.”

  “Eight o’clock,” I almost shouted. “We’d better get a move on.”

  *

  With the rush hour traffic behind us, it took twenty minutes to reach Twmbarlwm, the Iron Age fort that not only served as the Supernatural Council’s headquarters, but also as Joe’s home. As a cewri, he stood eleven-feet-tall, and, despite his human appearance, found it difficult to move about in human society.

  Even in ancient times, cewri were persecuted. King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table may be portrayed as great warriors who defended Britain from human and supernatural enemies alike, but in reality, many of the supernatural enemies weren’t enemies at all, just different.

  We walked through the magical doorway concealed in the hill, and made our way along the tunnel system to the
Council offices. Before we reached them, a gnome-like coblynau ran out to direct us to Joe’s personal quarters instead.

  “It’s unusual to see you pair at this hour,” Joe said by way of greeting, before motioning us into his rooms.

  In contrast to the stark, pristine chamber that housed the Council offices, Joe’s rooms were right out of a medieval castle, minus any shuttered windows — there’s no point in windows if your home is buried beneath the ground. Joe motioned us to a set of wooden armchairs next to the fireplace and pulled over a third for himself.

  “Trouble?” he asked.

  Light from the fire flickered over the wood-panelled walls and warmed the room with a gentle heat. I marvelled at the sight of a large tapestry depicting the Tree of Life hanging on one wall. A woodland fox roamed in the distance and a red squirrel gathered nuts and acorns beneath its branches.

  Thomas squinted at the fire and reached out to touch it. I grabbed his arm to stop him, but he smiled and said, “It’s not real.”

  “Completely fake,” Joe agreed.

  “It looks real,” I said, then sniffed the air. “Smells real, too, and I can’t sense any magic controlling the illusion.”

  Thomas smiled. “Sometimes I wonder what century you were born in. Not everything comes down to magic, it’s holographic.”

  I sighed with mock exasperation. “Either way, putting your hand in a flame is not the best way to tell if it’s real or not.”

  Joe laughed. “Can I get you both some tea?” he asked when his mirth subsided.

  Thomas and I both declined. We’d had our fill for the day.

  “Good,” Joe said, his face suddenly serious. “Then the pair of you can tell me what on Earth you think you were doing by going to see the coraniaid last night.”

  Feeling like a petulant child, I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms. “We didn’t strike a deal with them, so there’s no need to take a tone.”