Where A Witch Goeth

Chapter Sixty-One Bad, Bad, Bad Damn Idea

The throne room remained silent for a truly horrible amount of time, while Queen Bé Cuille studied Nick, then me, and finally my father with wicked amusement.

"What brings a faolon, a fae-witch, and..." her blood-red eyes somehow managed to glitter darkly as she drank in my father kneeling before her, "my very favorite demi-god to my court this fine even?" She made a laughing scoff as she gestured with her cup toward the opening in the ceiling, where the perpetual, sickly night glowered as always.

"We come seeking your favor, my Queen," Cillian murmured, his head still bowed.

Bé Cuille scoffed, this time without the laugh. "Rise, Cillian Dunne, son of Old Silvan. We both know you do not serve me. You serve that bitch who has imprisoned a tenth of her offspring here."

My father rose, just now the picture of elegance he would someday lose, his velvet jacket falling smoothly into place.

"I have never bent the knee before Cerridwen. She is no Queen to the Tuatha de Danaan. Not anymore. She has abandoned us all. She cares for nothing but her lost love, her wayward Dark Lord with his broken horns."

"Cerridwen, yes. But what of her slippery sister that created this plane? All know you are bound to Danu."

"I was enamored of her, for a time. But she could never abide the black power in me. And so the year and a day of our handfasting came, and she went, as she does. As she will always do. Tell me, lovely dark Queen," My father spread his hands in a gesture of conciliation toward Bé Cuille, even though it was clear to me that he was playing fast and loose with the truth. "How can I be bound to a witch who cannot be bound by time?"

Bé Cuille smiled an evil smile. "Have you not thought, Cillian Dunne, that this is the one place where Danu cannot take you unawares? Where she cannot claim and break your heart all over again? For she does not come here."

"I have thought of that, yes," my father said, with a dry edge to his voice that Bé Cuille seemed pleased by. And when he added, "She fears you, for you are an even darker mirror of her sister," the evil in the Dark Queen's smile seemed to soften into amused curiosity.

She sat the cup of red liquid beside the bird cage with Ace's severed head, rose from her runic throne, and shivered slightly. When she did so, her glamour shimmered. Her skin was not pale, but warm and freckled, and her hair was a familiar shade of red. With a start, I realized that this terrible witch must be one of the banished offspring of my mother's sister Caer and her horned god, because, like him, she carried a set of horns above her head. I wondered if his were like his daughters'— grotesquely twisted, uncleaned, and stained red from the gore of too many kills.

"Do you fear me?" she asked my father softly.

Cillian cocked his head and studied the dark and terrible and beautiful creature who was part black witch and part something much darker.

"No more than I fear the blackness of my own soul. We are the same, your Majesty."

I wanted to believe that what Cillian said was not so, but he took innocent life when he was just days old, and though he tried to fight against it, his darkness was gathering around him like a festering cloak, even in the short time he had been here. He was more like Bé Cuille today than he was when he raised me. Much like Bé Cuille. And like attracts like—a magic principle I knew well.

Bé Cuille seemed pleased by his answer, for she resumed her seat and picked up the cup of blood again. She took a slow sip, and then, casually, horribly, she splashed a bit on the ruined face of my brother-in-law. The entirety of his severed head shuddered, like a dog shedding water, but he didn't fling the blood away, only set it motion draining down his face. His puckered mouth began to work hungrily, a black tongue creeping out, straining to lick as much of the blood as it could. For one terrible second, I thought Ace was going to open his eyes and I was truly was going to lose my shit, but he didn't. His pitiful effort to feed began to subside as the trickle of blood slowed.