Glamour (Rae Wilder #1)

TDG: Chapter Six

“Go the other way,” I mumbled.

“Correct.” She beamed at me. “Don’t worry, all is not lost. We can even the score. There are two more, hidden with their guardians and we’ll find them, just you watch.”

I let it all sink in. My hand unconsciously strayed to the pendant, no, the amulet piece lying under my tee shirt. Ana honestly didn’t seem to know that I had it. But Conall, Breandan and Devlin did. Ana was a witch and gifted with the Sight. How could she not know that I was a guardian too? Something was off. There were still large gaping holes in the tapestry that was being woven in my mind. Devlin was an evil fairy-lord; pure evil. And he wanted my amulet piece so that he could try to open the grimoire. Lochlann, another bad-ass fairy and Breandan’s older brother, was leading the revolution to bring back the balance, and was therefore fighting against Devlin, which made him the good guy, right? The grimoire was a scary powerful book that Devlin had, but nobody could open because it was locked. Somewhere in the middle of this, myself and two other fairies had been chosen as guardians of the key, the amulets. I assume to keep them safe from evil, because though my moral compass was dubious at the best of times, I didn’t feel evil, which made me good too, right?

But then why did I not know any of this? Why had I been dumped on the steps of a Temple Priests’ dwelling, glamoured as a human baby with no memory or knowledge of whom or what I was? Surely, if this amulet were important it would be madness to entrust it to someone who may have just thrown it away one day. Everything was falling into spaces, but some bits didn’t fit.

One thing I knew for certain (though I was curious – who wouldn’t be?) I didn’t want a part in any of it. No matter what Ana thought, it was too big for me; the whole political battle between the rebels and the Tribe, and the battle between good and evil. The only reason I could see I was a part of it was because of my connection to Breandan. After all, no long-lost relative had come forward to claim me.

The macabre tone of my thoughts had me scrambling around my own head for a distraction.

“Uh, the way you talk,” I said, “you consider yourself part of the fairy rebels?”

She snorted. “The gods created the Source and we all came from that. I don’t care that they look different from me. We’re made of the same basic stuff.”

“But you’re human,” I said stubbornly taking in her normal ears, skin and lack of other limbs. There was no glamour over her; I’d looked hard for it.

“If you want to get technical about it I’m the white witch, but for the most part yeah, human. You are most definitely fairy.”

“So it’s true then. All witches are bad? Barring you, I mean.”

Sadness flickered across her expression. “Fairies are magical. It is the essence of what they are, and for the most part it protects them from influences that can rot a person to the core – jealousy, greed and spite to name a few. Humans who can touch the Source, witches, do not have these natural safeguards.”

“What makes you different?”

“The same thing that makes you different from others of your kind.” Her eyes lingered on my wings. “The will of the gods.”

Stunned by her knowledge I pried without thinking. “How old are you?”

“Fifteen.”

I thought back to when I was fifteen, three years before; trying to work out why my body was so developed, and why I didn’t want the boys to touch me like the other girls did. I compared myself to this powerful girl and cringed. I went to pull my hood up but at Ana’s stern look I rested my fingers on the fabric, and my stomach clenched.