FORTY-THREE
Calum’s hands shook. He gripped the edge of the table, bowing his head as his shoulders heaved.
Aly was fae.
And she’d tried to hide it from him. He’d thought she was just being stubborn and didn’t want him making a fuss, but it was her scars that she hadn’t wanted him to see. Her iron scars.
Perhaps, a desperate, plaintive voice in the back of his head said, she just didn’t want him to know she was a salch.
He shook his head, discounting that. She’d told him about killing and torturing people on Grant’s behalf, and she knew him better than to think he’d find fault for something like salching.
If she’d bought magic, he’d judge her for endangering someone else’s life just to get high, but selling was an act of desperation.
He looked at her clothes soaking in the basin in disgust. How long had she known?
Had she known, already, when he’d told her salchs were demi-fae?
She must have done—she’d shut him down so quickly, and never mentioned it again.
He’d thought at the time that she’d been angry with him because his words had suggested that he thought salchs had other options, but she had to have understood what her scars meant when he told her.
Which led to another question: How much of what she’d told him about herself—how much of what she’d made him feel—was true?
He raked a hand through his hair, his breath trembling. He’d only seen the bottom of her forearm, but the sheer density of grey, puckered scars was enough to know that she’d salched more times than he could count. She had to have been desperate; that much of what she’d told him was true.
His shoulders stiffened at the sound of a familiar voice outside his front door.
“Aly?” Sorcha’s surprise was evident in her tone. “What’s going on?”
Calum snatched up the kitchen knife, yanking an axe off the wall with a clatter as he strode out the front door to find Sorcha standing on the forestair, wrapping her cloak around Aly’s shoulders.
“Get away from her,” he snarled, the blood thumping in his ears.
Sorcha turned to him but didn’t drop her arm from Aly’s shoulder. “Do you mind explaining to me why I found Aly running half-dressed out of your house in tears?”
“Look at her arms.” His voice shook, fear and fury reverberating in it.
Aly flinched, and the look of pain on her face made Calum’s ribs tighten around his heart.
Sorcha looked from him to Aly, then back again. “What?”
“Look at her fucking arms.” His grasp on the weapons was so tight his own fingernails carved furrows in his palms.
Sorcha frowned, her brows drawing together in confusion. “They’re arms. One of them is bleeding.” She looked at the blades in Calum’s grasp, both of which were free of any blood.
“They’re covered in iron scars.” The tendons strained in his arms as he clenched his hands more tightly around the weapon grips.
Sorcha’s brow furrowed in understanding. She stepped towards him, her hand outstretched like she was approaching a skittish animal. “Put the weapons down.”
Calum’s stomach dropped. “Did you not hear me? She’s a fucking fae.”
Aly let out a gasp that made Calum’s heart ache. He pushed the feeling aside. She was fae. This was what they did. They manipulated and used people, and hadn’t Aly as good as admitted she did that with Grant?
Sorcha’s hands closed round Calum’s, pressing his arms down. He relaxed his hold, but didn’t release the weapons. “She’s a fae, and she was in your house, but you let her leave. Why didn’t you kill her as soon as you realised what she was?”
Calum’s heart splintered, his voice cracking as he said, “She’s Aly.
” Fae, yes, but also the woman whose smile set his veins crackling with desire, whose stubbornness made his heart ache, and whose fury at the injustices of the world made him want to be a better person.
And perhaps it was all an act, but it was an act he wasn’t ready to let go of, and for whatever friendship they may have had, whatever feelings may have existed on her side, he’d give her the chance to leave before killing her.
Maybe that was crueller, evicting her from her home with nothing but the shift on her back, but he trusted she’d manage to scrounge together a living.
Sorcha slid her hand to the shaft of the axe, tugging it out of Calum’s grasp. “Give me the knife.” She jerked her head over her shoulder in Aly’s direction. “She’s in her undergarments. Where could she possibly be hiding a weapon?”
Calum could rattle off a number of possibilities, from a sgian dubh in her boot to a stiletto hidden behind the busk of her stays, and that was before considering that fae magic made his skills look like child’s play.
He knew that last one wasn’t true, though.
No one who could use magic like a fae would be selling it to survive.
His gaze flicked to Aly. Her face was ashen, her lower lip trembling with fear as her eyes fixed on the knife in his hand.
She looked so scared, so vulnerable, he had to resist the urge to reach for her, to hold her and comfort her.
“Give me the knife, Calum.” Sorcha’s jaw was set. “Let’s go inside and talk, okay?”
Calum looked at Aly again. She was shivering, her teeth chattering.
Whether it was from terror or from the cold, he couldn’t tell, but either way it was his fault.
And despite knowing she was fae, despite knowing she knew and hadn’t told him, the sight made his heart twist with guilt.
He loosened his grip on the knife, turning his head to meet Aly’s eyes.
“If you try anything,” he said, the fae language scraping across his throat like sandpaper after all these years, “I’ll gut you.”
Aly’s brow furrowed in confusion, her jaw slackening. Either she was a very good actor—which, he reminded himself, she was—or she had no clue what he’d just said.
Sorcha took the knife from his hand, her palm on his back smoothing some of the tension from his shoulders as she guided him into the house. He ducked under the lintel, dropping himself into a chair next to the fire.
“Come on, Aly,” Sorcha said, standing in the open doorway. Aly stepped over the threshold, her legs trembling.
“I’m not fae,” she said, keeping her distance from Calum. She tugged Sorcha’s cloak closer around her shoulders.
Calum rested his elbows on his thighs, exhaling slowly. His heart was thudding as though he truly had fought off a fae. He clasped his hands together, staring at them as he spoke. “You are.”
There was a rustle of fabric, like she was shaking her head. “I’m not. I can’t be.”
Calum’s head snapped towards her. Her eyes were glossy with tears, her chest shuddering. “Then explain the scars.”
Aly swallowed, the tendons on her neck straining. She darted a glance at Sorcha, her cheeks turning pink. “They’re from—” she swallowed again, her mouth moving wordlessly. “They’re from salching.”
“They’re from iron,” Calum said.
“They can’t be,” Aly said, shaking her head so vigorously her plait swung over her shoulder. “Do you think I don’t have any other scars from iron knives? It’s only the salching ones that healed badly.”
“Then why did you try to hide them from me?”
Aly’s lips curled into a snarl, her fear giving way to anger. “Because I’ve seen the way you look down on salchs.”
Calum stared at her, taken aback. “I don’t— What makes you think that?”
“I saw your face when we were at Leslie’s, when they were treating that salch.” Aly’s gaze burned with hatred. “You were disgusted.”
“I— Of course I was disgusted. But not at her. At the people who put her in that position, and the people who took advantage of her desperation.” His heart tightened. “Did you really think—did you think I’d be disgusted with you for it?”
“You’re a copper,” Aly said shortly.
Calum’s heart lurched. He scrubbed a hand over his face, looking at her again. “You really didn’t know you’re fae?”
“I’m. Not,” Aly bit out.
“You are. Anyone who can salch is.” He dropped his chin towards his clasped hands. “And that makes you my enemy.” He sucked in a breath. “You can stay here until your clothes are dry, but then I want you gone.” He tilted his head to look at her. “I never want to see you again, is that understood?”
Aly cringed back as though he’d hit her, but she jerked her head once in a nod, her cheeks wet with tears.
“Well, that’s just fucking stupid.”
Calum started. He’d forgotten Sorcha stood in the corner of the room, still holding his axe and knife.
“Excuse me?” he said, his voice clipped.
“You can’t kick her out just because she’s fae,” Sorcha snapped.
“It’s my house. I can kick her out for any reason I damn well please.
” Aly cringed, setting guilt slithering through Calum.
It was what she had feared all along, that he’d change his mind about offering her shelter and throw her out with nowhere to go.
It didn’t matter. She could go to Faerie for all he cared.
“She’s your friend.” Sorcha stalked over to him, her expression mutinous.
“She’s a fae.” Calum stood, kicking his chair aside. “You know what they did to me.”
“Aye, I know what Caoimhe did to you,” Sorcha snarled. “But all Aly has done is help you and care for you.” She waved a hand at Aly. “Look at her, and tell me you see an enemy.”
He looked at where Aly stood next to the newel post. Her face was a pale moon above Sorcha’s black cloak, so long on her that it puddled at her feet.
He saw his own fears reflected back at him a thousandfold in her expression.
His heart twisted in his chest. He’d terrified her today, brandishing a knife at her, revealing the truth of her identity to her, and tossing her out with nowhere to turn.
That was the worst of it, that he knew that was her deepest fear, and he’d done it anyway, with no regard for how much it terrified her.
It was—well, it was the sort of thing he considered the cruelty of the fae.
He stepped towards her, extending a hand to her.
She shrank back, her eyes widening in fear.
A lump rose in Calum’s throat. “I’m sorry.
I shouldn’t—I shouldn’t have reacted that way.
I allowed my own fear to get the better of me.
That was wrong, and I’m sorry. You can stay here as long as you like, though I understand if you don’t want to anymore. ”
Aly’s hand trembled as she held it out to Calum. “See that?” She pointed to a long white line across the back of her hand, running from the base of her thumb to the bottom knuckle of her pinkie. “That’s from a steel knife. And look—it’s an ordinary scar.”
Calum reached for her hand, but she jerked it back.
“I know you don’t want to believe me, Aly, but you need fae magic to be able to salch.
It’s what allows you to move power through you and into someone else.
And I think that’s why you scar so badly when you salch, because you’re using your fae magic so your mortal side gives less protection against the iron. ”
Aly stared at him a long moment, her mouth moving wordlessly, then turned and bolted out the door.