The Bitter Seed of Magic

sleeping Jack. ‘Did you know vampires are infertile?’

‘Well, Maxim isn’t, obviously,’ I said, ‘otherwise your boy wouldn’t be here.’ Not to mention me. ‘But what the hell’s that got to do with anything?’

She laughed. ‘You really don’t know, do you? I always wondered if you were actually that clueless, and now I see you are. But then, you wouldn’t have spent all this time looking for a way to crack the fertility curse if you’d known the truth …’ She trailed off, giving me a sly look.

I narrowed my eyes suspiciously. ‘You’ve got my full attention. What truth?’

‘Jack is Clíona’s grandson,’ she said, giving me a self-satisfied look. ‘His father, Maxim, is Clíona’s son—the one the vampires took from her.’

I gaped at her in astonishment for a moment, then it clicked into place. ‘Maxim’s the reason why she laid the droch guidhe curse—but he’s supposed to be dead?’

‘Which is what she and the vamps wanted the rest of the other fae to think.’

‘She? Clíona knew her son wasn’t dead?’

‘Not immediately, but by the time she found out the truth, it was too late. She’d already laid the droch guide.’

I frowned down at the stone-flagged floor, trying to see the whole picture. ‘So he was a vamp, and not dead, but why keep it a secret?’

Helen’s lips thinned in derision. ‘Don’t you mean: why didn’t she tell the fae that she’d been so blind that she’d fallen in love with a vamp’s blood-pet, had a son with him, and then blamed the lesser fae when the vamps took her son from her and made him a vampire? And then cursed them to know the grief in her heart, a curse which made all their faeling children into vampire victims? A curse she could not remove?’

Ok-aay, so I could see how Clíona owning up to that so wouldn’t go down well.

‘Instead,’ Helen carried on with an air of imparting great news, ‘she tried to break the curse by having another child.’

‘Yeah, I heard,’ I said, remembering what Grianne, my faerie dogmother, had told me during my side-trip to Disney Heaven, why Clíona had given birth to Angel. ‘A child for a child.’

‘Oh, so you do know some of the story then.’ Helen sniffed. ‘Of course, actually producing another child was where Clíona ran into difficulties. The vamps hadn’t just given the Gift to Maxim, but they’d given it to his father too, so of course he’d been made infertile.’

‘Look,’ I said, ‘you keep saying that, but you only have to look at your own son to know it’s not true.’

Helen’s superior expression reached new levels as she shook her head. ‘Unlike you, I do know what I’m talking about. Vampires are infertile. The only way a vampire can make anyone pregnant, including a sidhe, is by using a lot of concentrated fertility magic. Clíona isn’t a fertility fae, so when it came to having a child to break the curse, she entered into a bargain with the Morrígan for a Fertility spell.’ She gave me a smug look. ‘Where do you think they got the fertility from?’

Horror seeped into me as I realised what she was saying. ‘Clíona and the Morrígan stole the fae’s fertility?’

‘They borrowed it,’ she confirmed briskly. ‘Clíona was supposed to give it back, but when she sent her daughter Rhiannon to return the Fertility spell, the spell was lost.’

Rhiannon was Angel—and she’d lost the spell! Fuck, no wonder London’s fae were dying. And everyone was blaming it on the curse—which was sort of at fault—but if they didn’t know their fertility had been stolen, they couldn’t look for it. That was a huge secret Clíona—and anyone else who knew about it—was keeping. Only why would they? Why not tell everyone and get them searching?

But as I thought about it, the tail-end of Helen’s memory replayed itself in my mind: Angel kissed baby Jack’s head … and a pendant was hanging round her neck … The huge sapphire pendant that Helen always wore. The one that was even now shining like a captive star beneath her blouse. Damn. No one who knew about the Fertility spell needed to find it, because they all knew where it was.

So the million-pound question was: why hadn’t anyone taken it back?

‘You’ve got the Fertility spell,’ I said slowly, itching to reach out and rip the pendant from her neck.

‘Yes.’ She cradled the sapphire in her hand.

Finn’s words came back to me when he’d told me about Helen getting pregnant with Nicky: ‘We were just fooling around …’

‘You used it to trick Finn, didn’t you?’ I accused, then a disturbing thought hit me. ‘He doesn’t know about the pendant, does he?’

‘No, of course not—’ She paused, then sighed. ‘I did consider telling him, but I had a baby daughter, a new husband, and status in the Witches’ Council at last … and then Craig demanded to know how I’d had another child. He blackmailed me into telling him. Since then he’s been using the Fertility spell in his experiments.’

‘You selfish bitch!’ Bile rose in my throat. ‘London’s fae are dying. Faelings have died, not just the two most recent ones, but all those who ended up as vamp victims. Don’t you care?’

‘Faelings have always died at the hands of the vampires, Ms Taylor,’ she said bluntly. ‘It’s sad, but no one can save them all. But what’s more important now is saving my daughter.’

‘You do know that there’s no way out for you in all this, don’t you?’ I gave her a frank look. ‘It won’t be long before the police know all about Dr Craig and his experiments, and your involvement in them. The note you left me indicates you’ve got some connection to the vamps, so you’re finished with the Witches’ Council.’ And Finn will probably never forgive you for putting his daughter in danger—but I kept that comment to myself. ‘But you could make it go easier if you help me. All I need to do is find the entrance, then I can crack it open and let the police in to rescue Nicky and all the other faelings.’ I waved at the Stepfords. ‘Then they can all have their babies with a lot more care than this.’

‘No, Ms Taylor,’ she said firmly, not even considering my idea. ‘The Time-sync spell means it will be another twenty-four hours before any help can get here. By then it will be too late for Nicky. This way you’ll end up as Craig’s next experiment, and not her. I’d say I’m sorry, but I’d be lying. But I will sweeten the deal for you,’ she added. ‘If you’ll give your word to do what Craig wants, I’ll tell Nicky about the pendant, so she can tell her father.’

I did consider her proposition. It would save Nicky, and Finn and the rest of London’s fae would know their fertility had been stolen and where it was—and where it had been. And unlike Nicky, Dr Craig’s experiment wasn’t going to end up with me pregnant, not with the Morrígan’s Chastity/Contraceptive spell Tavish had sicced on me. But the spell was also the reason I couldn’t agree to Helen’s terms, even if I wanted to. I couldn’t give my word to let myself be impregnated, or even act as a surrogate, or whatever Dr Craig wanted, not when I knew it to be impossible, and when I couldn’t lie.

Damn. It was a no-win either way.

I needed an Option Three.

Helen leaned towards me. ‘Oh, and if you’re worried about having to have sex with him,’ she said, ‘don’t be. One: you’re much too old and flat-chested for his tastes, and two: he’s a scientist, and his experiments have to be done just so. So do you agree, Ms Taylor?’

I took a deep breath, looked at Jack, still curled up asleep on the floor—

And I punched Helen, a hard uppercut to the jaw. Her head snapped back and, satisfyingly, she crumpled like yesterday’s news.

Spell shackles might stop you using magic (not that I had any), but they don’t stop you using your fists.

Yep, Option Three worked for me.

Chapter Fifty-One

‘So, has she told you, my lady?’ Jack’s question startled me and I almost swallowed the key I had between my teeth, the one with which I was trying to unlock the shackle on my uninjured arm. I looked up to find him regarding me gravely out of his indigo-coloured sidhe eyes. Damn.